As the gate closed behind him, he was met with the vast expanse of an immense ocean that sprawled around him like a bloated whale, shimmering with the remnants of the cosmos floating across its verdant surface like ripe water lilies.

Sparing a moment to behold the rarely seen beauty of the Abyss, he couldn't help but ask why things couldn't always be like this in this shithole. Crouching down, he let his finger run across the vicious liquid, grasping onto one of the more shining remnants floating aimlessly with mild ease, its form being that of a shattered solar system that seemed to have been separated from its galaxy and dragged to this unfortunate place.

Despite its immensely displaced form, it retains its weight, the fractured planets dipping in and out of sync with its glistening surface catching his attention as they weighted their accurate mass onto his open palm.

Under the myopic of a wandering gaze, it comes to life.

The thing squirmed in his palm, silent cries resonating from its body as it screamed at the Heaven far above for an answer it would never receive, its body tearing itself from the middle as a spindly tendril squirmed to life and pulled at the air in a futile attempt of flight.

Sighing in defeat as the strange moment of serenity is broken by the Abyss doing its things, he cast his gaze away from it and toward the boundless ocean again, letting it fall back into the pond, thankfully returning to its non-conscious state.

To be frank, he didn't exactly know what he was doing here in this wretched place inhabited by the real abominable gods, not the prideful but harmless ones he had met or had conversed with in Life's endless kingdom.

Ok, perhaps he might have wanted to relieve some of his pent-up frustration with the stupid decision Belos had literally mailed it to him like some sort of pigeon post he had seen in the few human infested realities he had visited that were at war, which was realistically almost all of them.

So he could only take a guess that his irritated mind at times thought what better place to kick shit up than the Abyss?

In hindsight, he should have probably thought this through.

With a grueling pop, the entire ocean surface is suddenly frozen solid, rushing ice swallowing the gleaming remnants and barely missing Darius' feet as he propelled himself a few kilometers in the air in disbelief, barely dodging the frozen sheet exploding into a shower of mulberry shards.

Pulling itself from the new depths, something with heads akin to a tardigrade manifests as an indomitable behemoth, the mouths on its snout equipped with stylets of light extending like spears from the maws. If it had been normal light, it wouldn't have been of much consequence, but judging by the configurations of the shadow cylinders nestled within their core that emitted said glow, he knew damn well that they would rend cellular walls to mush, sucking the essence from its microscopic prey, which, unfortunately, was Darius.

Covering its eyeless visage was a translucent cuticle shaped in partners similar to scintillating scales that was formed from clouds and tribute of innumerable solar systems, their anatomy fading and shifting between realities. Broadening its cavernous maw, it breathes paradox, nothing less than a shimmering trail of mulberry ice colder than the void of space and only one step below the Entropic one found in the Lowest Ring of the Abyss.

Its main and much larger head has no separation between it and the rest of its gelatinous body, only its secondary heads were actively floating in the air, connected to its body through golden spines that shone with the same mulberry glimmer.

Speaking off, its torso was an unholy ecosystem, parts and bits of something akin to its offspring visible beneath the translucent skin, hibernating until the time was right to burst through their parent body like savage beasts and continue their species' wicked cycle of birth.

And if Darius hadn't had some experience in the Abyss, he might not have seen the Titan knows how many tails existed between fragments of time and space, their form a coiling mass of shadows and ice that ended in spiked miniature black holes.

Without even a greeting, the monstrosity unleashed a torrent of ice that was spewed from its maws toward him, the relentless cascade of frozen time narrowly missing him by the faintest whisker as Darius pulled himself from the danger by dropping into a gate that spewed him onto the Boiling Isle.

Or it should have.

WHAT?

For some nonsensical reason, instead of the humid atmosphere of the Boiling Isle, the now-frozen ocean greeted him like an old pal. Its surface radiated a hazardous light that by now would have turned him into an ice cube—or worse, trapping him to a collapsing timeline that would be devoured eventually by the beast in the future, if it wasn't for the abomination goo that covered his entire body like a second skin.

Standing merely a few thousand kilometers away from where he had been, it didn't take more than a moment for the monstrosity to stride toward him with a single push, the several walls of abomination being the only thing that prevented it from ramming into Darius and rending him to sunder.

Trying to teleport again from the Abyss to Creation yielded no results, and with no other solution, making fighting the only way of dealing with the peculiar situation instead of his beloved and trusted tactic of running away with the tail between his legs.

'Me, my stupid curiosity, and Belos stupid schemes.'

Belos, in fact, wasn't in any shape at fault for Darius' stubborn refusal to heed his boss's advice of not delving too deep into the Abyss, but now that truth wouldn't really help him.

With a click of his finger, a myriad of portals abruptly engulfed the beast, one to two to a hundred more bursting to life, their indefinite number encroaching on a third of the galaxyes vast monstrosity.

Focusing his will onto them, be it a star going supernova from Creation or an esoteric detonation from the Abyss, each portal was linked to a cataclysmic event that spewed their accumulated energy outward into a confluence of celestial might and abyssal acrimony, merging into a maelstrom of raw power that slams into it with enough energy to fracture the Milky Way three times over.

And perhaps if he hadn't gone against Belos' advice of not venturing near or past the invisible boundary that lay between the Upper and Middle Rings of the Abyss, the attack would have been successful on most things "up" here.

But alas, it did nothing further than make it even angrier, at best taking out a few of its offspring resting in its belly and across its back, their death empowering Darius a tad bit more, but not enough.

A series of absurdly more enormous waves of ice encroach on his position, ones that wouldn't halt in their indomitable path no matter how many walls and sharpened pillars he erected to block them.

Abandoning any hope of actually blocking its attack, he began to fall from gate to gate. Each time he resurfaced, the beast lashed out without hesitation, its body trashing at broken angles just for the chance to catch him, or his shadow.

