A Gaze Across the Abyss

The world had gone silent. The thunderous, exultant cheers of Zion’s soldiers, celebrating the miracle of her power, became a distant, muffled roar, like the sea heard from inside a deep cavern. The stench of blood, hot iron, and the sterile, unnatural salt of unmade souls filled the air, but she couldn’t smell it. The violent, uncontrollable trembling in her arm had ceased, not from a newfound calm, but from a profound, creeping numbness that was spreading through her entire body, a merciful shock shutting down her senses before her mind could fully comprehend the atrocity she had just committed. All she could see, with a terrifying, tunnel-vision clarity, was him. A lone, black rider on a horse of shadow, a silent statue of judgment on a hill of the dead, his dark form the only point of stillness in a world consumed by chaos.

Ren.

The name was a silent scream in the hollowed-out ruin of her soul. It was him. And he had seen it. He had seen what she had done. He had watched her become a monster.

Her vision began to swim, the edges blurring into a nauseating vortex. The world tilted on its axis, the faces of the cheering soldiers closest to her distorting into grotesque, nightmarish masks of manic joy. A pair of heavy, armored hands grabbed her arm, the grip surprisingly gentle but firm.

“My lady! We must pull back! The King—!” a knight’s voice shouted, the words barely penetrating the thick cotton of her shock. She didn’t hear the rest. She was being pulled, her feet stumbling in the churned, bloody mud, her beautiful white-gold armor now a heavy, alien cage. She was a doll whose strings had been cut, a holy puppet being dragged from the stage now that her terrible performance was over. She tried to keep her eyes on him, on the dark, familiar figure across the field, but her head was forced forward by a soldier trying to shield her. The retreat had begun.

From the cold, muffled silence of his helmet, Ren saw it all. He saw her stand amidst the sterile, grey ash of his people, a figure of terrible, radiant, and heartbreaking beauty. He saw her tremble, not with power, but with a horror that was so profound he could feel it even from across the field. He saw the soldiers of the Covenant, her own people, cheer for her act of genocide, their voices raised in worship of her monstrosity. And then, he saw them grab her. He saw them put their hands on her, their armored fingers closing around her arm, and drag her away from the field.

She was struggling, her movements clumsy and uncoordinated in the ornate, ceremonial armor. She was not a triumphant saint being escorted from the field of her victory. She was a prisoner, a terrified, broken girl being hauled away by her captors. His worst fear, his most certain and driving conviction, was happening right before his eyes.

“No.”

The word tore from his throat, not as a human voice, but as a sound amplified and distorted by the Absolute Void—a chilling, resonant roar that cut through the din of the battlefield like a scythe. It was the sound of a god’s displeasure, a wave of pure, concentrated dread that rolled across the Vale of Gehenna, silencing the cheers of Zion and the war cries of Sheol in a single, terrifying instant.

General Gideon, who was personally overseeing Akari’s "protection," heard that sound and his blood, for the first time in his long and storied career, ran cold. He saw the dark rider on the ridge spur his nightmare steed, the creature charging down the hill not with the speed of a horse, but with the silent, inexorable momentum of an avalanche. A black comet of pure, homicidal intent was hurtling across the field directly toward them.

“Get her through the gate!” Gideon bellowed, his voice tight with a panic he had never known. “Form a rearguard! Hold him back at all costs! Do not let him reach her!”

A shimmering, golden portal, a perfect, vertical tear in reality, hissed into existence behind the retreating Zion lines, its holy light a painful, offensive presence in Ren’s Void-touched senses. Gideon, seeing the black comet closing the distance with impossible speed, abandoned all decorum and shoved Akari bodily toward the portal. She stumbled, her head turning for one last, desperate look back just in time to see a jagged silhouette of black armor and bladed wings, his gauntleted arm outstretched towards her, a silent, desperate plea across the chaos.

He was coming for her. For a fraction of a second, a wild, impossible, and beautiful hope bloomed in her chest.

