Chapter 11 – The Vessel
Rick had no breath left to scream.
No voice left to defy.
Only terror remained—
And even that was not enough.
The abyss swallowed even fear, stripping him bare. For a heartbeat—no, for an eternity—Rick hung between nothing and something far worse.
The Silent Maw yawned wider, its teeth like mountains cleaving the sky, its darkness devouring every shard of light, every memory, every piece of him that had once been human.
Then—
He stopped falling.
Rick's body jerked to a halt, suspended in midair, chains of crimson pulling him taut like a marionette. His chest heaved soundlessly, the wound burning with unnatural brilliance. He was no longer sinking into the Abyss. The Abyss itself was lifting him.
The colossal Heart thundered below, each beat shaking him as though he were nothing more than a grain of dust caught in a storm. The titanic shadows circling the Heart bent lower, their impossible shapes twitching in grotesque anticipation. Jaws opened. Limbs writhed. They waited, not to strike—but to witness.
A coronation of horror.
The figure stepped closer. Its form was no clearer than before—shifting between bone and void, flesh and smoke, faces flickering too quickly for his mind to hold. Yet its presence filled everything, until even the Maw seemed to recoil.
It spoke.
"Vessel."
The word pierced deeper than command. It was not an order—it was truth.
Rick's chains blazed, searing through his veins. His body convulsed as light erupted from his chest, pouring upward in streams that bent toward the figure. The wound had become a gate. A channel. His blood was no longer blood—it was fuel.
"No—" The word tore from him, hoarse, broken. But his own voice sounded foreign, like an echo of someone already gone.
The figure bent down, faceless yet staring. Its whisper was vast, infinite.
"You are not devoured. You are chosen."
The Silent Maw roared in the distance, jaws closing, tearing entire horizons away. Yet still it did not consume him. The chains held. The figure held. The Heart held.
Rick's vision blurred red, then white, then something beyond color. The world fractured. His body screamed with every nerve, but something colder clawed deeper—acceptance. The chain within him no longer pulled. It guided.
Was this what Devil meant?
The claim is mine.
Rick's knees bent again, pressing into the pulsing surface of the Heart, his will cracking like glass beneath a hammer. The weight of eternity pressed down.
But then—
"Rick!"
The voice cut through. Sharp. Real. Human.
Rick's eyes snapped wide. His body jerked.
He knew that voice.
Piu.
Somewhere beyond the abyss, beyond the Maw, beyond even the figure itself—her voice reached him. Desperate. Screaming. Alive.
The chains shuddered.
The figure turned, faceless head shifting as though noticing. The titanic shadows rippled uneasily. Even the Maw paused, its teeth hovering just shy of collapse.
Rick's chest blazed. His heart pounded not with the Abyss's rhythm—but his own.
"Piu…" His whisper was ragged, bloodied, but it was his.
The chains convulsed. One cracked. Just faintly.
The figure's voice deepened, resonating until the Heart itself shook.
"Defiance is illusion. You are already mine."
Rick's scream tore free, this time carrying sound. His body arched, his wound blazing brighter than before. The fissures of crimson around the Heart erupted, and the entire abyss quaked—
—As if something greater was stirring.
Something that was not the Abyss.
Something waking inside him.
The figure's form flickered violently, its voice layered with rage and hunger.
"Awaken, Vessel."
The chains constricted, the Maw surged closer, the Heart thundered—
And Rick's body split with light.
It wasn't just blinding—it was consuming. His veins burst into radiance, flesh cracking like porcelain as fire-white brilliance poured through him. The titanic shadows shrieked, writhing back as though seared. Even the Maw faltered, jaws halting mid-collapse, as though something alien resisted its inevitability.
Rick's body shook violently, torn between two truths: the claim of the Abyss and the echo of Piu's voice. His mind shattered into fragments of pain and memory. He saw Sun's desperate face, Piu's trembling hands, Devil's merciless smile. And then—
Another voice.
Not Piu's. Not Devil's. Not the figure's.
A whisper from deep inside his chest, woven into his blood, softer than breath yet louder than thunder.
"You are not only mine."
The figure reeled, its form splitting and collapsing as though the words themselves were poison. The chains spasmed, tightening and cracking at once, binding and breaking together.
Rick screamed, but this time it was not only agony—it was defiance.
The abyss shook.
A tremor rippled through the void, tearing apart silence itself.
The Maw lunged closer—its jagged teeth slicing through both light and shadow, devouring everything in its path. Each snap of its jaws carried the weight of inevitable ending, eager to consume all that dared remain.
The Heart answered with defiance. It roared, each pulse louder than thunder, each beat so violent that the world itself seemed to shatter under its rhythm. The sound was not merely life—it was resistance, a desperate refusal to yield.
Rick's body hung suspended on the edge.
Not alive, not dead—caught between surrender and something unknown.
Something… new.
The figure emerged again. A faceless silhouette, shifting like smoke yet heavier than mountains. Though it had no eyes, Rick felt its gaze cut through him, stripping away every defense, every lie.
From its hollow presence, the voices came—countless tones layered together until they formed a single command.
"Kneel."
The word tore through him like a blade. Rick's knees trembled, blood poured from his mouth, and chains of unseen power burned through his veins. His mind begged for release, but the ember of defiance still smoldered within him.
And above, the Maw fell—descending with finality, its endless jaws stretching wide to erase all that was.
The abyss collapsed into silence.
The Maw descended.
----
To be continued…