CHAPTER 34: LORD

The Endless Abyss — Unknown Layer.

"What a twisted world this is!"

Velik, the radiant dragon of the divine nest, ground his claws into the corpse of an abyssal beast.

The body was rotten, its flesh oozing a stench that burned his throat and clung onto his scales like poison.

Even for one as proud as him, the smell was too much. His chest tightened, and he shook himself free, trying not to gag.

"Disgusting... not just the land but everything in this wretched world" he hissed, his voice laced all the disgust he could muster.

A shadow moved in the distance, something lurking in the shadows.

Velik didn’t hesitate, his lungs swelled, and he released a violent blast of compressed wind that tore across the landscape. The lurking creature almost instantly burst into pulp, and its ichor sprayed over the scarred ground.

The hiss of its death gave Velik a moment’s relief, but his anger soon boiled again.

"Damn this world! Every layer we lose something! Osiris is now gone, the Ancient Tree Furth is dead and one by one the old champions are being scattered, lost, or corrupted. The Abyss is cutting the paths between us, fucking space twists with no sense, now we can’t even track the layers anymore!"

His roar carried across the foul landscape.

There was a silence for a moment. Then something answered, a deep rumble echoed across the land.

The behemoth beside him stirred. Towering like a living mountain, with tusks gleaming like ivory pillars, its body seemed unshakable. Yet its eyes were heavy, and its voice carried a weight Velik did not expect.

"Caution, Velik. What disturbs me most is not the filth we tread... but the power within me. It is... weakening."

Velik’s head snapped toward him.

The behemoth,Raku, was no ordinary creature. It was born from the raw origin of creation itself, his power was endless by nature.

He could shatter armies with each step. His bloodline had spawned mighty orcs, with the proudest of whom carrying the title Bloodline of Behemoths. These orcs wielded fragments of his power as their own, spreading his might across the world.

Such strength should have been eternal. Not even time should diminish it, unless the Creator Himself had decreed it.

Yet here, in this broken plane, the impossible was happening.

The behemoth’s colossal head tilted upward. Above them churned a firmament of crimson sky, its clouds twisted into a black-red vortex. The storm pulsed like a festering wound, and the creature’s eyes, ancient and proud, flickered with something Velik never thought he’d see, doubt.

"Impossible... Can this world strip away the very rules of power?"

It shook itself, unwilling to linger on the thought.

Velik forced his own doubts aside, wings stretching. "I’ve found the entrance to the next layer!" he shouted, pointing his snout to a spiraling tunnel of darkness ahead. "We move forward!"

The behemoth gave a heavy nod. Together, the two titans stepped inside.

⸻———x——————

Every new layer was worse than the last.

A boundless swamp stretched out before them, waters bubbling with acid that hissed and frothed as if it was alive. Steam rose in waves, carrying the stench of corrosion into their lungs. Velik gagged and snapped his wings in irritation.

"This is worse than the last," he muttered. The gleam of his scales, once dazzling, seemed to dim under the crushing miasma.

"Careful!" the behemoth rumbled.

But the warning came too late.

The swamp heaved. From the vile ocean, massive shadows surged upward. Tentacles thick as towers, slick with burning slime, wrapped around Velik.

He roared in pain, and the acidic slime burned through his scales, eating into his flesh.

Here, neither curse nor poison could be shaken off. The swamp itself fought to consume him, blood leaked through his scales, and the monsters tightened their grip, feeding on it.

"Leviathans," the behemoth growled, charging forward.

The swamp exploded under his pounding hooves. Sonic cracks split the air as his bulk collided with the tentacles, he tore through them like wet paper.

The Leviathan screamed as its body split in half, collapsing into the mire.

But its blood only worsened things.

The swamp surged with life. Countless smaller abyssal creatures, vermin and spawn, rose from the muck, drawn by the scent.

They swarmed, a frenzy of gnashing teeth and writhing limbs.

"Wielg treak!" Velik bellowed in dragon tongue.

He loosed a storm from his chest, and the blast scattered the swarm like leaves in a gale. Seizing the opening, he lunged at another Leviathan, clamping his jaws around its skull. With a twist, he crushed it, its brains spilling in a gush of gore.

He spat the foul taste aside. "Filthy wretches! They look terrifying, but their strength is pitiful." He smirked as the surviving Leviathans slithered back into the depths.

But the behemoth did not smile. His voice quivered with dread. "My power weakens further... and something’s coming."

Velik frowned.

The air shifted, and the swamp grew still. Even the vermin fell silent.

Then a sound came with broken, trembling syllables, whispered by countless throats.

"Mordingnagnt..."

"Mirebdingane..."

The voices came from everywhere. From the Leviathans, to the spawn. Even the smallest crawling things. All of them whispered the same word.

The swamp itself began to change. Acid boiled away into black mire, bubbling as though something massive clawed beneath the surface.

And then a shadow rose, blotting out the sky. Its body was bound in chains that glowed faintly. Wings of midnight stretched wide, swallowing what little light remained. A dragon’s form, but drowned in shadow.

