Abyss Walker!

Bayat had studied a year at the Demon King Academy, a fledgling under a thundercloud. He’d heard the Source World called the Abyss an ally, and its people could draw on Abyssal power like night drinking down the sea.

Normally, when mortals touched the Abyss, nine out of ten got tainted—minds drowned, wills shackled, like moths trapped in tar. But the bigwigs of the Abyss had a pact with the bigwigs of the Source World. If a mortal passed a trial, they could wield Abyssal power without their spirit being bent, like steel tempered in black rain.

Those who gained that power were called—Abyss Walkers.

Bayat forced his breath steady, a drum in a fog, and really looked at his team. This squad hid vipers in tall grass. Xia Zuo came from a divine lineage, lightning in silk. Jast was a rumored Abyss Walker, a shadow with teeth. Then… what about Chloe? Could that senior really be just an ordinary girl, a pebble among blades?

As if reading Bayat’s flicker of doubt, Xia Zuo flipped a page of 999 Ways to Destroy a World, eyes calm as winter water. Even now, the most reliable one kept reading like a monk under a storm.

Xia Zuo glanced at Chloe, a firefly sweep. “Junior, remember her full name—Chloe Winlester Gulachidor.”

Her full name? Did that ring a bell, or did it hide a thorn?

Bayat searched the name like feeling for a hidden door, and found nothing but smooth stone. Jast and Xia Zuo didn’t explain; their silence was a tight bowstring. Jast broke the air casually. “Just memorize it, kid. One day you’ll know what that name weighs, like a mountain behind a curtain.”

Bayat looked at the subject herself, bewilderment a mist over his eyes. Chloe chewed beef jerky, steady as a grazing deer, as if she hadn’t heard a word.

She didn’t seem keen to explain, which left Bayat scratching his head, a sparrow pecking dust.

“So… what do we do next?” His worry rose first, a cold tide, then his voice followed. The road home had vanished like a bridge in fog, and they were stranded in a world with no map.

The four of them huddled close, shoulders a little fortress. Seeing their serious faces felt like a lantern lit in rain—suddenly, safer.

“First, motive,” Xia Zuo said, the team’s axis speaking like a blade tapping rock. “Why trap us here? Sure, maybe they acted on a whim, like wind tossing leaves. But they avoided a frontal clash, which means a mind behind the curtain. If so, they’ve got a purpose, like an arrow already nocked.”

“Then… let’s suppose the other side hadn’t hidden the World Gate. What would we do? How would the river run after that?”

Chloe chewed her jerky, jaw working like a metronome, then answered through smoke-thin breath. “If so, we’d report that humanity here is near-extinct to the Academy, like lighting a beacon. Then divine beings would come check this world, thunderheads rolling in.”

“So there’s something here they can’t risk a god seeing?” Jast asked, uncertain as a wavering flame.

“Close. But I think the splinter sits in that nameless world,” Chloe said, voice like chalk on stone. “That’s the root of all this rot. Our mission doesn’t change—destroy that world. As for this one, we’ve already sent word to the Academy. Even if the World Gate vanishes, a divine hand can pry open a new passage, like a knife through silk. We finish our summer homework before the main force arrives.”

“Otherwise… if divine beings show up and crush that nameless world with a flick, where’s our homework supposed to go?”

So in the end, Xia Zuo still cared about summer homework—like a scholar clutching his brush in a battlefield.

Plan sorted, lines redrawn, Xia Zuo took the map and led, a candle walking into a cave. The terrain had been eaten ragged by Devourers, chewed like rind by rats, so even with a map he moved with strain, a climber on loose gravel. The ground ahead looked gnawed and pitted, a loaf torn by teeth, and everyone’s scalp prickled like frost on grass.

Dead trees wore bite marks like crescent moons, here and there. Even rocks were chewed down to pits, like fruit sucked to the core and spat aside. Those creatures didn’t spare the soil either; even earth was bread to them, a horror with no bottom.

They really did eat sky, earth, and air—Bayat felt the danger settle in, a shadow over noon. If no one stopped them, they would eat the whole world to bone.

As they stared at the gnawed wasteland, a crunch-crunch drifted from afar, like ice breaking on a river.

A humanoid creature shambled into view. Its head was only a mouth, a cavern without eyes, without nose, without hair—just a huge jaw lined like a saw. Its hands and feet carried long, gleaming claws, and its skin was ash-dull, like soot on stone.

It slid a claw into a boulder. The claw went in like a knife through tofu, effortless as rain through mist. It lifted the stone high. Its mouth opened, a black cave yawning. Crunch-crunch—the massive rock vanished into that maw like sugar in tea.

“Devourer?!”

At a glance, Bayat remembered the rumored monsters, a legend with teeth. He reflexively hurled a lightning orb, a blue sun flicking from his palm, but the Devourer gulped it down in one smooth motion, like a frog swallowing a firefly.

