"You said... ’Abyssal Damnation’," Damon said, his voice low. "What does that an?"
The man gave a bitter chuckle, though it was devoid of humor. His violet eyes dimd, and he sat down near the altar’s edge, resting the blackened saber against his shoulder. "A fate worse than a siege. Worse than annihilation."
The woman remained standing, her prismatic robes shimring like light passing through cracked glass.
She looked toward the horizon, where what remained of the Broken Sky Expanse stretched into spirals of gravity-locked terrain and warped ti-pockets.
"Abyssal Damnation is what happens when the Abyss chooses not to destroy sothing," she said softly, "But to consu it... slowly."
The man picked up from there, "They seal off an entire region, usually one full of potential or power. Like Elarith Valis. They isolate it from the world, from spirit lines, from divine resonance. It becos its own decaying plane, one that still exists, but cannot call for help. Not even the gods can see inside."
Damon’s brows furrowed, "A spiritual quarantine?"
"Worse," the woman answered. "A spiritual infection. Everything within begins to rot. Reality becos soft. Truth and mory unravel. At first it’s subtle, architecture begins to repeat itself, ti skips forward or back without cause, your own thoughts feel disconnected."
The man nodded, "Then the voices start. Whispers from the corners of your mind. mories that aren’t yours. Paranoia. Doubt. Eventually, people forget who they are. They lose their sense of self... and that’s when the Abyss fills the void. That’s when they turn."
A chill ran down Damon’s spine, "Those creatures just now... the ones you said were protectors..."
"They were," the woman whispered, "Once. Captains and Archivists. So of the most brilliant people we ever knew. Now, they’re just shadows of who they were. The Abyss keeps their abilities, their faces... but not their minds. The shell remains, filled with Abyssal Will."
Damon stared at the altar, the crystal from Syllana pulsing faster now that it had reached its final destination.
"And the city?" he asked, quieter this ti.
The man brushed dust from the edge of his charred armor as he responded, "Gone... and yet still there. Most who lived within Elarith Valis have already fallen."
"To the Abyss?" Damon asked.
"To themselves," the woman said, her tone colder now, "The Abyss just gave them the nudge. The rot took care of the rest."
The man stepped toward the altar, placing his hand over a carved sigil at its center. "Before the seal took hold, we tried to resist. Warders, Saints, mory Weavers, we fought to stabilize the core. To buy ti. But the Abyss was patient. It didn’t co to conquer, it ca to transform."
"Most people thought the silence was due to war damage or broken communication arrays," the woman added, "but the truth was simpler. There was nothing left to communicate. Just screaming... and silence."
Damon’s gaze was hard, but there was a flicker of sothing else in his eyes now. Understanding.
"You were inside the city?"
The man nodded, "Until we weren’t. We broke free two months ago. Through sheer chance... or design. She’s been tracking the altar’s cycles for months."
The woman tapped the floating crystal on her belt, "Its orbit around the rift center began changing. Unstable, yes, but predictable. We used that fluctuation to escape."
Damon’s expression sharpened, "Then why return?"
"Because soone has to," the man answered. "We’re not strong enough to close the rift, not alone. But maybe with help... or maybe we just wanted to die with purpose."
As they were talking, the alter began the shift, the runes on it rotating and interlocking with one another until the stone platform cracked down the middle, space twisting itself until a portal opened.
The three stood at its edge, peering down at the world below.
"Elarith Valis," the woman said, " Now the echo of its own death."
Damon said nothing. He took one last breath of clean air and stepped through the portal.
***
The descent was extrely volatile. The space all around Damon was continuously warping and folding inward around his body, all the while gravity inverted multiple tis.
For a mont, Damon had thought he heard his own voice whispering a mory he hadn’t experienced, but then he quickly heard the unfiltered voices of the abyss, beckoning to him to join.
He saw visions of a world of eternal darkness, but after a while, the darkness broke and Damon arrived in Elarith Valis.
However, it was nowhere near the welco he initially expected when he first heard of the city. It was permanent twilight here.
