2025-01-16 00:13:40The hermit’s cave grew darker as he spoke, his voice weaving a tale of power and peril. Mina leaned closer to Kaiza, her unease mounting with every word.
“The Blade of the Abyss is bound to an ancient pact,” the hermit explained, his frail hands tracing patterns in the air. “Its power comes from the blood of those who sought to defy the gods. To wield it fully, you must prove yourself worthy. This requires a sacrifice a part of yourself you cannot reclaim.”
Kaiza’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of sacrifice?”
The hermit’s gaze turned somber. “That depends on the wielder. The blade will demand what it deems most precious to you. For some, it is their strength. For others, their memories or their humanity.”
Mina’s hand tightened on Kaiza’s arm. “There has to be another way. We can’t keep giving pieces of ourselves to something so… so dangerous.”
The hermit shook his head. “The blade is not just a tool. It is a living force. If you wish to undo your curse, you must confront the cost of your desire.”
The fire in the cave’s hearth flickered as Kaiza and Mina stepped outside to discuss their next move. The stars above glittered coldly, indifferent to their plight. Mina wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as the chill of the night seeped into her bones.
“Kaiza, we can’t trust him,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “What if the blade takes something from you that you can’t live without?”
Kaiza’s expression was grim. “I’ve been alive for centuries, Mina. I’ve already lost more than I can count. If there’s even a chance this blade can end my curse, I have to try.”
Mina’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “But what about me? I… I can’t do this alone. If the blade takes you away from me…”
Kaiza placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch steady and reassuring. “You won’t be alone. No matter what happens, I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
She looked away, her emotions warring within her. “I don’t want to lose you, Kaiza. You’re all I have left.”
He didn’t respond immediately, his gaze fixed on the horizon. The faint light of dawn began to creep over the mountains, painting the sky in hues of gold and crimson. “We’ll face this together,” he said finally. “But we need to be prepared for whatever comes next.”
The following morning, the hermit led them deeper into the cave. The air grew colder, and the walls seemed to close in, the faint glow of fungi their only source of light. At last, they reached a chamber where a pedestal stood, its surface etched with runes that pulsed faintly.
“Place the blade here,” the hermit instructed, his voice reverent. “The pedestal will reveal the first trial.”
Kaiza hesitated, his hand resting on the hilt of the Blade of the Abyss. He glanced at Mina, who nodded reluctantly. Drawing the weapon, he placed it on the pedestal. The runes flared to life, casting eerie shadows across the chamber.
A low rumble echoed through the cave as the pedestal began to sink into the ground. The air grew heavy, and a voice deep and resonant filled the chamber.
“Kaiza, bearer of the Abyss, you seek redemption. To claim it, you must face the sins of your past. Step forward, and let the trial begin.”
Kaiza’s jaw tightened. “Stay here,” he said to Mina before stepping into the circle of light that had formed around the pedestal.
The world shifted around him, and Kaiza found himself standing in a familiar place. It was a village, its streets lined with simple wooden houses. The air was thick with the scent of smoke and ash. He recognized it immediately.
“No,” he whispered, his heart sinking. “Not here.”
The village was the site of one of his greatest failures. Centuries ago, in a desperate attempt to protect its people from marauding invaders, he had unleashed a power he couldn’t control. The resulting destruction had claimed countless lives, leaving the village in ruins.
Figures emerged from the shadows, their faces twisted in pain and anger. They were the villagers he had failed to save, their forms translucent and ghostly.
“You abandoned us,” one of them said, their voice filled with sorrow. “You promised to protect us, but you brought only ruin.”
Kaiza’s chest tightened. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I tried to save you.”
Another figure stepped forward, a young girl clutching a tattered doll. “Your intentions don’t matter. We trusted you, and you betrayed that trust.”
Kaiza fell to his knees, his sword slipping from his grasp. “I… I’m sorry. I’ve carried this guilt for centuries. If I could undo it, I would.”
The ghostly figures surrounded him, their voices rising in a chorus of accusations. The weight of their pain bore down on him, threatening to crush him.
“Kaiza!”Mina’s voice cut through the din, sharp and clear. He looked up to see her standing at the edge of the vision, her eyes blazing with determination.
“You don’t have to face this alone,” she said, stepping into the circle of light. “Whatever you’ve done, you’ve spent centuries trying to make up for it. That has to count for something.”
The ghostly figures hesitated, their forms flickering. The young girl’s gaze softened. “Your remorse is genuine. Perhaps… there is hope for you yet.”
