Abyss

"if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. "

-forgot who said it.

———

Half a month has passed since Agrenoria were erased from the map.

After this long time, the knight divisions of Riseland has returned to their nations as they reported their success of capturing the so-called artifact.

"Milord, the results of identification has completed. As it turns out… this artifact have been broken." a person near the throne said nervously to his king.

Meanwhile, the current king of Riseland; Rise Odrous smashed the throne with his fist in anger—shouting in rage.

"Piero! Call your older brother, Diero right now! He has the longest involvement against this so-called secret organisation.

Even if it by means reading his memory turning him onto vegetables, we must find out who these 'honorables' person are!"

Meanwhile Diero were at his own room.

Despite half-a-month ago, nights finally passed over 5 days, making it day right now, his room were filled with lightings.

Lighting powered by mana—no light has failed to reach every corner of his room.

"Hi~… Hi-!! It's coming… It's crawling…" Diero screamed in fear as his voice trembled. Whilst at it, he struggled at the top of bed as the shackles cuffed around all his limbs made an strong sound.

However aside from these shackles to stop him from going berserk, there was nothing in his body not to mention coming, there's nothing crawling his body.

Yet, he could feel it. His brain remembered that sensation and engraved it in his heart as one of the trauma.

Sometime he could feel these 'creatures' crawling all over his body. Sometime he could feel these 'creatures' devouring every ounce of skin in his body.

Even before his memory was read, he was already mentally ill enough.

"No, no! No! Don't! He- HE IS COMING!!" Finally, the mana ran out as the light disappeared from the room. Changing the mana only took at most 30 seconds.

However, these 30 seconds felt eternity for him.

From the darkness in all degrees, he could feel 'his' stares… he could feel these 'eyes' looking at him. It terrified him more than these bugs crawling in his skin.

"B-brother…" From the side of his bed, Piero said pitying. He didn't know. In such a short time, it was possible to break a person to this extent.

"This person is all done. I will read his memory. All of you pin him down and prevent him from resisting."

"""Understood.""" Multiples knights said and among these knights, Piero were also one of them.

Memory reading were one of the Riseland king's deposit—he is one of the skilled one at that. After all, he can read the past 5 years at max.

Odrous' index and middle finger were placed on the top of Diero's forehead as it slid down a bit, writing out a line of mana trails.

After then, a burst of mana exploded from within Diero as Odrous' vision changed—without a slight delay, Odrous' entered Diero's mental consciousness as he started viewing his memory.

Black… black was everything Odrous saw as he looked around. Walking forward, he finally saw Diero clinging into ground pathetically.

"Hmph, pathetic."

However, due to the darkness around him, he couldn't see the face of person attacking Diero. So with an curious gaze, he stepped forward once again.

But he was overstepping his boundary—once he took a step forward, the person beating up Diero suddenly halted his movement as he moved his neck to look at him.

Those face of him contained mysteries and profound feeling—all he could see was black entity yet strangely, from these black entity formed an eyes.

Determined, resolute, composed eyes. At the same time, it was infinitely cold as well, like of those who have seen the cycle of life enough.

O̴̠̯̺̦̬̿͛͑̂̀̂̚͝͝v̴̘̠͓͎͘è̴͎͎̖̱͌̊͒̑́́̚r̴̖̜̰͖̣͙̿͐̈͂̐̐̓͐̕͝ȩ̸̢̪̰̬̟̲͙̬͑͑̚s̶̨̛͕̪̰̈́͌͒͒̾̽̾̚t̶͇̂̽̔̈́̿̇̾̕̚͝į̸̘̼̭͍̝̱̺̾͋̐̽m̷̧͔̗̲̯͕͙͚͌͒̌͝ͅȧ̷̛̹̼͕̜̝̌̏͘͜͠t̴͚̗̽i̶͙͖͎͕͔͓͒͜͜ň̸̺̰̣̍̎̅̀̋̚ģ̵̩̬̮̹̳͕̥̱͇͠ ̴̲̬̍͒̈́̇͂̓̒y̵̺̞̞̲͎̙͓̰̣̒̔̎͑͝o̵̟̻̦̅͒̓̂͛͋ư̵͙͓̻̺̺̮͙̽̋̃̀̓̇̔̋͝r̸͉͇͚̘͊͝š̸̻̰̘͈̦̬͎͇͘ͅe̶̪̪̰̪̯̮̖͕̒̿͜l̶͕̼̟̖̩̫̻̞͙͗̃̆͗f̷̭̝̦͆͂͌̍͒͛

at this moment have he finally noticed that he stared onto abyss far too long—as the black entity spoke coldly, darkness flowed onto him as he was taken aback to the real world.

"ARRGGHH!" At the same time, stabbing pain came from his eyes as from his 7 holes, bloods flew.

"Th-this one is too dangerous! All of you, halt your investigation about this secret society! They're far too mysterious and dangerous!" Odrous covered his eyes as the bloods continued to flows out.

He tried to suppress the pain but it continued to increase and it took about 3 hours for the pain to finally lessen.

-----

"Ayame… are you really sure about this…?" At the building of his company, in the top floor, Kuro said worryingly over to Ayame.

"Yup! I want to repay what Kuro did everything for me! So, let me help you out about this matter!" In contrast, Ayame didn't look that worried, strange fire even burned in her pupils.

"But…. *sigh* okay." Kuro nodded in surrender.

In truth, he was fine with Ayame but, he was just unsure. He don't know how people would react over to her. Whether it was positive or unhappy reactions, he didn't want it.

If people were unhappy of her, the citizens may begin harassing her everyday and the Kuro = Plague incident may repeat.

In contrast, he would be slightly happy if people were to react positive on her but… she may get taken on by someone! He had no way to fight.

All he had is this cute face of him which is not even a plus in fighting power. Not to mention, he was really young (6 years old)!

If someone decides to target Ayame, that person can be more handsome than him, have better personalities than him. Kuro didn't felt confident.

Unaware of his worries, Ayame patted Kuro's head to relax him.

"Don't worry, Kuro! Whatever script you have for me, I will memorise it and I will practice hard to act in a way surprising even you!"

'Your adorableness is a cheat, damn it!!' Kuro thought inwardly as he extended his hand, playing with her tender cheek.

"Stop it, ehehe~" She resisted playfully.

After a while, Kuro took out a paper then began writing for an script—sentences that matched her personality, movement that maximised her charm yet didn't interfere with the current moods.

All sorts of situation were carefully thought by Kuro as he written it all in the papers, which after completed writing, he began sorting it out.