The Throne of the Devoured God

What Dwells in the Deep

When you fall into the abyss, the dark does not just catch you, it swallows you whole.

The whistling wind screamed in Lu Feng's ears as he plummeted straight down into the freezing void. The blinding red light of the bone furnace vanished above him, shrinking into a tiny, distant spark of cruel gold. He stretched his hands out, grabbing at nothing but empty air, waiting for the hard impact that would scatter his bones across the canyon floor.

"Is this the end?" Lu Feng whispered to the rushing wind. "Am I just going to die in the dark?"

The cold air ripped the breath from his lungs, making it impossible to scream any louder. The weightlessness was a terrifying reminder of his utter helplessness. He had spent his whole life fighting for a scrap of bread, fighting the biting winter, and fighting the cruel whims of the upper rings. Yet here he was, discarded like a broken tool.

He closed his eyes, bracing for the final crush of stone. Instead of slamming into a hard floor of skeletal remains, his body struck something thick, cold, and rubbery. The massive object gave way slightly under his weight, bouncing him upward before catching him in a wet, trembling embrace.

Lu Feng gasped, his hands sliding across a smooth, gelatinous surface that felt like rotting ice. He forced his eyes open, blinking through the heavy gloom. He was not on the ground. He was suspended in mid-air, resting on top of a massive, floating black eye that filled the entire width of the chasm. The terrifying organ was wider than a noble palace, and thick, rusted iron chains wrapped around its pupil, anchoring it to the deep canyon walls.

The surface pulsed beneath him, a slow, deep throb that felt like a dying heartbeat. The sheer size of the creature made him feel like an insect. The dark slime coating the lens of the giant eye began to seep through his clothes, numbing his skin wherever it touched.

"What are you?" Lu Feng cried out, scrambling backward until his spine hit one of the cold, heavy chain links. "What is this place?"

The chain link behind him was as thick as a tree trunk, covered in jagged flakes of orange rust that tore into his palms. He tried to stand, but his legs were like jelly, and the surface beneath him was too slick to find any real footing.

Suddenly, a voice boomed, not through the air, but directly inside the center of his skull. The sound was like a thousand broken stones grinding together in a deep well.

"You are a remarkably loud piece of meat," the voice muttered, making Lu Feng's teeth rattle. "Why have you dropped your blood into my prison?"

Lu Feng clutched his head, groaning as the sound vibrated through his bones. The pressure inside his brain was immense, as if his skull were about to crack open from the weight of the entity's thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the noise, but it was impossible.

"I was betrayed," Lu Feng choked out, his voice shaking. "They used me as a sacrifice for the new prince. They drained my blood and threw me away."

"Betrayal," the voice echoed, a dark layer of amusement running through the heavy tone. "The modern masters of the upper ring still use the same old tricks. They take the weak, drain them dry, and call it divine right."

The massive black eye shifted beneath him. The giant pupil dilated, turning completely toward Lu Feng. It did not look at his face. It stared directly at the bleeding gash on Lu Feng's arm, where his life force was still leaking out in dark, sluggish spurts.

"Ah, the golden sun line," the voice hissed, a strange mixture of amusement and ancient hatred rippling through the words. "They always did love the smell of burning flesh. They chained me down here to rot while they built their glittering cities in the clouds. Tell me, lowborn, do you want to die?"

"No," Lu Feng spat, his voice cracking with sudden fury. He gripped the rusted chain link tighter, ignoring the sharp pain in his hands. "I want to live. I want to make them pay for what they did to me. I want to see them fall."

"A slave who wants to bite his master," the entity laughed, a dark, hollow sound that echoed in his mind like thunder in an empty valley. "How completely unoriginal. Every broken thing that falls down here says the exact same thing. They all want to burn the world down, until they realize how much it hurts to hold the torch."

"I do not care about the pain," Lu Feng snarled, leaning forward against the slick surface. "I have felt nothing but pain since the day I was born. If I have to burn to take them with me, then let me burn."

"Your hatred is thick, boy," the voice whispered, the pressure inside Lu Feng's skull shifting, becoming almost smooth, like a snake sliding into a dark hole. "It is heavy enough to taste. It has a fine, bitter flavor. I can give you your life back. I can give you the power to pull those high towers down into the mud."

"Who are you?" Lu Feng asked, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. "Are you a monster?"

"I am the Devoured Titan," the entity whispered, its voice turning into a freezing breeze that crawled over his skin. "I am the god they tried to break and forget. They tore my name from the history books and threw my body into the refuse pile. I do not offer the flashy, golden toys that your brother holds. I offer survival. I offer vengeance. But my gifts are never free."

"I never expected anything to be free," Lu Feng said, his vision darkening around the edges as his blood continued to leak onto the black eye. The loss of blood was finally catching up to him, making his thoughts slow and sluggish. "Tell me the price."

"A simple exchange," the Titan replied, the massive pupil beneath him pulsing with a faint, oily purple light. "I will knit your broken body back together. I will give you my strength, my instincts, and my sight. But in return, you will become the vessel for my eternal hunger. You will never feel full again. Every beast you kill, every man you slaughter, you will feed their essence to me. Do you accept the bargain?"

"Will it give me the strength to kill Wei Xuan?" Lu Feng asked, his eyes burning with absolute malice through the dim light. "Will it let me look down on him the way he looked down on me?"

"It will give you the power to devour his entire world," the entity promised, the voice growing louder, filling every corner of his consciousness until there was nothing left but the demand for an answer. "It will make you the nightmare that keeps the golden princes awake in their high palaces. But you must choose now, little meat. Your blood is almost gone."

Lu Feng looked up at the distant, tiny speck of light where the upper ring sat in its false peace. He thought of Wei Xuan's clean silk robes, the cold indifference in his eyes, and the single silver coin wiped clean of mud. He thought of the promise they had made to rise together, a promise that had been nothing but fuel for another man's climb.

"Then do it," Lu Feng shouted into the darkness, his voice ringing out against the ancient stone walls of the chasm. "Take whatever you want. Take my soul, take my humanity, take it all. I do not care about any of it anymore. Just give me my revenge."

"A beautiful choice," the Devoured Titan whispered.

The black slime of the entity crawls into Lu Feng's open wounds, stitching his flesh back together with agonizing black veins.