The High City was not built to escape the abyss. It was built because the abyss had always been there.
From the earliest records, the abyss had been part of the world: an infinite, black fissure, gaping like a jaw at the continent's center. It was neither a new scar nor a recent phenomenon. It was the dark heart of the world. And so, civilization grew around it like a cautious parasite.
When surface resources began to dwindle—due to erosion, climate mutations, and the demographic pressure of a single nation—humanity did the only thing it could: look downward.
Thus was born the High City, a floating metropolis constructed on the very edge of the abyss, connected by reinforced paths to both the land and the initial deep levels. It was envisioned as a center of control, a marketplace, a military command, and a cultural frontier.
It wasn't immediate. It took centuries. All nations united as one, organized into tiered districts: some agricultural, others industrial, research-oriented, or administrative.
But space didn't grow. And the population did.
The Abyss was there.
Immense. Deep. Dark.
Filled with exotic materials, unknown creatures, and—most importantly—space.
People wanted to descend.
For generations, men and women ventured into the lower levels. Not as suicides… but as warriors, forgers, explorers, scientists.
Some returned with scars, stories, and impossible materials. Others came back as legends. And many never returned.
Thus were born the strong names: squad leaders, abyssal blacksmiths, alchemists, Scholars.
Thus were forged weapons from nameless bones and metals that burned upon touching skin.
Thus were outposts established on some lower floors.
And thus were reputations built that rose faster than bodies.
Meanwhile, the central district markets were the nation's economic heart. There, mutated meats, fabrics hardened by calcified fungi, and above all: materials from the abyss were traded.
Black bone carved into amulets.
Karnash crystals polished like jewels.
Hardened spines transformed into surgical needles.
Fragments of luminescent scales embedded in kitchen knives.
They weren't common products, but neither were they myths.
Abyssal materials were valuable… but not rare. There was demand, but also fear.
No one touched directly what they didn't understand.
Though the abyss wasn't new, it wasn't stable either.
There were levels with mysterious beings, others with mutating creatures, materials that tore human skin.
And in its darkest depths… remains.
Remains of an ancient civilization.
Vestiges of architecture carved into living stone.
Destroyed murals with symbols never deciphered.
And above all: corpses.
Not human.
Nor monsters.
Something in between.
That civilization was annihilated. By the environment, by time… or by something worse.
But the real change wasn't the abyss.
It was the Noctis.
When one of these beings appeared, not in the forbidden levels but on level 4, it marked a shift in the human world. The high command of the High City saw the perfect opportunity.
It was no longer about survival.
It was about authority, access, and dominion.
"The abyss has always been there," they said.
"But now it has responded to us; it's no longer enough to explore it—we must establish control."
And so, under the banner of "deep threat containment," the descent intensified.
New elevators were opened.
A great fortress was erected on level 5.
Squads were dispatched.
Alliances were forged among clans, blacksmiths, scholars, and alchemists.
All under the guise of defense.
But many knew the truth:
The Noctis was a messenger.
But the abyss hadn't changed.
It was they who, little by little, were losing their fear.
Deep within district 9 was Lucy, a girl born into a poor family in a place of dust and heat, where children didn't play with sticks but with blunt blades picked from the blacksmith's scrapyard.
Lucy worked in the Minor Weapons and Blacksmithing Center, a place that resembled a tomb more than a workshop. The walls were lined with shelves of rusted swords, splintered spears, blades broken in two. All made from common metal, steel extracted from the upper veins, forged with ancient techniques.
And all were useless.
"The world's iron is useless against the abyss's flesh," the forge master once told her, as he pulled a broken blade from a box of bones.
"It's not for lack of sharpness. It's for lack of soul."
The problem, they explained, was structural:
The abyss's monsters weren't made to die like normal creatures.
Their tissues were taut, crossed by layers of living resin, regenerative muscle fibers, and skins composed of biological minerals that absorbed pressure.
Common steel, upon impact, would break. Bounce off. Get nicked.
Only weapons made from materials born in the abyss—hardened bone, dark metals like Umbral Nickel, tensile tendons, Karnash crystal—could truly harm these creatures.
That's why every forge in the High City had a hidden section, solely for handling abyssal materials.
And that's why Lucy carried a Shadow Ferrite sword… basic, cheap, more ritualistic than lethal.
At seventeen cycles, she decided to descend.
Not for honor. Not for faith.
Because down there, if you survived, you could forge your own name.
Before her, the descent elevator roared. A structure of black iron and living chains, descending toward the first level. Lucia wore the novice uniform: short coat, coraline pauldrons, reinforced gloves.
Her hands trembled. Not from fear.
From anticipation.
It was the first day.
The first descent.
And though the abyss didn't know her yet… she already carried her name like a spark in her chest.
One never descended through the center.
The vertical core of the abyss—what the ancients called "the black throat"—was forbidden for direct descent.
Not by human rules.
But by instinct.
