Chapter 11 ( Abyss Invasion ARC )

Three Months Later..... And before the fight of vivran

Sean trudged through a scarred forest, the weight of Ayumi’s katana and Kiku’s frost-woven scarf heavier than ever. 

Three months since Frista Hills, since the Empress’s "Kneel before the winter" shattered Sira’s swarm. Yet victory left him hollow. 

He was drowning not in water, but in a sea of self-doubt, regret, and sorrow. Who am I? Why am I? What’s my purpose? 

His eyes, cold as Kiku’s frost, stared blankly at the dusk sky. He clutched the scarf, its glacial runes dim. “What should I do, scarf?” he whispered, 

then gripped the katana’s hilt, etched with Lila’s lion. “What should I do, sword?”

No answer. The Cosmic Dragon’s taunts had faded to silence, but its curse starfire veins, endless healing burned in his scars. 

He was a blade without a sheath, a monster without a cause. Just keep moving. Alone. The forest hummed with dusk’s chill, mocking his solitude.

“Help me!” a scream pierced the quiet, shrill and desperate. Sean froze, head snapping toward the bushes. 

“Someone, please!” A girl’s voice, trembling. He crept forward, katana half-drawn, peering through the leaves.

A girl, maybe sixteen, stood cornered by a pack of snarling wolves, their eyes glinting like abyssal embers. Her dark hair was tangled, 

hands clutching a basket of mushrooms, her brown eyes wide with terror. The wolves circled, jaws dripping, claws raking the dirt.

Sean’s vision blurred memories crashed like a tidal wave. Wolves tearing his flesh in that starry hell, 

bones snapping, lungs spilling, only to heal in searing agony. Hour after hour, devoured alive, his screams lost to the void. The hopelessness clawed him, rooting him in place.

“Hey! Don’t ignore me!” the girl shouted, voice cracking with defiance. “Help me, damn it!”

Her plea snapped him back. Sean drew the katana in a whisper of steel, scarf flaring with faint frostlight. He moved faster than thought, a shadow of frost and fury. 

Shesss! The blade arced, air splitting with a shockwave. Ice erupted from the ground, jagged pillars spearing each wolf through the chest. 

Their snarls choked into silence, bodies frozen solid, eyes dimming as frost claimed their hearts. The scarf’s glow faded fast, its power spent.

Claws had grazed Sean’s arm, blood dripping briefly before starfire knit the wounds in a flash of pain. The girl stared, 

her breath catching she’d seen it, his regen curse. “Um… thank you,” she said, voice shaky but warm, brushing dirt from her tattered cloak. 

“Be safe,” Sean replied coldly, sheathing the katana and turning to leave.

“Hey, don’t just walk off!” she called, scrambling after him. “Come join us for dinner. I’m Zia. I was out here picking rare mushrooms stupid, I know, got surrounded.” 

Her smile was too bright, her eyes flicking to his scars with a glint of calculation.

Sean shook his head. “It’s fine. Go enjoy yourself.” He kept walking, forest shadows swallowing him.

Zia darted forward, grabbing his arm with surprising strength. “Come on, don’t be so cold! My town’s just over the ridge. You look starved.” 

Before he could protest, she tugged him along, her grip relentless. Sean’s mind lagged, unmoored. 

Did this girl just drag me to her town? he thought, boots crunching on frost-dusted leaves.

The town was a cluster of thatched huts, glowing warmly under torchlight. Villagers waved with eerie cheer, their smiles too wide, voices too sweet. 

“Welcome, traveler!” an elder called, offering bread. A child pressed a carved trinket into Sean’s hand, giggling. 

Suspicion prickled his spine these people felt wrong, like actors playing at kindness. But he was too tired to care, his purpose drowned in doubt.

Dinner was laid out in a communal hall long tables piled with bread, mushrooms, and roasted meat. 

Zia pushed a plate toward him, her grin sharp. “Try this, it’s our specialty.” The meat reeked, not of cow or deer but something rancid, 

like decay laced with void-taint. Sean’s gut twisted he’d smelled abyssal ichor before. He ate the bread and mushrooms, 

leaving the meat untouched, eyes scanning the villagers’ eager stares.

They offered him a small room to rest, a cot draped in furs. Exhausted, Sean didn’t think twice he collapsed into sleep, katana at his side. 

Midnight woke him, a hum of unease pulling him upright. Something was off. He slipped out, cloak trailing, and followed muffled sounds to a warehouse at the town’s edge.