Until finally, in an act far from a calculated decision and more of an intuitive response driven by forced-to-bloom instinct honed over years of survival, he dodged out of the way of one of its secondary heads, boots kicking it aside even as the surface made his bones stain and skin shiver before returning the favor by letting it pass through a more prominent portal, the only indication of its disappearing being the floating spine with no end and the tremendous clash resonating from the far distance.

Not wasting the precious moment of confusion that had overwhelmed the beast, he appeared above its main body, twirling his body to gain momentum as an abomination dagger instantly assembled in his left hand.

And by infusing his 'real' power into it, it was a dagger made from abomination liquid no more.

The blade ceased to be a material object, sharpening into amalgamation between sinew and the Abyss's influence, its rim gaining a rusted edge, ichor splattering and solidifying across its surface which mutated into lead, and from beneath the cracks on the exterior one could see the pure violet energy coursing through its core.

With a single grunt, he plunges the weapon into the main head, its blade stretching to inconceivable lengths, scarring the sky and splitting pantheons of daemons, altars of despair, and whatever alien life had existed in the far cosmos in twain as it cleanly dissolves everything that stood in its path. Slashing with all the strength in his body, the air ignites under his power, matter collapsing under the reality he attempts to impose onto the unhallowed beast.

The blast produced was catastrophic, putting every nuclear weapon to shame and shattering the frozen ocean below to pieces as the reality he mends into being states that the blade must crush its head and vaporize the rest of it and its offspring. The dagger plunges deep into the beast's head, sinew and frozen ichor exploding from beneath until, with a crack that rattles his bones, it lodges against its deeper carapace, locking his blade in place.

Despite his effort, the translucent beast counteracts the reality he imposed with a wave of flush ice that springs from the wound and freezes his blade, working its way up his left hand until he is mended to the handle, the indescribable grins that stretch across across its morphed visages causing him to realize his misstep just a bit too late.

Whatever protection he erects around himself is the only thing to save him from being split in half, one of its tails burying itself cleanly in his shoulder like the blade of a guillotine.

The blow rattled him, making him see frozen spots beneath his eyelids, the smell of frosted carcasses assaulting his nostrils that would almost make him throw up if it wasn't for the clog constructing his throat.

He screamed for just a moment, the agony blinding him made worse by being forced to cover the wound with a small layer of abomination liquid to stop the hemorrhaging, the melted mass of purple goo flowing down ashen bones and across the torn cloth to make sure nothing would get into his bloodstream.

His instincts cry toward him with enough intensity to break him from the frigid and spindle grasp of pain, forcing him to hastily shatter the ice bounding him to his rooted weapon as he dodged one of the heads that were seconds away from snapping his spine in many unaligned pieces.

Now that his last-ditch effort resulted in a meaningless failure, he was left with nothing to do but to flee and hope. His remaining strength was now focused solely on evading the relentless attacks of the unhallowed beast. With each evasion performed, the monster grew more relentless, injuries and bruises beginning to add up across his skin as he got slower and it got faster.

And slowly, a vicious realization dawned on him.

He was going to die

You would expect that after his many expeditions in Abyss, even if it was on the upper ring, it would be evident that death was a very likely fate, a kind one, but the naive mortal mind rarely desires to think factually.

So, with the fear and desperation overcoming his senses, a simple yet hazardous solution appears in his mind.

If he couldn't kill it...something else could.

Focusing all his power and "magic" into a single portal, the gate expanded further and further, beyond the boundaries of anything he had yet to create, the arcane energy throbbing like an erratic pulse beneath his undulating skin.

Blood and abomination liquid become alive and become clots and become madness as they rush through his rotting veins, bones pushed at circular angles against his flesh as the latent power that simmered in his core exploded from the inside, sending shockwaves rippling through his body that expanded in uneven flow and crumbling molecules.

Darius grits his teeth through the overuse of his own power, forcing shaking arms to obey and give life to the portal that would be his only chance at surviving. Pushing his hands forward—for the first time in his life feeling how his heart stopped beating before being fired back up by the viscous liquid coursing his bloodstream, he etched into the air fractures runes that made him gag onto eternity and allowed the gate to grow beyond the limitations third-dimension.

And with a vicious scream, they delved deeper into the Abyss.

He understood that, with his current level of power, venturing into the middle ring of the Abyss was a cruel death sentence. However, the alternative—whisking it into an unsuspecting, ordinary universe and dooming all sentient life there, wouldn't resolve the underlying issue of being unable to teleport away from it since there would be nothing in there to kill it. There was also the option of running to his home universe which would reduce its power and his immensely, but in his half-conscious perception, pissing the Emperor by bringing a Titan damn Abyss beast to his front porch scared him more than his death.

So, the middle ring of the Abyss it is.

As he readjusted himself by removing the weird gravity that permitted this small portion of the ring, he gets maybe a second to put some distance between himself and the thrashing beast before the overwhelming sensation of being watched buries itself into his consciousness, his mind filled with writhing tendrils that prod at his very sanity.

He turns, teeth shaking in their beds even more than when the pinkish ice had brushed along his skin, as something akin to screws lodged into his gums and locked his jaw tight as if rusted steel wires had linked them together.

He looks

His very bones tightened and bent on the verge of snapping, muscles pulled in in conflicting directions until a few of them imploded from the sudden contortion. His breath refused to leave the sanctum of his lungs, burying herself in the pink flesh of his respiratory tract.

There is an eye that is the sky, an eye based on the same line of thoughts that a bonfire is the sun, holding just a smidge of similarity almost like a mocking proof that it didn't wholly deviate from its mundane counterpart.

It shines with colors and patterns beyond the realms of terahertz radiation and infrared, showcasing glimpses of broken realities that clash in a symphony of impossibilities with undone paths forever untracked.

Cold rivers of red and violet slip from his ears and nose as he tastes the prayers of dying stars and hears the wails of flesh, his senses and identity scrambled and contorted until they crack beyond the monolithic being, superseded by something blasphemous.

