CHAPTER 460: HOLLOW VEIN XXIV

The abyss shattered.

The spiral’s colossal form convulsed as Asher’s strike pierced its heart, the red flare of Dominion erupting through its endless coils. The force tore through layers of reality—each chain, each tooth, each screaming fragment of hunger breaking apart under the weight of his will.

The abyss buckled, folds of space crumpling like dying flesh. Rivers of molten rust cascaded down the collapsing walls as the spiral’s body disintegrated, its countless links bursting outward in geysers of metal dust. The echo of the strike rolled through eternity, a crimson sun blooming in a pit that had never known light.

Asher drove deeper. The shockwave pressed against him from all sides, the raw pressure threatening to peel his skin apart—but he didn’t yield. His scythe burned through the collapsing core, dragging the remains of the spiral’s heart behind it like a comet tail. The storm of bloodlight thickened around him, forming a vortex that swallowed the dying abyss whole.

The singularity tried to resist. Chains reformed desperately, clawing at the edges of the wound, dragging in debris, broken shards, even the essence of its own existence to repair what was lost.

But Asher’s Dominion was not destruction—it was dominion itself.

Each attempt to heal became another offering. Every fragment the abyss tried to reclaim was absorbed instead, its essence feeding the storm until the void itself began to bleed.

His bloodlight sank into the walls of the collapsing pit, carving veins of red through its infinite dark. The crimson glow spread like wildfire, splitting the black into lattices of living light. Where there had once been a devouring nothing, now there was motion—breath—power that pulsed to his rhythm.

The spiral screamed again, a final defiant sound.

"YOU—CANNOT—UNMAKE—THE VOID!"

Asher lifted his head, eyes blazing. "I’m not unmaking it," he said, voice low, calm, final. "I’m taking it back."

He drew his scythe up once more and swung.

The slash wasn’t just an attack—it was judgment. The Dominion that poured forth carried not wrath but absolute will. The bloodlight curved outward in a crescent so vast it cleaved through the abyss itself. The spiral’s eye ruptured, its black fire extinguished in an instant. Chains fell apart midair, not rusting, not melting—obeying.

For the first time, the abyss bowed.

The crimson flood consumed what remained, swallowing every last whisper of Devouring until even the echoes went still. What lingered was silence—profound, endless silence broken only by the quiet pulse of Asher’s breath.

He stood amid the wreckage, cloak torn, chest heaving. His scythe’s edge glowed faintly, drinking in the last threads of the abyss’s fading essence. The ground beneath his feet was no longer stone or void—it was something else.

Bloodlight had replaced darkness. Veins ran through the space around him like living rivers, each one resonating with his heartbeat. The abyss that once devoured all had become an extension of him—a scar of crimson authority etched into infinity.

He exhaled slowly, lowering the scythe until its blade touched the surface. The bloodlight rippled outward, obeying his will like a living sea.

Then came the whisper—not from the abyss, but from within it, now subdued, bound.

"Master... of the wound."

Asher’s gaze sharpened. For a brief moment, the reflection in his own Dominion shifted—his shadow stretched long, deeper than any light could reach, and within it, a faint, distant pulse answered him.

The abyss’s hunger had not died. It had merged.

He tightened his grip on the scythe, feeling the new resonance humming through its spine. The weapon felt heavier, older, alive with a rhythm that wasn’t just blood—it was the echo of what he had conquered.

The pit no longer reached for him. It waited.

And in that stillness, Asher smiled faintly, crimson light flickering across his face.

"The wound cuts both ways," he murmured, looking up toward the fractured ceiling above. "Now... it bleeds for me."

He turned, stepping forward as the red-lit abyss parted before him. The path out unfolded not as stone or shadow—but as flowing veins of light, leading upward into the unknown.

Behind him, the remains of the Devourer’s Herald collapsed into silence, swallowed by the blood-soaked void.

And with one last echo of his fading footsteps, Asher ascended—

bearing the abyss within him.

Asher emerged from the hollow vein cave, the last of the red mist curling behind him like dying breath. His boots sank into solid earth again—real, not formed of living blood or shifting void. The night air hit him cold and clear, a stark contrast to the choking heat of the abyss he’d just conquered. He paused at the cave’s mouth, scythe resting against his shoulder, and exhaled slowly. Steam rolled from his lips like smoke from a forge.

"That," he muttered under his breath, "was one hell of a dungeon run."

The words carried a weary amusement, a trace of human fatigue that even the abyss couldn’t burn out of him. He turned, glancing once more into the cave’s depths. The entrance was silent now—just a wound in the mountain, pulsing faintly with red veins that faded with each passing heartbeat. Yet deep below, far beyond sight, he could still feel it: the abyss. No longer wild, no longer defiant. It breathed to his rhythm now, bound within his Dominion like a chained god.

He flexed his left hand, feeling the hum of that power underneath his skin.

A demi-plane... just like the others.

But this one was different. It wasn’t a realm of light or life, but hunger—an endless wound that now obeyed him. The Abyss of Chains, once a devourer of worlds, now existed as a pocket dimension tethered to his will. He could feel it when he closed his eyes: the red currents, the rusted air, the sleeping pulse of something vast that no longer resisted.

He smirked faintly. "Guess that makes me its keeper now."

The walk back to civilization was long and quiet. The mountains whispered as the wind threaded through their jagged peaks. Every step Asher took left faint trails of red light in the snow, which faded seconds later. The exhaustion finally hit him—not physical alone, but soul-deep weariness from fighting something that had no shape, no logic, only endless hunger.

Still, victory had its price. And its rewards.