Velik froze. His blood thundered in his veins, and his voice broke to a whisper.

"Osiris...?"

The figure before him was unmistakable. The shape, the stance, even the rhythm of its breath. Once, this dragon had been his closest ally, a brother-in-arms who had fought by his side in the Creator’s wars.

Together they had carved down monsters, defended holy ground, and laughed in the skies above the world they swore to protect.

But the Osiris before him was not the same.

His wings dripped with shadow like tar, and his scales, once radiant obsidian, now crawled with unnatural patterns that writhed and shifted like parasites under the skin.

Velik’s stomach twisted.

"You... you betrayed us? You betrayed everything?" His voice sound with a quiet anger. "You’ve betrayed the Creator? the angels, our vows—for what?!"

Osiris’ head lifted. His eyes burned, not with shame but with a mocking fire.

Velik’s fury exploded. He didn’t wait for Rakus counsel, nor did he stop to weigh the danger. His wings spread wide, a storm gathered around his body and with a roar that split the swamp, he hurled himself forward.

But Osiris had not come alone.

The ground beneath them quaked, the acidic ocean convulsed, and from the heart of the swamp, something clawed its way free.

Eight heads rose above the mire, each grotesque and distinct. Horns twisted from their skulls like broken spears. Their eyes glowed with an evil that belonged only to the abyss.

Where they looked, the world withered.

The swamp curdled into black sludge. The air thickened into poison, and even the laws of space twisted.

The whispers of the creatures below sharpened into one name.

"Mirethane..."

Velik’s heart sank. At last he understood why even the mindless vermin had fled,it was not due to Osiris new form.

What descended was not a regular abyssal creature, it was not even a peak legendary creature as the abyss’s strongest warriors had been, Velik could tell before it had even fully emerged, this was a monster beyond anything he had seen.

One of Mirethane’s heads lowered, gazing at Velik. It did not attack, nor roar, just a glance, and still that look alone pierced him deeper than any blade.

Something inside his soul began to rot, his courage unraveled like frayed cloth.

As his will to fight quivered on the edge of breaking, his faith cracked, It was as if every certainty he had carried since birth, his strength, his beliefs, his purpose, was being dissolved, stripped away with each passing second the colossus stared at him.

Velik staggered back, chest heaving.

And then Osiris lunged, jaws clamping around Velik’s wings. His flesh tore, and Velik’s roar shook the swamp.

"Velik..." Osiris’ voice was a guttural snarl, vibrating with madness. "Do you see now? Do you understand why I chose this path?"

"This is betrayal!" Velik roared back, summoning storms into his lungs. He unleashed them in a torrent, winds sharp as blades tearing across Osiris’ face. The blast ripped away half his cheek, shattering scales, and exposing flesh.

But Osiris laughed.

The wound bubbled, split, and regrew. Tiny black buds sprouted across his torn face, weaving it back together.

But the healing left him more monstrous, his jaw was now distorted, lined with jagged fangs; his scales mottled with red and black; and from the crevices of his skin, dozens of twitching eyes blinked into existence.

"I found a greater master," Osiris sneered, his voice warped by abyssal echoes. "A power beyond angels. Beyond even the Creator Himself. The Endless Abyss."

He opened his maw. Abyssal syllables spilled from his tongue, a language Velik had never heard yet instinctively despised.

Flames burst forth but they were not fire. They were black, thick as oil, and crawling like liquid shadows.

They did not burn Velik’s scales, instead they infected them. The flames seeped beneath his armor, burrowing into his flesh. And where they touched, parasites erupted, small and writhing, gnawing his body from within.

Velik screamed, thrashing in agony. He summoned his authority, trying to knit his body whole, but the corruption spread faster than he could heal. Every attempt only fed more of the infection.

"Do you see now?" Osiris laughed, pressing harder. His voice dripped with madness.

"Here I am unbound! No rules! No hollow virtues! With only power mine to seize!."

His form writhed. Tentacles sprouted from his back like living branches, wriggling in the air. His tail split into forks, each sprouting serpent heads that hissed and struck. His horns cracked, falling away, replaced by jagged angles etched with black abyssal runes.

Each deformity carried the essence of another champion.

"I’ve slain the Ancient Tree! Silenced the Serpent of Wisdom! Torn apart the Unicorn Mother! Their powers now all mine!" Osiris spread his wings wide, body trembling with stolen divinity. "Look upon me, Velik! Look upon the form of a god reborn!"

Velik’s eyes widened with horror.

"You... depraved monster!" Velik roared. He thrashed beneath Osiris’ grip, his voice cracking with pain and fury. "Raku! Help me!"

The behemoth stirred. Its mountain-sized body shifted, hooves cracking the swamp bed. For a heartbeat, hope flared in Velik’s chest.

And then the behemoth bowed.

Not to Osiris, nor even to Mirethane, who loomed above them like the shadow of an ending world.

The behemoth’s submission bent toward the dark red eye that pulsed above Mirethane’s heads.

He bowed to the true master, to the lord of the Endless Abyss.