The darkness beneath the Abyssal Citadel was not just absence it was pressure, presence, and purpose. It had no name, only a pulse. A rhythm that echoed in the bones of those who dared approach it.
Selene stood before the obsidian monolith that sealed the Deep Core, her crimson eyes narrowed with reverence and fear. Darius stood behind her, his sword drawn, though it would do no good here. They both knew the consequences of awakening it.
And yet, they had no choice.
Oscar's body had taken the Blade of Heaven and shattered it, but something had changed in him. The abyss was no longer simply a source of power. It was conscious and stirring.
Selene whispered the incantation in the Old Tongue, syllables laced with curses and sacrifice. The monolith cracked, groaned, and then…
Exploded.
Out poured a tendril of living darkness, slick with time and memory. It coiled in the air, sensing the world after an eternity of sleep. Then it spoke, not with sound, but with thought.
> "You awaken me… for him."
Selene nodded once. "The Abyssal Core has chosen a vessel. He faces gods now."
> "Then I shall give him the rest."
The tendril shot upward through the ground, moving faster than thought, tearing a black vein through the earth as it rose toward the sky to Oscar.
Above the Citadel: Oscar Ascends
Oscar hovered above the broken battlements, his chest still glowing from where Heaven's Edge had struck. Blood and abyssal light leaked from the wound but his expression remained calm.
Therion, battered and stunned, hovered at a distance. "You should be dead. That blade was forged to kill anything unholy anything impure!"
Oscar didn't answer.
The air around him began to warp.
Then the tendril of the Deep Core shot into him piercing his spine, coiling through his veins, fusing with his abyssal heart.
Oscar's back arched, his eyes wide with silent pain.
Then he screamed.
The sky darkened.
The stars dimmed.
And the Abyss roared.
Transformation
His body stretched, cracked, and reformed. His left arm became something alien, an amalgam of sinew, bone, and voidsteel. His spine lengthened, vertebrae blooming with spikes. His hair turned jet black, floating upward as if underwater.
Wings of pure shadow erupted from his back not feathered, not scaled but shaped like blades, serrated and dripping with entropy.
Therion fell back. "This… this isn't abyss… This is"
"Evolution," Oscar said, his voice layered with others deep, ancient, hollow.
He raised his hand. A pulse of inverted light shot out, crashing into Therion's divine barrier.
It shattered.
Oscar moved faster than light and struck.
Therion's armor cracked. Blood fell like gold rain.
The angel gasped, eyes wide. "You're becoming… something else…"
Oscar stood over him, shadows writhing at his feet. "I'm becoming what the world tried to suppress. I am not the abyss."
He leaned down.
"I am its will."
With a final blow, Oscar sent Therion crashing to the earth, a crater forming where divinity met despair.
Below: The World Watches
In the Holy Kingdom, the high priests trembled before a vision that burned into their minds Oscar, clad in a new form, standing atop the fallen Seraphim.
In distant kingdoms, prophets screamed in their sleep, and stars fell from the sky.
Even the gods in their golden halls stirred.
"What… have we allowed to be born?" whispered one of the Celestials.
Back in the Citadel
Selene fell to her knees as she felt the pressure from above. Darius placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Do you feel that?" he said.
"Yes," Selene replied breathlessly. "He's not one of us anymore."
Oscar descended slowly from the sky, the wind bending around him unnaturally. The abyss no longer clung to him. It radiated from him.
"I'm ready," he said.
"For what?" Darius asked.
Oscar looked toward the distant horizon, where divine armies prepared for vengeance.
"To end everything that stood before me."
The First Seal Breaks
The divine realms had stood for eons, untouched, unchallenged sealed behind the Seven Veils, woven from the threads of time, space, and godly authority.
But nothing was eternal.
Not anymore.
High Heavens – Sanctum of the First Veil
A storm had never touched this realm. It was pure, serene, a city of light suspended over an ocean of stars. Towers of white crystal stretched endlessly into the skies, and choirs of seraphim sang songs that stitched reality together.
Today, the song faltered.
The sky above cracked.
A rift formed not clean, not divine but wounded into existence.
Out of it stepped Oscar, cloaked in shadow and crowned in abyssal flame. His wings stretched behind him like a funeral shroud, and his presence sent ripples through the very laws of the realm.
Celestial guardians lined the golden bridge leading to the Sanctum Core. Blades drawn. Shields raised. Fear buried beneath divine duty.
"You should not be here," one of them said, voice trembling with restrained holiness.
"I am the one thing your gods feared they'd never control," Oscar replied. His voice echoed without sound, breaking glass, unraveling light.
And then
He charged.
The Fall of the First Veil
The guardians moved in unison perfect, holy precision. But Oscar wasn't a being of flesh and blood anymore. He danced through their strikes, shadow flowing like water, claws and blades erupting from his body mid-motion.
One by one, they fell.
