“I know you still have questions,” Alioth said, his voice composed yet edged with urgency, “but we need to leave before Beelzebul wakes.”

The chamber still smoldered with the aftermath of their battle. Fractured mirrors lay scattered across the floor, reflecting warped fragments of their exhausted forms. The air carried the metallic tang of dissipating energy. No one felt victorious—only spent.

They began their descent from the Tower of a Thousand Mirrors in uneasy silence, boots echoing against the spiraling stone. It was Klara, predictably, who broke first.

“So what exactly is the Abyss?” she asked, her voice steady despite the tension beneath it.

Alioth did not answer immediately. His gaze remained forward as the stairwell coiled downward into shadow.

“I don’t know its true origin,” he said at last. “Only what has been recorded. In my homeland, we called it the Void. It exists outside the structure of our universe—beyond the lattice that holds reality together. The first known outbreak of Abyssal corruption occurred roughly twenty thousand years ago. An entire world—Asmakara—was consumed. Not conquered. Not destroyed. Erased.”

The word lingered.

Erased.

Seth let out a low whistle from behind. “An entire world? Just… gone?”

Alioth inclined his head. “Not shattered. Not reduced to ash. The Abyss does not break things apart. It devours them. Once something is taken, it ceases to exist in any way we understand. History forgets it. Space closes over it. It is as though it never was.”

A chill passed through the group.

Friedrich crossed his arms, jaw tight. “And the Seven Heavens? The ones who sent you here—they couldn’t stop it?”

“They tried,” Alioth replied quietly. “They failed. The spread would have consumed far more if not for Harmozel, the Luminary of Harmony.”

Star faltered mid-step.

Harmozel.

The name struck her with unsettling clarity. She remembered the encounter in Valhalla—his presence, calm and impenetrable. His words.

Humanity is a prisoner in the material world. It is your duty to find the truth. To break the chains of fate.

Her hands curled at her sides.

Alioth glanced toward her, something knowing flickering in his crimson eyes. “You’ve met him.”

“…Yes,” Star answered, after a moment.

The others looked at her, sensing the weight beneath that single word, but she offered nothing further. Not yet.

Klara recovered first. “What did Harmozel actually do?”

Alioth’s expression grew distant, as if recalling something sealed in another age. “He created what we now call the Dimensional Veil—a boundary that severed the infected continuum from the rest of reality. Imagine cauterizing a wound before the corruption spreads. It worked.”

He paused.

“But Asmakara and everything within it were lost forever.”

The silence that followed was heavier than before.

Alioth continued as they descended. “The rift you witnessed before? that was a fracture in the Veil. Nidhogg must have torn through it to enter Atlantia.”

The implication settled slowly.

Reality itself had once been wounded—and only barely contained.

Seth ran a hand through his hair. “So if the Abyss shows up again, what then? Is there another Harmozel waiting to patch things up?”

Alioth did not answer immediately. His expression remained unreadable.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. Then his gaze shifted to Star. “But I doubt we will be granted the same solution twice.”

Friedrich exhaled sharply, gripping the hilt of his greatsword. “Then we stop it before it spreads. Simple.”

Alioth gave a faint, humorless smile. “I admire your confidence. But the Abyss doesn’t fight like a demon or a warlord. It doesn’t care about strength or strategy. It spreads like an inevitability. And once it takes hold, nothing escapes.”

Friedrich said nothing more.

Star, who had been silent since Harmozel’s name surfaced, finally spoke. “Then we stop reacting,” she said. “We learn what it is. How it moves. How it infects. No more guessing.”

She looked directly at Alioth.

“You’ve faced it before. Teach us.”

Alioth studied her—then the others. He saw resolve, fear, stubbornness, and something else: refusal.

“Fighting the Abyss isn’t simply about blades and spells,” he said. “It tempts. It whispers. The more you study it, the more it studies you. It exploits doubt. It magnifies fractures.”

Seth rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s not ominous at all.”

Alioth smirked slightly. “No, it’s not.” He took a step forward. “But if you’re serious about this, then you need to be ready for what’s coming. Because once you start down this path… there’s no turning back.”

They reached the base of the tower.

The great doors stood open, night air spilling inside like cool water. When they stepped beyond the threshold, the crisp wind felt almost unreal after the suffocating weight of the mirrored halls.

For the first time since entering, they could breathe freely.

The sky above Atlantia was quiet. Stars burned calmly overhead, untouched by the horrors spoken of within stone walls.

The tower loomed behind them, silent once more.

But far beyond mortal sight—across the unseen scaffolding that binds worlds together—something shifted.

A boundary trembled.

And somewhere in the darkness between realities,

something began to listen.