Chapter 13 ( Abyss Invasion ARC )

The river's gentle rush was a lullaby under the midday sun, sunlight dappling the water like scattered stars. 

Sean sat on a mossy rock, Ayumi's katana propped beside him, its frost-rimed edge catching faint glimmers from Kiku's scarf draped over his shoulders. 

Aya knelt at the water's edge, her tattered ribbon tied loosely in her dark hair, splashing her hands with childlike glee. 

"Look, Sean! It tickles like the fish last night, but cooler!" She giggled, the sound light and unscarred, chasing ripples across the surface.

Sean watched, a rare warmth cracking the frost in his chest. Three days since the campfire, since her first taste of the world beyond torment, 

and already she'd woven herself into his scars like starlight through cracks. No more sea of sorrow just this fragile peace, her innocence a balm on wounds he'd forgotten how to name. 

Lila's echo, Ayumi's ghost, Kiku's fleeting touch they all blurred in Aya's wide-eyed wonder. She makes me feel alive, he thought, the Cosmic Dragon's silence a rare mercy. 

For the first time, the pain didn't claw; it slept."Here try skipping stones," he said, handing her a smooth pebble, his voice softer than the breeze. 

He demonstrated, flicking one across the water in three perfect hops. Aya's brow furrowed in concentration, her throw wobbling into a splash. 

She burst out laughing, clapping as droplets rained on her face. "I did it! Sort of! Your turn teach me better!"

He chuckled a low, rusty sound he barely recognized and knelt beside her, guiding her hand. Their fingers brushed, and for a heartbeat, the world narrowed: 

no abyssal fissures, no Monarch's hunger, just this. A stone skipped four times under her tentative toss. "Sean! I " 

Her eyes lit up, pure and unbroken, and he felt it the purpose he'd chased since the valley burned. I won't let this fade. Not her smile. Not again.

But joy was a thief in the Land of Power, always stolen too soon.

The sky darkened not with clouds, but with writhing shadows. A low hum built, like the drone of locusts from a cracked grave, and the river's surface 

froze mid-ripple, not with frost, but with void-chill that sucked warmth from the air. Aya froze too, her pebble dropping from numb fingers. "Sean... what's "

"Down!" Sean snarled, shoving her behind the rock, katana whipping into his grip. The scarf flared, glacial runes igniting as he scanned the treeline. 

From the canopy erupted Sira, General of Flying Death, his tattered void-wings unfurling like torn night, trailing a swarm of lesser horrors 

bat-winged demons with scythe-beaks and ember-eyes. His body was a patchwork of scars, frost-cracks from Kiku's wrath half-healed into jagged obsidian, 

his massive void-scythe humming in his grip like a starved beast. Sira hovered, wings beating hurricane gusts that uprooted saplings, 

his helm's swirling darkness parting to reveal a maw twisted in rage. 

"Finally... found you... S. E. A. N." The name dripped like venom, each syllable a lash. "Finally! I will get to kill you. And torture you. You think interrupting others' fights is fun? No. 

Because you came and healed that bitch that empress. She froze me before I could even transform. And because of you, now my queen my Monarch thinks I'm a coward who ran away!"

Sean's blood ran cold, starry veins pulsing unbidden. Kiku... The pieces clicked Sira's escape, the void's grudge. 

He stepped forward, shielding Aya's huddled form, katana raised in a defensive arc. "Stay back. This doesn't concern you."

Sira's laugh was a screech that split eardrums, echoing like shattering souls. "I tried everything to impress her! Centuries of slaughter, 

wings dipped in the blood of leviathans and because of you, just because of... you... she hates me!" 

His eyes red slits in the helm burned with fractured mania. "She pulped me herself, over and over, just to watch me crawl back. 

Now? I shall show you what true pain feels like. The Abyss demands your head!"

The swarm dove first, a storm of claws and beaks blotting the sun. Sean exploded into motion, scarf's frost surging through the blade. 

