[System Notification]
[1 day in the Abyssal Realm equals 1 hour in the real world.]
"Hm. Time runs slower here," Stephan murmured as he walked deeper into the darkness. His voice barely rose above the dull crunch of gravel underfoot.
The air felt heavier, and each breath carried a sharp, foul tang: rotting flesh mixed with burned metal. It clung to his throat.
Every step forward seemed to pull him further from the world he knew, deeper into a place that felt alive, ancient, hateful, and hungry.
Yet Stephan's eyes stayed cold, and his stride never slowed. Instead, a faint smirk ghosted across his lips. More time to hunt. More time to grow.
He pushed on, shadows curling lazily around his shoulders, as the Abyssal Realm swallowed him whole.
The path sloped gently downward, a spiraling descent into blackness.
The Abyssal Realm was built like a colossal pit, each layer stacked beneath the last, the air growing fouler and the dark thicker the deeper one went.
This was only the Outer Layer, the F–D rank zones, but already the Realm felt alive in a way that twisted the senses.
Jagged walls of scorched stone curled inward, forming a half-tunnel laced with cracks that oozed faint streams of black mist. The floor was littered with ancient remains: shattered helmets, broken swords, and skeletal hands clutching rusted weapons in a final, hopeless defense.
Further in, half-toppled statues lined the path , towering, faceless effigies carved from black marble, each with arms crossed over hollow chests. Their stone bodies bore deep claw marks and scorched runes, and their eyeless faces seemed to follow Stephan as he passed.
Faint echoes drifted up from below, distant, distorted, as if something massive prowled the lower depths.
Overhead, jagged arches of stone crossed the chasm, strung with what looked like rotting banners, though up close, they proved to be flayed strips of skin, dried and blackened by time.
Yet even with the rot, the silence felt oppressive. No wind, no living breath, just the low rumble of the Realm itself, echoing from somewhere far below.
And always, the spiral path led down, deeper into layers where the true terrors slept.
Stephan paused, shadows coiling around his shoulders, and looked down the winding descent ahead.
A smirk curved his lips. "The lower I go… the stronger I'll get."
Just up ahead, Stephan heard it, a low, gut-churning wail echoing through the tunnel.
It scraped at his ears, thin and sharp like rusted iron dragged across stone.
He recognized that sound. It was a Wailing Fragment. He had faced one before: Rose Baker.
Drawn by instinct, and something darker within, Stephan stepped forward, shadows trailing behind him.
The darkness parted just enough for him to see. A few feet ahead, a dozen Soul Eaters crouched low to the ground. Black flesh slick with rot, curved bone ridges rising from hunched backs, and long claws scraping slowly across the floor.
They hadn't noticed him yet. Their heads were bent low, clustered around something writhing on the stone.Beneath them, half-buried under clawed limbs, the source of the wail twisted in agony.
Its form was frail, almost human, skin pale and translucent, mouth frozen in an endless silent scream. Shreds of soul energy flickered around it, torn free and devoured chunk by chunk.
The Soul Eaters fed slowly, tearing pieces of the Wailing Fragment's sorrow and pain, swallowing them like scraps of dying light.
Stephan's eyes narrowed. Something about the sight made the darkness inside him stir , restless. Hungry.
Feeding on despair itself…
He didn't move yet. Instead, he watched, cold, calculating, waiting to decide whether to strike, or to let the monsters finish their meal first.
The wail rose, echoing in the hollow dark, and the Soul Eaters kept tearing.
DING!
[System Alert: Corrupted Entities Detected]
[Name: Feral Wraiths]
[Type: Soul-Eater Subspecies]
[Rank: F–E]
[Threat Level: Moderate–High]
[Traits:]
[Highly aggressive, even toward other soul-eaters.]
[Consume sorrow and fear to evolve.]
[Hardened chitin plates and elongated claws designed to pierce living and spectral prey.]
[Warning: Entity displays signs of evolved spiritual aggression, may attack anything living or undead on sight.]
["Born from the corrupted remnants of ancient despair, these creatures devour the grief of the fallen to feed their twisted metamorphosis."]
They were monstrous, insectoid horrors - towering figures wrapped in pale, bone-white plates that flared out like tattered wings. Blackened chitin ran in ridged layers down their limbs and torsos, broken by thin, pulsing veins of angry red light that crawled under the shell like molten cracks.
Curved horns jutted from their masked heads, wicked and jagged, each one shaped differently as if twisted by rage itself. Their clawed arms ended in talons so long and sharp they could tear through flesh, stone or spirit alike.
Their bodies seemed constantly in motion: carapace plates flexing and shivering, twitching with every rasping breath. The stench rolling off them was heavy and acidic, reeking of burnt sorrow and old blood.
Stephan counted quickly, dark eyes sharp.
Eleven Soul Eaters crouched over the trembling Wailing Fragment pinned beneath them - the broken spirit whose muffled, hopeless wails echoed through the gloom.
Twelve in total, counting the prey itself.
"Well," Stephan murmured, a small smirk curling his lips, "the bigger the numbers, the more souls there are for consumption."
His gaze swept over them once more, noting the thicker armor and brighter red glow in a few of the creatures. Some of them were E-rank like him, strong enough to be a real threat.
But here the smirk deepened,
They're mindless, he thought. Driven by nothing but hate and misery. They don't plan. They don't think.
I do.
He drew in a slow breath, shadows curling faintly around his shoulders. Then let out a single sharp whistle, cutting clean through the stale, heavy air.
The Feral Wraiths froze. Eleven heads snapped toward him in perfect, eerie unison - red cracks burning brighter, claws flexing.
Stephan's smirk widened, his voice dropping to a low, amused murmur.
"Come on, then."
"Let's get this party started."
Stephan's gaze swept over the crouching pack, each shape half-swallowed by the swirling dark mist.
The system had warned him: a mix of F and E Ranks. He knew the strategy, take out the weaker ones first before the real threats could close in.
Up close, the difference showed itself in flickers of crimson light.
Some of the Feral Wraiths had veins that glowed faint and irregular, barely pulsing under cracked bone plates. Their claws were shorter, carapace thinner and pitted with age.
"One, two, three…" Stephan counted under his breath, eyes narrowing. "Eight with dim veins."
He drew in a slow breath, weighing the odds.
"If those eight turn out to be E-Rank…" A humorless smirk twisted across his face. "Then I'm cooked."
He clicked his tongue softly. "…Well, it is what it is."
Then he saw movement. Fast.
A shape tore itself from the circle: one of the dim-veined Wraiths launching forward in a jagged blur, jaws wide, black claws raised to tear.
Its eyes burned with raw hunger, and for a moment, everything else fell silent.
Stephan's eyes flashed, his pulse steady.
In that same instant, dark mist coiled around his arm, condensing with a low hiss, and his dagger snapped into shape in his hand, black metal edged in shadow.
The Wraith came at him, shrieking. But Stephan was faster.
He shifted his weight lightly to the side, pivoting around the creature's charge - the movement sharp, effortless.
Then, without hesitation, his dagger lashed out in a single, clean arc.
Steel whispered against rotting bone, and the Wraith's head snapped back, crimson veins flickering and dying.
Its corpse crashed to the stone floor behind him, unmoving.
Stephan didn't even spare it a glance.
"F-Rank," he murmured, voice cold, stepping forward into the spreading ring of snarling shapes.
"One down."
His grip tightened on the dagger as the rest of the pack stirred, shadows swirling around him like living smoke.
"Who's next?"