And the worst was that it was just one of the eyes that existed in this small portion of the ring, judging by the broad shadows somehow similar to the eye that was the sky, their numbers stretch to ad infinitum.

Or perhaps the worst part was that this was just the Middle Ring of the Abyss.

The monstrous orb designed to watch realms burn under their own ambitions spares Darius just a sliver of its attention before it turns to his adversary.

That fleeting gaze forces him to see more and understand just a tiny bit more, melting his eyes into rivers of saline and rotting tissues and making Darius relive his past mistakest̸o̸ l̸i̸s̸t̸e̸n̸ againt̸o̸ t̸h̸e̸ f̸r̸e̸n̸z̸i̸e̸d̸ c̸r̸i̸e̸s̸ o̸f̸ h̸i̸s̸ b̸e̸s̸t̸ f̸r̸i̸e̸n̸d̸ as if new eyes had been etched into his brain and now opened to welcome the truth.

Perhaps they have been indeed etched, not that he was stupid enough to focus on that.

However, despite his flesh pulling against his body with enough power to break a few ribs, he can't help but let a weak chuckle that rattles his chest and makes him want to punch himself into unconsciousness.

Laughter is, after all, the best treatment for insanity.

"Oh, you are so fucked."

The beast he had been fighting could only let out a short but defiant roar as it spewed a wave of ice significantly more prominent than the one it had thrown at him in the vein attempt to fight back. But it was all for naught as by the time its attack could reach the eye, it had already split in two at its center, yawning into an uneven aperture and from beneath stretching out appendages half anthropoid, half something that made Darius look away and bite his tongue, afraid he would accidentally utter their name and draw their attention.

The appendages cover the distance in a blur so beyond light that they leave galaxies wide gashes of splintered time in their wake, making the enormous frozen walls irrelevant in their inexorable march, before grabbing onto the beast's body and its shadow that was trying to escape to the past and dragging them back.

And then a tendril pierces his chest.

He flinched, admonishing himself for letting his guard down as he hastily attempted to pull it out, only to stop when he realized that the tendril had barely pierced his skin, the owner of the tentacle having half their body stuck in the gullet of the eye.

Still, he recoiled once more as if shot in the brain, his already stained mind now swarmed by words in an alien language formed from mismatched and altering frequencies.

Words that now, against his wishes, he could comprehend.

"Curse you vacuous slave of the Laughing King of Incarceration, may you endlessly be hunted by the deathstalker of the abominable gods, and should your master spare you from your fate, shall you, your children, and your children's children wither before the Young Hatred forevermore."

And then it was gone, and so was Darius, not wanting to see what the eye would do now that his meal was gone, promptly slipping away unseen.

Breaching through the gap, the golden sun, in all its majestic glory he so dearly missed, greeted him by spilling its bright rays over his desolate form, painting every curve and crevice of his disheveled body in a light, ethereal glow. The light seared his eyelids, yet despite the trivial occurrence, it also warmed the very bottom of his heart.

Even when his mind reels as if it had been cast into the hectic vortex of reverse time, surges of tumultuous thoughts and insight crashing against the shores of his consciousness as his stomach churns with an intensity that mirrors the upheaval of his psychic, he couldn't help but bath in the sense of relief that washes over him as he crossed the familiar threshold into his home world, a strange feeling that haunted him after every expedition into the Abyss.

"Eh?"

Which was quickly stripped away as he whipped around and came face to face with a very startled kid across the Blight Central Estate.

"Fuck my luck."

Promptly followed by his stomach deciding it had waited enough as he regurgitated his breakfast.

Everything will be fine

Amity, to her credit and despite her previous statement, wasn't naive enough to believe the likelihood of a dubious event not occurring. After all, ever since the Convention, one day couldn't pass without something weird going on in her life.

Even still, that apprehension could have never prepared her for the right hand of the Emperor himself and the most renowned abomination magic user to materialize before her in a swirling and bottomless violet flash.

She did not scream no matter what anyone would say, so much as announcing she had been severely taken by surprise, his eyes sharply turning toward her. And as their gazes locked for a moment, she couldn't help but shudder ever so slightly.

The leafy eyes that met hers shimmered with chilling intensity, harboring the echoing of eldrich insight that danced an erotic waltz with abhorrent enlightenment across the delicate edge of sanity, a melancholy conduit for cosmic truths that had been forced to be unraveled. And then, as if awakening from a deep trance, it disappeared, the odd angles of his silhouette patching themself to align with the real.

"Fuck my luck."

From this, he promptly used that opportunity to empty his guts.

Beneath the kind light of the morning sun, the liquid shone like a nightmarish palette of purple, red, and green bleeding into one another, melding itself into a disgusting canvas of hues bordering on the unreal. And if Amity didn't see the tardigrade wriggling frantically in the puddle, one that was a cross between his fleeting sanity made manifest and the Beast rupture dream held in an enteral ribcage of ice, that it was all for the better. With each twitch, the thing became just a bit more aligned with the real, its dream crystalizing until it resembled just a bit more the unhallowed beast he had faced before.

Casting an unnoticeable wave of amalgamation from nothing, he covered it from view as he mercilessly crushed it to powder, bits of crystalline dream piercing the sheat of amalgamation and irritating his brain for reasons he would once again not focus on since if he did it for every weird occurrence related to the Abyss, he would have already lost his mind.

With an exhausted sigh, he slouched his body for just a moment, eye resting shut as the prayers and tributes made in the Beast's name washed over him, their pledge transferring to him, promising perpetual debauchery and planets filled by the cadavers of the sacrifices made in Darius name just for a glimpse of attention from their deity's killer.

Its followers, it seems, weren't as loyal as one would think.