Shesss! A shockwave arced outward, ice pillars erupting from the riverbank in a jagged forest, skewering a dozen flyers mid-descent. 

Their bodies shattered like black glass, ichor freezing mid-spray. "Aya run! Hide in the trees!" he barked, pivoting to parry a lunging horror, katana cleaving its wing in a spray of void-mist.

But Aya didn't flee. Trembling, ribbon clutched like a talisman, she backed toward the underbrush until Sira's shadow eclipsed her. 

His scythe blurred, faster than thought, slamming into Sean's guard with a clang that numbed his arms. 

The force hurled him back, crashing through a sapling, ribs cracking against unyielding bark. 

Starfire ignited instinctively, bones knitting with searing agony, but Sira was relentless a colossus of shadow and spite.

"So that's your connection, huh?" Sira's gaze locked on Aya, his savage smirk widening into a crescent of teeth. 

Void-wings flexed, propelling him earthward in a dive that cratered the ground. "Mind if I kill her too? Slice her slow make you watch her 'regenerate' through the screams."

"No!" Sean's roar shook the leaves, the Cosmic Dragon's power clawing free despite his vow. He surged up, katana blazing with hybrid fury frost comet-

trail laced with nebulae glow. He charged, blade a whirlwind: a thrust piercing Sira's pauldron, ice blooming across void-armor in fractal cracks; 

a slash severing a wing-tendril, black ichor gushing like oil. The swarm harried him, beaks raking his cloak to shreds, claws drawing blood that healed too slow under the void's corrupting touch.

Aya scrambled back, her own regen flickering a warm golden light pulsing from a gash on her arm, sealing it with ethereal threads. 

"Sean !" But Sira was a tempest, his scythe weaving arcs that frayed reality itself. One swing caught Sean's shoulder, void-energy erupting in black lightning that ate through flesh, 

starfire struggling to reclaim the rot. Pain exploded, traumas flashing: wolves' teeth, Ayumi's blood, Lila's sobs now Aya's wide eyes, pleading.

"You're weak," Sira hissed, wings battering Sean airborne, then slamming him down into the river. Water flash-froze around him, void-chill seeping into his bones. 

"Hiding behind a girl? The Monarch will feast on her essence after I carve runes into her skin for you to admire." 

He blurred forward, scythe pinning Sean's katana to the mud, the other hand lashing out a shadow-tendril snaring Aya's ankle, yanking her forward with a cry.

Sean twisted free, starfire erupting in a desperate blaze cosmic flames clashing against void in a cataclysmic burst that scorched the riverbed to glass. 

He tackled Sira mid-air, blade thrusting for the core, but the general was too vast, too vengeful. A wing-buffet cracked Sean's jaw, sending him tumbling into thorns; 

claws raked his back, void-rot spreading like ink, slowing his regen to a crawl. Blood pooled, unhealed, as Sira loomed, scythe raised for the kill.

Aya thrashed against the tendril, her golden light flaring brighter severing the shadow with a pulse that made Sira recoil. "Stay away from him!" she screamed, 

voice breaking but fierce, ribbon whipping like a banner in the wind. But the swarm closed in, beaks descending, and Sean's vision blurred 

limbs heavy, power fraying. Not her. Not again. He staggered up, katana trembling, frost dimming to mist.

Sira laughed, victorious, his form swelling as transformation stirred void-armor rippling into something nightmarish, larger, hungrier. 

"Pathetic. Watch now, Sean your 'purpose' ends in screams." He batted Sean aside like refuse, the impact shattering ribs and dousing the last of his starfire. 

Sean crumpled, gasping, world tilting to black edges alive, but broken, helpless as Sira advanced on Aya. 

The scythe gleamed, tendrils coiling like eager serpents, ready to peel her apart, inch by agonizing inch, right before Sean's fading eyes.

The river ran red. And the void hungered.

To be continued.