Chapter 12 ( Abyss Invasion ARC )

The campfire crackled softly, casting flickering shadows on the forest canopy. Sean poked at the embers, the scent of roasting fish mingling with pine sap. 

Aya sat across from him, knees drawn up, her tattered ribbon glinting like a captured star. Three months since Frista Hills, since Kiku's winter storm, 

and the world still trembled with abyssal rifts but here, in this stolen pocket of peace, Sean felt the sea of sorrow recede, just a little.

"You hungry?" Sean asked, glancing at her. Her haunted eyes met his, wide with that fragile curiosity he'd come to guard like his own scars.

Aya shook her head slowly. "I've... never eaten. Not since they took me. My regeneration it kept me alive without food or water. 

Thirteen years..." Her voice trailed off, a ghost of revulsion crossing her face. Insects. Endless crawling horrors in the dark, feeding on what the villagers left.

"That's not living," Sean said, his tone firmer than he intended. He pulled a hollow bamboo tube from his pack, filled from the nearby river, and held it out. "Try this. Water. Start small."

She took it hesitantly, fingers brushing his cold, like frost-kissed stone. Tilting it to her lips, she sipped, then froze. A droplet escaped, tracing her cheek. 

"So... this is water?" Her eyes welled, tears catching the firelight. "My throat it feels alive. Warm. I never... I never knew."

Sean watched, his chest tightening. Lila's toothless grin flashed in his mind, Ayumi's quiet strength, Kiku's playful mask all lights he'd failed to shield. 

But Aya's wonder? It was a spark he could fan, not let gutter. I can't let her smile fade, he whispered to the flames, purpose igniting like dry tinder. 

After the breakdowns, the endless nights clawing at his scars, this was enough. For now.

"Want to try this?" He skewered a fresh-caught fish from the fire, flaky and golden, steam rising in savory curls. "Fish. From the river. Better than bugs, I promise."

Aya's brow furrowed, a faint laugh escaping her first real one, brittle but bright. "What's a fish? The only things I tasted were... insects. Crawling over me while they..." 

She shuddered, but took the offered morsel, nibbling tentatively. Her eyes lit up, a genuine smile breaking free radiant, unscarred by the years. 

"It's... amazing. Warm and crisp, like sunlight in my mouth. The best thing ever." She devoured the rest, joy blooming in her laugh, chasing shadows from her face.

Sean smiled back, faint but real the first in months. The Cosmic Dragon stirred faintly in his veins, silent but watchful. A chain, it had called her. But chains could forge blades, too.

Deep in the Abyss, where light drowned in endless void, the air pulsed with rot and malice. 

The Abyssal Monarch lounged on her throne of bone and shadow, eyes like twin black holes boring into the groveling form before her.

"You disappointed me, Sira," she purred, voice venom laced with silk. Her General of Flying Death knelt, 

body a mangled ruin frozen chunks of obsidian flesh cracked and reforming in agonizing twitches. 

He'd barely escaped Frista Hills, Kiku's frost claiming his wings, his scythe shattered. But void-regen was stubborn he'd crawled back through fissures, a shadow clinging to unlife.

"My queen... forgive me," Sira rasped, voice grinding like ice on gravel. Black ichor pooled at his feet, steaming.

The Monarch's laugh echoed, low and guttural, shaking obsidian spires. "And you return? What, begging scraps of praise?" 

Fury rippled through her, shadows coiling like serpents. She raised a hand, and the throne room's walls writhed flesh-like tendrils erupting, bony fingers tipped with void-claws. 

They lashed out, pounding Sira into the floor with wet thuds, pulping his regenerating form into a smear of ichor and frost-shards. 

He screamed, body knitting only to shatter again, endless torment his penance.

"Please... my queen... I beg," Sira gasped between blows, his helm cracked, red eyes flickering. "I nearly crushed that empress her frost walls crumbled. 

But... from nowhere, a boy appeared. He healed her. Starlight in his veins, mending her wounds like the void itself recoiled."

The hands paused, mid-strike. The Monarch leaned forward, intrigue sharpening her void-gaze. "A boy? Amusing..." 

Her smirk widened, a crescent of malice. "Bring me his head, dear Sira. Sever it clean, and I might forgive your failures. Fail again... and even the Abyss will spit you out."

Sira's reforming body shuddered, wings twitching back to ragged life. "I will, my queen. I'll hunt him down rip his stars from his chest. 

No mercy." His scythe rematerialized in his grip, edge humming with vengeful shadow.

The one who healed Kiku was Sean. And now, Sira flew to claim his head...

To be continued.