The subtle, hesitant footsteps approaching him gradually severed his trance's encroaching tendrils, pulling him from the depths of the weird reverie. Focusing his verdant eyes onto the girl once again, now he could see more clearly the stiffness radiating from her body and the slightly forced but gentle smile that was stretched onto her face, the kind that the girl might have hoped to convey reassurance and not the clear anxiety that twisted her insides.

Stretching her unblemished hand forward, Darius realized that what the child was offering him was an actual tissue.

"Here, sir Deamonne. " Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet laced with uncertainty but also awe that didn't didn't quite fit his first impression of her.

Not really wanting to keep the girl with her hand hanging in the air for too long, he took the tissue and turned around for a moment to clean his face, succeeding in only slightly grimacing when he had to tear one of the appendages of the thing that had spewed from his guts that had been left embedded in his lower lip. Thankfully, it had somehow managed to blend in with the rest of the filth that had stained his face, so he hopefully didn't have to explain what the hell had been stuck in his lip.

Dropping the now very filthy tissue into the puddle where he could definitely still sense the twitching remains of the tardigrades trying to breach through its abomination prison, he finally turned his attention to his little helper, allowed himself to smile a bit as he rose to his full height.

"I must thank you kind stranger, and apologize for having to see me in such...precarious moment, may I know the name of my savior." He couldn't help but grin as he watched the young witch's face coated in a light blush, finger starching her cheek in slight embarrassment.

"I-It was the least I could do sir, who would be so insolent to refuse to give a helping hand to the mightiest user of amalgamation magic to have ever walk the Isle." As she was finishing her sentence, Darius could have sworn stars filled her eyes for a moment, the same way he did when he met his childhood hero all those years ago.

To meet a fan was always a weird but strangely pleasant experience for Darius, and although there have been a few less than enjoyable ones, he was sure the one before him wouldn't try to put a ring on his finger when he was theatrically fighting a Titan damn Slitherbeast.

"None of that sir stuff nonsense, just call me Darius as I am not some grandpa you need to offer your respect, although a name would be nice."

If before he had seen a gentle blush rush across her cheeks, now her entire face turned into a tomato as she realized her "grave" mistake, slightly bowing her head in embarrassment.

"I apologize si- Mr. Darius, my name is Amity Blight."

Here we go again with that Mr/Sir-

'Amity fucking what now?'

He took an unconscious step back, his sudden shock going unseen by the now still-bowing young witch.

Taking a second to really look at her, with the knowledge in mind he could actually notice the shared features that linked her unmistakably to her parents. The physical traits were a given, and Odalia's weird obsession with green was also present, but surprisingly the resemblance between them ended right there. Amity, with her slightly adorable hero crush and strangely amicable nature, was a stark contrast to her parents... personalities.

And he should know, that working with them for almost a decade under Belos's mentorship taught him more than enough things about Odalia and Alador.

'Wait does that mean that she knows?'

He allowed that line of thought to exist only for a brief moment before crushing. If he looked back to his hasty arrival, the young witch had seemed completely unaffected by what lay on the other side of the portal, the recognizable stench of the Abyss not perturbing her in the slightest.

Or perhaps that despite their grievances, he had some faith that his old colleges hadn't allowed their fucking child near the Abyss, which thankfully seem to be the case.

"Well then Amity Blight, what brings you out this early in the morning." He wasn't exactly sure how early it actually was, but judging by the fact that Amity didn't seem to show a reaction to his words, he got lucky.

"W-well, I was heading toward the Isle Library where I am working to gather a few months of working experience that might improve my chances of joining the Emperor Coven." That was only partly true as her job was also something she genuinely enjoyed, but the speech she fed her parents with fit best considering who she was meeting.

And who she was meeting indeed, because even now it seemed unreal she stood before Darius Deamonne, the man who had reached a realm of Abomination Magic that no other witch had even glimpsed and Amity couldn't even allow herself to dream of reaching, some even speculating that he was able to create gates that allowed for instantaneous travel across vast distances.

And judging by what she had seen only minutes ago, it seems those rumors were true.

Her inner fangirl was already drunk with glee.

Darius on the other hand, found Amity's statement a bit amusing, considering Odalia could click her fingers and Amity would get a first-class ticket into the Coven, but he let that slide.

"Well, then I shouldn't be preoccupying my savior any lo-"

His words were halted in their tracks as a sudden shift in the air alerted him of something that couldn't, shouldn't happen.

Not so much a crack but a rupture rocking a dozen meters behind him that made his blood freeze solid and the squirming of the Tardigrades cease.

Sunlight beamed onto the shambling particles of dust at odd angles, rays catching or jutting against each other as they momentarily blinded the young witch from seeing what lay behind him. A fuzzing in his ears and the chill that perforated his limbs seemed to heighten, the presence behind him seeming to stretch its being forward, many fingers undulating magnificently as it unstitched the strands that weaved reality together.

"Wha-" The young witch is interrupted as well, but not by the thing that he was more than sure was the Monstros Eye from the middle ring breaching into the world, but by Darius himself, as without even a shred of hesitation, he shifted his hand upward and a portal swallowed Amity whole.

The next second, she stood before the Bonesborough Library, almost two hours before her working hour actually began, with a new and bizarre interaction with her childhood hero to boot.

"What just happened?" She asked but the universe did not provide an answer.

Returning to a very tired Darius, the moment Amity was out of sight, he let every ounce of power that had been regenerated roar to life, crouching down for a moment as he felt the world around him vibrate with energy and perception grind to a halt. When he finally allowed himself to stand up straight, he felt two daggers materialize themself between his clenched fingers, their blade pulling the delicate rays of light alongside their trajectory.

The ground crumbled under his feet as he launched himself at the widening gate, from beneath the cracks left by his feet pillars after pillars of abomination liquid rushed alongside him, their sharpened tip shredding through stone and dirt before colliding with his target just as he brought his dagger upon it with a thunderous swing.

