Abyssal Awakening

Clenching his teeth, Noah kept sprinting while the others glanced back nervously.

They saw the brief exchange between Feris and the strange man and immediately, they realised how much of a danger he was.

"Boss-"

"Don’t look back. Keep running. Dealing with the anchor is our priority. Trust in Feris. The sooner we deal with this anchor, the sooner we can regroup." Noah shut down the request as his fingers tightened against the handle of his blade.

Seeing the debris and monsters spawning between them and the anchor, his frustration turned into anger as sparks of energy coated his blade.

His frustration towards his weak self will be redirected!

"HA!!!"

Twisting his body, he cleaved one beast in half before kicking a hole through the rubble.

Dashing through, he stabbed his blade through the under jaw of another before slamming them into the ground.

Ripping his blade out, he grabbed a small beast by the head who tried to sneak attack him.

Using it as a weapon, he slammed its body into another before piercing both beasts together with his blade.

With both beasts skewered, he fired energy along his blade, burning them from the inside out.

Seeing Noah going on a rampage, Yama simply smiled before doing the same.

###

"Mnm~ I love seeing passionate young men. Don’t you agree? A burning will to overcome all forms of adversity because they have something they want to protect." A blonde woman smiled.

Her striking red eyes forming arcs as she watched the situation unfold beneath them.

"Passion is fine. But one must understand their limits at times." A butler shook his head, refilling her drink.

"Perhaps. Though... understanding one’s limit is reserved for the old. These youngsters have yet to have their will ground down by the sands of time." Ciel crossed her legs with an elegant flip of her hair.

"To be young is to be reckless. To be patient and withdrawn is a result of age. Don’t you agree?" She tilted her head back with a wide smile.

The butler simply sighed.

"I can still recall your passionate approach. Before your skin turned wrinkled. Before you lost your edge. Ah~ How hot was your gaze back then? The stare that could burn the skin away." She laughed.

"Then I must be quite the sorry sight for you my Lady."

"That I can’t deny. But every lady needs an attendant here and there. For that role, there is no better suited than you." Ciel didn’t deny.

"But my favourite pastime has been and always will be seeing passionate youngsters try to achieve their dreams. The sight of these children playing in my garden is rather... soothing." Ciel traced the table edge with her finger.

"Does a mother simply watch as her children try to kill each other?" The Butler asked, turning his gaze towards the fight between Feris and the Abyss Lord.

"My children? That child Feris is not my child. She was never part of my family." Ciel lost her smile as her gaze turned cold.

Picking up the fork, she narrowed her eyes before pausing.

In the end, she chose to hold back.

"She is a fragment of the Void that had gained consciousness. A candidate to be placed upon the Throne that rules over the Realm.

"Though she may be ’born’ in my garden, her soul never belonged to this place. An Outsider. That’s what she is." Ciel placed her fork down.

"However, I will also not deny her usefulness as a Toy that has captured the heart of one of my precious sons. So long as he is enjoying this Toy, Feris maintains her uses. Even if I have some... alternate plans for her."

"What if she kills one of your precious children here and now? She seems to be putting up quite the fight against him. Perhaps a byproduct of being near the largest Fragment of the Void?" The Butler turned his gaze towards the centre of the battlefield.

"Hmm... if she does kill one of my dear children... Then it simply wasn’t meant to be. He is no longer a helpless child. He should be able to handle his own issues as all children are meant to leave the mothers home sooner or later." Ciel leaned back.

"So if he dies here, the least he can do is to serve as his mother’s entertainment. A final parting gift."

"How cruel. But I suppose that’s to be expected. Everything on the surface belongs to you. Every single person that walks these lands do so because of your mercy." The Butler felt pity for both Feris and the Lord.

"Of course. Though unrelated by Blood, am I not akin to a mother to them? They live in my home, eat my food. I give them shelter and my Love. I only do so because I love to see my Children play around. As for the rent... entertainment." Ciel laughed.

Looking at the laughing woman, the Butler sighed inwardly.

To have this kind of ’mother’... it was truly an unfortunate situation for this realm. She saw them as nothing but entertainment.

Whether you died, whether you lived. None of it mattered so long as you were entertaining.

In that regard, she’s no different from those animals that Worship the Eclipse.

The only difference was that Enris’s judgement of Ciel was rather... surprising.

