Chapter 223: Spirit Of The Abyss
The cosmic rift spat Igaris out into silence. At first glance, it looked like no world at all—just a void of floating landmasses, shattered mountains drifting endlessly in the dark, rivers of glowing spirit essence spilling into nothingness.
A broken world.
The echoes of what once was whispered through the fragments. He could see the remnants of a great civilization—giant spirit obelisks cracked in half, temples of jade and silver crumbling into space, and spectral trees whose leaves still glowed faintly with lingering life. Yet the air was wrong. It stank of corruption, thick and vile.
From the shadows of the floating ruins, demonic sigils pulsed like living wounds, binding chains of black fire across the fragments of the world. At the center of it all, suspended in a colossal crystal of spirit light now tainted by abyssal chains, floated her.
Seraphina.
Even sealed, her beauty was breathtaking. Silver hair cascaded around her like a river of moonlight, her slender figure wrapped in torn priestess robes that still glimmered faintly with divine radiance. Her closed eyes and parted lips gave the image of a sleeping goddess, yet Igaris knew the truth—she was not asleep. She was shackled in eternal torment.
The air quivered. The world growled.
From the broken skies descended the wardens of her prison—armored demons with wings of fire, blades dripping with spirit essence they had devoured. The largest of them, a hulking fiend crowned with horns of obsidian, roared as his voice shook the fragments of the realm.
"Again you insects come crawling, hoping to free the Spirit Queen. This prison is eternal. She belongs to the Abyss!"
Igaris’s eyes narrowed, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his blade. For a moment, his gaze softened as it lingered on Seraphina’s imprisoned form, a memory stirring from the depths of his soul. The promise he once failed to keep.
This time... he would not fail her.
He stepped forward, his aura bursting outward, suppressing the cries of the demons with sheer force.
"You’ve guarded her long enough," Igaris said, his voice cutting through the air like a blade. "The Spirit Queen belongs to no one but me. And I’ve come to take her back."
The demons shrieked, wings blotting out the faint glow of the fragmented skies as they surged toward him.
Igaris raised his sword. The battle for Seraphina’s freedom had begun.
---
The chains of the abyss pulsed as if alive, tightening around Seraphina’s body. For countless years she had hung there in silence, her spirit essence siphoned endlessly to feed the Demons’ corruption of her homeland.
She could not even weep anymore. Her tears had dried centuries ago.
Once, she had been the pride of her people—the chosen heir of the Spirit Realm, blessed by the Eternal Tree, destined to ascend as Spirit Queen. Gentle yet unyielding, her song could heal broken mountains, and her radiance could guide entire worlds back from despair. But that destiny shattered when the Demon Lords descended.
Her own Council had betrayed her. Those who once bowed before her light bartered with shadows, selling her existence to preserve their fleeting lives. Bound in unholy chains and dragged to this fractured remnant of her once-thriving kingdom, she had been imprisoned ever since, her essence turned into a wellspring of demonic power.
Every rescue attempt had ended the same. Heroes, champions, even her own kin—all burned to ash by the Abyssal Wardens who fed on her suffering. At first, Seraphina prayed. Then, she hoped. But as centuries passed, she stopped counting.
No one could save her.
Her closed eyes stirred faintly at the sudden quake of battle. The cries of demons being torn apart reached her dulled ears, but she ignored them. Countless times before, she had heard this sound. Countless times before, she vision the same dream.
But this time, it felt different.
At last, her eyes opened—silver irises like mirrored starlight, dimmed by despair but still impossibly beautiful. Through the crystalline prison, she saw him.
A black-haired man, his aura unrelenting, his every swing cutting down demons like wheat before a storm. Unlike the others, he moved not with desperation but with the calm ferocity of inevitability, as if every strike was fated. His presence pressed even the abyssal chains to quiver.
Seraphina’s lips parted, her voice raspy from centuries of silence, yet still carrying the softness of a forgotten lullaby.
"...Why do you fight?" she whispered, her words echoing inside the crystal prison. "Countless before you have tried. None have returned."
Her eyes trembled as they searched his figure, a flicker of something dangerous rising in her chest—hope.
But then she bit her lip, shaking her head.
"Leave. Stranger... leave before they devour you too. I am not worth the ruin of another soul."
