Before the abyss claimed her, she had been ordinary.
Her name was forgotten in the years to come, but once she was simply a woman—a wife, a mother, a believer in a fragile hope that her family might live quietly, even in a world where dungeons split the skies and hunters wielded powers no mortal should.
Her husband had been one of those hunters. Not a Divine Rank, nor one of the legendary SS elites, but strong enough to stand on the battlefield. He bore the rank of A, his blade striking true in raids where lesser men would fall. To her, he was a hero—not because he slew monsters, but because he always came home smiling, weary yet proud, carrying food and medicine for their two sons.
Their life was not easy, but it was theirs. The boys would cling to their father's legs when he returned, demanding to hear stories of the dungeons, while she cooked what little they had. They were not rich, but they were together, and that was enough.
Until the hunters turned their strength upon one another.
What had once been a war against dungeons became a war of men. Guilds formed, then clashed. Dungeon gates became resources, prizes to be claimed by the strongest. Power was not used to protect, but to dominate. Cities were carved into territories, ruled not by governments, but by guild masters.
Her husband resisted, at first. He fought not for guilds, but for people. But in a world where hunters devoured hunters, ideals were blades without sheaths. His guild was crushed by rivals. Those who survived fled or bent the knee. He returned home one night with wounds so deep they would never heal.
And still, he smiled for her. Still, he kissed their sons goodnight, though blood soaked his clothes. He never told her what bargain he made after that. He only whispered that it was for them, for the children.
He did not return from his next raid.
The news came cold and simple: devoured by a dungeon beast, body unrecovered. She wept until her voice broke. Her boys, too young to understand, waited by the door for days, believing he would walk in as he always did.
But he never came.
Days turned to weeks, and her grief became hunger. The guilds no longer supported widows unless coin or favor was offered in return. With her husband gone, debts surfaced—debts he had hidden, taken in secret, desperate to buy safety for his family.
She could not pay.
That was when the hunter came.
He was SS rank—a man whose name echoed in whispers, a tyrant cloaked in wealth and power. Hunters of such rank were beyond law, beyond consequence. When he entered her broken home, the air itself seemed to freeze.
"I'll give you time," he said, his smile sharp as a blade. "But debt must be paid. If not in coin, then in flesh. Perhaps your boys will serve better than gold."
Her blood turned to ice. She clutched her sons to her chest, trembling as his shadow loomed over them. The eldest, still too young to understand the depth of danger, stood before his brother, glaring with a bravery that shattered her heart.
The hunter only laughed. With a flick of his hand, he shattered their table, splintering wood into the walls as easily as snapping twigs. Then he left, but his words lingered like a curse.
Time. Only time.
From that night, terror stalked her dreams.
Every knock at the door sent her heart racing. Every shadow passing the window made her clutch her sons closer. She could not work enough to pay. The guilds would not help. Her neighbors turned away, fearful of the SS-ranked man who had marked her.
She tried to believe. She tried to pray to gods who had never answered. But with each passing day, despair deepened. She watched hunters duel in the streets, watched blood spill not from monsters but from men drunk on power. The world was crumbling, and she had no shield to raise for her children.
Her youngest grew thinner with each meal she gave away. Her eldest tried to smile, tried to tell her he wasn't hungry when she offered him her share, but she saw the hollows in his cheeks.
She could not protect them.
Not like this.
And so her thoughts turned to the one thing left. The teachings of her family, the whispers she had once abandoned.
Her ancestors had worshiped the abyss. They had been mocked, dismissed as lunatics. But if hunters, humanity's strongest, had become tyrants, then perhaps the abyss was no worse. Perhaps in its darkness, there was salvation—or at least protection.
The night her sons fell asleep in her arms, shivering from hunger, she made her choice. She would not wait for the SS-ranked tyrant to claim them. She would not watch her boys be devoured by a world that had abandoned mercy.
If the abyss demanded her life, so be it.
Her children would live.
Even if it meant summoning something far darker than the hunters who ruled this broken earth.
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