CHAPTER 71: IS THERE AN ABYSS IN THE ABYSS ? - 6

The weapons gleamed with a sickly light, their edges pulsing with the same corrupted essence that oozed from the angel’s ruined wing.

Azareel stood behind the women, his hands clenched, his breath still, his silver eyes, flecked with wide with quiet resolve.

"I don’t want to hurt him, he has already been hurt enough," he whispered, his voice trembling with empathy, his heart aching for the creature before him.

Nyxsha didn’t turn her head, her massive form vibrating with restrained violence, her violet eyes blazing.

"We’ll do it for you," she growled, her voice a thunderous rumble that shook the ground, her claws digging into the stone.

BOOM.

The corrupted angel’s footstep sent a shudder through the earth, cracking the polished stone like dried bone, a low tremor rattling through the hollow of the Abyss.

A warbled, choking cry echoed in the distance, like the last gasp of a forgotten god, fading into the void with a mournful wail.

Azareel’s breath caught, his silver eyes wide with a mix of awe and dread, his torn white tunic fluttering in the stale, bitter air.

Before him, the three monstrous figures of his companions loomed like a living wall.

They didn’t move at first, their glowing eyes—golden, amber, and slit-pupiled—locked on the angel.

The angel didn’t move after the step either, its milky blue eye unblinking, its melted half twitching grotesquely, its presence a weight that pressed on the soul.

Then the darkness moved—not slithering or surging, but collapsing inward, like a thousand lungs exhaling at once.

From that void, black mist erupted, thick and vile, drowning the faint light like ink dropped into water.

Sylvara’s glowberries shriveled on their vines before they could bloom, hissing as if touched by acid, their violet-gold light snuffed out in seconds.

The entire field of illumination died, plunging them back into a suffocating blackness that clung to the skin like damp rot.

Azareel could feel the tension crackling off the women like static, their monstrous forms radiating power and fear in equal measure.

Nyxsha’s tail whipped behind her, blocking Azareel as he took a step forward, her growl vibrating through the air like a warning bell, her golden eyes blazing.

"No," she hissed, her massive form trembling with restrained violence.

"You stay back," Virelya echoed, her voice low and sharp, her hydra heads hissing, their porcelain masks weeping black ichor as they coiled with heightened aggression.

Sylvara said nothing, her vines expanding in all directions like a living radar, but they twitched, recoiling as if struck each time they touched the mist, their luminous tips dimming.

"Nothing," she muttered, her amber eyes wide with unease. "I can’t sense anything. He’s... nowhere."

Then—CRACK!

A jagged tendril of black light tore through the dark, smashing into Virelya’s side with a force that sent her flying across the battlefield.

Her porcelain masks shrieked in unison as she slammed into a jagged wall of stone, venom sizzling where it dripped, the ground smoking beneath her.

"VIRELYA!" Azareel shouted, his voice breaking, but the corrupted fog swallowed it like a greedy throat.

"I’m—fine," she spat, her voice strained, blood glistening on her fangs as she rose, her coils trembling but defiant.

A howl tore from Nyxsha—not rage, but pain, sharp and raw.

The corrupted angel had materialized behind her without a sound, its claws wrapped in black radiance, tearing across her back in a flash, rending through fur and flame.

Violet fire sputtered and hissed, starved of oxygen, as blood sprayed, dark and steaming.

Nyxsha roared and spun, her massive claws slamming into the angel’s midsection with the force of a meteor, but he didn’t budge, his divine eye gazing through her like she was already gone.

"Get back, Azareel!" Sylvara yelled, her vines curling protectively around him, dragging him to the edge of the crumbling platform.

Her massive form shifted, thorned limbs forming a cocoon of bark, blossom, and agony to shield him, her amber eyes blazing with desperation.

"He’s too fast! You can’t even see—" Azareel’s voice broke, his silver eyes wide with fear for them, his hands clenched as he struggled against the vines.

"We don’t need sight," Virelya growled from the dark, her remaining heads snapping forward, venom spraying in arcs. "We’ve fought worse."

But her voice trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of corruption in the air.

The black mist didn’t just blind or mask scent; it bled despair, every breath like inhaling regret, every heartbeat thudding with guilt, doubt, and the ache of something lost long ago.

The air groaned, as if the Abyss itself were dying slowly, its essence rotting under the angel’s influence.

Sylvara’s voice was quiet, strained as she tried to steady her vines, their tips shriveled and blackening.

"I... I can’t feel it through the earth. It’s rotting under us. Every root touches death," she whispered, her amber eyes dimming, her crown of thorns trembling.

The corrupted angel drifted again—soundless, fast, wrong, its radiant wing catching faint glimmers of light, its warped one oozing decay.

It struck, a hydra head exploding into fragments, porcelain shards raining down like shattered dreams.

Virelya hissed in pain, retracting, but another head rose to take its place, her golden eyes blazing.

"You’re annoying," she spat, her voice thinner now, blood dripping from her coils.

"Too slow," the corrupted angel whispered, its voice a prayer eaten by mold, a hymn drowning in blood, its first words since the battle began, chilling the air with their finality.

It reached toward Virelya again, fingertips leaking darkness.

"You were strong once," it murmured, its divine eye glinting with sorrow. "But now... you’re afraid."

She lunged, her heads snapping forward, but the angel vanished, reappearing behind Azareel in a flicker of shadow, its corrupted hand reaching for him, tendrils of mist curling like fingers toward his light.

Time froze, Azareel’s silver eyes locking on the angel’s, unflinching, his voice a whisper.

"Please stop this, I can see you don’t want to fight," he said again, his heart aching for the creature’s pain.

But before the hand could touch him—

BOOM.