Kael steadied himself as the Abyss churned around him, its unseen currents threading through the fractured battlefield. His breathing was even, but the tension pressing against his Void Anchor was undeniable. Something was shifting—something beyond a simple test of power.
The Deva observed from the edges of reality, their figures barely tangible, their murmurs lost within the Flow. Alyss remained silent, but Kael felt the weight of her gaze. She had seen wielders rise before. She had seen them fall. And now, she watched as Kael stepped toward the precipice of something irreversible.
Across from him, Rhyse Il'Valar was smiling.
The young Deva's form flickered, slipping between Echo Genesis layers, manifesting in multiple instances of himself at once. He wasn't simply shifting position—he was moving through points in time, weaving across battlefields that had never existed.
Kael narrowed his focus. He had fought against unpredictability before. Against speed. Against power. But this—this was something entirely different.
"You're walking deeper than most," Rhyse murmured, his voice echoing through the currents. "But you still don't know what you've stepped into."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Then show me."
Rhyse grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that."
And then the Abyss fractured.
The battlefield shifted—no, collapsed—as spiraling waves of Abyssal Flow ruptured reality itself. Kael barely had time to register the change before the space around him distorted. The ruins vanished, replaced by a void of raw energy, cascading in tidal surges that threatened to tear his presence apart.
This wasn't simply an attack.
This was Abyssal shaping itself around Kael's existence, challenging him directly.
Rhyse blurred forward, his Echo Genesis unfolding, manifesting countless layered strikes from different angles and times. His movements were unreadable—Kael wasn't fighting a singular opponent. He was battling possibilities, each merging into the next before he could react.
Kael moved.
Not by resisting. Not by dodging.
By synchronizing.
His Void Anchor pulsed, his Flow adapting, shifting his weight across the battlefield. Tidal Collapse activated, allowing him to manipulate the gravitational density of the space around him. The first wave of strikes missed—not because Kael avoided them, but because he altered the battlefield itself, forcing the currents to bend in his favor.
The second wave barely brushed past his defenses.
The third—
Kael twisted mid-step, his energy bursting outward. Void Drift surged around him, threading through the cracks in existence. For the first time, Rhyse faltered.
Their Flow resonances overlapped, Abyssal currents bending toward the same unseen force.
Kael wasn't fighting alone anymore.
The Abyss itself was fighting with him.
And in that moment, he understood.
The Awakening
The battlefield stilled.
Rhyse had halted, his layered forms flickering, his expression unreadable. He studied Kael for a long moment, his Abyssal resonance dimming as he pulled back, assessing.
"The Abyss is responding to you differently now," he finally said. His tone carried no arrogance, no challenge—only recognition.
Kael remained silent. He could feel it—the shifts beneath reality, the way the currents no longer resisted him but anticipated his movements. His connection had deepened.
He wasn't simply controlling the Abyss.
He was becoming part of it.
The murmurs from the watching Deva ceased. Alyss tilted her head slightly, but she did not interrupt.
Rhyse exhaled, rolling his shoulders. "You realize what this means, don't you?"
Kael did. But he wasn't ready to say it aloud.
Because mastery of the Abyssal Flow was not power alone.
It was transformation.
A change that could never be undone.
And now, he was standing at its threshold.