Edlyn followed the Abyss's guidance and slipped out of the Elven City's lands, like a swallow leaving cedar shade.

Rarely did she not get lost; the path lay like a silver thread, the Abyss's last gift.

"This is such a hassle." She flew overhead, a dark petal on the wind, and sighed.

Her heart balked like a tied kite; how could she bear to leave Eli's side now?

But the hourglass ran thin; Eli was the Hero, and to help him, this was the only bridge.

She prayed the currents would carry everything cleanly when the time came.

After a week of straight flight, she came over an endless sea, a mirror of blue glass.

No island broke the water; only horizon honed like a drawn blade.

She scanned the vastness and touched the charm at her throat; the Abyss's final thread ended here, a string cut clean.

Edlyn drew a deep breath and knifed into the sea, an arrow vanishing into silk.

She swam straight down, a reed falling through fading light.

Pressure stacked like stone on stone; her speed slowed to a heavy glide.

Her brow tightened like a drawn bow.

A vast magic cloaked her like night, parting the water like curtains.

She kept dropping, a needle seeking the ocean's quilt.

Time thinned; the sun's touch vanished, and darkness welled like a gaping beast, swallowing her small shape whole.

Impatience pricked like nettles, and then her feet kissed the seafloor, cold as bone.

She walked, sand puffing like dusk smoke, toward the lone shard of light ahead.

The ground twisted like broken coral, yet her steps flowed calm as water.

Strange fish hovered around her like knives, wary and hungry, watching the little girl skip like a pebble.

She spotted a cave mouth half buried under a massive stone; her brow gathered like storm clouds.

The half-shuttered mouth bled an eerie orange glow, lantern-warm and wrong.

She reached the lip, and the boulder split along its heart, a seam opening like dry clay.

Two monstrous eyes bloomed upon the stone, round as blood moons on granite.

Crimson pupils swept her body like a hawk weighing prey.

Startled, she snapped a palm strike, lightning cracking bamboo.

A black shockwave surged like ink across parchment, driving straight at the eyes.

The giant eyes took the blow like stone under rain and didn't stir.

A voice rose from nowhere, tides echoing in a cave, ancient and sanded.

"Heir of the Abyss, have you finally come?" The eyes drank her blast like smoke and ash.

"What?" Shock bit like ice as she stared at the unreacting eyes.

After those words, the eyes quieted and slid shut like sinking lids.

She stood frozen, confusion buzzing like trapped bees.

Deep water heaved; a sudden surge rolled like mountains turning underground.

The sea below churned nonstop, boiling black tea in a vat.

Edlyn gathered power fast, lashing her feet like roots gripping the seafloor.

So the eyes belonged to the colossal creature before her, a mountain of flesh.

She took in its shape: a giant octopus, arms drifting like torn banners.

It slid its head aside, and the sealed mouth yawned open like a canyon.

A breath both familiar and strange poured out like warm iron from the crack.

She stared at the gaping fissure, and the corner of her mouth twitched like a fish on a hook.

"What the hell is this..."

From the fissure, a man who looked much like the Abyss drifted out, ghost-pale and slow.

"... Hm? Why isn't it him?"

Edlyn...