Silence ruled the abyssal throne hall.
Not the peaceful kind.
But the suffocating, waiting, coiled quiet—
a quiet sharper than a blade's edge.
Orba sat upon a seat carved from black bone, one leg crossed over the other, his finger tapping idly against the armrest. A thin smile traced his lips, one born of cruelty and patience woven tightly together.
His crimson pupils glimmered beneath the torching abyss-flames.
He was waiting.
Around him, his castle breathed darkness. Shadows twisted and whispered—servants of a devil who needed no armies, no councils, no loyalty.
Not when he could build a weapon.
Not when he could grow one.
"…How many years has it been?"
He muttered the question not in confusion, but in amusement. Time in the abyss was fluid—days folding into years, years devoured by dread and hunger. Mortals counted time. Abyss lords counted opportunity.
He had thrown Simon into the chasm like one would toss a cub into a den of wolves.
And the cub had survived.
Clawed.
Bitten.
Endured.
Now, it would return a beast.
Orba chuckled softly, a sound as toxic as poison sliding into wine.
"It crawls back… stronger. Good. Good. A broken thing that reforges itself always creates the sharpest blade."
He had never raised Simon out of pity.
Never out of respect.
Never out of mercy.
Simon was a seed.
A tool.
A harvest waiting to ripen.
A soul forged in pain, sharpened by blood.
And when he bloomed—
Orba would pluck him.
Consume him.
Wear his strength like a second skin.
"Arkal," he whispered, gaze drifting upward toward the unseen heights above. "The eternal king. The unmovable first."
Six Abyss Kings walked the depths.
Five shifted over eras, falling and rising like tides.
But one never bowed, never lost:
Arkal, the First Abyssal King.
Rank One.
Absolute. Unchallenged. Untouched.
And Orba wanted his throne.
He had always wanted it.
He had clawed and bled his way to Monarch rank, slaughtered those above him, devoured rivals, seduced power—but he hit the limit. His bloodline. His nature. His ceiling.
Arkal could not be toppled by normal means.
So Orba sought a path that did not exist.
A vessel.
A sleeper blade.
A weapon forged not from abyssal blood, but from human suffering and demon hunger—a hybrid that had never been seen.
Simon.
He remembered the boy's early screams.
His trembling limbs.
His hopeless eyes filled with rage and terror.
Delicious.
Humans broke so easily, yet this one did not shatter. He bent. He cracked. But he crawled onward—even when logic said to die.
Anomalies were precious in the abyss.
"With your power," Orba whispered, licking his fangs, "I will surpass the path itself. Void, human, abyss… all rivers flowing into me."
A ripple of magic brushed the hall.
Servants in the shadows lowered themselves instinctively, sensing the rising madness in their lord.
Orba stood.
A strange hunger poured from his palms, a devouring mist swirling like dark threads of hunger. Abyssal magic—his secret art:
Soul Devourance — The Reaper's Inheritance
A forbidden power.
A parasite spell.
A silent theft.
When the host's strength peaked, Orba would strike.
Merge.
Devour.
Evolve.
He envisioned it clearly:
Simon kneeling, broken but powerful.
Orba sinking fangs of magic into his soul.
Two becoming one.
And Orba rising as the new absolute.
Akral will eventually fall. Like Ulykart that replaced Dialokra, second rank—Abyss Monarch, is not immortal. Even myself is no exception— History will remember a new ruler.
One king.
One hunger.
Orba the Eternal.
A tremor echoed through the cavern walls.
He paused.
Turned.
Eyes narrowed.
A disturbance—faint, but unmistakable. A shift like a stone dropped into a still pond. The kind that only Abyss Lords felt in their marrow.
A presence climbing from the deep.
Alive.
Breathing.
Returned.
Orba's lips curled slowly, delight shining like a wicked flame.
"So," he murmured.
"You lived."
Steps echoed in distant tunnels.
Steady.
Measured.
Cold.
Not desperate.
Not broken.
Changed.
Orba moved through the corridors, his long black cloak trailing behind him like a shadow unwilling to detach. He walked not like a lord greeting a servant—but like a predator strolling toward prey that had finally fattened enough to slaughter.
His heartbeat remained calm.
His power pulsed softly around him, hunger disguised behind a gentle hum.
He reached the cavern mouth—the same entrance from which he had once pushed Simon into darkness.
Now, Simon was climbing back.
A faint dust plume rose.
Broken stone fell from the cliff's edge.
Footsteps—firm, unhurried.
Then a silhouette emerged.
Simon stepped into the light—face blank, eyes calm as dead stars, body carrying neither fear nor pride. He walked like one who had killed the darkness and returned with nothing left to fear.
Orba smiled.
"You survived," he greeted softly, voice smooth as poisoned silk. "Good. You have—"
But the rest of the sentence never left his mouth.
A shift of air.
A flicker of motion.
A whisper of steel.
Simon drew Amujamu.
Not in hesitation.
Not in confusion.
But in inevitability.
The blade cut forward—a silent, fluid stroke drawn not from anger but certainty.
Void and steel merged in one clean motion.
Orba's smile evaporated.
For the first time in countless years, the abyss lord felt surprise.
The sword carved toward him.
No roar.
No emotion.
No hesitation.
Just execution.
Everything froze.
The silence became absolute.
Steel inches from devil flesh, fate hanging like a blade over the abyss.
——
Let's go back a little..
Simon sat upon uneven stone, back leaning against the cool cavern wall, eyes closed. His body still trembled from the long climb and the toll of Blood Evolution that gnawed beneath his skin like restless flames. Yet, the void suppressed it. Tempered it. He breathed — slow, mechanical, like gears instead of lungs.
