Beneath all realms, beneath time, beneath memory
Something stirs.
Something that even the Abyss dares not awaken.
But the battle above has rippled far too deep, and now… the sleeper dreams again.
The Awakening Core
In the lowest layer of the abyss far below Ethan's citadel, beneath the shattered bones of fallen gods and buried empires there lies a sealed gate.
Blacker than night. Older than creation.
It is not locked by key, but by fear.
For fear alone keeps it shut.
But now, cracks spider across its surface. From within, a pulse echoes. Once… twice… and then again, each beat louder than the last, like a drum counting down toward doom.
A voice, like grinding stone and weeping stars, whispers from behind the gate.
"Who dares… awaken me?"
The gate begins to bleed shadow.
The War Above Worsens
In the heavens above Veyra, Ethan and the Dawnfather continue their impossible clash.
Every blow between them leaves realities bleeding.
Ethan has begun to split his body cracking into overlapping echoes of himself, each one a manifestation of his evolution. He is no longer a man. Not even a god.
He is a Force.
But so is the Dawnfather.
Yet for all the light the god-king commands, Ethan's abyss refuses to be unmade.
The more he's attacked… the more he grows.
The more light he absorbs… the darker he becomes.
And then
Ethan pauses mid-blow. His head turns slightly, as if sensing something far beneath the battlefield.
Selene, still mid-duel with the last Seraphim Knight, feels it too. She stumbles, her face draining of color.
"…No," she breathes. "It's too soon."
The Sleeping One Stirs
Back at the sealed gate, the cracks widen.
A massive, clawed hand formed of living shadow and embedded stardust punches through the barrier.
Chains forged from the Will of the First Creator begin to unravel.
And a whisper becomes a scream.
"ABYSS… YOU ARE BUT MY SHADOW."
Ethan's Realization
Above, Ethan freezes.
The abyss inside him the core he believed himself to command trembles.
Not in fear…
But in submission.
"This… wasn't mine to control," Ethan whispers.
He finally understands.
He had not created the abyss.
He had only inherited a fragment of what lay buried beneath.
And now?
That fragment was returning to the source.
The Name That Cannot Be Spoken
The great cavern beneath the abyssal citadel pulsed with a darkness older than time itself. It was not just the oppressive weight of shadows or the cold whisper of void that unsettled those who entered it was the presence. Ancient, unyielding, and bound by a name that none dared utter.
Oscar stood at the heart of the obsidian chamber, the abyssal core within his chest radiating a thrum of anticipation.
Selene and Darius stood nearby, their expressions grim. Even they, reborn by the abyss, could feel the unnatural pressure pressing down on their souls.
"The seal is almost broken," Darius said, his voice low.
Oscar said nothing, his gaze locked on the ancient black monolith that stood before him. Runes etched in a forgotten language writhed like living veins, glowing crimson and black, pulsing to the rhythm of something breathing something alive.
"It's been whispering," Selene added, her voice unusually soft. "Calling out... but not in words. Just... hunger."
Oscar finally spoke, his voice steady.
"It remembers its name."
Selene flinched. "You can't say it."
"I won't," Oscar replied. "Not yet."
He extended a hand, and the abyss responded. Tendrils of black energy spiraled from his fingers, wrapping around the monolith. The chamber groaned. Walls trembled. From deep beneath the earth, a guttural growl echoed ancient, furious, and almost mournful.
The name was sealed for a reason. Even Oscar who had long since surpassed the limits of mortal understanding felt a flicker of hesitation.
This thing… it wasn't just a weapon.
It was a god.
A fallen one.
Buried long ago beneath the first Abyss by a civilization lost to time and madness. According to the fragmentary records they had uncovered, this entity had been erased from history its true name stricken from all tongues, cursed to oblivion because even its memory had the power to corrupt.
But now Oscar needed it.
Not out of desperation no.
Out of preparation.
The Holy Kingdom had unleashed the Seraphim Knights, and the Resistance from the Western Realms had begun to unify under a banner of defiance. Entire planes were waking up to the threat of the abyss.
He needed an equalizer.
"Are you sure about this?" Darius asked, his usual bravado gone.
Oscar closed his eyes, sensing the ripple of fate ahead. Threads of reality strained to hold their shape. The future bent around this decision like light around a black hole.
"No," he admitted. "But this war is no longer just about conquest. It's about survival."
He placed his palm against the stone.
The monolith screamed.
Not with sound, but with thought raw, unfiltered. Everyone in the chamber clutched their heads, reeling. Visions of worlds burning, skies torn asunder, and seas of ash flooded their minds.
And then
Silence.
Oscar's eyes widened. The monolith cracked. And within it… a single eye opened.
Not a normal eye. No iris, no pupil. Just endless, swirling void.
A voice slithered through the air.
"You dare speak me."
Oscar stood firm. "I haven't. Not yet."
"Then why awaken me, Abyss-Kin?"
"I need your power," Oscar replied.
