Chapter 5 ( Abyss Invasion ARC )

In the deep Abyss, where light drowned in endless void, the air pulsed with rot and malice. Shadows writhed across jagged obsidian spires, 

and rivers of black ichor carved through the desolate expanse. At the heart of this nightmare sat the Abyssal Monarch, her throne a grotesque fusion of bone and starless dark, 

her form towering yet veiled clad in armor of molten shadows, eyes like twin voids burning with ancient hunger. 

Her presence alone crushed the air, a weight of greed that had once ruled the Land of Power.

A demon knelt before her, its obsidian skin trembling, claws scraping the ground. “My queen,” it rasped, voice like grinding stone, “our messenger… was killed.”

The Monarch leaned forward, her gaze slicing through the creature. “Defeated by whom? The Seven Emperors? The Dragons?” 

Her voice was a venomous purr, each word laced with centuries of spite. The demon quivered. “My queen… it was a mortal.”

A blade of shadow flashed from her throne, cleaving the demon’s head in two. Black ichor sprayed, halves of its skull clattering to the floor. 

“You dare jest?” she hissed, her form rippling with barely contained rage. The demon’s head knitted back, flesh crawling like worms, eyes reforming in terror. 

“No jest, my queen,” it gasped. “The messenger fell… to a mortal.” Silence hung, heavy as death. Then, a laugh low, guttural, rising to a cackle that shook the Abyss’s spires. 

“Pitiful,” the Monarch sneered, her smirk a blade’s edge. “My herald, broken by a mere mortal? What a delicious shame. Let us see what this worm is capable of.”

She rose, her armor pulsing like a heartbeat, shadows coiling around her like serpents. Once, she had ruled the Land of Power, her greed a fire that burned kingdoms to ash. 

The allied forces Emperors, mages, warriors fell before her, broken. Only the Conquer, 5000 years ago, had stopped her. 

A mortal who tamed the five dragons, who carved her empire to ruin and cast her into the Abyss, her body shattered, her power sealed. 

For millennia, she festered, believing the Conquer’s line endured. Her eyes narrowed, a spark of realization. “The Conquer… is dead?” she asked, voice dripping with delight.

The demon nodded, trembling. “Two thousand years, my queen. The last fell, and none have risen.”

Her smirk widened, a crescent of malice. “Then the Land of Power is ripe.” She spread her arms, shadows surging, 

fissures cracking open across the Abyss. “We make our first move. Let the invasion begin.”

The Monarch was back.

Four years had etched Sean into a blade of a man. At eighteen, he moved through the Land of Power like a ghost in the wind lean and corded with muscle, 

scars tracing his skin like faint constellations, his eyes sharp and unyielding as the katana at his hip. Ayumi’s gift had become his soul: runes etched with Lila’s lion, a vow carved in steel. 

No more the monster of rage and starfire; he was a swordsman now, his strikes a symphony of control, each one a promise no innocent would die while he breathed. 

The Cosmic Dragon’s whispers had faded to echoes, its power locked away, unused and unwanted. Bandits fell in his wake, their dragon-scale masks shattered, their cries silenced. 

Today, another hideout awaited, nestled in a jagged canyon, whispers of their raids on villages drawing him like blood in water.

The canyon walls loomed, red rock baked under a merciless sun, the air thick with dust and the stink of unwashed men. 

Sean approached silent as shadow, cloak billowing like a raven’s wing. The bandits numbered a dozen, lounging around a fire pit, their laughter crude as they divvied stolen gold and boasted of torched homes. 

One spotted him first a hulking brute with a dragon-scale tattoo snaking up his arm. “Intruder!” he bellowed, axe raised.

Sean didn’t speak. He drew the katana in a whisper of steel, the blade catching the light like a promise of death. The brute charged, axe swinging in a wild arc. 

Sean sidestepped, fluid as water, and countered with a single upward slash precise, unyielding. The blade bit through armor and flesh, 

cleaving from groin to shoulder in a spray of crimson. The brute collapsed, halved, his scream dying in a gurgle.

Chaos erupted. Two bandits lunged with spears, thrusting in unison. Sean pivoted, katana parrying one spear with a clang, redirecting it into the second bandit’s thigh. 

