Free Web NovelChapter 41: 41. Abyss
Several hours ago.
The Abyss.
A fairy-tale land parents spoke of to frighten their children.
A tale told by their parents, and their parents before them.
A land whose existence has been diminished to that of just a tale, a story to frighten naughty children.
The story goes:
An oasis of demons and devils, a realm where calamities roamed free and natural disasters were as common as the rising sun.
Upon the highest mountain sat the Demon King, and from his throne seeped an endless surge of miasma, a poison to most life forms, while a nourishment to the dark kin that called the Abyss home.
Vegetation refused to grow, and when it did, it came out as grotesque mockery of nature.
Plants that grew never ate the light of the sun nor the moisture of the earth, but of the blood and flesh of the creatures unfortunate enough to cross their paths.
The more normal it looked, the more dangerous it was; to meet a green plant is to meet your demise.
Trees barren of leaves dotted the wastelands, so far apart they seemed alone, branches twisted into monstrous tendrils, trunks molded into horrifying faces.
Faces of men or women frozen in eternal fear.
The sky forever bathed in crimson, stained by the blood of the wind mages who once inhabited the lands.
Casting its bloody glow upon the lands and water bodies.
Water bodies infested with calamities, lakes bordered by black sands, dotted with bones of creatures and humans, spines and skulls; they littered the beach as if they belonged.
Monsters roamed the land, preying on each other like there was no tomorrow. Most days, the land is quite too quiet, as if nothing lived there.
Then there were days when it is filled with swarms of beasts, their horrific noise traveling to the mainlands as shrieks of a siren cry.
If an afterlife existed, then that would surely be a place for the damned.
...
The tale was such that most wouldn’t believe it; for children it would scare them, but for adults...
How could the sky be red?
What do you mean natural disasters are commonplace? How would the devils even live in such a place?
Well, it did sound far-fetched yet...
"Hey, did you feel that?" inquired a bald middle-aged man to a lean man by his side.
The bald man was clad in a dark-brown leather longcoat with a high collar and weathered shoulder mantles.
His hairless head reflected the crimson skies above, distorted by the long scar that ran up his head from his left eyebrow.
Unlike all the inhabitants of Chroma, his iris was pitch black, as was his dali mustache and goatee.
"Yeah, so what of it?" the lean man shrugged, eyes hollow as if he didn’t belong to this world,
empty yet carrying the weight of loss.
Unlike his friend, he had a head full of hair, curly black hair in contrast to the silver long leather coat he wore.
He sat atop the head of a massive creature,
the head of a black-maned lion, its torso that of a bear, tail that of a scorpion, torn beyond recognition was a pair of bat-like wings that was sure to belong to it, its roots bleeding on its back.
A manticore, standing at about the size of a private sperm whale.
"..."
The bald man shook his head in resignation.
"This guy is still sour as a grape."
He ignored his friend, attention turned to the earth he stood upon.
His touch met the bloodied ground below, feeling for everything that walked within a 5000-mile radius.
"That boy..."
His senses brought to view the image of Alaric stopping the ice spears aimed at him.
A strange but recognizable energy surrounding Alaric.
"He has the same energy as her," the lean man muttered, eyes widening in recognition.
He jumped down from the creature’s head, feet softly touching the ground.
He too had spread his senses. Though he sounded unbothered, his curiosity got the better of him.
"Anil... Anil my friend, I thought you didn’t care..." The bald man snickered at his friend. Anil, the man clad in silver, rolled his eyes.
He didn’t even know why this guy had been following him around.
It wasn’t that he was weak and needed a nanny, but this middle-aged man had been loitering around him for almost seven years now.
"Annoying bastard, I can do what I want..." he retorted. The bald old man burst into laughter.
He was older, by a century or so, but this guy wasn’t young either, though his physique and face would argue otherwise.
Straight eyebrows and traingular face, his pitch black iris giving him the air of mystery, in short a handsome dude.