A tremendous blast rips through the air like a thunderous cannonball as Darius crashes into the thing with the unstoppable might of a speeding train. The impact is cataclysmic as it shatters the ground beneath it into a labyrinthine network of fractures that unfurled like a coiling spiderweb, the burst of energy capable of vaporizing an entire city block.

The explosive surges through the ground like an unending beam, hurling swirling fragments of earth into the atmosphere and turning stone into a shower of deadly shrapnel, the degraded environment being hastily replaced by the multiplying violet pillars that consume the forest.

Massive trees that were once rooted firmly in the ground are wrenched from their foundations and sent soaring through the sky like marionettes cut loose from their strings, their weightless ascent defying all laws of physics.

Then, at long less, the eruption settles, and for a prolonged second that seems to stretch out forever, the world falls silent.

Rising from the rubble, Darius gasped for air, his lungs shuddering with each gulf that entire his body. He felt tension and exhaustion creep along his nerves and penetrated his heart and mind and he breathed, again and again, until the world around him stopped spinning as much as it did.

Focusing his gaze on where his blade had impacted the ground, he was greeted with a ravin that bisected the lush forest in half, the animals and trees now completely missing, leaving only the rising pillars in their absence.

Yet, the devastation hadn't been able to retain his attention, eyes entirely focused on scanning for any sign that his target had been able to survive—and considering what the impossible eye had been capable of, there was more than a big change it did. Sure enough, as the smoke obscuring his eye was blown away by a sudden movement, he locked eyes with his target who stood on the sharpened tip of one of the larger pillars, their pristine white cloths bellowing in the wind.

"Ah Darius, my favorite employee, I always knew I could count on you for a proper welcome."

Why couldn't it have been the Eye that greeted him?

'Maybe it had been a less-than-ideal idea to awaken so early in the morning'

The young Blight reiterated to herself for the eighth time today as she caught herself dossing off mid-walk, managing to drop only two books out of the five that she was carrying.

Truthfully, eight hours had already passed since her hasty arrival at the library, the first of which she spent standing outside in the blinding sun, impatiently glancing at her watch and waiting for Sir Malphas to open the heavy wooden doors of the library.

For the rest of the seven hours, she gravitated between organizing some of the misplaced books, cleaning around the place, and reading to a group of children whose parents made a reservation. which all in all wasn't all that bad.

But now it seemed her lack of sleep was quickly catching up with her, and although she didn't regret waking up early—the thrill of meeting Darius Deamonne in the flesh still coursing through her veins, the reality remained unchanged: she was a second away from collapsing onto a nearby shelf.

So even if she felt dirty while doing so, after checking that no one in sight required her help, she retreated to her private study sir Malphas had generously provided for her to relish in a quick and harmless nap.

He watched as the pillars around the Emperor collapsed, the man simply appearing before him in a single stride, his new attire, marked by the absence of the over-the-top robe he usually favored, seeming to lack even a single wrinkle even after Darius was sure his now ruined dagger had collided with the man.

"You know a handshake is a good enough of greeting, no need to go overboard next time." To Belos' chagrin, Darius had at least the deviancy to showcase a glimmer of embarrassment.

"I apo- it was my mistake, got in a fight that was way above my pay grade, and lost my cool a bit at the thought of thing following me from the Abyss."

"Lost your cool a bit? I will dread the day I will see you angry.''

Darius snorted but quickly stifled the tiny smile that had endeavored to curve his lips upward, remembering that Belos was still a cunt who was at fault for this entire fiasco.

Well maybe not entirely at fault but the point still stands.

However, before he could speak another world, the Emperor tilted his head toward the pile of filth that the twitching horror was now hiding under.

'Of course, now you try to be sneaky, well tough luck buddy, Belo's eyes are nearly as large as his ego.'

Without any input, Belos clenches his fist, and the filth pile is crushed with enough force that it instantly converges into a sphere smaller than a picometer, the air around it breaking into uneven fragments that were dragged onto its surface.

The moment it happens, Darius feels the sudden pull toward it, the newly formed black hole unseen to his eyes but felt with the help of his heightened senses. However, instead of immediately plummeting to the center of the planet—its density which was trillions of times heavier than anything on the planet, burrowing into the planetary crust until it reached the center of the gravitational field from where it would eventually consume the planet, it remained completely stationary, clueless to the laws of physics.

Which, in most cases was not at all a surprise, but here in his universe was a rare sight.

Without any effort his boss flickers the unseen death through a newly formed gate—which Darius is slightly thankful for since right now he was not able to create even a single tendril, much less a gate to the Abyss, sparing in a weird way witch and demon kind of their death in a few million years when the black hole grew big enough to even be noticed.

And if Darius heard the screams emitted by the thing failing to mimic a Tardigrade, he didn't mention it, choosing to turn his gaze to his boss who was already striding toward the entrance to the gigantic manor of the Blights.

"Wait a second Belos, don't think you are getting out o-" Darius stopped mid-sentence as the Emepror raised a hand to silence him, his pace remaining unwavering even as he spoke.

"You are more than welcome to share your grievances with me once I have addressed crucial matters with your old colleagues, until then you can either accompany me inside or await my arrival in the throne room."

Gritting his teeth at the sudden shift in Belos' tone, he cursed beneath his breath at how quick he was made a blathering fool, but he supposed that is to be expected when converting with an old fossil like the Emperor.

"What do you even need to speak with those pretension bastards, can't you just send your minions to do that, you sure were able to a week ago."

Finally, his words managed to halter the ancient man in his track, hand curled around the manor's large doors, before turning to him, pulling the doors wide open as he did.

"So that's what got you all worked up, well regardless, even if I had no reason to be here today, don't you think it would be disrespectful to the Blight family not to offer some explanation of why the right-hand of the Emperor had decided to pave a miniature Grand-Canyone in their front yard?"

And without another word, Belos steeped into the sunlit hall, leaving the suppose living legend and strongest abomination user on the planet to curse behind him for a whole thirty seconds, creating scenarios in his head where he returns such a good insult that Belos damn choked and died, before succumbing to his curiosity and following him inside.

