Previously, on Sword Of Vengeance
A bird's view of the earth reveals a stunning and vast landscape, blending natural and human-made features into a breathtaking tapestry.
From above, a river snaked through the valley, and its shimmering waters carved pathways into the earth.
Fields, forests and deserts create patches of green, brown and golden hues resembling an intricate quilt.
Cities appear as dense clusters of geometric patterns, with roads and buildings forming grids and organic shapes.
Mountains rise majestically. Their peaks were crowned with snow, while the oceans stretched endlessly, reflecting the sky with varying shades of blue.
The horizon stretched vastly into the unknown, reminding the observers of the earth's flatness, and the clouds cast soft shadows over the land below.
As the earth gradually shrinks into the distance, a fragile blue orb is suspended in an endless black expanse of space.
The thin veil of the atmosphere glows faintly, its gradient shifting from vibrant blues to indigo before giving way to the void beyond.
Below, the contours of continents and oceans blur as they disappear entirely as the shapes of the earth fade from view
Above, the vast emptiness of outer space stretches infinitely. Silent canvas punctuated by stars of every size and brightness.
While the sun looms nearby, a fiery sphere of nuclear fusion radiates light and heat across the solar system.
Its golden rays illuminate nearby realms.
The Babwalel realm glints like a scorched rocky gem while the Gamboni realm shimmers with a pearlescent haze.
Its thick clouds hide its surface.
The lumi realm glows faintly. The dusty terrain hints at ancient mysteries, and further away, the gas giants come into focus.
As for the Dall realm, it dominates the scene completely. Its swirling storms and colossal size cast an imposing presence.
While the Gilostral realm rings in gleaming light. Delicate, yet massive.
In between these two celestial bodies, the asteroid belt drifts like a cosmic river of tumbling rocks, some no larger than pebbles and others vast enough to cast shadows on the moon.
Beyond the planets, the icy expanses of the Kuiper belt stretch out, home to frozen realms like the Jarath realm, drifting silently in the cold void.
As the scenes widen, the solar system dissolves into a broader tapestry of the Milky Way galaxy.
The stars cluster together in a dense spiral, their combined light forming glowing arms that stretch for thousands of light years. Nebulae, vast clouds of gas and dust, dot the galaxy like colourful brush strokes glowing pink, purple and blue as new stars are born in between them.
Deeper still, the vast web of the universe reveals itself.
Galaxies whirl in countless numbers, some colliding in a slow-motion dance, others spiralling quietly in solitude.
Between them lie immense voids, unfathomable stretches of nothingness, while the faint glow of distant quasars hints at the immense power of supermassive black holes.
The scene is endless, a horizon that stretches infinitely in all directions.
The quiet majesty of the Cosmos speaks not only of its vastness but mysteries. The unseen forces of dark matter and dark energy, pulling and expanding beyond comprehension.
It is a view of infinite wonder, a glimpse of eternity itself.
Eleuren's eyes slide open; she groans and shuts her eyes again. A nauseous feeling overwhelmed her.
She tries to move her hands freely only to realize a chain holding her wrist still.
Her eyes snapped open, wide with sudden awareness, and her gaze fell immediately to her wrist. There, a gleaming chain cut through the thick darkness, its metallic sheen almost burning with a strange intensity.
The chain extended from her wrist, its length stretching into the abyss, disappearing into the horizon where the shadows swallowed it whole.
Each time she attempted to pull the chain closer, a draining force surged through her, as if the very act of resistance was leeching away her energy. The chain responded in kind, its glow intensifying with each futile pull, its brilliance growing ever more consuming.
She tilted her head up, her gaze meeting nothing but an expanse of vast emptiness at first, a suffocating void that seemed to stretch endlessly. But as her focus sharpened, she felt something—an unfamiliar vibration humming through the air. The ground beneath her seemed to tremble, and the whole space quivered as the vibration built, escalating into an unseen force that reverberated with a growing intensity. Suddenly, with a violent eruption, the energy collapsed into a blinding, otherworldly explosion, momentarily lighting the entire place in an overwhelming flash of light before it was swallowed once more by the dark.
It was then that she began to understand the true nature of her surroundings, the realization creeping slowly into her mind.
Below her stretched an endless expanse, an infinite space so vast and incomprehensible that, from her vantage point, she could hardly grasp the depth of what lay beneath.
The mere sight of it—a boundless abyss stretching into eternity—sent an icy shiver down her spine, a primal fear rising in her chest. It felt as though the very space itself was alive, watching her, pressing in on her with an unseen weight.
As the echoes of a subtle heartbeat began to reverberate through the air, a strange, faint red ambience started to glow in the periphery of her vision.
At first, it was almost imperceptible, a mere flicker at the edges of the darkness.
But soon, it grew, casting an eerie, muted light over everything.
Before she could process what was happening, the space around her seemed to shift. Large, fragile wombs began to materialize out of the air, their translucent surfaces glimmering softly in the dim light.
They pulsed gently, as if alive, and she could feel their presence—a sense of something ancient and unfathomable taking form.