The door creaked open, revealing pure evil. A girl, no older than Aya, was bound in ropes, her body scarred and trembling. 

Her flesh was carved away in strips, regenerating in faint pulses of light another cursed with his power. 

Villagers stood around her, knives dripping, chewing on her raw meat with sickening relish. Her eyes, hollow with years of torment, met Sean’s, pleading without words.

Rage surged, colder than Kiku’s frost. Zia’s voice echoed in his mind she’d seen his regen, told the town. They wanted him next, a new endless feast. 

These people weren’t just evil they were worse than demons, feeding on hope itself.

Sean drew the katana, scarf flaring as he moved like a storm. The villagers turned, knives raised, but he was death inincarnate

A single slash unleashed a frost shockwave, freezing two into brittle statues that shattered against the wall. 

Another lunged; Sean’s blade cleaved through their chest, ice pillars erupting to impale the rest. 

Blood and frost painted the warehouse, their screams silenced in seconds. 

He cut the girl’s ropes, catching her as she collapsed, her body trembling but healing.

“Who… are you?” she whispered, voice hoarse from years of silence.

“Sean,” he said, voice low. “What’s your name?” “Aya,” she replied, clutching a tattered ribbon her only relic of a forgotten childhood. 

“They took me when I was small. My family… I don’t remember. For thirteen years, they ate me. Every day, over and over.” 

Her voice broke, not with anger but exhaustion. “I don’t want revenge. I just want to be free.”

Sean’s heart clenched, Lila’s smile flashing in his mind, Ayumi’s broken gaze, Kiku’s fleeting warmth. 

Aya had nowhere to go her world was this nightmare town. If he left, they’d hunt her down, their hunger unending. 

He sheathed the katana, scarf settling against his scars. “You’re coming with me,” he said, resolve hardening. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Aya’s eyes widened, a spark of hope flickering. She nodded, clutching the ribbon tighter. 

The town burned behind them as Sean set it ablaze with a stolen torch, the flames cleansing the evil. 

He didn’t look back. For the first time in months, purpose stirred a vow not to slay, but to live, to protect the girl who’d endured his curse longer than he had.

The Cosmic Dragon’s voice rumbled, amused: “A new chain, boy. Will it bind you or break you?” Sean ignored it, Aya at his side, 

the katana’s frost-rimed edge gleaming under the moon. The Land of Power trembled, and his fight was far from over.

The town burned behind them, flames licking the night sky, cleansing the evil that had festered for years. Sean led Aya through the forest, her steps unsteady but determined, 

the tattered ribbon clutched in her trembling hands. Her scars pale, faintly glowing like moonlight mirrored his own, though hers carried a strange warmth, 

not the Cosmic Dragon’s cold nebulae. Another curse. Another heir? The thought stirred his veins, a faint pulse of starfire, but he pushed it down. 

The Dragon’s laugh echoed: “Two broken blades. Will you sharpen her or shatter her?”

Aya stumbled, catching herself on a tree. “I… don’t know where to go,” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. 

Her eyes, wide and haunted, fixed on the stars. “They kept me in that warehouse so long… I forgot the sky could be this bright.”

Sean stopped, his chest tightening. Lila’s flower crown, Ayumi’s katana, Kiku’s scarf all gifts from those he’d failed. 

Aya was different. She wasn’t a child like Lila, a warrior like Ayumi, or an empress like Kiku. She was a survivor, 

like him, forged in pain but craving freedom, not vengeance. I can’t leave her. They’ll hunt her down.

“You’re with me now,” he said, voice softer than he meant. “I’ll teach you to survive. No one touches you again.” 

The scarf at his neck glowed faintly, Kiku’s frost stirring as if approving his vow.

Aya nodded, a faint hum escaping her a broken lullaby, half-remembered from a life stolen. 

“Thank you, Sean,” she whispered, clutching the ribbon like a lifeline. “I just want… to live. Really live.”

He turned away, hiding the flicker of warmth in his cold eyes. The forest stretched ahead, 

shadows hiding abyssal fissures that pulsed with the Monarch’s hunger. Aya’s presence was a chain, but not a curse a purpose to keep moving, 

to protect what little light remained. The katana’s frost-rimed edge gleamed, ready for the next fight.

Far off, a tremor shook the earth, a distant roar hinting at dragons stirring Cosmic or otherwise. 

Sean gripped the hilt, Aya at his side. The Land of Power was waking, and their path was only beginning.

To be continued.