Ren pushed his steed faster, the world a blur of carnage and mud. He saw the portal, a hateful wound of golden light. He saw her terrified, beautiful face look back at him. He was almost there. Ten meters. Five. The distance was closing, he could almost touch her. 

The portal hissed shut with a sound of sickening finality.

She was gone.

He reined his shadow steed to a halt so abruptly that the creature dissolved into a cloud of dissipating smoke beneath him. He stood in the mud, his feet sinking into the blood-soaked earth, his hand still outstretched to the empty air where she had been just a moment before.

Cheated. He had all this power. He was a King. He was a god in this dark, forgotten realm. And he was still too late. He was still the same helpless boy who had felt her hand slip from his grasp in a collapsing room.

The rage, a cold, focused, and absolute thing, finally broke its leash.

He didn't scream. He simply raised his gauntlet toward the sky. The whispers of the Void, which had been a constant, chaotic chorus in his mind, fell silent. There was only his will, a singular, diamond-hard point of focused, annihilating intent. He looked at the remaining Protectors of the Covenant, the brave, foolish rearguard who now stood between him and nothing, their swords raised, their faces pale with a terror that was quickly being replaced by a suicidal, righteous resolve. He felt nothing for them. No pity. No hatred. They were simply… in the way.

A sphere of absolute darkness, a perfect, silent hole in the world the size of a fist, coalesced above his palm. It made no sound. It emitted no light. It only grew, expanding into a perfect, silent black sun that hung in the twilight sky, drinking the very light from the air, casting the battlefield in a profound, unnatural darkness. The Fallen, his own troops, stopped their advance, a wave of primal, instinctual fear washing over them as they stared at the unholy star their King had created. The soldiers of Zion raised their shields, their desperate, final prayers turning to panicked, incoherent screams.

Ren closed his fist.

The black sun imploded, and the world was torn open. A vortex of pure, silent void erupted where the rearguard stood, a hungry, silent mouth that devoured everything—light, sound, matter, faith. The knights, their holy armor, their blessed swords, their unwavering faith, their very souls were pulled into the swirling, silent vortex and were simply… gone. Unmade. Erased from existence. The ground they stood on, a hundred-square-meter patch of the valley, was now a crater of smooth, glassy, black obsidian. His own soldiers, standing mere feet from the edge of the devastation, were completely, utterly unharmed. The battlefield fell silent once more.

He returned to the throne room in a storm of cold silence, his very presence a suffocating pressure. The chieftains followed, their usual boisterous, post-battle pride replaced by a deep, terrified reverence. He walked past them all, his armor still dripping with the chill of the Absolute Void, and took his seat on the throne.

“Bring me Baal-Grak,” he commanded, his voice muffled and dead from behind his helmet.

The wounded chieftain was dragged forward by two of his own clansmen, his seared flesh still smoking from the Light-Bringer’s touch, his one good eye wide with terror and confusion.

“You disobeyed my order,” the King said. It was not an accusation. It was a simple, cold statement of fact. “I commanded you to hold the line. You charged. Because of your pride, because of your lust for glory, you forced her hand. You forced her onto the field.”

“My King… she is the enemy! A cleansing fire! I sought only to…” Baal-Grak stammered, his brutish mind unable to comprehend the nature of his transgression.

“She is my objective,” Ren corrected, his voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow louder and more terrifying than any shout. “And you… are a liability.”

Ren lifted a single, armored finger. The shadows in the throne room converged on Baal-Grak, wrapping around him like silent, constricting serpents, silencing his roars of pain and defiance. The other chieftains watched in paralyzed horror as the great demon’s form began to waver, to dissolve, his physical body being unmade from the inside out by the very shadows that had birthed him. In a few, silent, agonizing seconds, he was gone. Only a faint dusting of grey ash on the obsidian floor remained.

