The Abyss Has Teeth
The air thickened with ash and blood as silence fell across the battlefield. The great wind gliders hovered above, wounded but still soaring, as Elian, Kael, and Thorne stood together at the edge of a shallow crater—chests heaving, ancient energy crackling off their massive forms like divine thunderclouds.
In the distance, the remaining Nine stood on a towering cliff above the hordes. One of them, young in appearance—no older than twenty—stepped forward. A sharp jawline, hair silver like coiled mercury, and eyes that gleamed not with malice, but boredom.
"I'll handle it," the boy said, voice smooth and tinged with restrained cruelty.
Xerath didn't turn to look at him. "No."
The boy's fingers twitched. "Why not?"
"You'd kill them too easily," Xerath said flatly. "Without even shifting."
The boy scoffed, visibly disappointed. "Then why keep them alive at all?"
"For the same reason we keep blades sharp—one day, I'll let you play. Not today."
Before another word was spoken, the earth shattered.
A massive ripple tore through the ground as one of the ancients—moving at impossible speed—drilled through the army of its own kind. Blood and bone flung into the sky as the creature landed in front of the three hybrids, skidding through corpses and ruin until it came to a thunderous stop.
It stood upright.
Thirty-five meters of obsidian-scaled horror, lean and lanky, with limbs that bent wrong and a mouth that grinned wider than any should. It had no eyes—only slits glowing a sickening yellow beneath a bone-like crown that spiraled backward like horns.
Vornyx.
The Beast of the Bleeding Eclipse.
Elian's chest tightened.
Xerath raised a single hand and called across the field, voice resonating like metal across the stars.
"Enjoying your new powers, I see... Vornyx."
Kael spat. "He's with them?"
Thorne trembled. "I... I've seen him in the dreams."
No more words.
Elian, Kael, and Thorne burst upward, transforming in unison. Bones cracked and expanded, flesh tore and reknit with ancient power as their bodies surged to towering heights—each distinct in form and energy.
Elian's form: Sleek and flame-wrapped, with glowing runes seared into his body like scars from the sun.
Kael's form: Brutish, jagged, wreathed in storms. Thunder rolled with every movement.
Thorne's form: Almost skeletal, razor-thin and shadowy, with wings stitched from darkness and light.
They launched themselves forward.
Vornyx moved once.
The air detonated.
Kael reached first, swinging a blade of lightning. Vornyx ducked under it, his clawed hand gripping Kael's arm mid-swing—and ripping it off in a spray of blood and bone. Kael roared, trying to heal, but Vornyx kicked him in the chest so hard it created a crater kilometers wide, launching Kael over the horizon.
Elian's fist collided with Vornyx's side—one of the strongest punches ever thrown by a hybrid.
It bent Vornyx slightly.
The creature turned and smiled with too many teeth.
Elian didn't see the claw coming.
It went through him—spine to sternum—and hurled him into a mangled column of corpses.
Thorne, panicking, flew above the fray and unleashed a volley of black spears conjured from his ribs. The battlefield turned into a forest of bone. Vornyx let them hit him. Each one sank deep—and then disintegrated into smoke as the creature's body rejected them.
In a blur, Vornyx vanished—then reappeared behind Thorne and snapped his wings off mid-flight. Thorne screamed, spiraling into the ruins like a meteor, blood trailing behind like ribbons.
All three lay broken.
Elian struggled to rise, bones exposed, fire flickering from a shattered jaw. Kael dragged himself forward, one arm missing, breathing in ragged gulps. Thorne's body twitched, nerves misfiring.
Vornyx walked toward them slowly.
With the calm of a god.
Xerath raised his arm again. "Stop."
Vornyx halted. Perfect obedience.
The ancients around them surged forward—not to kill—but to collect.
Chains. Hooks. Nullifiers.
Two of the three hybrids were taken, Elian had was saved by captain Sheane Heath. Sheane had one blade his mouth and another in his non-dominant hand, he forced his way through the horde collecting a terrifying kill count but unfortunately his dominant hand was still in a cast so he was only able to kill half of the ancients in the horde and collect one of the three ancient-hybrids. He decided to rescue Elian, leaving Kael and Thorne with Xerath before fleeing with Elian and the remaining 4 members of the T.E.R.O.S.A. Kael and Thorne, unconscious and stripped of their forms, were dragged across the battlefield like trophies.
---
Xerath's Underground Fortress.
The world down here was all red light and metal. Torture machines hummed. Screams echoed constantly, never quite human anymore.
Thorne awoke first, suspended by shackles that nullified his ancient energy. Kael Thorne was beside him
That's when the needles came.
The drills.
The syringes that bled light.
The psychic branding etched into their minds by Eldritch priests in cracked masks.
"You're soldiers of the wrong side," a voice whispered endlessly in Thorne's mind. "You are meant to serve. To kill for us. To cleanse."
Visions flooded their thoughts. Their allies turning on them. Cities crumbling. The world welcoming the ancients.
Every hour erased another piece of their humanity.
Kael fought back with rage.
Thorne begged them to stop.
It didn't matter.
In the dark womb of Xerath's fortress, the two hybrids screamed as their loyalty was shattered and rebuilt molecule by molecule.
When they would next open their eyes…
They would belong to him.