There was no sky. No ground. No air.
Only black.
Alter floated in it, eyes closed, the void pressing against his skin like cold stone. Every breath was an effort. Every thought was under siege.
The voices never stopped.
They slithered through his mind — some whispers as thin as threads, others hammering like war drums against the walls of his sanity. A thousand languages, a thousand tones, all laced with grief, rage, and hunger. They layered over one another until they were a single, endless chorus.
You failed them.
They are gone because of you.
You belong here.
Then the screams came. Agony sharpened into a jagged edge, piercing straight into his core. They were close — so close he could almost feel their breath on his skin — but there was nothing in the black to see.
And beneath those screams… moans. Feminine voices, soft and jagged at once, rippling through the darkness with a hunger that was neither entirely pain nor entirely pleasure. The sound made the void feel thicker, heavier, dragging at his will.
He could not move.
Then the pressure deepened.
Tendrils of pure energy, smooth yet burning like molten metal, wound around his arms, chest, and legs. They pulsed with every beat of the Maw's spiral, drinking from him in steady, wrenching pulls. His strength bled away in waves, each pulse a theft of his essence.
The mental attacks spiked. Faces flashed in his mind — Selene, the Dragoons, the Commanders — but twisted, fading, reaching for him as they dissolved into the black. The tendrils tightened, their pull unrelenting.
Alter's teeth clenched. His fingers curled.
He pulled.
The tendrils did not break. They burned hotter, feeding on the very effort he used to resist.
The whispers rose to a scream. The moans became sharper, more insistent, as if mocking his struggle.
Then—
The distortion came.
Far ahead in the black, a pinprick of pure white light trembled into being. It pulsed once — twice — and with each pulse, the voices stuttered, the tendrils faltering in their rhythm.
The light grew.
It rippled through the void like a fracture in reality, every pulse widening it. The tendrils recoiled, tightening again as if to keep him in place — but the light's pull was stronger.
It wasn't just light. It was familiar.
The World Origin inside him — the fragment bound to his soul — was reacting.
The distortion in the void intensified, pulling him toward it. The blackness around him rippled like a disturbed ocean, the voices cutting out in bursts of static.
Alter's eyes snapped open.
The darkness did not vanish — but now he could see the tendrils for what they were: streams of abyssal energy, barbed and pulsing, their ends disappearing into the void beyond sight.
They shuddered under the World Origin's glow.
And deep within his chest, that glow surged.
The light spread across his skin in molten lines, racing toward the tendrils. The black hissed where it touched. The void screamed back.
And the World Origin… reacted.
The glow in Alter's chest detonated.
It wasn't an explosion of heat or fire — it was an eruption of truth.
White-gold light tore outward in spiraling filaments, threading through the darkness like veins of living crystal. Every tendril of abyssal energy wrapped around him shuddered violently as the light bled into them, their black surfaces blistering, peeling away into ash that dissolved before it could fall.
The screams came back — louder, sharper, but now edged with pain. The void itself howled, a sound too vast for a throat to make, echoing from every direction at once.
The tendrils constricted desperately, trying to crush him before the light could spread — but the World Origin did not relent.
It moved with purpose.
The filaments sharpened, lancing outward from Alter's body like spears of radiant glass. They pierced the tendrils at every joint, every anchor point, severing their hold. Where they struck, the black recoiled as if burned by something it could not comprehend.
The feminine moans warped into screeches, the whispers collapsing into incoherent static. Shapes flickered in the dark — silhouettes of faces, hands, bodies — retreating from the expanding light.
The void rippled.
The World Origin's glow intensified until it was no longer just around him — it was him. His outline blurred into the brilliance, his armor, his scars, even his breath merging with the surge. The radiance condensed into flowing patterns across his form, ancient sigils too old for mortal or divine tongues, their meaning known only to the first breath of creation.
Then the light struck outward.
A pulse erupted from him in all directions.
