*Day 12 - The Abyss*
Pyrrhus fell.
Not flew. Not dove. Fell.
Ten thousand meters of deliberate descent, wings folded tight against scales that had lost their luster. The ocean below wasn't water anymore—it was liquid night, the domain of things that had never seen sun.
*This is penance,* he told himself. *This is necessary.*
The Leviathans had agreed to trade. Information about Vash'nil for a dragon's service. One year of bondage to creatures that remembered when the world was only water.
He hit the surface like a meteor. The impact should have shattered him. Instead, the Abyss embraced him, pulled him down with tendrils that weren't quite water, weren't quite alive.
Deeper.
The pressure built. Even dragon bones creaked. His fire-lung, the organ that let him breathe flame, compressed until it was just a coal of possibility. The Abyss didn't allow fire. Fire was sky-thing, sun-thing. Here was only cold and dark and things with too many teeth.
At three thousand meters, the first Leviathan appeared.
It was small—only twice his size. A scout. It circled him with movements that violated physics, existing in multiple places simultaneously. When it spoke, the words came from inside his skull.
*Young flame. Young guilt. You sink heavy with shame.*
"I come to trade," Pyrrhus managed, though speaking underwater shouldn't work.
*Trade.* The word tasted of contempt. *Dragons always want to trade. Never to give. Never to sacrifice. Always transaction.*
"I offer myself. One year of service."
The Leviathan laughed—sound like tectonic plates grinding.
*One year? For information about the egg-child? You insult us.*
"Then name your price."
*Your guilt.*
Pyrrhus didn't understand. "My... guilt?"
*Give us your guilt. All of it. The weight that makes you sink. The shame that poisons your fire. Give it to us, and we'll tell you everything about the child. Even things dragons don't want to know.*
"That's... that's not possible. Guilt isn't something you can just remove."
*Everything can be removed. Everything can be traded. The Distillers taught us that, before we drowned them.*
The scout circled closer. This close, Pyrrhus could see it wasn't one creature but thousands—millions—of smaller organisms forming a collective shape. Each scale was a separate life. Each tooth its own entity.
*Choose, young flame. Your guilt for truth. Or sink forever, knowing nothing.*
Pyrrhus thought of Ora, training with corrupted power to face enemies she didn't understand. Thought of Vash'nil, their youngest, suffering in ways they couldn't imagine. Thought of the thousands of elves whose screams still echoed in his dreams.
"If I give you my guilt," he said slowly, "what happens to me?"
*You become free. Free to act without conscience. Free to be the weapon you were born to be. Free like the Distillers were before they learned shame.*
"That's monstrous."
*Yes. That's why it works.*
Below, something vast moved. The true Leviathan, the ancient one, the size of a city. Its eye opened—not an eye, a portal to somewhere else. Somewhere that had never known light.
*CHOOSE,* it said with the weight of oceans.
---
**Meanwhile, Above: The Soul Market**
Kaelen had found it by accident. Or maybe nothing was accident anymore.
The Soul Market existed between heartbeats, in the space where reality forgot to pay attention. One moment he was walking through the ruins of a border town. The next, he stood in a bazaar that shouldn't exist.
Stalls stretched to a horizon that curved wrong. Merchants who weren't quite human sold things that weren't quite real. And everywhere, the sound of counting. Clicking. Tallying. The mathematics of suffering.
"First time?"
The voice belonged to a child. Or something wearing a child's shape. Its eyes were older than dragons.
"I'm looking for information," Kaelen said carefully.
"Everyone's looking for something. Question is, what will you pay?"
"What do you accept?"
The child-thing smiled, showing teeth like broken contracts.
"Years. Memories. Potential futures. First loves. Last words. The smell of home. The ability to see color. Your name in your mother's voice." It spread its hands. "We accept everything that matters."
"I need to know about the God-Eater. The real one. Not Vorgoth's weapon."
The child-thing's expression sharpened. "That's expensive information. That's the kind that costs more than you have."
"Name the price."
"Your ability to lie."
Kaelen blinked. "My... what?"
"Your capacity for falsehood. Every lie you've ever told, might tell, could tell. Give that up, and you'll only speak truth forever. Even when truth means death."
"That's—"
"The price. Yes or no?"
Kaelen thought of all the lies that had kept him alive. The small deceptions that greased social interaction. The white lies that spared feelings. The desperate falsehoods that had saved him from guards, from dragons, from his own despair.
Then he thought of Ora, corrupted and fighting alone against forces none of them understood.
"Yes," he said.
The child-thing reached into his chest—not physically, but something worse. It pulled, and Kaelen felt something fundamental tear away. Every lie he'd ever told burned out of his memory, leaving only shameful truth behind.
"The God-Eater," the child-thing said, satisfied, "isn't a weapon. It's a reset button. The Shapers built it as insurance. If their experiment failed—if free will led to too much suffering—they could activate it and return everything to primordial potential. No fixed forms. No permanent anything. Just... possibility."
