Don's eyes opened.
Not to the gray canopy of dead leaves. Not to the faint glow of Ashwood's magical light. Not to the soft sounds of sleeping survivors around him.
He opened his eyes to nothing.
Void.
Pure, absolute emptiness stretched in every direction—no up, no down, no ground beneath him, no sky above. Just endless black that somehow wasn't dark. It was the absence of everything. The space between existence.
Don floated.
His body drifted through the nothingness, weightless, untethered. He tried to move his arms—they responded, but there was nothing to push against, nothing to grab hold of.
His heart hammered in his chest.
"What—"
His voice came out, but it sounded wrong. Flat. Like the void swallowed the sound before it could properly form.
Don turned—or tried to. In this place without reference points, movement felt strange, disorienting. He spun slowly, looking in every direction.
Nothing.
Just void.
"Hello?" Don called out, his voice steadier now despite the growing knot of fear in his gut. "Is anyone there? What is this? Where am I?"
Silence.
The warm presence he'd felt before sleeping—the gentle comfort he'd grown accustomed to—was gone. Not blocked like when the collar had been on. Just… absent. Like it couldn't reach this place.
Or wasn't allowed to.
Don's breathing quickened. His hands clenched into fists, nails digging into palms.
Think. Don't panic. Think.
He forced himself to breathe slowly. In. Out. In. Out.
Status Screen.
The thought came instinctively, desperately—something familiar in this unfamiliar void.
"Status Screen," Don said aloud.
The display materialized before him, glowing softly in the darkness, and for a moment the familiar sight calmed him.
╔═══════════════════════════╗
STATUS SCREEN
╚═══════════════════════════╝
Name: Don Valdruun• Age: 12• Health (HP): {10/-}• Mana (MP): {300/850}• Stamina (STA): {16/24}• Experience (EXP): {150/500}• Affiliation: ??????• Level: 3• Status Points: 10• Madness: 18%
— ATTRIBUTES —
• Strength: 16• Agility: 21• Vitality: 16• Dexterity: 16• Stamina: 16• Wisdom: 19• Magic Power: 19• Intelligence: 19• Sense: 5• Luck: 50
— TITLES & TALENTS —
• Title: Survivor of Death's Deceit
• Talent: Child of Luck - ACTIVE - OPPORTUNITY APPROACHING
Luck +45
• Talent: #%#%#%%
— SKILLS —
• Skill 1: Immortality (Lv. 3)
Sub-Skill: Emotion Suppression (Lv. 3)
• Skill 2: Learning and Adaptation (Lv. 3)
Passive: Adept Mastery
Current Masteries: Knife (Adept), Sword (Adept)
• Skill 3: Imagination (Lv. 3)
Sub-Skill: Primitive Weapon Crafting (Lv. 3)
— QUEST STATUS —
• Primary Quest: Survive for 12 hours - COMPLETED
• Reward: PENDING
╚═══════════════════════════╝
Don's eyes scanned the familiar information, searching for something—anything—that might explain where he was or what was happening.
Then he saw it.
His gaze locked onto the Titles & Talents section.
Two lines were glowing.
• Title: Survivor of Death's Deceit pulsed with a soft silver light, like moonlight on water.
• Talent: Child of Luck - ACTIVE - OPPORTUNITY APPROACHING blazed with golden radiance, brighter than the rest of the screen, almost demanding attention.
Don stared at the golden glow surrounding his talent. The word OPPORTUNITY APPROACHING seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat.
This is it. The reward. The opportunity mentioned before.
He focused on the Child of Luck line, willing it to reveal more information, to explain what was happening.
The golden light intensified.
Grew brighter.
Brighter still.
Don squinted against the radiance, raising one hand to shield his eyes as the glow expanded beyond the status screen, flooding outward into the void like a sun being born.
The emptiness around him ignited with golden light.
For less than a second—a fraction of a heartbeat—the entire void was illuminated in brilliant, overwhelming gold.
Don saw everything and nothing at once. Infinite space. Infinite emptiness. The foundation of reality laid bare.
Then his eyes screamed in protest.
"Ah—!"
Don squeezed his eyes shut, the afterimage of that golden explosion seared into his retinas. Even through closed eyelids, he could see the phantom glow, pulsing, fading slowly.
His status screen was gone. He could feel it—dismissed, closed, vanished back into whatever space it normally occupied.
Don kept his eyes shut, breathing hard, waiting for the phantom light to fade.
What was that? What just—
Something changed in the void.
He felt it before he heard it. A presence.
Massive. Ancient. Watching.
His heart froze in his chest.
Slowly—so slowly—Don opened his eyes.
And saw them.
Eyes.
Two of them. Impossibly large. So vast that his mind couldn't process their true size—couldn't establish distance or scale or dimension. They simply were, filling his vision, filling the void, filling everything.
The colors shifted constantly. Blue to green to purple to red to shades that had no names, colors his brain couldn't categorize, wavelengths that shouldn't exist. His mind struggled to define what he was seeing, kept trying to assign familiar terms to something utterly alien.
