"The spear plunged downward—
And the abyss swallowed everything in blinding black."
---
The world did not end.
It should have.
Rick had felt the tearing of reality, the sheer annihilation pressing down on his lungs until breath was a myth. Yet when the darkness devoured him whole, he did not cease. He fell.
Through endless night.
Through screaming echoes that weren't his own.
Through chains of memory and blood that tangled around him, dragging his soul deeper.
He tried to shout, but his voice dissolved, stolen by the void. His blade—gone. His hands—numb. His allies—nowhere.
Only shadows.
Only silence.
And then—
A heartbeat.
Not his.
The sound pulsed through the dark, heavy, deliberate, shaking the abyss itself. With each throb, light cracked faintly across the nothingness, as if the void were glass and something beneath it demanded release.
Rick reached for it. Not with hands—he no longer had those—but with will, with sheer stubborn defiance.
And the light answered.
---
A figure stepped from the fracture. Tall, burning, scarred by shadowfire yet undeniably human.
Devil.
But not as he had stood in the dome. His horns were gone, his claws stripped away. His frame was lean, flesh torn and bleeding, a half-man clinging to the scraps of himself. Crimson eyes glowed—not abyssal this time, but human, fragile, real.
"Rick…" His voice trembled, like glass under strain. "…you shouldn't have followed me here."
Rick's chest seized. He wanted to reach forward, to drag Devil away from the void clawing at his feet. But the darkness coiled tighter, whispering with voices older than time.
Vessel. Host. Shell.
All will break.
All will belong.
The Watcher.
Its laughter shook the hollow world.
Devil staggered, clutching his chest as black veins spread like roots beneath his skin. His silhouette flickered, human one breath, abyssal the next.
"I can't hold it back much longer…" His words cracked, every syllable drenched in torment. "It's tearing me apart. You—" His eyes lifted, pleading. "…you have to do what I asked."
Rick froze. End me before it's too late.
The words slashed his memory like a blade. He had sworn he wouldn't. He had sworn—
"No." His voice rang across the void, stronger than he felt. "I won't kill you. Not like this. Not when you're still you."
Devil laughed, but the sound broke into a cough, flecked with black fire. "Then you'll doom us both. The abyss isn't bound to me anymore—it's birthing itself. Through me. Through this world. If it succeeds…" He shuddered, agony buckling his knees. "…there won't be anything left to fight for."
---
Light flared suddenly.
Rick turned.
Piu.
Her form stumbled into view, half-transparent, her broken staff glowing faintly in her grasp. She was pale, like a flame burning its last oil, but her eyes blazed with resolve.
"Then we don't let it succeed." Her voice rang like a bell, fragile but defiant. "Devil isn't just a vessel. He's ours. He's not theirs."
Sun appeared next, his body fractured with burns and cracks of golden flame leaking through the seams. He clenched his fists, fire swirling wildly, refusing to die.
"Hell if I'm letting some star-eating shadow chew him up. I'd rather punch the abyss itself in the face."
Finally—Babasaheb. His aura shimmered faint silver, his robes torn, his features worn thin as if decades had been stolen in seconds. Yet his gaze was steady, unyielding.
"You are not alone, Devil. That is what the abyss fears most. Our unity. Our will."
---
For the first time, Devil's eyes widened—not in torment, but in disbelief. He looked at them all, at their ruined bodies, their breaking souls, and yet their refusal to abandon him.
"…why?" His whisper cracked. "Why fight for me? I was supposed to be the abyss's weapon. I nearly killed you all."
Rick's chest tightened. He stepped forward, the void's chains biting into him, trying to drag him back. He didn't stop.
"Because you're not just a weapon. You're my friend." His voice trembled, but the truth in it rang clear. "And I don't care if the abyss made you or if it wants you—you belong with us."
---
The abyss shrieked.
Black waves surged, claws of night raking across the fractured plain. The Watcher's true body stirred beneath, its colossal shape pushing upward, tearing cracks into the void-sky.
Unacceptable.
Unyielding.
Unbroken.
All will be devoured.
Chains erupted, spearing toward them like rivers of knives.
Sun roared, flames colliding with the bindings. "Rick! Say it! Say the damned word!"
Rick lifted his voice, cutting across the abyss's roar.
"TOGETHER!"
Steel. Flame. Light. Rune.
Their powers converged again, not as scattered sparks but as a single inferno. They clashed with the abyssal flood, shattering links into shards that dissolved into dust.
For a moment—just a moment—they held the abyss at bay.
---
But the Watcher laughed.
The sound rattled their bones, split their souls. Its silhouette surged higher, no longer half-formed but colossal, its starless eyes gazing down with hunger infinite.
So be it.
If the vessel refuses, if the host resists—
Then I shall consume them all at once.
It spread its arms wide. Reality bent, collapsing inward. Stars died in silence. Worlds crumbled like sand. The void itself caved toward the Watcher's maw.
Even united, their power cracked.
Rick's knees buckled. Piu's light sputtered. Sun's flames guttered. Babasaheb's aura trembled.
And Devil—
Devil screamed.
The abyss surged through him, half his body dissolving into shadow, his human flesh tearing apart under the pressure. His face split, one side human, the other abyss incarnate. His voice fractured into two tones, one crying for help, the other exulting in hunger.
His crimson eyes blazed weakly through the storm, flickering—fading.
"…Rick…"
He lifted the spear once more.
Not toward Rick.
Not toward his friends.
But toward himself.
Rick's heart dropped.
"No—Devil—!"
The spear ignited with both fire and shadow, a weapon of annihilation and salvation entwined. His arms shook violently, torn between thrusting it inward or outward, between ending himself or unleashing the abyss.
"Forgive me…" His voice cracked into a sob. "…I can't hold it anymore—"
The Watcher's laughter split the dark, chains erupting in rivers of black fire.
The spear plunged—