Volume II
Interlude
The Abyss did not sleep.
It only became quieter.
After Hongyan's words, silence followed them like a third presence. Not hostile. Not heavy. Just there, filling the space between steps and breaths.
They walked without direction.
Or rather, the Abyss allowed them to believe they were choosing one.
The ground beneath their feet was smooth black stone, but not the same stone as before. This one reflected nothing. Not light, not shadow, not memory. Lin Feng tested it once, pausing just long enough to notice how even his shadow seemed thinner here.
He did not mention it.
Lira had not spoken since.
Her pace was steady. Not fast. Not slow. Just exact, as if she were measuring the distance between one version of herself and another.
He could feel the connection between them more clearly here. Not the bond of shared danger or shared purpose, but something stranger. Something structural. As if the Abyss had drawn a line through both of them and now expected them to understand why.
"You're thinking too loudly," she said suddenly.
He looked at her.
"I didn't say anything."
"You don't need to."
She stopped near what might once have been a pillar. It rose from the ground like a broken tooth, its surface carved with patterns that shifted when not directly observed.
Lin Feng followed her gaze.
"Do you believe her?" he asked.
"About what."
"That you are an aberration."
Lira considered the word.
"I believe she thinks it's accurate."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," she agreed.
Silence again.
Something moved in the distance. Not a creature. Not quite a structure. The Abyss reorganizing itself in slow, patient ways. Lin Feng felt the hunger in his chest react, not with urgency but recognition.
As if something here remembered him.
Or was waiting for him to remember it.
"I had dreams," Lira said after a while.
That made him look at her again.
"Before?"
"After." She tilted her head slightly, as if listening to something far away. "Fragments. Sensations without context. Falling. Running. A voice I couldn't place." A pause. "I stopped having them when I came here."
"That's good, isn't it?"
"I don't know."
She placed her hand against the pillar. The patterns stilled under her touch, as if acknowledging a higher authority.
"I don't know if losing something is always better than not understanding it."
Lin Feng felt that land somewhere deeper than expected.
The Abyss shifted again.
A distant sound echoed through the dark. Not loud. Not threatening. But deliberate. Like a door closing very far away.
Both of them felt it.
"Do you think she's watching us?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Constantly?"
"Yes."
That should have been unsettling.
Instead, it felt inevitable.
They resumed walking.
After some time — minutes, hours, or something in between — the space around them began to change again. The darkness grew denser, not visually but conceptually, like stepping into a thought that had not finished forming.
Lin Feng slowed.
"Something's different."
"Yes," Lira said.
She looked ahead, her posture subtly shifting from introspection to readiness.
"The next part is getting closer."
He nodded.
The silence between them was no longer empty.
It was preparation.
And somewhere deep in the structure of the Abyss, something ancient adjusted its attention by the smallest possible degree.
As if a game had just moved into its next phase.