The entire manor was cold but obviously well-maintained, and despite its sheer ridiculous size it did not take him more than a minute to find Belos and the owners of the estate.

Alduin looks almost like an identical image of his much younger self, with the same cold and lifeless eyes devoid of warmth, cruelty, and all emotion in general, and his working attire as always smeared with abomination filth, ash, and the stench of the Abyss wafting unevenly in the air.

Odalia, on the other hand, stood as pristine as the snow descending from the heavens above, her pastel blue eyes betraying nothing yet

threatening in an all too real way, implacable in their cruelty, indifferent in the execution of their family will.

He meets Alduin's gaze for a moment, watching as the cloudy veil that covered his old college eyes is lifted, the grown-ass man glaring at Darius balefully, Alador welcoming greeting being rewarded with a much more mature swift middle finger for his trouble.

Leisurely strolling into the room, he took a seat beside the big man himself, for now halting himself from irritating their hosts anymore, or at least until the Emperor left.

Surprisingly, it was the Belos who broke the ice, his words carrying through the entire room.

"I can already gauge the damage that had been done to your probably, but don't you worry as a suitable fixture of your... redecorated front yard will be provided in

an appropriate amount of ti-" A ludicrous tinge twirled in her eyes as Belos began to ramble on about something insignificant as property damage, almost mockingly ignoring to the far more conversation both Odalia and Alador had called him for.

''Sir we both know something is more important at hand than the mishaps and incompetents of one of your subordinates." Darius has to literally bite his tongue to keep himself from saying anything back, choosing to just focus on Belos for now to keep his temper in check.

"We do." The Emperor replied swiftly, removing the golden mask from his face with a silent click and placing it on the quartz table.

"So what did our little human do to bother the noble Blight themself?"

Human? It took a moment for Darius to figure out what exactly his boss was talking about before a peculiar conversation he had with Caleb resurfaced, one where he had been barely able to not showcase his amusement as he watched the boy complaint about their last complete failure of capturing the "dangerous" criminal, the Owl lady, and her cohort of evil-doers that included a horned demon hatchling—or Titan hatchling to be more exact but that was beside the point, and a scrawny criminal human who needed to be brought to justice.

''Please, sir, don't treat us like we are gullible fools, the stench of the Abyss radiates from that thing is as pungent as if standing on the bottom of the Abyss itself."

Two large abominations intercut whatever response Belos could have had as they place four glasses before them, the lifeless being seeming to almost cower as Belos's gaze turns toward them.

Picking the glass up, the man let his finger caress the cool, smooth surface before raising it gracefully to his lips, downing the content of the glass in one go.

''And what could this person have done to earn your ire please do tell."

Her vivid eyes, like bottled lightning, flashed with irritation, before resignations herself to a simple sigh. Although immensely satisfying, something did also made Darius wonder why Belos seemed so nonchalant about a potential Abyssal threat roaming across the street of his empire.

Because this was Belos he was talking about, the most xenophobic person toward everything that held even a trace of the Abyss, actively not caring about one that was stranded on the Boiling Isle.

"Our ire is related to the fact that the...human had been wandering around Amity for the past weeks and judging by the Convention incident, we speculate that it won't take long before something like that will happen again."

That statement did earn a raised eyebrow from the emperor, eyes faking a glimmer of surprise.

"Afraid for your child well well-being? Odalia I must say I almost can't recognize you."

Clenching his teeth together was the only thing that prevented him from bursting out laughing, the slight upturn of the emperor's lips not being missed by anyone in the room.

"Har har, sir, your humor isn't appreciated nor necessary, especially when my daughter's life could be at stake." The women replied sharply, but anger well concealed, which realistically shouldn't surprise Darius considering this was Odalia, the women more tariffing than most things in the Abyss.

"Regardless of anything related to the failure of parenthood, your concern is acknowledged and will taken into consideration, but until further notice, the human Luz Noceda should be left alone without the interference of any who roam the land of my Empire."

Rising abruptly from her seat, her chair dragged across the ground leaving small marks on the pristine floor. The sudden action startles all inhabitants of the room and makes Darius almost gawk in surprise.

"This is absurd Belos, we are talking about an Abyss abomination wandering around the Isle and around our daughter, one that should, by your own rules that you had ingrained into us since so long ago, be extermin-"

Yet her unusually tense speech comes to an abrupt halt as the room's atmosphere shifts from merely cold to an intense and oppressive frigidity.

The entire world darkens for just a moment, warmth and light that permeating the realm of the living fleeing like cowards as Belos allows the Abhorrent Gods, Specters of Annihilation and madness indulging beasts that were nothing less than harbingers of debauchery to permeate his shadow once more.

Those lurking in the Emperor of Chain shadow one step out of tune with his reality are the real monsters of the Abyss, endless monstrosities that once had feasted onto universes but now are forever bound to the will of the Strongest Creature Alive.

"You will be the first to hear this but this is a message that will be delivered to all who serve under my banner. "

Belos rose abruptly, his chair collapsing with a loud rattle and leaving deep indentations in the floor, his towering height managing to dwarf the entire room. He took a step forward, his armored shoes clicking gently against the floor as he relegated them each with a glance.

"Any attack performed or envisioned onto the human named Luz Noceda, child in the care of Eda Clawthorn, will be a clear violation of the Empire's will, and failure to abide will result in the immediate dispatch and public disavowal of the offending party by the one they call the Emperor, the one existence christen the second Monarch of the Abyss."

The Emperor's intent had an unfathomable weight that seemed to pile higher and higher until it permeated the very fabric of their plane of existence,its texture cold as the bottom of the ocean and heavy as the blade of a guillotine that pushes their body downward until it threatens to swallow them whole.

By the usage of the Monarch title, one that Darius had rarely seen him use, all of them understood that this warning wasn't aimed just toward the masses and all covens only but applied to them as well.