In her own words: "Seeing as how we’re both people who lust for entertainment, I thought you would be more entertaining. But you’re nothing but old stagnant water. How... boring."

Since that meeting, Enris hadn’t bothered to meet Ciel ever again. In fact, she would even go out of her way to cause trouble as though taunting the Realm Ruler.

But perhaps it was due to Ciel’s lack of response that the Eclipse God soon lost interest.

"I may be speaking out of turn but... Are you certain we should allow her to sit upon her throne? Having that girl claim the Void Heart seems dangerous my lady." The Butler warned.

What Ciel desired was to swallow up this empty realm for herself. However, whether or not it was on purpose, the realm had scattered its core across the world.

Without absorbing it into one’s own body, gathering them together again was impossible.

That’s where Feris came in.

As with the other candidate that Ciel had sponsored in her time.

They move to converge the fragments into one location. And once that’s done, when the new Realm Ruler is born, she will consume them and their authority in one go.

"Certainly. There are better candidates that I would prefer to claim the fragments but none of them have senses as sharp as that vessel. Her existence is one that rejects Abyssal Contracts, dedicating herself solely to the Void.

"If we want to claim the realm in the shortest most efficient manner, she is the only option. Plus, how dangerous can this girl be? I have killed my fair share of candidates when I became the Realm Ruler of the Surface. She will be no different." Ciel shrugged.

This was confidence from surviving countless battles.

And while the Butler agreed, the bad feeling settling in the bottom of his stomach refused to disappear.

"May I receive your permission to act on my own accord?" He asked but Ciel shook her head.

"Don’t trouble yourself. Just watch and enjoy. Crushing her is no more difficult than killing an ant."

Exhaling softly, the Butler could only nod with mild frustration in his heart.

###

*CLANG!!!

Feris took a step back.

"CLANG!!!

She flinched under the strike as her knee slammed against the ground.

*BANG!!!

Barriers shattered as the blade grazed her head.

Blood dripped down and spread into her eye as her vision turned red.

Taking a few steps back, Feris tried to make some distance using portals but the Lord was faster.

Creating a radiant orb above his palm, he crushed it to pieces as the world around him shifted.

Golden flames erupted in all directions, burning away the barriers that Feris had created while several black crosses, metal beams and rusted nails burst out from the ground.

A ritualistic hell.

"Mine is the power to leverage offerings. Mine is the authority to bargain with those that stand above. And you... Husk of the Void. A shell of authority." He pressed his fingers against the ground as energy threaded together to form a ritualistic circle.

"You are the finest offering I have found. Thus far."

Looking at the chaos unfolding around her, Feris could feel her heart crashing against her chest.

The rising panic that slowly muted the world around her.

The loss of control as her powers were being overwhelmed by the Authority of the Abyss.

Wincing at the golden flames burning against her skin, Feris took a step back.

She had lost a battle of power and now, her will was crumbling.

*BANG!!!

An explosion erupted in the distance as Feris’s eyes snapped towards the opposite side of the pit.

A pillow or smoke rose into the sky as anxiety dominated her mind.

But as the smoke cleared, she saw a single figure holding something towards the sky.

Noah.

In his hands was the head of the guardian defending the second anchor.

They had succeeded without her help!

Wiping away the blood staining his face and hair, Noah revealed a confident smile.

Nothing needed to be said.

Feris already knew what he was thinking in his mind.

They’ve been together since they were children after all.

Exhaling softly, Feris recalled the thing that a few hunters would do to relax when they went to the bar.

Noah had even been offered one but he declined at the time.

A smile hung on her lips as she reached into their storage bags and pulled out a single pipe.

Holding it against the golden flames, she took a deep breath and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"Blergh, I don’t get why they like it." Feris pursed her lips.

However, thanks to this pipe, she had calmed down.

As her heart returned back to stillness, she sensed a ripple across its surface.

*Badum...

A heartbeat.

*Badum... Badum...

Ah~ She could feel it.

The connection towards the Void.

Towards that fragment.

Calling out to her, calling her name.

With two anchors gone, there was only one thing holding it back.

Even so, this was enough.

Enough for her to feel the presence of the Void Heart.

*BADUM!!!

Tossing the pipe away, Feris’s eyes erupted with a purple glow as the realm fractured like glass.

Her authority is one that controls this realm between realms!