Yet deep within, her heart betrayed her words. That faint, fragile spark prayed—Please... do not turn away like the others.
"Rumble!"
The abyss trembled.
From the torn skies descended the Abyssal Wardens, towering monstrosities wrapped in bone-armor and dripping with black ichor, each one a calamity that had slain legions of would-be heroes. Their arrival shook the broken world itself, the land cracking and splitting into seas of molten corruption.
Seraphina’s breath hitched. She had seen this countless times before—the moment when hope ended.
But the stranger simply lifted his hand. His black hair whipped in the surge of dark winds, his eyes burning with unfathomable might.
The first Warden roared, swinging a colossal halberd of obsidian. The blow was strong enough to tear rifts through the sky. Mountains shattered. Space itself rippled.
Yet the man raised a single finger.
"World Destroying Finger."
The strike pierced straight through the halberd, shattering the weapon like glass before boring a gaping hole into the monster’s chest. The Warden collapsed in silence, its massive form dissolving into dust.
The others bellowed in rage, unleashing torrents of abyssal fire and chains forged from corrupted laws of existence. Entire regions of the world folded under their assault, shrieking as reality itself groaned.
But he did not falter.
"Soul Eclipse."
Darkness swallowed the battlefield, an endless tide of shadow that devoured the Wardens’ flames and chains. Within that eternal night, their forms stumbled and shrieked, their abyssal cores crushed under invisible pressure.
Then—light erupted.
"Godslayer Sword Style. First Form."
From the shadows, his blade flashed like the birth of a new star. One by one, the towering Wardens were cleaved apart, their eternal howls silenced in an instant.
The final Warden, the largest of all, lunged forward with both arms, its body covered in jagged runes meant to resist gods themselves. But the man only tilted his head slightly, eyes calm.
"Your reign ends here."
He redirected the monster’s crushing strike with a twist of his palm. The motion was effortless, almost disdainful—Kinetic Redirection—and the Warden’s own force backfired, splitting its body open.
A single downward slash followed. The titan collapsed, its fall shaking the land like the end of an age.
Silence reigned.
The broken world itself seemed to hold its breath.
Seraphina trembled violently, her silver eyes wide, her lips parting but no sound leaving them. For the first time in centuries, she had witnessed the unthinkable.
"...He... he defeated them?" she whispered, her voice breaking.
Her hands pressed against the crystalline prison as if to reach him, her heart pounding so violently it hurt.
It wasn’t just victory. It was domination.
The Wardens who had devoured armies, who had broken the last hope of the Spirit Realm... had fallen like ants before him.
Her chest ached as something buried deep within her, thought long dead, stirred back to life.
Hope.
And fear.
For only one thought echoed in her mind as she stared at the black-haired stranger standing amidst the ruins:
Just who... are you?
---
The dust had barely settled. Jagged pillars of obsidian jutted from the broken land, the lingering cries of slain Wardens echoing faintly before fading into nothingness.
The stranger lowered his blade, its glow dimming until it was nothing more than steel once again. His expression did not change—not triumph, not relief. Only calm, as if he had merely brushed away insects.
His footsteps echoed softly as he crossed the battlefield. Each step seemed to bend the shattered world itself, as though the very fabric of this prison dared not resist him.
Seraphina’s breath caught. She pressed her palms against the shimmering walls of her crystalline cage, unable to tear her eyes away from him.
When he finally stopped before her prison, silence stretched between them. His gaze lifted, and their eyes met.
For an instant, she felt her soul tremble. Those eyes... sharp yet heavy with something she could not name. They carried not only power but also sorrow, memory, and a weight older than lifetimes.
Her lips quivered as she asked, "Who are you?"
The man stood there, the moonlight of the broken sky falling upon his black hair. Then, slowly, he raised his hand and placed it against the crystal.
"Someone... who came too late once," he said quietly, his voice deep, carrying both steel and regret. "But not this time. This time, I will not let you remain in chains."
The crystal trembled violently at his touch, cracks spreading outward as though it, too, recognized him.
Seraphina gasped, her chest tightening as her spirit instinctively resonated with his words. Her silver eyes shone with tears that had not fallen for centuries.
This man... this stranger... why does my soul feel like it has always known him?