At last, the tide of intent fizzles eventually into the twilight, the abominations in servitude of the Slave King becoming once more part of the unreal, and as such allowing the three of them to force their breathing to resume in their burning chests.

Belos didn't endeavor to ask them if they understood, choosing to turn his unflinching gaze toward Odalia.

Unsurprisingly to Belos, the woman was fairing slightly better than both Darius and Alador to the first chagrin, even if her real power was easily dwarf by his right-hand her willpower was another matter entirely.

"For what is worth it, if there was ever a chance for your child's demise by the human who had befriended them, we will be here no more before the information could ever reach you."

The room fell into silence as the Emperor placed his mask onto his face and concealed his visage, before turning around and gesturing toward Darius to follow.

"In more uplifting news, the reconstruction of your front yard should have been finished from the empire fund had been assigned a new kind benefactor by the name of Darius Deamonne, praise be his generosity."

And that did indeed made the Blights smile.

"Motherfuckers, all of you."

A blaring cry clawed its way up Amity's throat, only to be stifled a second later as she instinctively clamped her hand over her mouth, its volume sharply reduced to a muted yelp. The abrupt halt left her gasping, with the palm pressed tightly against her lips she could feel the rush of hot breath against her skin, each inhalation like a stain on her lungs, heavy and suffocating.

Only when their breathing began to slow, each inhale deeper and more controlled, did she allow her palm to leave her lips, placing it instead on her forehead, only to remove it immediately with a mingle of disgust. Sweat glistened on her skin, droplets trickling down her temples and disappearing into the tangled mess of hair clinging to damp skin.

Disoriented, Amity tried to recall her dream, only to come to a blank as the nightmare seemed to elude her, slipping away like grains of sand through her fingers and leaving behind only a vague, lingering sense of dread.

Rosing from her sleeping spot, she turns her attention to her scroll, the faint glow of her scroll showcasing that she had only slept for 80 min-

"Amity, are you in there?"

The sudden knock on the door startled her, hands clutching at the wooden desk, knuckles white and fingers twitching, before her fear instantly turned to a weird emotion as she regained her voice.

"Is that you Luz?" Despite her question, the young witch was already moving toward the door, a gentle smile stretching across her face as a warm feeling bloomed in her chest.

"Who could there be, another human? C'mon why do you lock yourself in there, don't y-you work here?''

As Luz's voice adopted a mocking edge, she couldn't help but let the tiny smile blossom into a full, triumphant smirk, her palm clammed onto the moving handle as Luz was probably still trying and failing to open the locked

As the warm atmosphere washed across her skin and chest, she pushed the handle halfway down but instantly froze just before the door could be open. Just as the lock began to yield, she pulled the handle back up as foreign thought encased her mind.

The door wasn't locked...so why couldn't Luz open it?

You see, Amity was not stupid enough to lock her only way out of a very small and very flammable room, even if there was a chance that Sir Malphas would find her sleeping on the job.

'So why?'

"Amity are you alright? Don't tell me you decided to lock yourself in there just because you didn't want to spend time with your good old pal."

She went to answer again but stopped herself, an inexplicable sense of foreboding building in her core and replacing the warmth she felt before.

Luz didn't leave even after Amity stopped responding, making the young witch's guilt eat at her inside as she could hear the genuine worry in Luz's tone.

Suddenly, before she could envision herself bracing for it, the entire building trembled violently, its very foundation quaking as a deafening explosion erupted somewhere within the library halls. The sound created reverberated through the walls and floors, sending shockwaves that rattled windows and dislodged dust from the ceiling and almost made Amity stumble to the floor.

For a moment, all she could hear was the demure ringing like she had been submerged in a body of water filling her ears and rattling in her joints.

When the sound subsided it was quickly replaced by the screams from outside the door. The handle was turning, rattling in place as the person on the other side tried desperately to get outside.

Rushing over to the door, she finally caught a glimpse of the thin curls of smoke breaching the room from beneath the door. The thumping grew in intensity as if someone was hitting the door from the outside with their fists, flesh colliding with the worn wood with wet thumps.

"Luz?" Amity yelled, pressing her ear to the flat surface of the door.

"Let us in! Help us!" came a voice from the other side. It was Luz's voice, primal and inexplicable terror palpable with each word. Underneath it, she could hear a faint whooshing sound, like a strong wind perpetually stuck in a tunnel and it didn't take her more than a moment what it was.

"There has been an explosion and there is fire everywhere Amity, the entrance door has been blocked off, you have to let us in!" Luz screamed desperately and soon her voice was joined by a familiar one. Amelia

She was one of the girls she had seen hanging around Boscha's group with green eyes, short light verdant hair, and a pointed chin and nose, and for the short period they had chatted had shown herself to be a friendly, albeit anxious person.

"Let us in! Please someone help us!"

The smoke coming from under the door was gray and acrid, and Amity coughed as it burrowed itself in her throat. The snap of fat burning and the sizzle of flesh cooking in its own juice assaulted her nostril making her bent over and gag, tears beading at the corners of her eyes.

Nonetheless, after a few terrifying minutes as her body fought itself, and despite viscous bile burning its way up, she rose from the floor, moving with purpose as she reached for the door handle, any reservation gone as her guilt won over her instinct.

She wouldn't allow herself to be a coward who would let down people in need of her help; she wants to be part of the Emperor Coven for Titan's sake.

But then, just as she was halfway to the door, the screams, the banging, and the fire suddenly disappeared.

Amity forced herself to blink once then twice, hands unconsciously rubbing against her eyelids, but sure enough, as she looked at the door again there was no smoke, no hammering of fist against its surface, the sudden absence bewildering the girl enough for her to actually give it a knock.

The sliver of verdant spewing from beneath the door and into the room was her only warning before the one on the other side answered her call.