For generations, it was known that the abyss's center was infested with eyeless birds, as large as machines, with multiple wings and feathers as sharp as scalpels.
They flew in eternal circles, stalking anything that descended.
They were called "Birds of Death," though no one had seen them up close and lived to tell the tale.
"They don't ascend for a reason," veterans said.
"They fear the sun. The heat. Direct light. As if they were made for darkness."
Por supuesto, aquí tienes el fragmento traducido al inglés, con el nombre "Lucia" cambiado por "Lucy" y manteniendo el tono oscuro, visceral y lírico del original:
CLANK!
The elevator struck the ground like a clenched fist, rattling the bones of the twelve novices inside. The doors opened with a screech of fatigued metal, revealing Level 1 of the Abyss: a place that, at first glance, seemed more like a market than an underworld.
Lucy stepped out last, adjusting the grip on her Shadow Ferrite sword—a cheap, nicked blade inherited from her master. The common steel gleamed dully under the artificial light of bluish gas lamps.
Two figures approached, their steps resonating with the confidence of those who had survived the Abyss more than once.
—Raimond and Mel.
They didn't wear the tattered uniforms of novices. Their armor, forged from Umbral Nickel plates, shimmered with an oily sheen, like snake scales. The swords hanging from their belts weren't tools but trophies: black blades with golden veins, capable of slicing through the mutant flesh of Abyssal beasts.
Raimond stopped in front of Lucy, his cold eyes scanning her equipment.
—"With that sword, you won't last an hour in Level 2," he said, pointing at the blade with disdain.
Lucy clenched her teeth.
—"It's all I could afford."
Mel let out a sharp laugh.
—"What an idiot."
She passed by, hitting Lucy's shoulder hard enough to make her stagger. The two hunters moved on, leaving behind the smell of burnt metal and sweat.
Lucy took a deep breath. "It doesn't matter," she thought. "They don't know what I carry inside."
Level 1 was a bubble of false normality.
There were no monsters here, only Abyssal insects: crystal butterflies that sparkled like glass shards in flight, armored beetles with obsidian shells, and carnivorous flowers that closed as humans passed by.
But what dominated the landscape was the market.
Crowded stalls, built from stolen planks and beast bones, lined narrow streets. The merchants—men and women with scars speaking of failed descents—shouted their wares:
—"Ghul-Teke skin! Strong as steel, light as silk!"
—"Karnash blood! One sip and you'll feel the Abyss in your veins!"
—"Carved bones from Level 3! Protection against the Noctis!" (It was a lie, but novices believed it.)
Lucy passed by a potion stall, where rows of vials glowed with golden, violet, and black liquids. She managed to read a price before looking away: 50 credits for a minimal dose of Kharis essence.
"Impossible," she thought, clenching her fist. "I'd need to sell my sword to buy one."
The hunter escorting them—a tall man with a scar snaking from his forehead to his neck—stopped in front of a map carved into the wall.
—"Level 2 will be your training zone," he said, pointing to a tunnel sinking into darkness. "There's the camp between the second and third levels. You'll sleep there. Eat there. And, if you're lucky, not die there."
Someone laughed nervously. The veteran remained unmoved.
—"Further down are the Potion Factories. They work with Kharis Larvae there."
Lucy raised her hand.
—"What are the Kharis?"
Silence grew heavy. The other novices looked at the veteran as if she'd asked why the sky is blue.
The man took a deep breath, as if recalling something he'd rather forget.
—"We don't know where the Larvae come from. But the adult Kharis... live on Level 7."
/////////
Records of the Abyssal Codex:
The Kharis were not mere creatures. They were something more.
When a Larva shed its soft, translucent form, it transformed into an entity of terrifying beauty:
Six appendages unfolded like liquid crystal wings, radiating light in hypnotic patterns.
They had no mouth, but communicated through luminous pulses, sounds that resonated in the bones, and sometimes projecting images directly into the minds of those who looked at them.
At the center of their body floated a "heart of aurora", a core of pure energy that pulsed like a captured star.
Powers:
They could fly without wings, levitating on vibrations inaudible to humans.
Their fluids no longer just healed; they mutated. A drop could plant foreign memories in your mind or dissolve flesh like acid.
The few humans who had seen them and survived spoke of visions: flashes of the Abyss's past, of lost civilizations, of something sleeping in the depths...
Habitat:
They lived on Level 7, a place called The Silent Choir.
There, time flowed differently. Living columns—like petrified trees—vibrated, emitting eternal songs.
The air was saturated with shimmering dust that reacted to emotions: glowing red with fear, golden with curiosity.
Humans called them "ghosts of the Abyss".
But veteran hunters whispered another name:
"The first voices."
///////
The veteran crossed his arms.
—"From today, your survival depends on you. The Abyss doesn't forgive mistakes. What it swallows... it keeps."
Lucy looked toward the tunnel leading to Level 2.
Somewhere below her, Rheell and Lumis moved in the darkness.
And the Abyss breathed, waiting.