The void itself groaned, trembling under the aftermath of Vemy's assault. Prismarine shards hung in the air like jagged stars, orbiting him—but the fire that once felt like a weapon now seared his own veins. The Absolute Null Halo's collapse had left scars in reality itself; fractures that pulsed, whispering of worlds yet unmade.
Vemy's wings beat, but each stroke felt heavier than the last. His chest burned. His spear—cracked, singed, humming with unstable energy—was his only anchor to existence.
Akiar's storm still raged at the edges of the abyss, but even his lightning faltered, struggling to maintain form. "Vemy…" he shouted over the roar of collapsing space, "your ring—what have you done?"
Vemy didn't answer. Not yet. His vision swam with fragments of the broken halo, flashes of impossible shapes, and the faintest echo of something alive. A rhythm—not the god's, not the system's—but his own—beat inside him, ragged and defiant.
The abyss shifted. Shadows pulled at the edges of reality, coiling around the Prismarine shards like serpents tasting fear. Something moved in the fractures—a shape, fleeting and fragmented, watching.
Vemy staggered, pulling the shards close, forming a jagged shield. "I… I'm not done," he growled, blood streaking down his face. But even he could hear the strain in his voice—the power was far beyond him now.
A low, distorted laughter echoed through the void. The Abyssal Warden's voice—or was it something else?—swept over him. "Fragile. Yet unbroken. You've shattered cycles… but not me. Not yet."
From the deepest fissures, a glimmer of movement. Something alive… watching, waiting, calculating. The shards around Vemy pulsed violently, as if warning him—but warning him of what?
And then, silence. Absolute, suffocating silence, broken only by the faint, uneven heartbeat of his own Prismarine flame.
Vemy's eyes narrowed. The abyss had not ended. It had only… changed. And from its depths, something far older than the Warden stirred.
He tightened his grip on the spear, shards spinning faster, wings trembling—but for the first time, he smiled through the blood and fire. "Bring it on."
🔥 Cliffhanger: The abyss has shifted, fractures are alive, and a far greater threat lurks beyond the collapse. Vemy's defiance may have survived—but is it enough?