He didn't kill them all. Some he marked branding their souls with abyssal runes. Others he turned, twisting their divinity into monstrous reflections.
And then he reached the Core.
A great crystal, pulsing with golden fire, containing the First Seal the boundary that kept gods apart from mortals.
Oscar raised his abyssal hand.
The crystal reacted violently. Alarms of holy scripture echoed across dimensions.
But it was too late.
With a single touch, darkness flooded the Core. The light inside flickered, screamed and shattered.
The First Seal… was broken.
Earthly Repercussions
In the Holy Kingdom, every priest screamed at once. Statues of saints wept blood. The sun dimmed for three full seconds.
In the distant empire of Veldrith, the Empress of Flames felt her own power twist and smiled.
All across the world, those sensitive to magic, faith, or fate felt it.
The Veil was thinning.
In the Citadel
Selene stood at the edge of the abyssal mirror chamber, watching as the rift widened.
"He did it," she murmured.
Darius nodded. "And the gods will answer."
"Let them," she whispered, her voice filled with hunger. "Let them come."
In the Divine Thrones
The thrones of the divine pantheon trembled.
One of the gods, cloaked in burning white light, rose.
"He has crossed the threshold. This cannot continue."
Another god, older, horned and robed in starlight, remained seated. "Then we prepare the Second Seal."
"But what if he breaks it too?"
A third god, the God of War, chuckled grimly. "Then we stop holding back."
Oscar's Return
Oscar stepped back through the rift into the mortal realm, carrying shards of the broken Seal with him. He dropped them into the heart of the Citadel's abyssal engine.
It pulsed. Growled.
And awakened something ancient below.
Selene approached him. "What now?"
Oscar turned toward the north, where storm clouds began to churn unnaturally.
"Now," he said softly, "we make the gods bleed."
The Divine War Begins
The world no longer turned in peace.
The balance that had existed between mortal and divine had been shattered, the First Seal broken. And now, across every land and sky, the gods stirred.
Not as benevolent protectors.
But as wrathful tyrants.
Storms Over Radiantus
Black lightning tore across the skies above Radiantus. The Holy Kingdom's capital had long been a beacon of light and order but now, it stood trembling beneath the gaze of heaven itself.
From the clouds descended a figure clad in golden armor, wings of fire burning the very air: Seraphiel, the First Blade of the Divine Host.
Soldiers dropped to their knees. Priests screamed praises. But the people ordinary, broken, terrified felt no comfort.
They felt judgment.
"Where is he?" Seraphiel thundered. "Where is the one who dared defile the First Veil?"
No one answered.
And still, above the city, his blade remained drawn.
Waiting.
Citadel of the Abyss
Oscar stood in the abyssal throne room, watching projections of the world unravel.
Divine magic had begun to pierce through reality. Temples glowed with unstable power. Portals to celestial planes yawned open without control. Mortal champions, chosen long ago, began awakening.
"They're moving faster than expected," Darius said grimly, kneeling beside the war table.
Oscar said nothing. His gaze was locked on one image in particular.
Seraphiel.
A being of pure holy might. A god's right hand made flesh.
Selene appeared at Oscar's side, her presence cloaked in midnight mist. "He's the first they send. The blade. The test."
Oscar finally spoke. "He's not the one I want."
"Then why are we waiting?" she asked.
Oscar's abyssal core pulsed, dark tendrils spiraling around his arm.
"Because when I kill their First Blade," he said, voice cold, "I want them all to be watching."
The Heralds Awaken
In the frozen reaches of the Frostspire Mountains, the ancient bell of the ice temple tolled for the first time in five thousand years. Beneath it, a child opened her eyes—eyes that glowed with cosmic flame.
In the sands of Xadreth, a long-buried sword began to hum. Its wielder, a blind monk with a forgotten name, found himself once more called by destiny.
These were the Heralds mortals chosen by the divine to defend creation itself.
But the gods had made one mistake.
The world had changed.
And the Heralds were no longer loyal.
War Council of Shadows
Oscar convened his generals in the Abyssal Spire. The chamber was dark, swirling with abyssal energy, and etched with runes from worlds long lost.
Darius. Selene. Aldric. Even the Witch of Glass, long silent, attended.
"They send their champions," Oscar said, voice like the whisper of a dying star. "Let us send ours."
He turned to the far end of the chamber.
A chained figure stood there, massive, monstrous, slumbering beneath layers of obsidian steel.
"Is it time?" Aldric asked, a flicker of doubt in his eyes.
Oscar nodded once.
"I unseal the Abyssal Beast. Let them feel true fear."
Prelude to Annihilation
As the moon turned blood-red, the sky wept black rain.
Temples burst into divine flame, and the gods began descending into the mortal plane.
But they would find a world no longer kneeling.
They would find resistance.
And at its center
A man who had defied fate, consumed divinity, and become something new.
Not mortal. Not god.
Something worse.