The eyes stared at him.
No—not at him.
Through him.
Into him.
Don felt naked. Exposed. Every secret, every thought, every memory laid bare beneath that impossible gaze. His soul stripped down to its fundamental components and examined with cold, analytical interest.
He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
The eyes saw everything.
Then, a voice.
Not spoken aloud. Not heard through ears.
It manifested directly in his mind, resonating in the space behind his thoughts, between his heartbeats, in the pauses between breaths.
[INTERESTING.]
The word didn't just carry meaning—it carried weight. Presence. Power that made the Blood King's aura feel like candlelight compared to the sun.
[DEATH TOLD ME YOU WOULD BE ENTERTAINING. BUT THIS… THIS IS TRULY INTERESTING.]
Don's throat worked, trying to form words, but nothing came out.
The eyes shifted—or maybe they didn't move at all and it was reality that shifted around them. The colors cycled faster now, swirling, hypnotic.
[VERY WELL.]
A pause. Don felt the weight of consideration, of judgment being passed.
[I WILL OFFER YOU A CHOICE.]
The void rippled. Not physically—there was nothing physical here to ripple—but Don felt it in his bones, in his soul, in the very essence of his being.
[EARN THE ABYSS'S ACCEPTANCE.]
Something appeared below the eyes. A shape. Dark. Deeper than the void itself. A circle of absolute blackness that seemed to pull at reality, bending the nothing around it into something even more profound.
[AND IT WILL BECOME YOURS.]
Don stared at the circle of darkness. Even looking at it felt dangerous, like staring into something that could swallow him whole and never spit him back out.
"What…" Don's voice cracked. He swallowed, tried again. "What is it?"
The eyes—if they could be said to express emotion—gleamed with something that might have been amusement.
[THE ABYSS. AN ARTIFACT OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. UNKNOWN TIER. UNKNOWN PURPOSE.]
The colors shifted to something darker, more ominous.
[IT HAS CONSUMED CIVILIZATIONS. DEVOURED WORLDS. BROKEN REALITIES.]
A pause.
[AND NOW IT SLEEPS WITHIN YOUR STORAGE SPACE, WAITING.]
Don's mind reeled. His storage space—the sub-ability of his Imagination skill. The place where he could store objects, weapons, anything he created or claimed.
Something was sleeping in there?
[THE ABYSS CONTAINS STAGES. TRIALS. EACH MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE LAST. EACH MORE DANGEROUS. EACH MORE DEADLY.]
The voice carried neither threat nor promise. Just cold, absolute fact.
[IF YOU ENTER THE ABYSS AND FAIL, YOU WILL DIE. TRULY DIE. YOUR IMMORTALITY WILL NOT SAVE YOU THERE. DEATH HIMSELF CANNOT REACH INTO THE ABYSS TO CLAIM YOU.]
Don's blood turned to ice.
[BUT IF YOU SUCCEED…]
The eyes brightened, colors swirling faster, and for the first time Don heard something like anticipation in that ancient voice.
[IF YOU EARN THE ABYSS'S ACCEPTANCE, IT WILL GRANT YOU POWER BEYOND YOUR CURRENT COMPREHENSION. A FOURTH SKILL. A NEW TITLE. AND ABILITIES THAT WILL RESHAPE YOUR VERY EXISTENCE.]
Don's hands trembled. His yellow eye burned, Madness stirring at the mention of power, of danger, of opportunity.
[EVERY CREATURE YOU SLAY WITHIN THE ABYSS WILL STRENGTHEN YOUR SOUL. THEIR ESSENCE, THEIR KNOWLEDGE, THEIR VERY BEING WILL BE ABSORBED INTO YOU THROUGH YOUR LEARNING AND ADAPTATION SKILL.]
The voice grew quieter, more intimate, like sharing a secret.
[EVERY ENTITY THAT FALLS TO YOU IN THE ABYSS WILL BECOME YOUR SERVANT. THEY WILL RETAIN THEIR SKILLS, THEIR ABILITIES, THEIR MEMORIES. BUT THEIR LEVEL WILL MATCH YOURS. AND THEY WILL SERVE YOU ABSOLUTELY.]
Don's breath caught.
[THE ABYSS WILL EXPAND YOUR STORAGE SPACE WITH EACH STAGE YOU CONQUER. IT WILL GROW WITH YOU. EVOLVE WITH YOU. BECOME PART OF YOU.]
Silence fell in the void, heavy and expectant.
The eyes watched.
Waiting.
[SO TELL ME, DON VALDRUUN.]
His name spoken by that voice felt like reality itself acknowledging his existence.
[WILL YOU ACCEPT THE ABYSS'S TRIAL?]
[WILL YOU RISK TRUE DEATH FOR POWER BEYOND MEASURE?]
[WILL YOU STEP INTO THE UNKNOWN AND FACE WHAT WAITS IN THE DEPTHS?]
Don floated in the void, heart pounding, mind racing.
His yellow eye blazed brighter.
He opened his mouth. The word forming on his lips—
And then—
Don's body went rigid.