Ren looked out at the other chieftains. Lilith. Belial. Beelzebub. They stared back, their immortal faces pale with a fear they had not felt in millennia. The lesson had been learned.

“Leave me,” he commanded. They fled, their retreat a scramble of scraping armor and silent terror. Azazel was the last to go, bowing his head and backing away from the throne room, his ancient, weary eyes filled with a new and profound fear for the boy who had become a god.

Alone, at last. The rage subsided, and the immense, aching despair returned, magnified a thousand times. He had all this power. He had their fear. And he was no closer to her than he had been that morning. The memory of her terrified face as the portal closed was a fresh, twisting wound in his soul. He stood from the throne. He would not wait. He would not plan. He would go to her. Now. He focused, gathering the Absolute Void not into a weapon of annihilation, but into a single, focused point in front of him. A tiny black hole, a perfect sphere of non-existence, tore itself into reality, warping the air around it. It was a wound in the world, a doorway to nowhere. Without hesitation, he stepped through it.

High in the bright, clear, holy sky above the Citadel of Zion, a star died. That’s what it looked like to the few sentries on the high walls who happened to be looking up. A point of light vanished, replaced by a tiny, perfect circle of absolute blackness. The circle widened, a silent, unholy tear in the fabric of the heavens. From this portal of void, a figure emerged, clad in jagged, night-black armor.

Ren stood in the empty sky, the full, glorious vista of the Citadel spread out beneath him. It was a breathtaking, impossible city of white towers and golden spires, clinging to the side of a mountain that pierced the clouds. It was beautiful. It was a fortress. And it was her cage. He let gravity take him, dropping toward the highest spire like a black meteor.

He impacted the invisible barrier with a silent, concussive force. The sky itself seemed to buckle. A spiderweb of shimmering, golden energy flared into existence where he struck, revealing the invisible dome of holy power that protected the Citadel. He was thrown back, his armor sizzling and smoking where it had touched the raw, holy light. The barrier held. It was absolute, woven from the very essence of The Most High. Even his power could not break it. Not like this.

In her suite, Akari lay curled on the floor, a broken, hollowed-out doll. Then she felt it. A familiar cold. A silent, aching, and overwhelmingly powerful presence that was not a memory. It was him. And it was close. She scrambled to the massive crystal window and saw it. A smudge of wrongness in the perfect blue sky. A spot of blackness that seemed to suck the light out of the air around it. An unholy star. It was him. He was here. He had come for her.

Tears streamed down her face. She fell to her knees, her hands pressing against the cool crystal of the window. And for the first time since her arrival, she did not pray to the all-powerful, distant god they called The Most High. She prayed to him. She gathered all her love, all her faith, her desperate, defiant hope, and pushed it outward, a single, silent thought aimed at the dark star in the sky. Ren. I'm here. I believe in you.

Outside the barrier, reeling from the impact, Ren felt it. It was not a voice. It was not a word. It was a flicker of impossible, life-affirming warmth in his cold, empty soul. A spark of her gentle light, pushing back against his darkness, answering his call. It was her. She was alive. And she was still her. They had not broken her.

He pressed his gauntleted hand against the invisible, shimmering barrier, directly in line with her distant window. He gathered his will, not as a weapon, but as a whisper, forcing his voice across the abyss that separated them. In her room, Akari gasped, clutching her chest. The words bloomed directly in her mind, not as a thought, but as a voice. His voice. Clear, pained, and full of a love that defied gods and worlds.

"I'm coming back for you, Akari."

Tears of pure, agonizing joy streamed down her face. She closed her eyes, clutching the feeling of his presence, the sound of his voice in her soul. And then, one more line, a perfect, heartbreaking echo from their final night in a world that no longer existed.

"Whatever happens, please know that I truly love you."

The presence began to fade. Ren, his message delivered, his mission now confirmed and clarified, receded back into his portal. The black star in the sky of Zion dwindled, and then vanished, as if it had never been.