The void swallowed them.
But this time, they did not fall.
They floated — without ground, without walls, without a sky.
—
The other side of the mirror was a place where the concept of space was shattered.
Fragments of lands, memories, and dead stars drifted slowly around them.
Kael looked upward — or what he thought was upward — and saw a vast black crack running through what seemed to be the fabric of time itself.
And from it, a sensation bled:
The Abyss.
—
It wasn't a creature.
It wasn't a being.
It was a hunger.
A void yearning for meaning, trying to consume imperfect realities to either forge something new — or erase all existence.
—
The witches felt it too.
Some fell to their knees.
Others wept without understanding why.
Kael stood firm.
He knew deep inside that the Abyss was testing them.
Not with strength.
With temptation.
> "You will fail."
"Your echoes already betray you."
"Let yourself fall, Stone. Let yourself dissolve, Mist."
The voices hissed within their hearts.
—
Kael closed his eyes for a moment.
He remembered who he was.
Every choice.
Every pain.
And he opened his eyes, burning with amber fire.
— You are hunger.
— We are memory.
The mist around them shuddered.
The Abyss felt the resistance.
And for the first time… it withdrew.
—
A path opened through the void.
A tenuous, trembling bridge of light, but real.
Kael looked at the witches.
— Follow me.
— We will not fall today.
And one by one, they moved forward, leaving the first glimpse of the Abyss behind.
But they knew:
It now knew their names.
And it would wait.