The world changed the instant they crossed the barrier.
The Abyss stretched before them, a landscape alien and broken.
The ground was a cracked expanse of pale stone, its veins glowing with a faint white-grey light that pulsed like something alive, as if a giant heart beat far beneath the surface. Jagged spires jutted at impossible angles, some suspended midair, defying gravity entirely.
A drifting haze of luminous dust clung to their skin, seeping into their pores. Pools of molten white-grey liquid seeped from fissures, their rippling surfaces bending the air as though reality itself were warped.
Above them, there was no sky. Only a hollow void where fragments of shattered earth floated aimlessly, drifting like the corpses of a broken world.
And then the suppression hit.
Elara gasped, her light manifestation flickering dim. Thomas gritted his teeth as his flames guttered low, their heat faint as embers.
Ironwood's steel affinity grew heavy, dragging against his body like chains. "This feels worse than last year."
Even Kael stiffened, though his aura still burned steady.
Adrian waited for the pressure to fall on him. But Adrian… Adrian felt nothing.
No, not nothing. Something else.
The surrounding haze wasn't suffocating him, rather, he felt like he belonged here. Like the sentinel said, this was source energy, but better than what he had.
His Source stirred, awakening like a sleeping giant.
White-grey mist leaked from his pores, curling about him, and then it began to drink. It sucked the ambient mist into him like a tide returning to the ocean.
His mana did not weaken. It expanded.
And then it began to compress, condensing in strange, unfamiliar patterns.
Before he could process it, a low growl snapped his attention forward.
A pack of wolves, pale-grey with glowing veins, lifted their heads from a pool of white-grey water. Their bodies shimmered faintly, veins of glowing white threading beneath their skin.
Their movements were fluid, unnervingly fast. They were mutations of the Abyss.
The pack charged towards them.
Kael stepped forward. "Don't waste your mana, I will deal with this little pack."
His voice was calm.
And then he vanished.
Space folded around him like crumpled paper. One moment he stood beside them, the next he materialized among the pack.
Wolves snapped and scattered, but each blink of Kael's figure left torn bodies collapsing in his wake. His spatial blades shredded them cleanly, effortlessly.
For the first time, Adrian got to see an S-rank fight. His Source continued to drink the mist, but his eyes locked on Kael's battle.
The energy Kael wielded wasn't just strong. What he used was something deeper. Different.
The mana itself felt alien. He frowned, unsettled.
Thomas noticed Adrian's expression. "You feel it, don't you? The difference."
Adrian's eyes narrowed. "What is it?"
Thomas's voice was low, steady even as wolves died around them. "From F through A, all ranks are the same at the core. We comprehend our affinities, sharpen our bodies, and measure our strength against monsters."
He gestured toward Kael, who materialized behind a leaping wolf, his spatial blade bisecting it mid-air. "An A-rank is simply one who can kill an A-rank beast without breaking themselves."
"But S-rank… is different. An A-rank could fight for a thousand years and never kill one. Not because of strength alone, but because the very substance of their power is different."
Adrian frowned. "How?"
"Because of the mana," Thomas said. "The mana you and I wield is basic. But S-rank users' mana is no longer just basic mana."
"To become S-rank, one must condense their reserves until they liquefy. A higher form of mana, thicker, heavier, more absolute. Every skill they use is powered by that higher form."
"That is why his power feels different. You aren't just watching space manipulation. You're watching liquefied mana."
Thomas's expression grew grim. "A single stroke from that is worth more than a hundred from us. That's why it feels different to you. That's why even our strongest A-ranks can't stand against them."
Adrian's thoughts raced. Liquefied mana… higher form…
But then doubt struck him cold.
"Lord Sentinel said my manifestation already rivaled S-ranks. How could that be true if I don't have this higher form of mana?"
He felt it instinctively, his mana wasn't there yet, it was not liquefied.
Maybe only due to his comprehension, his manifestation was similar to S-ranks power level. But the foundation itself was still lacking.
Elara stepped closer, her voice barely audible over the distant echoes of Kael's battle.
"This place is the reason we're here, Adrian. The suppression crushes us, yes, but every strike we make, every clash we endure, forces our mana to grind against that weight."
"That grinding is what compresses it. The Abyss doesn't give us time to sit and cultivate. It forges us in battle. Every moment we fight here, our mana is beaten down and forced tighter, until it condenses into something greater."
Her gaze hardened. "But it isn't simple. This is our sixth descent into the Abyss. All those times before… all we achieved was the slow, painful grind of compression. Maybe this time… we'll finally make it."
Adrian understood just how hard it was to condense one's mana. For others, every clash, every wound, every breath under this suppression was part of the grind.
But for him, it was different. His Source manifestation did the work without effort, drinking in the mist with every heartbeat. Where others relied on suppression and battle, he drew directly from the Abyss itself.
This mist wasn't ordinary. It was a higher form of source energy, and his manifestation devoured it eagerly, compressing his reserves, pulling him step by step toward the same transformation the others fought so desperately to reach.
Perhaps, for him, simply being here was enough.
The white-grey energy continued flowing into him, and he felt his mana pool shifting, growing denser with each breath.
Kael blinked back into view, the last wolf crumbling into ash behind him. Blood didn't stain his clothes, there was no blood left to spill.
"Move," he said simply. "We go deeper."
They obeyed, stepping deeper into the Abyss. The pale stone beneath their feet pulsed brighter with each step, as if responding to their presence.