The figures began to fade, their voices growing distant. “Seek redemption, Kaiza. But remember, it is a path, not a destination.”
The vision dissolved, and Kaiza found himself back in the chamber. The Blade of the Abyss glowed faintly on the pedestal, its surface unmarred.
Mina rushed to his side. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, though his face was pale. “I… I think I passed the first trial.”
The hermit’s voice broke the silence. “The blade has accepted your resolve, but your journey is far from over. Each trial will test a different part of you. Be prepared, for the next will not be so forgiving.”
Kaiza straightened, his resolve hardening. “We’ll be ready.”
Mina glanced at him, worry etched across her face. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the blade’s trials were leading them toward something far darker than either of them could imagine. But for now, they had no choice but to press on.
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Tides Of Eternity Episode 8: The Trial of Fire
Dawn broke over the forest, casting golden rays through the trees. Kaiza and Mina packed their camp in silence, the weight of their journey heavy in the crisp morning air. Oran stood a few paces away, his gaze distant as if lost in thought.“Are you sure you want to come with us?”Kaiza asked, breaking the silence.Oran hesitated before nodding. “I’ve come this far. If there’s even a chance I can make things right, I have to try.”Kaiza’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t fully trust Oran, but the man’s desperation felt genuine. Mina watched the exchange quietly, her own doubts simmering beneath the surface.“Let’s move,” Kaiza said, turning toward the path ahead.The forest grew denser as they walked, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. Every step seemed to pull them deeper into an otherworldly realm, where the line between reality and myth blurred. Mina couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.“This place feels… wrong,” she murmured.Kaiza glanced a
Tides Of Eternity Episode 9: Shadows of Betrayal
The forest was quiet, unnaturally so, as Kaiza, Mina, and Oran continued their journey. The aftermath of the Trial of Fire lingered in their minds, a mix of triumph and unease. Kaiza led the way, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, ever vigilant. Mina followed closely, her eyes scanning the trees for any sign of danger. Oran trailed behind, his expression troubled.“How far until the next trial?”Mina asked, breaking the silence.Kaiza glanced back at her. “Not far. But the trials aren’t just physical. They test your mind and spirit as well.”Oran frowned. “What does that mean? Are we supposed to solve riddles or something?”Kaiza didn’t answer, his focus shifting to the path ahead. The forest seemed to close in around them, the trees growing denser and the shadows deeper. Mina felt a chill run down her spine.By midday, they came upon a small village nestled in a clearing. The houses were simple, made of wood and thatch, but there was something off about the place. No one was o
Tides Of Eternity Episode 10: The Veil of Echoes
The mist enveloped Kaiza, Mina, and Oran as they ventured deeper into the plain. It clung to their clothes and muffled their footsteps, creating an eerie silence that heightened every creak of leather and rustle of fabric. Mina held the talisman close, its faint glow their only source of light in the oppressive fog.“This place feels… wrong,” Oran muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. “Like it’s watching us.”Kaiza’s grip on his sword tightened. “Stay alert. This mist isn’t natural.”As they pressed forward, the landscape shifted subtly. Shadows loomed in the fog, hinting at structures or figures just out of reach. Mina’s heart raced as she thought she saw movement, but when she turned her head, there was nothing there.“Do you hear that?”She asked, her voice trembling.The others stopped, listening. At first, there was only silence. Then, faintly, a whisper carried on the wind. It was indistinct, like a chorus of voices speaking just beyond comprehension.“It’s the mist,” Kaiza
Tides Of Eternity Episode 11: The Weight of Sacrifice
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Tides Of Eternity Episode 13: Oran’s Trial
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Tides Of Eternity Episode 14: The Veiled Sanctuary
The path revealed by the altar stretched ahead like a silver ribbon, shimmering faintly in the moonlight. The forest around them had changed no longer dark and oppressive, but eerie and unnervingly silent. The trees here were ancient, their gnarled roots twisting into the ground like claws, and a faint mist coiled lazily around their feet.Kaiza led the way, his expression grim but resolute. Mina followed close behind, her hand resting on the hilt of her dagger, her sharp eyes scanning the shadows for any signs of danger. Oran brought up the rear, unusually quiet, his usual bravado replaced by a contemplative air.“You think that altar trick was the last of the weirdness, or are we in for more surprises?” Oran finally broke the silence, his voice low.Mina glanced back at him, her lips quirking into a small, wry smile. “This place hasn’t exactly been predictable so far. I wouldn’t count on it getting easier.”Kaiza’s gaze remained fixed on the path ahead. “It won’t. The altar called t
