Abyssal Awakening

"Are you sure... that’s Feris?" Solana asked hesitantly.

Even her usual grim quips are nowhere to be seen as they exit the portal that Alice had created.

All of them had frowns on their faces as they glanced towards the ’Void’.

Alice couldn’t answer. She didn’t even know how she should do so.

The moment she stepped through the gateway with the others, she felt it deep in her bones.

This was no longer the Void nor the same Feris she thought she knew.

In her past experiences, the Void was always a hostile environment. Similar to that of a volcano. Even though you knew it was dangerous, it was still a part of nature.

It had its own logic, its own rules.

But this... It couldn’t even be called the Void anymore.

At its heart, this realm had been infected.

What used to be the purple skies of the Void had now been transformed into an endless mass of black clouds, twisting and churning while crackles of energy flashed through the gaps. Nightmare energy seeping out, containing countless horrors within.

With strike of lightning would illuminate some of the landscape for a fraction of a second. Each time, a new Nightmare would briefly reveal itself.

The civilians fighting, dying and reviving without understanding the true nature of this realm.

Drunk on the lust for power, infatuated by the ’rewards’ granted by Nyer.

Tall obsidian structures reached for the heavens. They twisted in such unnatural ways that it resembled roots rather than actual buildings. Perhaps even veins as energy pumped through them every so often.

Then, hidden behind the buildings and clouds, what looked like strands of muscle suspended a ’cocoon’ in the air.

Though calling it a cocoon might be inaccurate as it pulsed like a heart.

A faint beat rippled through the air, causing the clouds to shift back and forth.

It was ’alive’.

Alice creased her brows with a deep frown.

As they took a step forward, a squelching echoed out beneath their feet as the ground was dyed black. Though the flashes of energy would reveal it to be a deep crimson instead.

Blood.

Not earth, not rock.

Blood and flesh.

Rather than the Void known for its emptiness, this place had now turned into a flesh palace hosting the Lady of the Void deep within its walls.

And as they glanced past all of the mutated landscape, their eyes finally settled on ’Feris’.

Black fibrous material stretched up towards the ’figure’ like spiderwebs. Some were thick like pillars, others were thin like hair.

But they all lead towards the same place.

Alice closed her eyes to prepared her mind before looking towards the core.

A woman.

Feris.

Or rather, what remained of her.

She hung motionlessly within a mass of flesh. Her body suspended above a pool of blood.

Her arms hanging loosely by her sides.

Blood stained her skin as mutated flesh latched onto her body.

Her expression was neutral. As though she was sleeping. But the blood smears around her cheeks tell otherwise.

Wet, blood soaked hair clung onto her face and that was all that could be recognised as ’Feris’.

In the middle of her chest, a wound had opened as though an insect had emerged from its shell.

The skin and flesh had been pulled apart and exposed. The ribs crushed and split outwards.

And there, nestled in the middle, was a purple crystal no bigger than a palm. It radiated Void energy but was growing weaker by the minute.

Everything was missing from the waist down.

There was no legs to speak of, only a mutated mass of flesh, pulsing veins and bubbling flesh.

She had been stripped of all her presence as a Realm Ruler, reduced to a ’host’ for ’something’.

Feris’s body had sunk into a wall of flesh attached to the strands. If she occupied the middle and bottom of the wall, another opening had occupied the top.

A ring of crimson like that of a pupil stared towards the group without blinking.

Alice wasn’t even sure if it was a pupil or not as it didn’t move. But as long as she was standing in its ’view’, she could tell there was someone at the other side of that eye.

Exhaling softly, Alice clenched her teeth and activated Cayla.

Indeed, sitting in the centre of that mass was indeed Feris.

Her aura was extremely weak but this was the Feris she had seen before. On top of that, there was also the crystal embedded into her chest.

It wasn’t foreign. Far from it.

It wasn’t something that’s been inserted recently but rather, something that had been linked to the core of her Origin since the very start.

’If that was the case... why is the signal so weak?’ Alyss questioned.

