Silence ruled the chamber where Leon slept.
Not the gentle kind—this was a suffocating stillness, one that pressed against the walls and bent the mana in the air ever so slightly. Runes carved into the stone pulsed faintly, responding to the presence laid upon the reinforced bed at the room's center.
Leon did not move.
His chest rose and fell at a slow, measured pace, each breath deeper than the last, as if his body had forgotten how to breathe like a mortal. Darkened veins traced faint lines beneath his skin, glowing and fading in irregular patterns—not mana, but something deeper. Something older.
Velora stood near the doorway, arms folded, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion dragging at his soul.
"He's stabilizing," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
Yet even as he said it, unease gnawed at him.
Leon's presence was wrong.
Not hostile. Not unstable, heavy.
Like reality itself had gained weight around the boy.
_______________
Deep within Leon's consciousness, there was no pain.
No sound.
No body.
He floated in an endless expanse of black, yet it was not empty. The darkness moved—slow, deliberate, layered upon itself like a living thing. Each wave of it carried intent.
This was not sleep.
This was descent.
[You stand at the threshold]
The voice did not echo. It did not need to. It existed everywhere at once, woven into the void itself.
Leon did not respond—not because he could not, but because he did not need to.
Images surfaced before him.
A throne formed from fractured realities.
Chains made of laws, not metal.
Worlds collapsing, not from destruction, but from submission.
[High Mythic Class detected]
[Authority: Incomplete]
[Bearer Qualification: Acknowledged]
The darkness shifted.
A presence loomed—not a single being, but many, layered atop one another, watching. Measuring. Judging.
[The Abyss does not choose the weak]
[It answers those who endure]
Leon's sense of self pulsed—not as a heart, but as an anchor. Something within him resisted dissolution, refusing to be erased by the pressure of the void.
That resistance amused the Abyss.
[You are not yet a Bearer]
The darkness surged forward.
[But you are becoming]
Something reached out—not a hand, not a claw—but a concept. It brushed against Leon's existence, and for a brief moment, his consciousness fractured into countless paths.
He saw war.
He saw the portal tearing wider, spewing entities that did not belong to this world—creatures bound by foreign laws, wielding powers that bent causality itself.
He saw himself standing at the center of it all.
Not as a hero.
Not as a savior.
But as a constant.
A tyrant-shaped void that the chaos bent around.
[Twenty days, the Abyss whispered]
[Prepare]
The vision shattered.
---
Leon's eyes snapped open.
The runes in the chamber flared violently before stabilizing, several cracking under the strain. A pulse of pressure rolled outward, rattling shelves and causing Velora's staff to hum in alarm.
Leon sat up slowly.
Too slowly.
His movements were precise—economical—utterly devoid of hesitation.
Velora stiffened. "Leon?"
The boy turned his head.
Those bloody twin spheres locked onto Velora—and for a split second, Velora felt like prey beneath an ancient sky. Not killing intent. Something worse.
[Recognition]
Then it vanished.
Leon blinked once. Then again.
"…Velora?"
The pressure lifted instantly, the room exhaling as if relieved.
Velora released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "You've been unconscious for three days."
Leon frowned faintly, pressing a hand to his chest. His heartbeat felt… distant. Slower. Stronger.
"I remember… falling," Leon said. "And then—nothing."
That was a lie.
Or rather, an omission.
The Abyss did not like being spoken of.
Velora studied him carefully. "Your body underwent forced reconstruction. Mana, flesh, bone—all rewritten. If you were anyone else, you would be dead."
Leon swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.
The floor groaned.
Velora's eyes narrowed.
Leon was heavier now—not in mass, but in existence. Like the world acknowledged him differently.
"What am I?" Leon asked quietly.
Velora hesitated.
"A High Mythic," he said at last. "But not the kind written in history books."
Leon looked at his hand as faint black motes gathered and dispersed around his fingers, responding instinctively.
"And the Abyss?"
Velora's expression darkened. "You've brushed against it. That alone should have erased you."
Leon clenched his fist.
It didn't erase him.
It answered him.
A faint system notification flickered at the edge of his perception—subtle, restrained, as if wary of drawing attention.
[Status Update]
[Abyssal Synchronization: 12%]
[Bearer Path: Initiated]
[Warning: Further Exposure Will Accelerate Irreversible Change]
Leon exhaled slowly.
Twelve percent.
And already the world felt… thinner.
"Twenty days," Leon said.
Velora stiffened. "You remember?"
Leon nodded. "There will be an incursion. The portal isn't a gateway—it's a wound. And something on the other side knows I exist now."
Velora's jaw tightened. "Then we prepare."
Leon's gaze hardened, something cold settling behind his eyes.
"No," he said. "You prepare the world."
He turned toward the window, where the sky stretched vast and uncaring.
"I'll prepare the Abyss."
For the first time in centuries, deep beneath realities uncounted, the Abyss shifted—
—and smiled.
To be continued!!