Once the voice finished speaking, the air, if it could even be called that, was thick with a silent, unending tension.

The realm around them pulsed in soft, colorless light, an ocean of emptiness where gravity felt optional and time uncertain. Every breath was shallow, every heartbeat a thunderclap in their own ears.

Albedo stood motionless at the forefront of the group, his platinum hair gleaming faintly against the ever-shifting void. The light here didn't behave normally, it curved, stuttered, then realigned in impossible geometries.

His eyes, bright with faint violet runes from his Source Code, scanned every ripple, every distortion. The amount of mana needed to read the Abyss was immense, and he quickly had to limit himself.

Behind him, Morgana's shadow tendrils twitched instinctively, lashing against nothing. Celeste's flames shimmered, dimmed, then flared again, even her fire couldn't fully anchor in this place.

Miranda hovered slightly above the ground, her space-time mana wrapping her body in a translucent veil, trying to stabilize her existence here.

Lucian and Lilian stood close, blades drawn, their auras synchronized through years of training. Fade crouched low, his daggers drawn, face pale beneath the flickering starlight fragments that floated across the void.

And then came that voice again.

It rippled through the world, smooth, ancient, and vast. It was neither male nor female, but something older than both, layered with echoes that made the soul ache.

"So… you've all come. How exquisite. We've labored for quite a while to gather you all here, the seeds of tomorrow's Monarchs,"

The air grew colder as the powerful being finished speaking, and everyone's expression hardened as they heard that. Fade was the first one to speak, "Monarchs…? You mean"

"The future of the Abyss," the voice purred, overlapping itself in countless tones. "The chosen who will inherit what your fragile world refuses to accept. Death. Change. Eternity."

Albedo's jaw tightened as he heard that word. Abyssal Monarch. He never forgot the Abyss' plan with Gwen, he had worked to protect her closely, but the thought of Abyssal Monarchs was never forgotten.

However, this event, none of it happened in the original Novel.

"Show yourself," Lucian said coldly, his voice carrying across the still expanse, "If you worked so hard to bring us here, then stop hiding in the dark."

For a long moment, there was only silence, then, laughter. It rolled across the dimension like cracking glass.

"Brave words. But you misunderstand. I do not hide. You simply lack the perception to see. The Abyss is far beyond your understanding,"

The temperature plummeted as the being finished speaking, and Lucian's knuckles whitened around his sword, "What the hell is this thing?"

Albedo's pupils dilated slightly as his Source Code flared to life, runes spreading across his arms and neck in living light. He was calculating, tracing every vibration in the void, mapping the mana density, searching for any weak point.

"This isn't a creature," Albedo said slowly. "It's more of an origin. It's less of a living, breathing being and more of a will, like the will of the Abyss itself manifesting,"

The voice chuckled again, pleased at what Albedo said.

"Clever. I see why it watches you so fondly, Albedo Neverwinter."

Albedo's heart skipped a beat. It?

Before he could speak again, the world moved.

No warning. No sound.

Just a snap in reality.

And then, impact.

A spike of pure blackness erupted from the ground behind them, long, needle-like, and burning with an energy so alien it defied description. It shot clean through Valerian's chest before anyone could react.

The young man's eyes went wide, mouth open, no scream, no breath. The spike impaled him completely, glowing with a faint maroon light as his mana was drained out of him in an instant.

Lilian was the first to move, "VALERIAN!"

She dove forward, but before she reached him, the spike retracted. In one violent motion, it yanked his body backward, dragging him into the swirling darkness beyond the edge of the platform.

He vanished, gone without trace, without sound.

Silence.

Fade's eyes widened, trembling, "No… no, no, no, he's gone,"

Miranda's magic flared wildly, her voice breaking, "That wasn't teleportation, he was erased. His mana signature's, gone!"

Lucian's breath came sharp, fury and panic breaking through his calm, "Damn it!"

Albedo's aura exploded. A storm of gold and violet burst from his body, his runes forming dense fractals around his feet.

"Source Code: Fractal Domain - Lockdown Protocol!"

Space around them folded into layered geometry, each ring pulsing with stabilizing mana. He was sealing them off, isolating the battlefield, cutting out the interference.

