The Abyss Stares Back

Bedtime Whispers

Demons.

The first time I heard the word, it wasn’t from priests or generals. It was from my mother’s lips, whispered at night like a warning folded into a lullaby.

Her silver hair brushed my forehead as she whispered:

“Close your eyes, Haise. Don’t look out the window. Don’t follow shadows. For if you do… the Abyss might look back.”

Not the kind of bedtime story you’d expect for a child. Other kids probably got “and they lived happily ever after.”
I got: “and then the monster ate the city.”

Thanks, Mom. Really comforting.

But even as she spoke it, her voice carried no mockery, no softness — only truth.
And truth, in Heaven, was scarier than fairy tales.

When I grew older, I realized demons weren’t just bedtime monsters.

They were everywhere — not in body, but in the way soldiers whispered about them when they thought nobody was listening.

Iron Concord Justicars tightened their grips on spears whenever someone mentioned the Abyss.

Spirit Wardens prayed longer when sending souls through the veil, afraid something might reach back. Even the 

Crimson Vow — those “we-fear-nothing” zealots — spat on the ground when the word demon came up, as though the syllables themselves might rot their tongues.

And me? I eavesdropped, soaking it in like gossip from hell.

What I pieced together:

Demons are not natural. They weren’t born, they spilled — like a wound in the world that never closed. 

They come in tides. Sometimes centuries pass without a sighting. Other times? They swarm like plague locusts, clawing at Heaven’s gates until rivers of blood run silver.

They don’t just kill. They corrupt. They break minds. They twist prayers into screams.

Cheerful stuff, right? Heaven’s version of campfire horror stories.

Hierarchy of the Abyss (What I Pieced Together)

Every whisper painted the Abyss as a kingdom. Not ordered like Heaven, but fractured, violent, and yet somehow… united in their hatred.

From what I gathered (and scribbled into my sarcastic little notebook of doom):

Demon Lords → Thrones of the Abyss. Names spoken only by generals and priests. Each one commands legions of nightmares.

High Demons → The Seven Wounds. Walking disasters — plagues, hunger, despair, silence — each an embodiment of suffering.

Lesser Demons → Stronger than most gods’ pets. They bleed poison, laugh in screams, and never travel alone.

Spawn → The cannon fodder. Think claws, hunger, endless numbers. The kind of nightmares that keep recruits awake at night.

And at the very bottom?

Whispers.

Not demons, not beings — just the feeling that something is watching when no one is there. The Abyss breathing against the back of your neck.

Yeah. Fun.

Every banner in Heaven exists because demons do.

The Aegis of the Sun builds walls of light not just for pride, but to keep the Abyss out. The 

Spirit Wardens guard the cycle of reincarnation because demons love snatching souls before they can pass on.

The Oblivion Watch — an entire Legion — exists only to jail horrors that crawled out of rifts, screaming with a thousand voices.

Even the Crown Oath Relics were forged in war against them. Every Captain bearing a Sigil isn’t just a symbol of law — they are a shield against something waiting beyond the stars.

Heaven isn’t united because it wants to be.
It’s united because the alternative is demon claws at the throat.

My Child-Brain Conclusion

So there I was, barely tall enough to hold a wooden sword, listening to soldiers mutter about nightmares with names like Carrion Fang and Ashen Plague.

And you know what my brain decided?

Big glowing gem = life.

Big scary people = order.

Demons = the reason everyone’s so paranoid all the time.

Simple math. Even a child could get it.

And somewhere inside, I wondered:
If demons hate Heaven this much… what do they want from me?

They whisper about us.
The silver halls. The golden banners. The children raised on fear of the dark.

They whisper demon like a curse.
They forget: the word is older than their prayers.

We remember.

We remember the gates we broke. The cities we drowned. The gods we bled until their thrones cracked.
We remember their screams when we dragged their souls down into our crownless night.

We remember because pain does not fade here.
Pain is memory.
Memory is weapon.

They call us monsters.
But we are not chaos. We are clarity.

They are the wound.
We are the blood.

And when their children sleep — clutching wooden swords, whispering promises to surpass their fathers —
we will be there.

Waiting.

The night after overhearing one soldier’s tale — about a demon that laughed while eating the moonlight out of his comrade’s eyes — I lay awake.

My chest pressed tight. My ember pulsed against my ribs.

And I whispered into the dark, not sure if I was mocking or praying:

“If you’re real… don’t look back at me. Not yet.”

The silence that answered felt too heavy.
As if the Abyss had heard me.

As if it smiled.

Demon Lords (Thrones of the Abyss)

* Sovereigns of the endless dark. 

*Each commands legions of horrors beyond numbering. 

* Their names are rarely spoken — feared to summon echoes.

* Purpose: wage endless war against Heaven, to unmake what was built.

 High Demons — “The Wounds” 

* Walking calamities.

* Each embodies suffering itself: plague, hunger, despair, silence, fire, rot, war.

* When one walks, entire cities fall. 

* Even Legions tread carefully when their names appear in prophecy.

Lesser Demons

* The lieutenants of the Wounds.

* Stronger than most Heaven soldiers, dripping venom and shadow.

* Some warp forms into grotesque beasts, others wield corrupted versions of divine powers.

* Travel in hunting packs — one Lesser Demon rarely appears alone.

Spawn of the Abyss

*Endless cannon fodder.

*Born from shadow-rifts like maggots from wounds.

* Claws, fangs, hunger. No minds, only instinct to consume.

* Enough of them can drown an entire Heaven outpost in hours.

The Whispers

* Not beings, not creatures — but the Abyss itself breathing.

* A presence felt in silence, in shadows, in dreams.

* Soldiers swear the Whispers stalk their camps before a demon tide arrives.

* To mortals, the Whispers are madness. To gods, they are a reminder: 

the Abyss never sleeps.