Looking to be in his mid-twenties while in reality he had crossed the fifty mark.
"That isn’t her, you know that..." the bald middle-aged man chimed in. Anil’s head drooped. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
He knew it was ridiculous that a young boy couldn be her. Different gender, different age not to mention, he knew where she was buried.
Reincarnation didn’t exist in their world, and they of all people knew that.
"But this energy..." his voice cracked, tinged with longing.
"Sigh... let’s do this. It seems he was targeted by one of my people. I will let my clone ask about it, don’t worry..." the middle-aged man comforted. Anil nodded slowly in agreement.
He glanced one last time towards the direction Alaric was, several thousand kilometers away.
Meanwhile, in another part of the Abyss, the blood-red lake stood frozen, waves halted mid-fall, tides frozen stiff.
Beneath the frozen lake, waves stirred as vast tentacles pressed against the underside of the ice, its suckers sealing onto it.
The ice groaned, faint spiderweb cracks running across it, threatening to break at any time.
Crack!! Boom!!
Water rose up violently as the tentacles pushed through the ice,
A tentacle, as tall as a skyscraper, rose, slamming into the ice, shattering it like glass.
"Tch, I couldn’t freeze the whole thing."
A man levitated several metres above the ground, kept afloat by the flames erupting from his feet.
If anyone were here, they would have recognized him as the abdicated Patriarch of the Vulcan Kingdom, an uncanny resemblance to Aiden, except for his arched brows and dark red hair that had more strands of black than red.
Disheveled hair, overgrown beard.
It wasn’t like that the last time he was seen.
His attire was torn, pants barely hanging to his belt.
He looked like a barbarian or a man lost for several years on an abandoned island.
But he didn’t care. He was once the Patriarch of the Vulcan Dukedom, bringing them to their current military feats, which made them greater than the royal family.
He lacked nothing, just a battle maniac enjoying the thrill of death.
"If that didn’t work, then I can try this spell..." He straightened his hand, fingers pointed forward.
Flames erupted from the tip, compressed instantly to form a line, a laser shooting from the tip of his finger.
"Let’s see how effective it is on this thing." He turned his attention to the massive creature underneath him, the beast fully exposed, a cephalopod, a giant kraken, its glowing green eyes locked on him.
Zzzzt!!
The laser sliced diagonally across the cephalopod’s face, cutting its head in half.
It writhed in pain, thrashing around in the ice-filled lake, its green blood mixing with the red of the lake, a muddy brown pooling around it.
"That was dull." He shook his head in disappointment.
"What was that feeling earlier?" His gaze shifted from the creature towards Alaric’s direction, several miles away.
"Raika?!, who is that boy by her side?" he muttered, unable to clearly see them, but he could recognize Raika’s mana signature, but for Alaric, it looked familiar yet unfamiliar.
"What the heck is going on, should I go home..." He mused but shook his head. "I need to reach the Supreme Realm, they can handle themselves."
.
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.
Back to the present, the silver-eyed man stood at the door to the office of the Patriarch of Nebula, a large door fixed with intricate runes and gemstones.
At the middle, a giant circular emblem, at its center a six-pointed star diverging from three of its points were arcs of galaxy, the symbol for Nebula.
He gulped, trying to swallow his nerves. He was one of the best assassins, killing without batting an eye, but in front of just the door to the Founder, he felt like a corporate worker being called to the HR office.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Come in."
The door opened, revealing a surprisingly simple study except for the giant rows of books across each side.
Seated behind the table was a man clad in a brown leather long coat, withered at the shoulders, bald with a scar running up his head.
Pitch-black eyes stared warmly at the silver-eyed assassin, the latter’s eyes glued to his black gottee.
"Black?" he wondered.
"Come, take a seat." The Founder’s voice broke his thoughts.
He quickly took a seat, knees clasped together like a schoolgirl.
"Tell me about your recent mission."
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(• ◡•) A/N.
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