[Since she’s a realm ruler, the core signal should’ve been oppressive. After all, it’s the authority that allows her to make modifications to the realm and so on. But as it is right now, it’s no different to an ordinary authority.] Cayla added.

[In other words, in terms of authority, you are technically close to her level with what you can control in the Void right now.]

When put this way, Alice understood exactly how weak Feris was right now.

Rather than a Realm Ruler, her authority had weakened to the level of Lord.

’So if we change Void to Abyss, I’m holding more authority than her? Since the signature from the three Abyssal Relics are much stronger than her heart.’

Cayla nodded.

Exhaling softly, Alice kneeled down and placed her fingers against the blood.

Infusing her energy into the blood, their surroundings started to bubble as a view of the entire area was opened to Alice.

Her eyes scanned the surroundings using blood as a medium as Vision was deployed to its limit.

Not only that, she also activated Revenant Recollection to check the history of the location.

A lot of it had been... disrupted due to the mutations and multiple experiments that took place here. But she still managed to capture the most recent ’scene’.

Standing up, Alice turned to Allura.

"Nyer left this as a gift."

Upon hearing Nyer’s name, Allura immediately narrowed her eyes.

"A gift?"

"Mnm. He left the path here open and easy to access as a gift. He’s done everything he wanted with Feris. While there can be more use to be extracted from her, he’s happy with letting us take her back." Alice explained what she saw.

Tapping her finger, Allura contemplated on what they should do before coming to a decision.

"If Nyer is calling it a gift then something else must’ve happened that furthered his goals. Something that warranted a reward for us so... It must be your incident with Oblivion.

"After all, it’s only recently did the path become easy to access... is there anything else you can get from the memory?" Allura asked but Alice shook her head.

"He’s being careful with his traces. Everything is all mixed up with mutations and Nightmares. If I want to dive any further, I’ll have to rummage through the different Nightmares to try and locate the traces he may have left behind." Alice admitted.

It wasn’t impossible but... Doing so would take a lot of time. Even for her standards.

However, with Feris’s signature growing weaker by the minute, Alice wanted to ’rescue’ Feris first before anything else.

Exhaling through her nose, Allura pulled out a cigarette and lit it up with her finger.

"Alright. I think the goal is clear for now. You still need to find her soul right? We’ll establish a link with the soul first then clear the corruption around here. Since everything is done with her authority, we must understand how we can revert things."

"Speaking of authority, she’s comparable to a Lord right now rather than a Realm Ruler. In all likelihood, Nyer has taken it with him." Alice explained.

"Right... sh*t okay, that makes things more complicated. Realm Rulers losing their authority isn’t... fantastic. Hmm... Let’s take things one step at a time for now. See if you can track down her soul for now." Allura suggested.

With Alice trying to track down Feris’s soul, Allura made her way to Karya.

"Any signs?"

"A couple. She’s had quite a few things done to her. Nothing permanent but Nyer probably analysed her authority thoroughly to get what he wanted. There’s also been some Eldritch energy injected into her to act as a catalyst for the mutations but it’s not the same kind of Eldritch we’re familiar with." Karya made a circle with her index and thumb before using it like a monocle towards Feris.

"The nameless one?"

"The nameless one." Karya nodded.

"So it’s safe to assume he’s still in the process of getting a name. Tsk, how troublesome. It’s uncharted territory but I suppose it’s safe to assume once he gets a name, he’ll get a boost in power and authority." Allura scratched her hair in annoyance, finishing her cigarette in one go before burning away the scraps.

"Or... One of us can kill him before that happens." Karya shrugged.

She turned her eyes towards Solana who was poking the blood with her fishing rod, testing to see if there’s anything to be fished here.

Allura furrowed her brows. They had quite a few Lords at their disposal but...

She wasn’t confident with sending them out blindly against Nyer.

If anything, they’re just wasting manpower by doing so. The changes of them dying was rather high.

Before Allura could think more on this, Alice interrupted.

"I found the link to her soul. She’s currently trapped in a... rather large Nightmare."