But even as he did, the voice only laughed louder.

"You think you can seal me, little programmer of souls? You are inside my veins. You breathe within my body. This entire area is my domain,"

The light flickered violently. Shadows stretched, twisting upward like tendrils of smoke, forming faces, thousands of them, screaming, whispering, laughing all at once.

Celeste took a step forward, her eyes blazing gold and red. "You talk too much for something that hides behind corpses!"

"Oh, but you misunderstand, little flame-born," the voice cooed. "I am made of them. Every lost soul, every broken will. I am their unity. Their peace."

The void pulsed again, this time closer, heavier. Each beat felt like a hammer strike against their hearts.

Morgana clutched her head. "It's, trying to invade—our minds…"

"Block it out!" Albedo shouted, "Fractal Barrier — mental isolation!"

Runes shot outward, forming halos of light around each ally, shielding their thoughts — but still, the voice seeped through.

"Do you feel it? The pull between breaths? The whisper beneath your heartbeat? That is the Abyss, and it remembers you."

Lucian snarled. "Enough! Show yourself!"

"Very well."

The air cracked.

Reality tore open ahead of them, splitting like fabric, revealing something behind the veil, a shape so vast that the mind could barely interpret it. It wasn't form; it was concept.

A crown of writhing shadow. A humanoid silhouette, stitched together by tendrils of black flame and threads of starlight.

Eyes, countless, distant, ancient, opened one by one.

Every instinct screamed run.

The void trembled all around them, and a hum, low and heavy, immediately resonated through the marrow of all of them standing before that trembling platform.

The crowned silhouette stood unmoving, its countless eyes burning like dying suns suspended in an infinite sky. But then… one of them shifted.

A single, colossal eye, deep violet at its center, detached from the entity's shadowed crown. Tendrils of abyssal power stretched from the eye.

Soon, the monstrous eye floated downward in complete silence, radiating waves of impossible pressure. The texture of existence itself rippled around it, as though reality strained to contain what it was.

Celeste gritted her teeth, stepping forward, flames bursting from her skin in unstable plumes, "What the hell is it doing?"

Albedo's eyes narrowed, the runes in his irises spiraling violently. "It's… dividing its essence into multiple pieces and preparing to manifest. Be on guard,"

The eye descended further, rotating slowly, like a moon circling a dying world, until it stopped just above the ground. The light within it began to fracture and cracks formed across its surface, glowing with liquid amethyst.

Then, it shattered.

From within the broken shell of the eye spilled darkness, but not void, not emptiness. It was matter. Flesh, bone, and mana coalesced into countless forms, clawing their way out of the swirling amethyst storm.

Thousands!

Creatures born of nightmares, humanoid at first glance, but wrong in every conceivable way. Too many limbs. Too many eyes. Their bodies pulsed with runic veins of violet light, each heartbeat synchronized with the abyssal pulse above.

Miranda's voice was a whisper, trembling with disbelief. "Amethyst Rank… all of them…"

The crowned being's voice thundered again, shaking the void.

"You wished to see me. So now, "

It gestured lazily with one vast, shadowed hand.

"See what is mine. This should be a nice test for my future monarchs,"

The horde screamed as one, a sound that made the soul convulse. They surged forward like a violet tide, their forms colliding with the edges of Albedo's Fractal Domain, splintering it instantly under sheer pressure.

"Formation!" Lucian barked, stepping forward, his sword blazing gold.

Celeste spread her wings of silver fire, flames igniting around her like a miniature sun. "Then let's show it what we can do!"

Morgana's shadows erupted, twining around Lilian's crimson sigils and Miranda's space-time barriers as Fade vanished into the folds of nothing, preparing to strike.

And at the center of it all, Albedo's runes expanded outward, his aura burning brighter, fiercer, more volatile than ever before. The golden-violet light of his Source Code clashed against the advancing swarm.

The void screamed again as the first wave met them — explosions of mana, fire, and light tearing holes in the endless dark.

And yet, behind that chaos, the crowned entity only watched, silent, still, endless, as its army of amethyst nightmares flooded the abyssal plain.

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