He spun, blade arcing low to sever legs at the knees, then high to decapitate in one seamless motion. Heads rolled, bodies crumpling like discarded puppets. 

A crossbowman fired from the rocks; Sean rolled, bolt whizzing past, and hurled a stolen dagger retrieved mid-fight with pinpoint accuracy, pinning the shooter through the eye.

The leader emerged last, a scarred veteran in dragon-scale armor, wielding a massive greatsword etched with abyssal runes. 

“You’ll die screaming, boy,” he snarled, charging with earth-shaking steps. Sean met him head-on, katana clashing against greatsword in a shower of sparks. 

The leader’s blows were thunderous, cracking stone, but Sean danced around the dodging, weaving, his blade a blur. 

He feinted left, drawing a wild swing, then struck right: a slash that sliced through the greatsword’s guard, severing fingers in a spray of blood. The leader roared, swinging blindly; 

Sean ducked under, thrusting upward through the chin, the katana erupting from the skull in a fountain of gore. The man toppled, lifeless, as Sean flicked the blade clean.

The canyon fell silent, save for the drip of blood and the crackle of the dying fire. 

Bodies lay mangled limbs twisted, torsos opened like overripe fruit, the ground a slick tapestry of red. 

Sean sheathed the katana, his breath steady, no thrill in the kill, only duty fulfilled. 

Another nest of vermin erased. But as he turned to leave, the earth groaned.

A tremor shook the canyon, rocks tumbling like dice. The ground beneath the bandit fire pit buckled, 

then exploded in a geyser of molten rock. A giant fissure yawned open, spewing acrid smoke and rivers of lava that scorched the air. 

From the depths rose a leviathan a colossal serpent forged of living magma, its body a writhing coil of bubbling lava and blackened crust, 

eyes glowing like furnaces, maw dripping fiery slag. Scales cracked and reformed with each heave, heat waves distorting the air around it. 

It towered, easily thirty feet long, its roar a blast of superheated wind that ignited nearby scrub.

Sean’s starry veins pulsed unbidden, the Cosmic Dragon stirring at the abyss’s touch. “Not yet,” he muttered, drawing the katana once more. 

This was no bandit; this was the war’s harbinger, the Monarch’s first strike. The leviathan lunged, maw gaping to engulf him in flame. 

Sean rolled aside, the ground where he stood melting to glass. He charged, katana flashing a slash across its underbelly, blade biting into crust but sizzling against the lava beneath. 

Ichor-lava sprayed, searing his arm, but he ignored the pain, veins glowing faintly to heal.

The beast whipped its tail, a molten lash that cracked like thunder. Sean leaped, twisting mid-air, katana severing a chunk of the tail in a burst of embers. 

Lava splattered his cloak, igniting it; he shed it in a fluid motion, pressing the attack. The leviathan’s head slammed down, 

jaws snapping Sean parried with the katana, steel ringing against stone teeth, the force jarring his bones. He countered with a thrust into an eye, 

twisting until magma gushed, blinding it on one side. The creature thrashed, coiling around him, its body a furnace that blistered his skin.

Heat warped his vision, sweat evaporating before it fell. The leviathan constricted, lava scales grinding against him, crushing ribs, melting flesh. 

Pain exploded traumas flashing: wolves tearing him, Ayumi’s blood, Lila’s sobs. 

Sean’s control cracked. “Enough!” he roared, the Cosmic Dragon’s power surging despite his vow. 

Starfire ignited along the katana, the blade glowing like a comet. With a primal yell, he drove it into the leviathan’s core, 

starlight exploding against lava in a cataclysmic clash. The beast howled, body fracturing as cosmic energy tore through its molten heart. 

Lava erupted in a final geyser, then solidified, the leviathan crumbling to cooled slag.

Sean staggered back, katana smoking, his body healing in waves of starfire agony. The fissure sealed with a rumble, 

but the air hummed with warning the Monarch’s gaze upon him. He’d broken his vow, used the power he feared. 

But the Land of Power trembled, and war had come. Wiping the blade clean, Sean set his jaw. Bandits were just the beginning.

To be continued.