"But Vorgoth—"
"Built a false one. A corrupt copy. His will eat specific concepts, yes. But the real one? The one hidden in the Aetherium? It doesn't eat. It unmakes. It returns everything to the moment before the first choice."
"Before free will."
"Before existence as you understand it." The child-thing tilted its head. "Your friend, the corrupted elf. She's walking into a trap. Vorgoth needs her to activate his false God-Eater. But if she does, it will trigger the real one. They're linked. Always were."
"How do I stop it?"
"You don't. You can't. The only choice is which one activates first." The child-thing began to fade. "Oh, and scholar? Your first lie was to your mother. You said the bruises were from falling. They weren't."
The market dissolved. Kaelen stood in ruins again, shaking. He opened his mouth to say "I'm fine" to himself.
What came out was: "I'm terrified and have no idea how to save anyone."
The curse of truth had begun.
---
**Back in the Abyss: The Choice**
Pyrrhus hung suspended between scout and ancient, between surface and depth.
"If I keep my guilt," he said, "what happens?"
*You serve ten years instead of one. You carry messages between Abyss and sky. You learn why the ocean hates the heavens. And we still tell you about the child.*
"Ten years?"
*Your guilt is heavy, young flame. It will take ten years to work it off. Or instant freedom, guiltless forever.*
Pyrrhus thought of the elven children. Their faces in crystal windows as his fire consumed them. The guilt was crushing. Without it, he could function. Could fight. Could help.
But.
"The guilt is mine," he said. "It's the only honest thing I have left. Take the ten years."
The ancient Leviathan's eye focused on him. For a moment, he saw himself reflected in that portal-pupil—small, broken, but still choosing.
*So be it.*
The binding was pain beyond description. Not physical—spiritual. Chains of obligation wrapped around his essence, tying him to the Abyss for a decade. He would surface, but always return. Always serve.
*The egg-child lives. Vorgoth keeps him in the Forgotten Foundry, yes. But not as prisoner. As battery. The child's pain powers the false God-Eater. Every moment of suffering charges the weapon.*
"How do we save him?"
*You don't. He's been suffering so long, he doesn't remember not suffering. Save him, and he'll die from the shock of relief. He needs to be... transitioned. Slowly. Like bringing deep fish to surface.*
"There must be a way—"
*There is. The corrupted elf. Her nature—balanced between life and death—can ease him between states. But it will cost her. Everything costs.*
The chains tightened. Pyrrhus felt the first pull of obligation. Somewhere, a message needed carrying. His service had begun.
*One more thing, young flame. The child isn't just battery. He's becoming something else. What Malakor is to his father, Vash'nil is becoming to the God-Eater itself. A living interface. A bridge between weapon and world.*
"That's monstrous."
*Yes. That's why it will work.*
---
**The Surface: Messages Converge**
Ora stood at the crossroads where three paths met. She'd been summoned here by three different messages, all arriving simultaneously.
From Pyrrhus, delivered by a young dragon who wept the entire message: "The Leviathans have spoken. Vash'nil lives but is becoming weapon. Only you can transition him safely. Cost will be everything. I'm bound for ten years. I'm sorry."
From Kaelen, written in blood because ink would have allowed lies: "God-Eater is trap. Two weapons, not one. Activating either triggers both. Only choice is which goes first. Cannot lie anymore. Price of truth paid. You're walking into apocalypse."
From Malakor, carved into the bones of a messenger who died delivering it: "Father knows you're coming. Wants you to come. You're the catalyst he needs. But I've sabotaged the equation. When you arrive, ask me about Mother. I might remember enough to help."
Three messages. Three warnings. Three paths to the same doom.
S'pun-duh read them over her shoulder. "Well, this is cheerful. Everyone agrees you're walking into a trap that will end the world."
"Yes."
"And you're going anyway."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Ora touched Sussurro-Vel's hilt. The blade hummed with harmonies of acceptance.
"Because that's what monsters do. We walk into traps. We trigger apocalypses. We become what the world needs us to become." She looked at her companion. "You can leave. Should leave."
"And miss the end of the world? Never." He pulled out Moka, the truffle-creature, who sneezed and burrowed back into his pack. "Besides, someone needs to document how reality ends. For whoever comes next."
"You think there'll be a next?"
"There's always a next. Even nothing is something waiting to happen."
They walked toward the Forgotten Foundry. Toward Vorgoth. Toward two God-Eaters and a broken dragon child and the end of everything.
Behind them, at the crossroads, a single flower bloomed.
It was impossible. The ground was salted, corrupted, dead.
But love—even corrupted love—finds a way to leave marks.
The flower was black. Its petals were edged with silver. It smelled like memories of happiness.
It would bloom for exactly one day, then die, having proven that even in the space between apocalypses, beauty could exist.
Even if no one was left to see it.
---
*End Chapter 13*
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