David was dragged through the Sanctuary to its darkest, most remote corner. This was the final destination for all "sinners"—the Abyss of Penance.
It was a bottomless natural chasm, perpetually shrouded in a darkness so thick it felt tangible. Only the faintest light from the Great Tree could barely illuminate its jagged edges. A chilling, low growl echoed ceaselessly from its depths, a sound that seemed to emanate from the earth's deepest nightmares. Legend said it imprisoned a great beast from the planet's core, one that Landon himself had subdued to guard the "gates of hell" for this land.
"Enjoy your new home, 'liberator'," the leader of the Watchers sneered, kicking David over the edge.
The sensation of weightlessness seized all of David's senses. The wind howled in his ears. He closed his eyes, his mind filled only with endless absurdity and scorn. He had gambled everything for a phantom ideal, only to be pushed off a cliff by the very people he had tried to save. Landon was right. Here, he was nothing.
After falling for what felt like an eternity, he slammed onto a relatively soft patch of fungal growth, the impact nearly knocking him unconscious. A dense, almost liquid darkness enveloped him. Far above, a single point of light, as distant as a star, marked the entrance to the Abyss—the world that had been stolen from him.
He lay there, motionless, letting the bitterness of failure and the agony in his body consume him. He thought of the final, twisted expression on Elias's face, of the people who had stood with him only to betray him. Perhaps they weren't wrong. In the face of absolute survival, freedom was indeed too great a luxury.
Just as his consciousness was about to sink into blackness, a deep growl, as if from the very bowels of the earth, jolted him awake.
The sound was filled with raw, violent power, but listening closely, he could detect a hint of something else… an unspeakable pain and sorrow.
David struggled to lift his head, looking toward the source of the sound. Deeper in the chasm, he saw a pair of eyes. A pair of enormous, ominous eyes glowing with a dark red light. This light was not holy like the Great Tree's, but filled with ferocity, hunger, and a madness suppressed for centuries.
A colossal shadow rose slowly from the darkness, its silhouette causing David's breath to catch in his throat.
It was not merely a beast, but a… blasphemy. A vicious mockery and distortion of the human form. Its frame vaguely retained a humanoid outline, but it was grotesquely mutated. Its limbs were thick and powerful, ending in razor-sharp bone claws that dug deep into the ground. Its body was covered in a heavy, rock-like carapace, and jagged, forest-like bone spurs grew from its back. Its head was massive, its mouth split open at an exaggerated angle, revealing a maw full of fangs.
This was the legendary beast.
Its breathing was like a broken bellows, each exhalation spewing a hot, foul stench. Its dark red eyes were locked onto David, the new "food."
David's heart sank. He was unarmed and badly injured. Facing such a monster, there was no chance of survival. Landon didn't just want to imprison him; he wanted him to die a gruesome, terrifying death, becoming nourishment for this darkness.
The beast let out a deafening roar and took a heavy step toward him. The ground trembled with its movement.
David gave a bitter smile, closed his eyes, and prepared for death.
However, just as the hot, foul wind was about to hit his face, the beast's footsteps abruptly stopped.
David opened his eyes in confusion.
He saw the beast's massive head tilted slightly, its huge eye sockets showing not rage, but… confusion? In its ferocious eyes, a faint glimmer of reason, something that did not belong to a beast, seemed to flash for an instant.
Its gaze moved past David's body and settled on his chest.
David instinctively looked down. In the inner pocket of his shirt, something was emitting a faint, almost imperceptible blue light. It was the small sample of blue moss he had secretly gathered to save Lina. He had kept it with him, hoping to study its properties further.
A strange gurgling sound rumbled in the beast's throat. It was no longer a roar, but a whimper caught somewhere between pain and longing. Its massive body began to tremble with an unexplainable agitation.
Slowly, tentatively, it reached out one of its monstrous bone claws. Its movement was no longer violent, but possessed a… heart-stopping caution.
David's heart hammered against his ribs. A terrifying possibility dawned on him.
This beast… the monster Landon claimed to have subdued from the planet's core… why was it imprisoned here?
He remembered the old woman, Mara, and her husband who was "exiled" for questioning Landon. Was being exiled simply being thrown into this abyss?
A chilling thought struck David's mind like a bolt of black lightning:
Could the beast before him… have once been a man? A resistor, just like him, thrown down here by Landon, and then twisted by some unknown, malevolent force into this inhuman form?
Trembling, David used all his strength to pull the blue-glowing moss from his pocket and laid it flat in his palm.
When the beast saw the speck of blue, the red light in its eyes flared violently. It let out a more piercing cry, a sound filled with endless sorrow, regret, and despair. Its giant claw stopped just before David, advancing no further.
In the dark abyss, a prisoner stripped of everything and a beast that had forgotten its past faced each other in a bizarre standoff, separated by a tiny, insignificant piece of blue moss.
David looked at the fleeting glint of "humanity" in the beast's eyes. The fire that had been extinguished within him was, in that moment, reignited by a new, more resolute will.
He may have lost a battle, but the war had just begun. The secrets buried beneath Landon's shining throne were far darker and more terrifying than he had ever imagined. And this abyss, perhaps it was not his grave, but the starting point for uncovering the truth and launching his ultimate revenge.