On the altar stood a squat dais; at its heart lay a single dot, and spirals coiled from it like a sleeping whirlpool embracing stone.

Janus’s blood fell to that point. A few drops became an endless river, threading the grooves, turning like a coiled dragon until the platform brimmed red.

Heat flared in Zero’s chest, excitement bright as a spark and anger cold as frost. He narrowed his eyes. “Come on, Abyss. Show me, face to face.”

Awooo!

The sound rose like a buried behemoth’s lament, rolling from the air above the high platform where Zero stood.

No ripple of space, no flicker of vision. The low, terrible voice just hung in the sky, echoing like thunder behind clouds.

Below the altar, people traded baffled looks, eyes like startled birds.

That deep roar weighed on every heart, even Era’s, a pressure like wet iron and a heaviness like storm air.

They were hundreds of meters away and still suffocating under it, as if rain-laden clouds stooped to the ground.

Zero and Janus, right before the source, took the full tide, a mountain’s weight pouring straight into bone.

Zero’s body trembled, knees loose as reeds; he almost couldn’t stand. Janus leaned into him, both of them bracing against a soul-deep shiver.

Moments later, blood seeped from the corners of their mouths, bright as poppies on snow.

Zero grinned, tongue catching the blood, swallowing it like firewine. “What’s wrong, bastard? Too scared to come out?”

As his words fell, the sky near the altar split open like a seam in old ice. Scarlet lightning raced its edges, hissing like snakes.

The line blinked wide. A massive eye opened in the air, an eclipse with a blood-red heart.

“Scarlet pupils. Whites veined to pieces. Looks like you didn’t sleep well,” Zero said, forcing down the ache in his gut. He lifted limp Edlyn gently, set her aside, then looked up with a faint smile.

The low voice returned, slow as stone grinding. “A… human?”

It sounded lost, a traveler waking in fog.

Clearly, waking like this didn’t sit right with it, a beast dragging chains in its dreams.

Wasn’t I supposed to be awakened by the life made in my image? The thought tightened like a frown, somewhere the Abyss’s true body hid.

Had this human seized my creation by force?

The Abyss focused on Zero, a cold moon fixing on a lone boat.

The giant eye above fixed on him too, its gaze a spear of winter.

Zero felt a whole mountain settle on his back. He pulled his eyes to slits. “What now, Abyss? Not your heir, so you’ll just kill me?”

“Human. You. What. Are. You.” The eye rumbled in broken beats. “On you. I. Smell. Something. Familiar.”

The breath on him wasn’t like his crafted one.

But the woman beside him—almost the same as his creation, a mirror with a different tide.

The Abyss frowned somewhere far away. No—that wasn’t right.

He remembered. His creation was male, a chisel-cut fact in stone.

Zero sighed, a knife sheathed. “Familiar? Smells like your old lover, maybe.”

He drew a silver longsword from behind his back, a moonbeam made metal. “Thias.”

The Abyss froze, the eye gone still as a lake before rain.

Then a pall of emotion flooded the skies above the Miter Empire like stormclouds unrolling. Anger, doubt, confusion. Attachment, longing, remembrance.

At last, the Abyss let out a long breath, a cave wind fading.

Zero’s smile tilted. So, he did recognize Thias.

“Human, you dragged me out,” the Abyss murmured, voice low and leaden. “What you want won’t be simple.”

He didn’t touch Thias again. Zero only smiled, letting the silence stand like a drawn bow.

“Right.” Zero nodded. He pointed to Janus seated nearby. “Abyss, do you remember her?”

“…” The Abyss paused, thoughts like slow wheels turning. “She is my creation. Yet why is the gender…”

“There’s a long start to that story,” Zero said, voice easy as smoke. “But relax. She’s with me. She’s safe.”

He felt the soul-pressure ebb, the storm lifting like morning fog.

“Safe?” The Abyss’s brow knit, a black sea wrinkling. “With your strength? I could stare and kill you where you stand.”

Why do I care if she’s safe? he wondered, the question a thorn. Maybe because she was forged with all my care, a masterpiece the maker can’t discard.