Tides Of Eternity Episode 15: Shadows in the Mist
The path beyond the Veiled Sanctuary was shrouded in dense mist, twisting and winding like it had a mind of its own. The air carried a heavy tension, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. Kaiza, Mina, and Oran walked in silence, their footsteps muffled by the thick layer of moss underfoot.Kaiza’s grip on the obsidian fragment tightened as he replayed the confrontation with his shadow in his mind. The cold, biting words still echoed in his ears, but he pushed them aside. There was no room for doubt now.Oran broke the silence, his voice tinged with unease. “Is it just me, or is the forest... watching us?”Mina glanced around, her sharp eyes scanning the shadows. The trees loomed closer than before, their twisted branches arching overhead like skeletal fingers. “It’s not just you. Something’s out there.”Kaiza nodded. “Stay close. Whatever it is, it’s waiting for the right moment.”The group moved cautiously, the mist curling around them like living tendrils. Strange whispers
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Chapter 112: The Name That Should Not Be Spoken
The world cracked open.A heavy silence fell over the Hollow City, thicker than death, more complete than the void.For a heartbeat, even the Devourer appeared to pause.The name still lingered; it trembled with an unimaginable heaviness.Azelith.Kaiza barely registered the move before Mina, or whatever was inside her, stumbled one step back, and her blackened eyes widened.Something flared in her face: recognition, rage, fear.The figure in the hood stood still, their sword as dark as a starless night.The blade thrummed, the very air curving away from it as if trying to avoid its touch.Kaiza’s lungs felt like ash, his ribs howling as he pulled himself up from the rubble.The mind was still reeling, trying to make sense of what he had just coursed through.The Hollow King was gone.Eaten.Not dead. Not even erased. Just… unmade.The Unseen Devourer had not slain him.It had merely behaved how it always did, devour.A deity rendered null in mere seconds.And now it loomed, its impos
Chapter 111: The Unseen Devourer
A new presence placed a burden between Heaven and man.It was no mere arrival itas an invasion, a subversion of reality itself.The sky trembled; the Abyss quaked; everything in the Hollow City shook in the embrace of some inconceivable power, as if the very being of things rebelled at what had entered in.Kaiza swayed, ragged for breath, body yelling in wounds already delivered.That thing in Mina had nearly torn him asunder.Where her hand had passed through him, his soul still burned angony beyond that of flesh, beyond the physical.But this… this was worse.The Unseen Devourer didn’t descend from the sky like a deity.It did not emerge from the underworld like a demon.It was a vacuum untilt wasn’t.A crack in the world, a wound deeper even than the broken sky, gaped open like torn flesh. It did not step through. It never existed.It ate its way into being.Kaiza didn’t so much see it as feel it theunger.One that not only wanted to eatbut only wanted to gorge. A kind of energy t
Chapter 110: Just Beneath the Surface
The sky split open.Not a crack, not a tear a WOUND.Reality itself screamed through jagged fractures slicing the Hollow City’s abyssal skyline.The eddying darkness distorted, pulling apart at the frayed edges, spiraling into something worse.Kaiza sensed it before he saw it.A pulse. Not of abyssal energy, not of flame, but something else. Something older than both.And it came from Mina.She was close.Her presence seared his senses, unrefined and unrefined. But something was off.Something within her that’s not supposed to exist.Kaiza gingerly gritted his teeth and sat despite himself.His body objected, the Judicator’s wound still gnawing on his being, but that was irrelevant.Nothing else mattered but reaching Mina.The Hollow King had stood from his throne.His golden gaze raged, but for the first time, it wasn’t trained on Kaiza.Their eyes were fixed on the fractured sky.On her."Impossible." The Hollow King’s quiet voice took on something, not amusement this time.Not with
Chapter 109: The Hollow King’s Judgment
Kaiza had little time to react.The blade arrived faster than was thought possible a silver line, a ribbon of flame and destruction, splitting the air. His instinct screamed to move, but his body, still bruised and raw from the chasm, was too slow.A stabbing pain detonated in his side as the edge of the blade tore flesh, the impact slamming him down onto the vibrating black streets. Blood spattered in all directions, sizzling against the living ground on impact.Not abyssal. Not shadow-forged. Something else.Kaiza ground his teeth, his breaths harsh and erratic as he shoved himself upright, glaring at his assailant.And there they stood.A gauzy figure, draped in silver and fire, their form rippling in the half-light of the Hollow King’s domain. Their armor was not solid but fluid, shifting like seeping metal, pulsing with sinuous lines of deep crimson. As was their sword the weapon that had shredded him, tauntingly, bloodless of the same stuff, swinging between solid steel and liqu