A cold, lifeless environnt where ti seed uncertain. Damon could see buildings that were completely destroyed reverting to better conditions instantaneously, and the opposite was also true, perfectly fine buildings all of a sudden disappearing or becoming collapsed, as if the building’s ti was rewound or sped up.
The city was absolutely enormous, stretching across multiple plateaus that floated in a semi-stable suspension.
Bridges of glowing crystal connected the tiers, while buildings of impossible architecture curved upward and inward like seashells made of aether-stone.
Massive spires floated above the city center, held aloft by gravitic rings that still pulsed with ancient mana.
But none of it looked... right.
Buildings repeated themselves, like fragnts in a shattered mirror. So staircases spiraled infinitely into sky. Others ended in sheer drops where gravity reversed into the clouds. Doors opened onto walls. Towers stood on their sides.
An intense aura of the abyss dominated the city this ti
The three erged from the arrival platform atop the eastern district, near what looked like an observatory of sorts. The air was thin, tainted with residual Abyssal essence, but breathable.
He saw so people around the City still not completely corrupted, but they didn’t look that good either. Black veins ran across their body, and they looked like they were a mont away from completely going abyssal.
Bodies of the dead could also be seen at certain points across the City.
Damon continued looking around and taking in the sight until he finally saw it.
The Rift.
It sat in the center of the city, far below, but not beneath, just floating.
It was a massive tear in space, hanging like a wound in the sky. Chains of abyssal darkness wrapped around the rift, and the rift pulsed with an intense abyssal aura, bleeding shadows.
Not in the usual way, the black mist of the Abyss, but in ribbons of distorted ti and cursed mory. Damon’s [Eyes of Oblivion] narrowed, focusing hard.
He saw flashes. Scenes. Fractured monts from different ti periods.
A child screaming as their reflection stepped out of a mirror and strangled them in the past, he saw a man sobbing over the corpse of his wife, only to beco her when he stood up.
A patrol of spirit warriors laughing around a campfire, and then burning from the inside, turned to statues of ash.
All of these were flickers, brief windows of what had happened inside the rift, what was still happening.....or what could happen in the future. Damon couldn’t tell exactly which of the three it was.
"Everything starts from there," the man said. "That’s the eye of Abyssal Damnation."
The woman pointed toward a circular structure surrounding the rift, what used to be the High Resonance Tower. Now, it looked more like a cathedral grown from flesh and spirit steel. Half-organic, half-architectural, pulsing in tune with so unseen heartbeat.
"Once it was our greatest tool," she said, "Now it’s the Abyss’s heart."
Damon knelt beside a collapsed fountain, touching a puddle of water that barely shimred with light. He could feel the soul remnants here. Dozens of them. Lives that had faded without moving on. Spirits trapped in looping echoes.
"Are there survivors?" he asked.
The man nodded. "So. They’ve managed to hold pockets of the city. Most are mory Anchors or Chrono-Scribes, people whose minds can resist the echo-effects for longer."
The woman added, "But they won’t last. The Damnation effect worsens each cycle. Once the rift fully matures, even thought will stop obeying law. It will beco... noise."
"And those warriors who entered the rift?" Damon asked.
The man looked away, "None of them returned. So never even reached the core. Others walked in and simply vanished."
Damon rose.
Talia wants to walk into that, doesn’t she?’ Damon cursed, and he could already feel it.
The way the Codex of Judgent was trembling at his side. The way his Primordial Eternal Heart beat heavier in his chest. The Gloves of Slaughter twitched with anticipation, sensing prey it had never tasted before.
"Then I’ll do what they couldn’t."
He turned toward the city’s inner district, noting the broken bridges, the collapsed soul pylons, the mobs of twisted, half-ford Abyssal wretches lingering in the air like mories left to rot.
"We’ll guide you as far as the inner sanctum," the man said. "Beyond that, the echoes bend ti. Even we don’t trust our mories there."
"And then?"
The woman’s eyes narrowed, her voice steady.
"Then you’ll be on your own."
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