“Heh. Let’s table that,” Zero said, shrugging like a loosened cloak. Sealed as he was, the Abyss’s power was caged. That earlier soul-crush couldn’t quite kill him. Probably.

“You are a race swearing under light,” the Abyss said. The blood-red glow in the giant eye waned, temper cooling like iron in water. “You woke me. You know what I am.”

“Yeah. You’re the Abyss—the face of the deepest dark,” Zero said with a small smile. “But I didn’t come as light’s envoy.”

The Abyss blinked. The scarlet eye narrowed like a crescent blade. “So. From the Chaos Enforcers’ side?”

“Not exactly,” Zero said, head tilting. “But I’m doing the kind of work they do.”

“…You’re strange, human.” The Abyss drew a breath, a furnace taking air.

Zero lifted Janus and slipped off her mask, his voice soft before his hands moved. “Edlyn. Why so quiet?”

Edlyn shook her head. A tear slid down like dew from a leaf. She looked up at the giant eye, gaze steady. “Father. I—”

“Father?”

…

“How far are you?” A black-robed man stepped from the shadow like a knife out of sheath. He faced an Elf Race man. “Can we start?”

Yor frowned, lines carving his brow like dry riverbeds. “Say it twice and I’ll believe you, then hand you my command? Dream on.”

“You’ve held the Elf Race’s reins for years,” the man in black said, smile smooth as ice. “I want a few squads. You won’t miss them.”

“I don’t see your why,” Yor said with a sigh, like wind combing tall grass. “What do you need elves for? Just a few squads, yet you won’t drop it.”

“I can give you absolute control,” the black robe said, shrugging like a falling cloak. “Your word becomes iron. What’s left to fear?”

“Human, I don’t trust you.” Yor’s laugh was thin as a blade. “Your schemes work. Why should I act? The Queen treats me like a son. Soon the Elf Race is mine. Why rush?”

“Ah. You still don’t see?” The black robe clicked his tongue, heat under silk. “I’m doing you a kindness.”

“You elves live long. You think your Queen will just die on schedule?” He smiled, voice laced with a dark, smoky force. “She’ll still cast a shadow on your reign.”

If Era had been there, she’d have seen it—sorcery woven into tone, her own craft echoed.

Yor’s brows tightened, then eased like a knot undone. He still shook his head. “I don’t need to trust you. Thanks for your counsel on our development. On behalf of the Elf Race, I’m grateful. As for power—no.”

“So you’re saying you’re completely unprepared?” The black-robed man’s fist drew tight, a bow at full bend. Displeasure roughened his voice.

“I said I won’t be bound by a human. Please leave,” Yor replied, eyes closed, smile calm as a sealed lake.

The black robe sighed, a leaf spiraling down. “Pity. Prince Yor isn’t satisfied. I’ll pack up and go.”

“I won’t see you out. Please.” Yor’s tone chilled like dawn frost.

Use his standing to grab squad authority? With that little? As if.

Yor snorted, a dry twig snapping.

The black robe left Yor’s house, gloom hanging like a cloak. His figure flickered like heat-haze, then slipped into another home grown from white trees.

“Aivis, just as you said,” he said with a smile, voice a velvet rope.

An Elf Race man sat with easy grace on a chair woven of soft leaves. A game board lay between them, the pieces set like stars mid-constellation.

Aivis sipped tea, calm and noble, yet worry shaded his handsome face like evening over water.

“Oh? Yor’s hunger for power is real,” Aivis said, giving him a teasing glance. “Taking authority from him won’t be easy.”

“Relax. With me, Aivis, it’s a small matter,” the black robe said, sitting opposite and picking up the game like catching rain.

They exchanged a smile and began. Stones fell, soft as rain on tiles.

In moments, calm in Aivis’s eyes flipped to surprise, then to wary respect. He smiled. “You’re formidable, sir. I’m completely ‘dead’ here.”

The black robe smiled faintly, thin as winter light. “Rest easy, Mr. Aivis. I’m only a piece. However sharp, I don’t move the hand.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Aivis said, his smile returning, light but guarded.

The black robe nodded, a shadow bending.

He lifted his hood a fraction. A face surfaced like the moon from cloud.

Kait Osborne.