The world screamed.
From the ruptured ground surged horrors—jagged-limbed beasts dragging themselves free of the light, their mouths splitting into impossible grins. Rows of glassy eyes blinked open across their skin, each one reflecting a different version of the world: burning, frozen, shattered, drowned.
Jaylin's blade ignited, carving the first wave apart in a spray of fire and steel.
"Move, Vemy!" he roared, sparks raining as his strikes kept the tide back.
Vemy tried to stand, but his legs trembled. The abyss inside him ached to answer the monsters' call—it recognized them, kin born of the same darkness that clawed at his chest.
The cloaked figure didn't move to fight. He simply watched from the edge of the pillar, fire swirling lazily around him. "Do you see, boy? Without me, you are nothing but prey. Let it in. Command them, don't cower from them."
Jaylin snarled, shoving a beast back with a fiery arc. "Ignore him! This is exactly what he wants—he wants you chained to the abyss!"
But the monsters weren't just attacking—they were circling him. They screeched, their dozens of eyes locking onto Vemy, drawn to his aura as though he were already their master.
The ground trembled again. A giant shape began to claw its way from the fissure—a colossus of writhing shadows, its head crowned with bone-like spires, its breath a hurricane of rot.
Jaylin planted himself between it and Vemy, sparks flying as his aura surged. "If you don't stand now, we both die here!"
Vemy's claws dug into the soil. The abyss thrashed inside him, begging to be unleashed. Flames of the cloaked figure beckoned him forward, promising control. Jaylin's voice tethered him back, grounding him in defiance.
Every second the monsters pushed closer. Every second the choice pressed harder.
The abyss whispered: Submit. Lead. Devour.
Jaylin shouted: "Fight, damn you!"
The cloaked figure laughed softly: "Kneel, and you will rule."
Vemy's vision blurred between three worlds: one of power, one of loyalty, one of ruin.
And then—he screamed.
A surge of abyssal energy burst outward, shattering monsters mid-leap, rending the battlefield in two. Flames licked his veins, shadows crawled across his skin. His aura wasn't submission, but it wasn't denial either.
It was something else.
Jaylin froze mid-swing. The cloaked figure tilted his head, intrigued.
Vemy rose, abyss roaring behind his eyes. "I won't kneel to either of you." His voice was layered, two-toned—his own and something vast beneath it. "If the abyss wants me, it has to obey me."
The battlefield stilled for one terrible moment, all eyes—monstrous and human—locked on him.
And then the giant shadow colossus roared, answering his challenge.
🔥 Chaos reigns as Vemy refuses both master and mentor. But has he truly taken control—or simply lit the fuse of something far worse?