A heavy mass slammed into the door like a battering ram, a single glance at the door showcased it was busted inwards, the lock and walls warped around the handle, the surface splintering into uneven shards. An unfathomable popping sound reverberated through the door into the tiny room, making her ears ring and blood freeze.

Amity barely caught herself by locking her joints, her unsteady movement making her stagger backward until her back hit a nearby shelf, the shallow impact sending books cascading down around her, their descent unstoppable to her numb fingers.

But then the thing rammed into the door again, and this time, Amelia's voice joined in once more, now accompanied by so many more.

An infernal sonata ruptures her eardrums, an unearthly wail reverberating through the hollow throats of the dead and the living that will command the unhallow gods to crumble to dust.

Like the stars in a moonlit sky, the walls around the door began to collapse, only somehow the door itself remaining in place while the rest of the room tightened around her until she couldn't even stretch her hand without hitting a shelf.

Amity

The pillars and foundations of the room were sagging, a large part of the roof caving in as it fell in front of her, crumbling the instant its weight was no longer supported, collapsing with the rattle of rusted bone and the crumbling of dry-rotted wood.

Let

Sounds faded away—colors bled into the air before going faint, as an oppressing silence constricted around her body, squeezing her until her ribs poked her lungs. And yet, even as the world is muted by an unseen hand, she can still hear their voice, fracturing ligaments spreading in and out of her brain and delivering their message.

Us

At last, a single piece of the door crumbles down, and her eyes are almost forced to turn to the uneven crack spewing a miasma of inky shadows only for a moment before the gap clears enough to see.

Out

The sky was an oil spill, infinitely dark, encompassing, and shimmering with a pale glint. Stars that could have once been seen scattered like gems across a black tapestry had all been consumed by the circumference of a pale moon that shattered the sky and swallowed the earth, the cosmos, and the void that binds them.

SIS!

Amity awoke violently, flinging her chair back with enough force to slam loudly against the wooden shelves of her secret hideout, fists wrapping around the edge of her desk, ready to hurl it at the incoming threat.

With a low click, the door creaked open just enough for her sister and brother's head to peek through, their eyes meticulously scanning the room. Curiosity was evident in their tentative smile which quickly grew into smirks as their gazes settled onto her disheveled form.

Well, disheveled for only a few seconds before, with a wave of magic, her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, sweet evaporated into an unseen cloud, and unease washed from her form.

By the time her siblings reached her, there was not a single obvious clue that something had happened.

"What are you doing holed up in your little room on a day as special as this?" Her sister's boisterous voice echoed through her private room, brimming with excitement and a hint of playful reproach as her arm curled around Amity's scruff, fingers ruffling her hair gently.

The young witch frowns in confusion, so many things fitting into a single crease of her lips as her mind searches for whatever could make this night special.

"Special in what way sister?" As they exited Amity's private study-carefully attempting and failing to pry herself from Emira's grip with her noodle arms, whatever response her sister provides is muted as they pass a corner, and the moonlight above cast a fragile crown upon her head that etched itself into her curls.

As twilight fades across the shining sky, her trembling eyes fixated waxing crescent moon that was marooned onto the horizon. It appears as a slender, curved frozen lighting of purple light, its delicate arc gracefully hugging the outline of the full lunar disc that shines down from a sea of stars, staining the world in a deep but tender violet.

Hastily glancing at her scroll showcase the time was 21:08, yet it didn't for a second dampen her mood at the fact that she had slept through the entire workday as a strange relief flooded her core and snuff the bud of fear that had tried to blossom in her mind.

"...so we deduced what better to do than break into your little workplace for the Wailing Star shower that will occur tonight, even got one of your friends to tag along."

She debated for a moment if there was even a point in admonishing her sister for breaking into the library in the first place but decided against it as she knew it would be a pointless endeavor

"Who would be even mad enough to join your cohort...of course is Luz."

Young one, you must never allow your foolish ambition to blossom into the unfounded belief that the Abyss is something that could ever be conquered by the likes of us. Forever cherish the endless tide of souls that had been lost in the War in Heaven so we could walk the Kingdome of Life, and be thankful that until the War that Will End All Wars, you will never have to stand before the impossible monstrosity that is the First Monarch of the Abyss.

But should you ever stumble into the realm of the unliving, know your ears will behear the cries of the unborn, the frenzy chants of the Forest, and the laughter of the traitorous Slave King.

-The remnants of conversation between a meager diety and a High Lord of Life's Kingdome

Notes:

So, it seems that this isn't actually a "Lost in Language" chapter... yeah sometimes you win some, you lose some but hey, now I have locked myself into actively having to write the next chapter around "Lost in Language" (unless I try to pretend that nothing happen in the library to get to Grom more quickly).

Now, onto the chapter itself, and what can I say except it is an absolute pleasure to write Belos, the Slave King himself but more importantly, we meet the big three, hope team Odalia ( population 0) is celebrating incessantly right now for not portraying her just as a disgusting and immoral being( eh maybe the second one fits a bit), just an abhorrent parent. I know, such an admirable character.

On another topic, something that I will try to do in the fic is to give every little thing, even the smallest detail a meaning behind it, so if you ever see a pattern beginning to build across the chapters, there could be a chance it is unintentional, but there is likely a bigger chance it isn't.

For example, in the design of the Collector silver disk, why is the star(a representation of the Collector) fighting a spotless moon? Who knows!
And no, I am making this very clear but the Moon doesn't represent the Hunter, it's just that it is linked to the Nightmares.

Another important thing I want to discuss is that I know this chapter was lore-filled with stuff that doesn't totally make sense but will eventually do I promise (mostly at least).
Still, there will be a little while before that so I decided to open a Q/A regarding my fic in the comments; so if you have any questions, from the smallest detail to a crucial aspect of the story, don't hold yourself back even if you believe the question will go into spoiler territory since I will just mention that.

With that said, thank you for reading, and I will see you in the next chapter (which is actually coming soon as it is summer)