The chamber shook. A low, dark chuckle reverberated from the monolith.
"You do not ask for power from that which was unmade. You become it."
Oscar's core flared, and for a brief moment, his body glowed like a dying star brilliant, terrible, and suffocating.
Selene dropped to one knee. Even Darius staggered.
The monolith shattered completely.
A shape emerged towering, vaguely humanoid, draped in flowing darkness, with no mouth, no face, no features. Just a presence.
A horror.
Oscar stared at it. It stared back.
And then it whispered a name.
A name that split the air.
A name that unmade sound.
A name that Oscar would never repeat, not even in thought.
But he remembered it.
The entity stepped forward and knelt.
"I serve."
Elsewhere – Radiantus
The High Priestess felt it the moment the seal broke.
She collapsed to her knees in the middle of the cathedral, clutching her head.
"Something... something terrible has awakened."
King Alistair rushed to her side. "What is it now?"
She looked up, pale and trembling.
"He has a name now."
The king frowned. "Who?"
She didn't answer.
She couldn't.
The name burned her throat every time she tried to form it. The air refused to carry it. The Light itself recoiled.
In the distance, the bells of the Cathedral of Dawn rang not for worship
But for mourning.
Back in the Abyss
Oscar stood atop the steps of his throne room, the entity now at his side.
Selene approached, bowing low.
"What... is it?"
Oscar didn't respond.
He simply turned, voice colder than ice.
"It is the beginning of the end."
He looked out across the abyss, where dark armies gathered, where corrupted angels wept, and where the sky cracked with divine fury.
"Let the gods remember fear," Oscar whispered.
"And let them choke on the name they tried to erase."
The Silence Between Worlds
The air within the abyss had changed.
It was heavier. Denser. Not with pressure, but presence.
The entity that now stood beside Oscar had no formal title. It needed none. Its mere existence bent the laws of reality around it. Every footstep it took echoed not with sound, but memory of wars long lost, civilizations crumbled, gods dethroned.
Oscar named it only once in his heart.
Then he locked the name away.
Darius approached cautiously, his voice tense. "You've summoned a... primordial."
"Not summoned," Oscar corrected. "Freed."
Selene crossed her arms, standing on the overlook that surveyed the core of the Dungeon Realm. "We should be afraid, shouldn't we?"
"You should," the entity said, its voice like a thought pressed into flesh.
Oscar stared into the void surrounding it. There was no malice. No rage. Just cold, detached purpose.
"I need you to help me forge a gate," Oscar said.
"A gate into what?"
Oscar's eyes gleamed.
"Into the realm where gods sleep."
Selene spun to face him. "You're not serious"
"I'm very serious."
"The Divine Seal isn't just a legend," Darius added. "The last one who tried to break it was erased from time. Entire kingdoms forgot he even existed."
Oscar turned, his cloak of shifting shadows trailing behind him as he descended the black stairs of the throne dais.
"I don't need to break the seal," he said. "I just need to bypass it."
The entity tilted its head.
"You seek the Interstice."
Oscar paused.
"What do you know about it?"
"It is the place between places. The cradle of divine thought. The fracture in reality's mirror."
Selene frowned. "You mean the realm between realms? I thought it was myth. A space that exists when a world dies and another is born."
"It is real," the entity confirmed. "And very dangerous. But it is the only way to strike at gods without stepping into their domain."
Oscar smiled. "Then that's where we'll strike from."
Elsewhere – Divine Spire, Seat of the Twelve
The Archon of Light sat in silent meditation atop the Celestial Pillar, his soul threaded into the currents of divine awareness. But today, something was wrong.
The threads frayed.
One snapped.
He opened his eyes, golden irises narrowing.
"Who has spoken the name?" he asked, his voice sending ripples through the hall of glass and flame.
A dozen angels stepped forward, wings tight with tension.
"No mortal was meant to remember it."
The Archon rose, his divine armor gleaming.
"And yet he remembers. Worse, he understands it."
They all turned toward the heavens.
A red tear had formed across the sky. Small. Harmless.
For now.
Back in the Abyss
Oscar stood before a massive forge, the entity's hands shaping the essence of forgotten truths into a circular frame. It shimmered like mercury and shadows, humming with tension.
"The Interstice only accepts that which does not belong," the entity said.
Oscar nodded. "And we've never belonged."
With Selene's arcane focus and Darius's blood-forged command runes, the gateway began to take form. Chains of unspoken time wrapped around the sigils. The floor cracked beneath it. The air buzzed with friction between timelines.
Oscar raised his hand.
"Open it."
The entity obeyed.
With a single gesture, reality split not like paper torn, but like glass struck. A hole opened.
And beyond it…
Nothing.
And yet, everything.
A realm of silence, endless and consuming, where no gods ruled and no mortals dreamed. The Interstice.
Oscar stepped forward and whispered to his generals:
"This is where the war begins anew. This is where we will unmake divinity."