“Figures. It eats anything,” Jast said, laziness burned away like smoke in wind. Interest lit his eyes, a hunter’s gleam.

For a test, Xia Zuo drew in the air, fingers painting lines like frost on glass. A magic circle bloomed under the creature, sigils turning like gears, meant to lock it tight.

Sensing the circle, the Devourer stabbed the ground. Its claw pierced the nonmaterial lines like a harpoon through a phantom fish. It tore a piece of the circle free, then threw the broken glyphs into its mouth and chewed, crunch-crunch, like a dog eating light.

“Not simple,” Xia Zuo said, ink-dark eyes narrowing. “Magic circles are nonmaterial, yet its claws touch that layer, like hands closing on fog. And that mouth eats anything, like a black hole with teeth.”

He kept lacing the creature with strange spells, lights like meteors skimming across night, while he scribbled notes, his brow smoothing then creasing like ripples on a pond. A feeling crawled up his spine—the Devourers had a backstory with weight.

“Weaken!”

Jast flicked his hand, a shadowy lash. The creature slowed, limbs heavy as wet rope. It looked weaker, like a candle guttering.

“So curses work on them?” Chloe’s hope rose like a spark.

The Devourer opened wider, a hinge creaking, and started chewing empty air, jaw grinding where nothing was.

“It’s… eating air?” Bayat blinked, startled, like a bird into glass.

Xia Zuo kept writing, gravity in his posture, notes scratching like winter branches. Jast shook his head, eyes like knives. “Not air. Watch its speed after the curse—see it coming back like tide? It’s eating the curse.”

Bayat sucked in a breath, a shard of ice in his chest. A curse was formless, a shadow with no bones—yet these things could eat it?

Jast drew a spear, steel humming like a wasp. He dissolved into a clot of black matter and slipped out of sight, like oil into water. A heartbeat later, darkness bulged from the monster’s shadow. Jast erupted from it and drove the spear in, the thrust clean as lightning. He ripped free—black blood poured out, a night river spilling.

“Not invincible,” Xia Zuo said, like a judge with a bell. “Their defense is thin paper. Their brains are dull stone. But one grab from those claws, one bite from that saw-mouth, and you’ll be meat on a hook.”

Under their eyes, the dead creature unraveled into black smoke, wisps thinning like fog at dawn.

Chloe stared at the fading smoke, her face drawing tight, fine sweat beading on her brow like dew. She’d seen something through a keyhole the rest could not.

They all turned to her. Bayat noticed, with a start, an eye on her forehead—no flesh, only an illusory iris woven from unknown power, a silver mirage like moonlight in water.

Deep in that phantom silver pupil, a riot of stars bloomed, a tiny cosmos turning.

“What did you see?” Xia Zuo asked, voice low as thunder behind clouds.

The omen vanished from Chloe’s skin, the third eye closing like a dream. She pressed her forehead, a touch unsteady. “Those things… the black smoke they become after death flies toward a certain world, like crows headed home.”

“A certain world?” Jast rubbed his chin, missing what even his shadow-sense didn’t catch.

“That world…” Chloe drew big gulps of air, bellows wheezing. “It’s not something we can touch without snapping, like glass under a hammer. Send the intel to the divine ones. Let them handle it. Whatever ties bind those monsters to that world, we still need to cull the Devourers here and erase that nameless world.”

Chloe had used a strange sight, glimpsing what lay behind the curtain. Her words hammered Xia Zuo’s plan into iron. From the look of it, they’d stumbled into a storm bigger than they were. As weaklings in a gale, all they could do was cut the source of the wind—end the place the monsters poured from. That was the only move left on the board.

“Hmph. Finish this mess, add the intel we bring back… and our graduation’s set,” Chloe said, wiping a line of drool like a cat after cream. Bayat had expected something lofty, a banner in the sky; instead, she cared about graduation, solid as rice in a bowl.

Along the road, more Devourers shambled in, each one the same hunger with legs. Material or immaterial, everything went into their mouths like snow into a furnace. Their own defense stayed paper-thin. Their steps dragged like chains. All told, they looked weak—until the teeth closed.

Even if you can break heaven and earth, if you can’t land a hit while they chip you nonstop, what’s the point? It’s a tiger with no fangs, a storm that never touches ground.

“Stay sharp,” Xia Zuo warned, voice a bell chime. “They’re easy if we keep our distance. But if you get raked by those claws or bitten by that grinder, it won’t be a joke.” He wasn’t kidding. Chloe had whipped out an artifact, a blade bright as dawn, and charged in high-spirited. The monster bit once and snapped the weapon like a twig—an artifact, broken like brittle sugar.

If that mouth closes on flesh, there’s no game left to play—only red snow.