Chapter 37: There is no Calm in the abyss
"What?!" Azareel gasped, his silver eyes wide with horror as entire cliff sides broke apart in the distance, chunks of land floating upward, tethered by gnarled tendrils of black void that writhed like living shadows.
Distant howls echoed—long, animalistic, but not quite alive, reverberating through the fracturing landscape.
He turned back to the others, his voice trembling.
"This isn’t—this isn’t an earthquake! The ground is breaking apart! That’s—That’s a piece of the sky!"
"It’s the Abyss," Nyxsha repeated, her ears flattening against her skull as another tremor shook them. "It’s shifting."
Virelya slithered to them with unnatural speed, her coils whipping through the crumbling moss, her veils fluttering like ghosts in the wind.
"It’s how the Abyss ensures no monster rests," she hissed, her golden eyes sharp. "No one stays still long enough to grow too strong, or too weak."
Sylvara, her petals shedding in panic, whispered, her voice a faint melody amid the chaos, "It rearranges. Breaks. Devours."
The ground behind them collapsed with a deafening roar, dragging the cathedral gardens down into a glowing void that yawned like a hungry maw, vines snapping like brittle bones.
Sylvara gasped, reaching out instinctively, but her tendrils shattered mid-air, crumbling to dust.
Azareel’s lungs burned, his grip tightening on Nyxsha’s fur. "Why? Why would it—?"
"To keep us from finding peace," Nyxsha growled, scooping him into her arms as the earth buckled again. "To make sure we’re never alone... or safe."