The darkness buckled as the wave tore through it, carving open a jagged corridor in the void. The black peeled away like wet cloth, revealing something beyond — not the Mortal Realm, not the Divine Realm, but a path of raw existence threading through the Maw's interior like a vein.
The air — if it could be called that — carried no whispers here, only the low hum of power waiting to be claimed.
Alter stepped forward. The moment his foot touched the path, the corridor flared brighter, pushing the dark farther back.
Behind him, the void hissed, hundreds of new tendrils whipping toward the opening — but the World Origin's light formed a shell around the path, sealing it.
The Maw had noticed.
The pressure in the void changed — not the passive pull of hunger, but the focused intent of something aware and angered.
Alter's grip on Starsever tightened. The path was narrow, the light fragile, but it was the first break in the Maw's inner prison since it had consumed everything.
He started forward.
And the Maw began to move against him.
The corridor of light quivered under his feet as Alter moved forward, Starsever in hand, the glow of the World Origin burning like a second sun in his chest.
Then it pulsed again.
The brightness dimmed — not in weakness, but in focus. Threads of the Origin's light coiled upward into his eyes, refracting into countless facets. The void around him shifted, the black veil becoming translucent.
And he began to see.
Shapes emerged from the darkness.
First — massive forms, suspended in mid-air by the same abyssal tendrils that had bound him moments ago. Their bodies twisted and swayed as if caught in a silent, eternal current. Divine gods clad in broken celestial plate. Archangels with shattered halos. Demon gods, stripped of their crowns and armor, their once-proud auras drained to dull embers.
The tendrils fed on them without mercy.
The light inside their forms pulsed weakly — then dimmed with every pull. Moans echoed through the dark, low and drawn-out, the sound a sickening blend of pain and something else, their voices breaking as the tendrils took what remained of their strength.
Then Alter's gaze fell lower.
Celestial soldiers. Demon warlords. Hundreds — no, thousands — wrapped in the same coils, hanging like macabre banners in the black. Their feet twitched weakly, some still straining against the bindings, others limp and swaying.
The moans grew louder, resonating through the walls of the corridor until they were under his skin.
He forced himself to look further.
And saw the end.
Some of the captives — their energy utterly spent — flickered. Their bodies melted away into shimmering motes of light, drifting upward before vanishing into the spiral. No remains. No soul trace. Simply… gone.
The thought struck him like a blade.
If this is what happens to gods and demons… then what of the mortals?
A cold spike drove into his chest. His mind leapt unbidden to Selene — her smile, her fire, her presence — and then to Kaelion and Serenya, to every disciple who had sworn themselves to him. His Dragoons. His Commanders. His family.
Were they here too?
Were they already gone?
His breath caught, his hands trembling on Starsever's hilt. The corridor's light flared wildly with the surge in his aura.
And then he roared.
The sound tore through the black, shaking the nearest rows of tendril-bound prisoners. Energy flared from his body in a golden storm as he launched himself from the path, crossing into the dark void itself.
Starsever carved a blazing arc through the first cluster of tendrils, severing them in showers of molten black. The bound gods fell limp, drifting into the dark — but Alter didn't slow. Another slash. Then another.
The Maw noticed.
From the depths, new tendrils erupted — thicker, faster, sharper. They lashed toward him in waves, each impact a concussive blast of force. Alter deflected, dodged, cut through as many as he could, his movements fueled by rage more than strategy.
But for every tendril he destroyed, three more came. They wrapped around his arms, his waist, his legs, dragging him back toward the thicker walls of the spiral.
The Origin's light tried to flare again — but the Maw pressed harder, its tendrils compressing his chest, making each breath a struggle. The corridor of safety he had carved was already shrinking behind him.
He cursed under his breath, tearing one arm free and slashing another tendril apart. A narrow gap opened in the bindings — enough for him to push himself back toward the fading corridor.
The Maw's presence followed, pressing against his mind like a cold, drowning tide. You cannot take from me.