Chapter 108: The Devouring
Silence.Thick. Absolutely.Not even breath, not even motion, not even time: just a vacuum.Kaiza fell through it.Or maybe he stood still as the rest of the world went on.He couldn't tell.There was no ground, no sky, no up, no down only the suffocating embrace of nothingness collapsing around him like a coffin lined with whispers.Mina was gone.The last thing he heard her make wrenched from her throat, guttural and pained, as the gullet of darkness devoured her.He had reached for her. Clawed at the darkness.But his fingers had encountered only empty space.And then Nothing.Now he floundered in that nothingness, the remnants of his corpse aching, the wounds raw and open.Where the masked figure had touched him, his chest still smoldered, as if something had been clawed out of him or ripped from him, something that was inside him and had been a piece of him, something vital.Was he dead?No. That would have been a mercy.A movement in the void something shifted.A shake, gentler
Chapter 107: Unleashed
The void roared.Black flames licked at the ground, devouring the creatures of the abyss as embers at the end of life are sent out upon the wind.The wails of the damned rampaged ever and ever, ringing in the desolate void, as the horror of noumenon mixed and knotted, their forms rotting in the gluttonous conn.And at the heart of it, standing in the inferno, was Mina.But she was no longer only Mina.Kaiza could hardly stand, his body bruised and bleeding, but his breath caught when he saw her.The fragility of the girl he had vowed to protect was gone.The trembling voice that had called his name in the dark was gone.What was left is something older. Something raw.Her form was still human in outline mostly but the air around her hummed with something worse than abyssal corruption.An ultraviolet light burned behind her eyes, cosmic and blistering, crowded with something incomprehensible to my feeble flesh.Her dark hair lashed in the wind, the energy circling her limbs, a moving t
Chapter 106: Dark
Kaiza barely had time to respond before the form of the abyssal entity washed over him like a tidal wave of pure void.It felt as though an avalanche of darkness was going to consume him whole.The shadows wound tighter, binding themselves around his limbs like living chains, burrowing into his skin and burning with cold fire; his ribs screamed their protest.A cough tore from his throat, thick and wet. Blood trickled down his lips, red on infinite black.His vision swam, fading in and out of consciousness, but his fingers still tightened around his sword.He wasn’t done. Not yet.The figure towered above him, the mask cocked slightly as if in amusement.“Still fighting?” Its voice gliding along, the sound of a thousand voices crawling into his skull.“Pathetic. “Your void does not give, Kaiza. It does not bargain. It only devours.”With a flick of that wrist, a spire of obsidian-black tendrils burst from the ground to skewer Kaiza through the shoulder.He hardly had time to register
Chapter 105: The Eclipse of Hope
The void crackled in unnatural, eerie silence. It was a heavy weight, cold, suffocating in the air. The blue flame of Kaiza’s sword flickered in the stifling dark as his chest rose and fell with every ragged breath. It had been the blast from Mina that very titan that had devoured her that had slammed him down onto the broken earth, the impact leaving him aching from the force of the attack. A single thought raced through his mind.She’s still in there. She has to be.The darkness writhed around him, beating with an unstuck beat. He climbed onto his knees, fighting back the weight of the bottomless well. His gaze darted back to Mina no, no longer Mina but the monstrous, void-soaked shape she’d taken on. Her body shimmered with dark matter, her movements sickly smooth, as if she were a piece of the shadow itself.Her armor, once silvery, was now a collection of black and shadow, a jumbled mess of the power of the void. Her eyes were sick with ancient hunger, a lust for destruction, but
Chapter 104: The Fallen Star
The sky was torn asunder.Mina no, the titan now occupying her body stood in the distance like a dark star. Her once glowing golden armor tarnished a dark, devilish red, and her eyes glistened with a void-like hunger that devoured the very light around her. With each movement, every breath, it was as if she was remaking reality itself, with the void creeping up and crawling from within, claiming her for itself piece by piece.Kaiza stood, frozen, his heart breaking bit by bit. His breath labored; his hand shook on the hilt of his sword. He knew this wasn’t Mina anymore. His praise for the girl who had stood by him, he counseled, the girl that first had shown him the light, was lost. The girl he’d battled tooth and nail to protect was something else now something terrifying, something beyond his comprehension.And yet… her voice Titan’s voice, but still Mina’s still rang in his mind.“The girl is gone, forsaken one. Now, only I remain."Kaiza’s sword shimmered with a ghost of blue flam