All of the wombs were connected by a vast network of tentacles, long and sinuous, stretching out like veins feeding into some larger, unknowable source.
The tendrils moved with a life of their own, slowly, deliberately, weaving between the wombs and binding them together in a grotesque, yet strangely organic pattern.
The air grew thick with tension, and she felt herself drawn into the unsettling reality of this place, a place that seemed to exist outside of time, where the boundaries between life and death, creation and destruction, blurred into an unfathomable nightmare.
Panic surged through her, freezing her in place. She was trapped, consumed by a growing sense of dread.
I need to get out of here.
she thought desperately, her mind racing in every direction.
Wait—where are they holding Princess Gamina?
The question escaped her thoughts like a whisper, sending ripples through the vast emptiness that surrounded her.
The stillness of the place was broken by the echoes of her panic, disturbing the oppressive silence that had hung thick in the air.
A cold sense of betrayal washed over her, gnawing at her from the inside. The weight of it pressed against her chest as she realized something that made her heart race even faster.
Even her thoughts aren't confined to her alone?
The idea was a chilling revelation, as if her mind was no longer her own, no longer a sanctuary from the horrors around her.
She felt exposed, vulnerable, as if something—someone—was watching, listening, invading her deepest fears and doubts.
"Hmmm, this one is awake."
A thick, malevolent voice filled the air, its tone, a chilling blend of both a female and male presence, reverberating from the unknown depths of the void.
The sound was like a dark lullaby, each word twisted with malice, and it sent a wave of unease through her, alerting her to something far worse than she had yet imagined.
Suddenly, two colossal fiery eyes snapped open, their size so immense that the Earth seemed insignificant in comparison. They were larger than anything she could comprehend—so vast that the sky itself could not even hope to reveal a fraction of their scale.
The very sight of them felt like gazing into the abyss as if they were gateways leading into some ethereal damnation, an unfathomable darkness that threatened to swallow all that was.
The eyes burned with an intensity so powerful that they seemed capable of obliterating her with a mere glance. Their heat was palpable, even from where she binded, and the weight of their gaze bore down on her like the crushing pressure of a thousand storms.
For a moment, she felt as if she were caught in a hallucination, as though her mind could not possibly process the enormity of what she was witnessing.
But then, to her horror, the eyes began to shrink—slowly at first, their fiery glow flickering and dimming as they lost their terrifying size. The air around them seemed to warp, and as their monstrous presence receded, a vast, dark black-bluish aura began to take shape.
The energy twisted and writhed, coalescing into a form—something far worse than the eyes had been.
It solidified into a hulking, skeletal entity, its form partially obscured by a shadowy mist.
The skull was massive, an empty, hollow visage of death that radiated power and ancient evil. The entity's mere presence was enough to make the very air crackle with dread, and she could feel the ground beneath her tremble as if the world itself was recoiling from the force of its existence.
With little resistance, the dark presence invaded the void where she was bound, its cold, oppressive energy seeping into every corner of her mind.
It spread quickly, wrapping itself around her consciousness, like an unstoppable force.
Her body stiffened as she craned her neck to the right, instinctively closing her eyes in an attempt to shield herself from the overwhelming heat and blinding brightness that poured into the space.
The light seared through her eyelids, burning through the darkness, filling every inch of the air with a searing intensity.
She could feel the heat crawl across her skin, prickling her flesh as it engulfed her in its suffocating embrace.
Before she could comprehend the magnitude of what was happening, she realized, with growing horror, that her senses were fading again. Her limbs grew heavy, her thoughts muddled, and the world around her seemed to blur at the edges as her consciousness slipped away.
The weight of exhaustion was unbearable, and she fought to hold onto reality, to resist the pull of oblivion that threatened to claim her once more.
Tears—pure, angelic tears—began to slip from her eyes, tracing the curves of her cheekbones as memories surged unbidden into her mind.
The face of Thirteenth Prince Marcus appeared before her, his image flickering like a ghost.
She saw him in his final moments, struggling to breathe as the life drained from his body, his eyes filled with regret and pain, his words a whispered prayer to her before he succumbed to death's grip.
The memories were too much, the weight of them pushed her closer to the edge.
Desperately, she balled her hands into fists, her nails digging deep into her palms.
The sharp pain was a fleeting anchor, a final attempt to keep her from surrendering to the darkness. Her hands trembled, the sting of her nails a cruel reminder of the fight she still had left within her—no matter how fragile that fight had become.
But it was all futile.
There was a reason she had awakened in the first place, but now, that reason seemed to slip further and further away, as if it were a distant memory fading into oblivion.
Gradually, her fingers began to uncurl, moving on their own, the tight grip she had on reality loosening with each passing moment.
Her body grew heavier, the energy draining from her limbs, and her mind became a swirling fog. She could feel herself slipping, the pull of the dream world more powerful than any force she could resist.
The edges of her consciousness blurred, and the world around her began to fade, replaced by the dark abyss of slumber.
The once vivid awareness she had was now drowning in the vast expanse of Hades' realm, her spirit sinking further into the depths of that eternal, unrelenting night.