The void screamed. Not with sound but with pressure, a suffocating weight that pressed against Emily’s skull until her vision blurred.Chains coiled around her arms, her throat, her waist, biting into her skin with fire-hot steel. She gagged as the weight dragged her downward, deeper into Adrian’s soul.And there he was.Adrian shackled, gaunt, eyes half-lidded, his body wrapped in crimson bindings that dug into his flesh and pulsed like veins. His chest rose shallowly, each breath like a dying ember.Her heart seized. “Adrian!” she screamed, thrashing against the chains, golden fire flaring around her limbs. Sparks sizzled, burning through a few links, but for every chain she cut, a dozen more sprouted in their place.The Abyss’s voice seeped through the darkness like venom: “You see him now, your heir, your friend, your savior. Look at what he is. Weak. Bound. Devoured.”Emily snarled through clenched teeth. “You don’t get to define him. He’s still Adrian—and I’m not leaving him her

The spear pierced his chest. The sound was not flesh breaking, not bone shattering, it was the sound of a bell struck in the void, a resonance that rippled outward in endless waves.The entire soulscape convulsed. Titans of shadow froze mid-roar, their forms unraveling into black smoke. The veins of gold and crimson streaking the ground flared so bright they threatened to blind.Adrian’s body arched, a scream tearing from his throat, raw enough to shred worlds. Golden fire burst outward, clashing violently with surging crimson chains.His chest split open not with blood, but with light, two flames clawing for dominion inside him.Emily held fast, her hands trembling as she pushed the spear deeper. Tears streamed down her face, her voice breaking. “Adrian! Come back, come back to me!”Adrian’s eyes snapped open. For the first time, he saw not just the void, not just the Abyss, but himself. He stood within an endless mirror of broken shards, each reflecting a different version of him.O

Adrian’s scream was not human. The Abyss’s cathedral trembled, every chain quivering under the force of it. The air warped, molten cracks splitting across the ground as gold and crimson fire bled from his body.The chains binding his wrists and ankles shuddered, sparks spraying as if they were alive and terrified.But the Abyss pressed harder. More chains poured down, wrapping tighter, digging deeper into his flesh. Its voice thundered inside his skull, an ocean of hunger.“You will not rise, vessel. You are mine. Your flame is mine. Your rage is mine. Your death will feed eternity.”Adrian’s body arched, his muscles tearing as he fought the bonds. The agony was indescribable, chains burrowing into bone, but none of it mattered.He saw her. Emily. Her body was pierced, lifted into the air, blood streaming down in crimson rivers. Yet even as her breath rattled, her eyes locked onto his steady, burning, alive.And in that gaze, Adrian found clarity. He wasn’t fighting for a throne. He w

There was no sound. No fire. No shadows. Just white. Endless white, stretching in every direction like the universe had been erased.Adrian blinked, his body still burning with scarlet-gold light, Emily limp against his chest. He staggered, confusion swirling in his mind.The Abyss was gone. Or so it seemed. He looked down. His arms still cradled her yet she was frighteningly still, her face pale, lips parted slightly as if caught mid breath.“Emily…” His voice cracked. “Stay with me. Please.”No response. The white void pulsed once. Then came the sound. A low, shuddering crack that split the silence in two.Lines of blackness tore through the white, spiderwebbing outward beneath Adrian’s feet. The void fractured like glass, every crack glowing with violent crimson fire.Adrian staggered, clutching Emily tighter. The cracks spread upward, outward, everywhere. From the fractures, a voice seeped through.“You think you’ve destroyed me? Foolish child…”The Abyss. It wasn’t gone. It had s

There was no battlefield. No chains. No titan. Only light. Adrian floated in it, weightless. It was not warm, not cold, simply infinite, stretching in all directions.His body, if he still had one, was made of threads unraveling into the brilliance. For a heartbeat, peace tempted him. No pain. No blood. No Abyss. Just rest.Rest…But then “Adrian.”The voice pierced the radiance, familiar, steady, unshakable. Emily. His fraying threads tightened, pulling back together. He forced his will to hold. The light trembled around him, as though resisting.“No…” he whispered. “Not… yet.”Emily staggered forward through the endless brilliance. Every step was like wading through a tide that wanted to dissolve her. Her body burned at the edges, golden fragments peeling from her skin and drifting away.But she refused to let go. Her gaze locked ahead and there he was. Adrian, unraveling, barely recognizable, his scarlet-gold essence pulled apart strand by strand.“No!” Her voice broke as she stumb