Alter dove through the gap, rolling back onto the corridor's path of light. The moment he touched it, the walls flared again, forcing the tendrils back — but the black beyond was already knitting itself closed, hiding the prisoners from view.
His hands shook around Starsever's grip. His jaw clenched until it ached.
He had seen too much.
And the Maw knew it.
The corridor of light was narrowing.
Each step Alter took made the walls draw tighter, as though the Maw were folding its own inner void to smother this fragile thread of safety. The tendrils beyond the light pressed against its edges like blades against paper, scraping and hissing, looking for a way in.
He ran.
Every pulse of the World Origin in his chest pushed the corridor forward another few meters, but the strain was visible — the glow in his veins flickered under the pressure. The Maw was no longer simply defending; it was hunting him, reshaping itself to trap and crush him before he could reach its true heart.
Then—
He felt it.
A faint energy signature brushing against his senses. One so familiar that it froze him mid-step. It was weak… fading… but unmistakable.
"Seraphina…"
The name left his lips before he could stop it.
He surged forward, Starsever cutting the corridor wider as he broke into a sprint. The light-path bent sharply, opening into a wider space — a pocket in the void where the black walls pulsed slowly like the inside of a living throat.
And there she was.
Seraphina hung suspended in mid-air, wrapped in the Maw's tendrils.
One coil looped around her neck, pulling her head back in a strained arch. Others bound her wings tight against her back, the feathers broken and torn. Her armor lay in jagged fragments around her body; her white robe hung in strips, barely concealing the light bleeding from her form.
Four more tendrils coiled around her limbs, stretching her arms and legs wide. Another thick coil locked around her waist, and two more around her thighs, holding her in place. The movement wasn't still — the Maw swung her slowly back and forth, her body trembling with every pull.
Her eyes were wet.
With every swing, her lips parted, and a moan escaped — soft, broken, threaded with agony and exhaustion. Tears rolled down her cheeks, glittering briefly in the faint light.
"...Alter…" she breathed, her voice hoarse and desperate.
He didn't hesitate.
The World Origin flared, Starsever igniting into a blade of molten gold as he launched himself toward her. "I'm here! I'll get you out!"
But the Maw was ready.
A wall of tendrils erupted between them, moving faster than whips, slamming into him from all sides. One caught him across the chest, throwing him backward; another speared into his side, knocking the breath from his lungs.
The corridor behind him collapsed as the Maw's inner walls surged forward, pushing him toward the ground.
A third tendril hit him mid-dive, driving him into the black surface hard enough to send cracks of light splintering outward from the impact.
Pinned, he looked up — and saw her tense.
Every muscle in Seraphina's bound body pulled tight at once, her head thrown back as she screamed, the sound echoing through the void like shattering crystal. Her light flared brilliantly — then began to break apart.
"No—NO!" Alter roared, straining against the tendrils holding him down.
Her eyes found his one last time, soft and pained. Then they closed.
Her body dissolved into motes of white-gold light, scattering upward in a slow, terrible drift before the Maw inhaled, pulling every spark into its spiral.
And she was gone.
The void was silent, save for Alter's ragged breathing.
Then his scream ripped through the darkness — a roar of grief and fury that shook the walls of the Maw's inner world.
The last mote of Seraphina's light vanished into the spiral.
For a heartbeat, there was only silence.
Then the sound came.
It wasn't a cry — it was a fracture. The noise of something breaking so deep inside Alter that it resonated through the air like the crack of a planet splitting in two. His breath drew in slow, but when it left his chest, it was not as air — it was as a roar.
The roar of a sovereign dragon whose grief had no ceiling, whose rage had no floor.
The tendrils holding him recoiled instinctively.
The World Origin inside him flared to life, brighter and sharper than it ever had before, lines of molten gold burning through his armor, skin, and even the air around him. Every beat of his heart was a detonation, each pulse sending shockwaves of pure creation energy tearing outward.
The void screamed.
