The abyss did not open like a wound.
It unfolded like an eye.
Seyi felt it before he saw it—a pressure behind the ribs, a tightening not of fear but of awareness. The ground beneath him did not crumble or crack. Instead, it softened, as if reality itself had grown unsure of its shape. Light fractured overhead, bending into impossible angles, and the air hummed with a sound too low to be called a voice.
This was not darkness.
This was excess.
Too much truth layered upon itself, each version incomplete yet convinced of its own authority.
Seyi stepped forward.
With every step, memories rose like mist. His mother's laughter by the riverside. The first time he held a blade and realized it could protect as easily as it could kill. Orunmare's presence—vast, distant, never cruel but never gentle either. Not a god pleading for loyalty, but a force daring him to choose.
The abyss watched him remember.
"You have come to claim what was hidden," a voice said.
It sounded like many voices braided together. Some were familiar. Some were his own.
A figure emerged ahead—tall, radiant, composed of clean lines and certainty. This Seyi wore no scars. His eyes were clear. His hands did not tremble.
"I am what you were meant to be," the figure said calmly. "Unburdened by doubt. Unhindered by attachment. The prophecy, fulfilled without compromise."
The air shifted. The offer was not shouted. It did not threaten.
It promised efficiency.
"Leave them," the figure continued. "The Resistance. Their fear slows you. Their questions weaken you. Accept dominion, and the abyss will kneel. History will be spared its suffering."
Seyi felt the pull—subtle, persuasive. For a heartbeat, he imagined it: a world reordered, battles ended before they began, pain reduced to calculation.
And then he saw what was missing.
There was no laughter in this future. No defiance. No choice.
"You're not whole," Seyi said.
The figure frowned for the first time.
"You are certainty without context," Seyi continued. "Truth without humility. That's why the prophecy broke. That's why it needed editing."
The abyss stirred.
Seyi closed his eyes—not in surrender, but in acceptance. He let the doubt remain. Let the fear exist beside resolve. He stopped trying to become an answer.
He chose to remain a question.
The radiant figure cracked, light spilling like shattered glass, and the abyss exhaled. Not in anger.
In recognition.
When Seyi opened his eyes again, the space around him had changed. Light and shadow coiled together, no longer at war. They moved at his breath, responsive, restrained.
He did not command the abyss.
It listened.
When he emerged, the world above felt suddenly fragile—as if it had been holding its breath all along. Those waiting felt it instantly. A shift in the air. A tightening of fate.
Seyi's eyes reflected both dusk and dawn.
The final convergence had begun.