I never believed in divine justice.
Not after what I saw of kings.
For years after my mother died, I went through life like a clockwork machine wound too tightly. I smiled when it was expected. I spoke only when spoken to. I bowed when the crown entered the room. My performance was flawless, chanical—an imitation of the loyalty I had once felt.
Inside, however, I was a void. The sa sort of silence that exists after a devastating plague kills all life in an area, when all that remains is the stink of rot and the mory of what once lived there.
I thought there would never be an opportunity to take my revenge. The royal family was too well-guarded, too covered in divine artifacts passed down from their ancestors and possessing demi-god level guards in the dark.
And even if I raised a rebellion, who would follow a man without a banner? No one pays attention to the words of a servant.
So I did what I had always done best—I waited.
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It began a year ago, when the first Abyssal outbreaks appeared in the borderlands. Towns swallowed overnight, temples reporting distortions, priestly divinations ending in madness. It was all so sudden, so quiet, that the palace treated it like rumor at first. Until it reached an important northern territory responsible for most of the crown’s mines.
I was sent to investigate.
My escort consisted of twelve soldiers and a priest of the Dawn Temple—a loud, self-righteous man who never stopped praying under his breath.
I rember the scene when we arrived at the village. There were no corpses, no blood—just the sound of wind passing through houses that still had their doors open, their occupants mysteriously missing.
We moved carefully, weapons drawn, but the soldiers began to lose formation. Sothing about that place gnawed at the mind.
Then the priest began his purification chant.
He didn’t finish it.
A hand—if it could be called that—rose from the ground and crushed him mid-prayer. He simply folded into himself, erased as if his shape offended the air around him.
That was the first ti I saw it.
The demigod. Or at least I’m assuming that was his level of strength given his aura.
It stood at the far end of the square. Its shape was almost human, but its edges refused to stay still. Its body shimred, half shadow, half liquid, every blink revealing a new face underneath. Space itself bent around it like glass being heated.
The guards launched attacks. But none reached the target. And the guards were unable to launch a second round of attacks—already dead in the next second.
I knew I was next. There was no running, no fighting a demigod. So I simply stopped.
For the first ti in years, I accepted death.
But death didn’t co.
Instead, sothing inside my head whispered. The voice wasn’t cruel. It was curious. It spoke like a scientist studying an insect that refused to die.
’I have never t a human with as much hatred for his own kind as you have. You wish the world to suffer as you have.’
And I did. I didn’t deny it.
’Then I can make that real.’
The next thing I rember was pain—an unholy, crawling fire starting from my arm. The creature reached into , through , and pressed sothing into my bones. I rember falling, retching, my vision filled with pulsing veins of black light.
When I awoke, the demigod was gone, and my right arm was different.
A fragnt of the Abyss lived inside it.
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At first, I thought it would consu . The infection spread through my veins, each heartbeat a dull thunderclap of pain. Yet, my mind stayed whole. I didn’t beco a mindless puppet for the Abyss as what usually beca of the corrupted.
Soon, I learned the reason. The demigod called it a gift. An experintal device that it was trying out that would allow so corrupted individuals to maintain their sanity so as to blend in with ordinary humans.
The demigod told his na later—Noctilora. I didn’t even know Abyssals had nas. Or maybe only the demigods did.
My emotions began to wither soon after. I couldn’t feel joy, sorrow, or regret, only a muted awareness of what those words ant. It should have alard . Instead, I found it familiar.
After all, I had spent years pretending to feel things I didn’t—smiling at nobles I despised, laughing at jokes I didn’t find amusing. To fake emotion was second nature. Losing them rely made the act easier.
When I returned to the capital, everyone believed I was the sole survivor. They called blessed. They said I had divine protection.
I said nothing.
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When I returned to my ho, I got a sense of alarm from my contracted beasts. My first summons after the incident quite shocking.
The blue-grade spider began to convulse, legs twisting at unnatural angles as its carapace split open and bled darkness. My mantis’s wings dissolved into filants. The centipede grew fangs. The green-grade boar’s eyes vanished entirely, its hide bubbling as though boiling from the inside.
One by one, my partners fell to corruption. Their life signatures shifted to sothing otherworldly, yet their link to remained. They were no longer mine—not fully, sinc their loyalty was to the Abyss—but they obeyed.
They could feel the sa will that reshaped them pulsing through .
The first ti I sent them hunting, the bodies they brought back stood up again within minutes—twisted things that scread like infants before silence claid them. Those, too, answered my call.
That was when I understood what Noctilora had done to .
It had given a bridge—a link between humanity and the Abyss. My beasts turned others, feeding the void in my stead. Every new Abyssal life they created delayed my own decay.
Noctilora warned : the core within was finite. The more I drew upon its power, the more it burned away. When it was gone, my mind would collapse, and I would beco a puppet, a hollow vessel for the Abyss’ hunger.
Unless I fed it replacents.
’The lives of others for the lifespan of my mind.’
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Communication with Noctilora didn’t stop after that. Sotis, it visited my dreams. The first few tis, I saw only a silhouette, standing in a vast black sea. Then, as more of the core burned and more lives were offered, the silhouette gained form—a shape closer to my own.
It spoke softly, patiently. It taught how to suppress the Abyssal energy within , how to conceal the corruption so perfectly that even the Temple’s high priests would see nothing amiss. I learned to keep the essence sealed beneath my skin.
It was intoxicating—to hold that much power and hide it in plain sight.
The following months passed quietly. The King continued to treat with warmth. The nobles still deferred to . None of them suspected that their loyal Advisor was already sothing less than human.
That that sa advisor is what opened the city gates and allowed the Abyssals to ambush the capital, ensuring that no one could escape.
Well no one except for the useless prince...
I kept Takeru alive, not because he deserved it, but because he was useful. Through his aunt—the Azure Serpent Queen—I could gain access to networks of survivors scattered through other kingdoms. Survivors ant sacrifices. Sacrifices ant more ti. Keeping him breathing was just efficient resource managent.
When word of his awakening reached I took interest imdiately. A strange foreaign man who could produce beast tars en masse? It sounded like salvation to the world.
Still, I didn’t intend to kill this foreigner nad Kain back then. Not yet. If his abilities were genuine, he could help gather survivors faster, perhaps even convert them before I killed them. The lives of beast tars bought more ti than ordinary people.
And so I arranged to travel with his party under the guise of supporting Takeru.
Of course, I needed to test them first. Their strength. Their bonds. The reliability of the contracts they controlled.
That ambush outside Wuxing Sect territory was my doing. A simple probe. Disposable Abyssals, stirred up by my corrupted contracts, sent to gauge their reaction. I wanted to see how strong these foreigners were, and how good the contract he gave Takeru was.
I expected competence. I didn’t expect blasphemy!.
The contracts he helped create were immune to the Abyss?!
’This man cannot be allowed to exist.’ The information must have also reached Noctilora through our connection.
The command wasn’t given in words, but in a pulse that shook the marrow of my bones. The Abyss itself wanted Kain erased.
And I obeyed.
The rest—you already know.
He died quickly, cleanly. The Abyss does not require dramatics. Just precision.
Now the forest is quiet again. My beasts feed where his blood fell, spreading the corruption further through the soil. Soon this whole territory will bloom black.
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