"Returning means death," he whispered into the dark.
No fear. Just fact.
He had known. For longer than he cared to admit. From the day he'd felt Orba's gaze linger—not as a father, not even as a captor.
But as a butcher waiting for a knife to sharpen itself.
"If I climb… he kills me," Simon murmured.
"If I stay… I rot."
A soft laugh, bitter and calm. Abyss had stripped him bare, hollowed him, reforged him.
"And if I fight… I become."
He opened his eyes, gaze black and still as void.
"I choose to become."
Void Path pulsed. No rage. No fear. No swelling passion. Just intent, like an arrow flying exactly where it was meant to go.
The old him would have begged to be loved, to be seen.
But that self, Jaka or Simonstita Aumar or whoever he had been — died in the abyss.
Not by starvation, not by monsters, not by isolation.
He killed that self.
With acceptance.
He now existed as Simon — nothing else, no one else. He was his own creation. His own reason.
He rose.
"This ends with me killing him," he said simply, as though discussing weather.
"And if I fall again… I do not rise."
His fingers flexed on the sword hilt. He inhaled once. Exhaled. And then he walked toward destiny — step by step, deliberate, unshakeable, ready to murder his maker.
The wind that shouldn't exist underground followed him all the way up.
Simon stood at the cavern mouth — the exit of the abyss, the jagged throat of hell that had almost eaten him alive. His fingers wrapped tight around Amujamu, breath steady, heart unburdened by fear or doubt. Void Path swirled inside him like a silent eclipse — emotionless precision, clarity sharper than the sword he held.
But before this moment, before steel met flesh, before Orba's arrogant eyes widened in shock — there had been a choice.
A calm, calculated, merciless decision.
— Now —
Steel whispered.
A slash carved the air — clean, merciless, absolute.
Orba's eyes had widened too late. His cocky grin shattered. He had underestimated Simon, like always — except this time, the price was flesh.
Shhk!
Blood arced. His right arm fell.
Thud.
Orba staggered back, teeth clenched, smoke-like aura coiling from his wounds.
"You—" his voice trembled with disbelief and rage, "—you dare!?"
Simon lowered his sword slightly, stance measured, void dripping off him like silent frost.
"I don't dare," he replied plainly.
"I decided."
Orba snarled. "Insolent wretch!"
The demon lunged, even one-armed still monstrously strong. His shadow rippled, abyssal energy twisting around him. He was a true Demon King rank — ninth originally, rising only through brutal cunning, never through brilliance.
"You think climbing a pit makes you my equal?" Orba roared.
Simon slid one foot back, pivoted, avoided. So smooth, like flowing ink. No wasted motion. No flare. Just lethal geometry.
A palm crashed into stone where Simon's face was a second prior, exploding rock into dust.
"You always were a tool!" Orba spat, blood dripping from his stump.
"I fed you. Sheltered you. Watched your growth."
"Raised a weapon to steal it later," Simon corrected.
Orba's lips pulled into a wicked grin.
"And it worked until now."
He aimed his bleeding stump toward Simon — and darkness condensed. Orba's unique talent — Devouring Pulse — a technique designed to rip power from living flesh and swallow it whole.
"You think cutting my arm stops me?" Orba hissed.
"I only need one touch to strip you bare."
He lunged again, stump glowing black like a hungry void.
It was a terrifying power.
To anyone else.
Simon parried with a single, neat flick of his wrist. The blade cut a line across Orba's chest before the demon jerked back, surprised at Simon's lack of hesitation, lack of emotional reaction.
"You've lost something," Simon observed.
"Not just your arm."
Orba sneered, breath ragged. "I haven't lost—"
"You lost the upper hand."
Void thrummed. Simon stepped forward — one smooth, terrifyingly quiet movement. His body flowed like a shadow, each step controlled, every angle perfect.
His aura wasn't explosive. Wasn't wild.
It was silent threat — executioner calm.
Orba felt, for the first time in centuries, a predator's eyes looking at him as prey.
"You…" Orba whispered, voice cracking, "...are different."
"I am myself," Simon replied.
And then combat resumed — brutal, precise, relentless.
Claws slashed. Blade answered.
Orba's power surged. Simon's void carved through it.
Blow for blow, darting between darkness and silence, they clashed like opposing philosophies — unrestrained hunger versus calculated annihilation.
Orba roared, trying to crush him like before — but Simon slipped through, a ghost through cracks.
Cut. Step. Pivot. Slash.
Breath calm. Heart steady. Soul empty.
Even Orba felt it — this wasn't just fighting.
This was evolution wearing a human form.
"You think this makes you a king, boy!?" Orba shrieked, forcing a dark barrier.
Simon didn't answer. He didn't need to.
He simply existed as the blade.
Amujamu flickered — hungry, ancient, delighting in perfection. It harmonized with Void Path — steel and emptiness, desire to cut and ability to do so without doubt.
Their strengths amplified each other.
A sword built for killing, wielded by someone who finally accepted he was born to kill his fate.
Orba retreated again — not strategic, but desperate. His pride cracked. His calculated arrogance trembled.
Simon advanced one final step.
Both now panting, ragged, but only one afraid.
Orba let his last power surge — demonic markings flaring, veins igniting with abyssal force. "Then die with honor, wretch!"
Simon raised his blade, void condensing in the edge.
"No honor," he corrected.
"Just reality."
Both gathered power.
Both prepared to finish it.
A breath.
A heartbeat.
A moment stretched thin like crystal before shattering.
Their final blows were ready.
And then—Scene froze. The end is near