The corridor of safety was gone. The Maw's inner walls writhed, entire ridges of black spiraling inward to crush him — but the Origin didn't care. It erupted in all directions at once, forming jagged spears and arcs of white-gold light that tore into the walls, through the walls, past the walls.
Tendrils lunged to smother him. They hit the light and burned away instantly, their charred remains scattering as embers into the dark.
"YOU TOOK HER!" Alter's voice was no longer human — it was a blend of dragon's roar, god's fury, and the raw timbre of the Origin itself. "YOU TAKE EVERYTHING!"
The light spread farther, slicing through the void like fissures in glass. Through the cracks, flashes of the Maw's consumed worlds bled through — broken cities, shattered divine fortresses, and endless plains of ash.
The Maw's voice boomed around him, no longer the cold hunger from before, but strained with effort. You cannot harm me.
"THEN I WILL TEAR YOU UNTIL YOU BREAK!"
He became movement — Starsever in his grip, his body a comet of gold carving through the black. Every swing ripped apart tendrils, gouged into the walls, and sent rivers of Origin-light spilling out. The Maw convulsed with each blow, its spiral pull faltering for the first time since he entered.
It retaliated in force.
The entire chamber collapsed inward, gravity twisting so violently it folded the space around him. Tendrils the size of towers burst from the floor and ceiling, converging like spears. Alter didn't dodge — he met them, exploding forward in a blinding surge, cleaving the largest in two before unleashing a shockwave that vaporized the rest.
Pain burned through his body — his veins felt like they were on fire, his vision edged with static — but he didn't stop. He couldn't.
The World Origin's energy was no longer measured. It poured out of him in an unending flood, eroding everything it touched. The Maw twisted tighter around him, desperate to contain the breach.
Alter only roared louder.
Until there was nothing in the void but light, destruction, and his grief turned weapon.
The void convulsed.
Alter's unrestrained fury tore through the Maw's inner walls like a celestial blade through silk, each swing of Starsever splitting the darkness with veins of white-gold light. The World Origin's power no longer flared in pulses — it poured in an unbroken flood, burning through his body like liquid suns.
The Maw shrieked. Not in hunger. Not in malice. But in pain.
Its spiral pull faltered again, warping and bending as if space itself were splintering. For the first time since entering, Alter saw something new — a jagged fracture in the Maw's endless body, light bleeding from within like a wound it had never suffered before.
The World Origin reacted instantly.
The glow in his chest spiked so violently that every nerve screamed in agony, every breath a razor in his lungs. He knew — that fracture wasn't just damage. It was a path. A way deeper, toward whatever lay at the Maw's true heart.
He charged.
Starsever carved the gap wider, the walls of the spiral twisting and tearing apart as he forced his way through. Black flesh split, molten void ichor spilling outward before being vaporized by the Origin's heat.
The Maw's voice roared around him, no longer words — only raw, animal terror.
Then Alter unleashed everything.
The Origin flared so bright it was no longer light — it was obliteration. White-gold fire erupted from him in all directions, a sphere of creation-force expanding outward with the violence of a collapsing star. The fracture ripped open into a full rift, the shockwave detonating through every layer of the Maw's being.
The walls dissolved. The tendrils ignited.
And then—
The Abyssal Maw exploded from within.
The blast was silent, but it tore reality apart. Shards of void and fragments of consumed worlds vaporized instantly. Every bound entity — god, demon, soldier — evaporated in an instant, their essence scattering into the light like dust into the wind.
The brilliance swallowed everything. It was the death of night. The unmaking of shadow.
And then it was gone.
Only darkness remained.
No void.
No spiral.
No path.
Just an empty, endless black.
Alter floated there, his body barely holding together, every muscle trembling. His vision flickered in and out, the World Origin's glow reduced to a faint ember.
Then—
A sharp chime rang in the dark.
A thin, luminous prompt appeared before his eyes, clear and crisp against the nothingness:
[SYSTEM NOTICE]Congratulations, you have completed the game.
The text hovered there, motionless, as if waiting for him to acknowledge it.