The monster’s blade pressed down, a jagged edge forged from both shadow and gold. Its sheer weight should have cut Emily in half, should have ground her into the black stone like dust. But it didn’t.Her palms burned, blood streaming between her fingers where the metal bit deep but she held it. Her scream echoed across the abyss, raw, feral, unstoppable.For a moment, the monster faltered. Its eyes, Adrian’s eyes, twisted and doubled narrowed in shock. “You are nothing without me,” it thundered. “A mortal girl cannot bear the weight of him.”Emily’s arms trembled violently, veins glowing with alternating streaks of golden fire and black flame. Her voice ripped out of her throat like a vow: “Then I’ll burn with him!”Adrian’s essence stirred inside her chest, no longer a flicker, but a pulse. “Emily… don’t…” His voice was weak, full of fear. “You’ll destroy yourself.”She gritted her teeth, pressing harder against the blade, forcing it back an inch. “Then we’ll destroy ourselves togeth

The world was gone. No void. No abyss. No light. No shadow. Only silence.Emily floated weightlessly in the blank expanse, her body fractured, her veins glowing faintly with the dying embers of the shared flame. Her chest was hollow, the wound where the blade had pierced her a yawning abyss of its own.She could feel nothing, no pain, no warmth, no breath. So this is what dying feels like, she thought numbly. But then, A voice cut through the emptiness. “Emily.”Her eyes snapped open. Adrian stood before her not fractured, not consumed, but whole. His golden aura flared faintly, his eyes softer than she had ever seen.He reached toward her with trembling hands, as if afraid she would dissolve if he touched her. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “Not like this.”Her lips trembled. “Adrian… is it really you? Not the abyss? Not another trick?”He shook his head slowly, stepping closer. His hand hovered above her cheek but never touched. “It’s me. The part of me you saved. The part t

The light swallowed everything. Adrian’s grip on Emily’s hand was the only anchor left. The ground, the battlefield, even the abyssal titan, it all dissolved into a violent swirl of blinding radiance and suffocating darkness.Their bodies tumbled through a spiraling void, weightless yet crushed from every side. The air was gone; sound itself fractured. All that remained was the thundering beat of their hearts, echoing louder than the collapse that consumed them.Emily’s lips moved, her voice almost inaudible beneath the roar. “Adrian, don’t let go”His answer was a snarl ripped from his chest. “Never!”The spiral constricted. Light folded into shadow. Shadow bled into light. And suddenly, They were no longer falling.They slammed down hard. The impact cracked stone beneath them, sending dust into the air. For a moment, Adrian couldn’t breathe; his ribs screamed, his vision blurred.But Emily was alive, coughing beside him. Relief surged through him even as pain gnawed at his body. The

The fall was endless. Emily’s scream tore from her throat, but it was swallowed instantly by the crushing dark. Chains coiled around her wrists and ankles, dragging her deeper, faster, until even the memory of Adrian’s touch slipped from her grasp.The shards of her spear flickered faintly in her grip, their golden glow struggling against the abyss. Each pulse was weaker than the last, like a dying heartbeat.“No… no!” Emily’s voice cracked as she thrashed against her restraints. Blood slicked her arms where the chains bit into her skin. “I won’t let this happen! Not now… not after everything!”The abyss only answered with silence. Her fall ended violently. Emily’s body slammed against cold stone. Pain shot through her bones, her breath ripped from her lungs. She rolled onto her side, coughing, her vision swimming.When it cleared, she found herself in another chamber smaller, tighter, suffocating. Chains lined every surface, dangling like veins from a beating heart. And at its center

The fall was endless. Emily’s scream vanished into the darkness, smothered by the suffocating void. Her golden shards, once blazing with brilliance, flickered and died like candles drowned in stormwater.The chain around her ankle dragged her downward with crushing force, burning into her flesh.Her fingers clawed at the void itself, desperate for purchase, but there was nothing to hold only black, only silence, only the slow throb of the chain’s heartbeat against her skin.Then, the voice returned.It did not whisper like the child’s. It did not mock like the Abyss. It spoke with weight, each syllable vibrating through her bones.“Struggling is useless. You cannot outrun what you are.”Emily clenched her teeth, choking back another scream. “You’re wrong, I am more than this!”The voice rumbled, a sound like stone grinding against stone. “More? Or less? You think strength makes you worthy? You think fire makes you whole? Show me, child of failure. Show me the truth.”Her fall stopped