Chapter 39: INTO THE ABYSS
Kaito's body was weightless, suspended in a void where time had lost all meaning. He couldn't tell where the ground had gone, or if there even was a ground at all.
His thoughts were fragmented, scattered across the endless expanse of blackness that surrounded him.
The only thing that remained clear in his mind was Nyra's face—the image of her, as if burned into the core of his being.
But it wasn't the Nyra he had known, the sister he had protected. It was something far more terrifying. Her eyes, now void of warmth, were filled with a cold, unrelenting darkness that gnawed at his very soul.
"No," Kaito muttered, his voice trembling. "I won't let her go. I can still save her..."
But even as he said the words, he could feel the truth weighing down on him like an iron chain. The Abyss had already touched her, and once it sank its claws into something, it never let go.
The Watcher's words echoed in his mind, each syllable a crushing blow. "You are its herald. The end of all things will come through you."
The weight of those words was unbearable. How had this happened? How had Nyra fallen so far into the Abyss?
He had fought for so long to protect her, to bring her back to the light. Yet here he was, suspended in darkness, unable to reach her.
Suddenly, the void around him twisted. The shadows, once still, began to swirl, drawing closer, pulling him in.
The oppressive force of the Abyss pressed against him from all sides, suffocating him, as if it were trying to consume him whole.