The Abyss

Narisva blinked in surprise, her attitude faltering for a moment as she looked between the two of them.

"Circular? What do you mean?"

Phaenora motioned with her hand, gesturing to the endless stretch of icy walls and the unbroken line of wood beneath their feet.

"The tunnel doesn't just go on forever in a straight line. It loops back on itself. It's a circle. It appears endless, but it's a continuous loop. The trick here is that if we walk long enough, we'll end up back where we started."

Vastarael nodded slowly, his expression calculating.

"Exactly. And once you realize that, the next step is to figure out the point of this loop. If we keep walking, we'll just keep returning to the same spot. But if we understand that the loop exists, we can break the cycle."

"How do you know this?"

"Endless tunnels can only be endless if altered by space. And since this isn't, its fair to say that the only way it's endless is as if this tunnel is circular or infinity shaped."

Vastarael continued, "And if it was infinite shaped, you would have noticed it so easily because of your space manipulation. As for why you didn't see it as circular... I don't know why."

Narisva raised an eyebrow. "So, what? We just accept our fate and walk forever?"

"No. There's a way to break the cycle, but it's not through brute force. It's through letting go of the idea that we can escape it by simply walking. That's the trap. It's the illusion that we can control this. The real answer lies below us."

Narisva frowned, obviously not understanding. "Below us? What, you want us to dig a hole or something?"

Vastarael glanced down at the wooden planks beneath them. "No. The floor is not what it seems. Phaenora?"

Phaenora stepped forward, her eyes scanning the wooden planks with a quiet sense of focus. Her hand brushed lightly against the surface, and then she pressed down hard. With a sharp crack, a few of the planks shifted slightly.

"It's not just a path," Phaenora murmured. "It's a false floor, a blockade. The real exit is below and the only way to find it… is to fall."

A silence fell over the group as the weight of her words settled in. Narisva looked at them, eyes wide with disbelief.

"You want us to jump? Into the abyss?"

"There's no other choice. The loop won't break unless we let go of the illusion of control. We have to fall into the abyss below us."

Vastarael nodded grimly.

"It's the only way. The tunnel is an endless circular loop because we're meant to break it by stepping into the unknown. It's not about forcing our way through. It's about accepting that sometimes, the only way to move forward is to let go. This is a test and all tests have meanings and lessons behind them. So... we have to let go and jump."

Narisva's cocky demeanor faltered for a moment, and then she scoffed.

"This is ridiculous. You're telling me we're supposed to just fall to our deaths?"

"No, we are not falling to our deaths. We're breaking the cycle. We're letting go of the idea that we can control this place."

He stepped forward, his boots tapping softly on the wooden planks. He glanced back at Phaenora, who gave him a silent nod, and then at Narisva, whose cocky attitude had been replaced by a reluctant understanding.

"Trust me," he said, his eyes fixed on the edge of the floor. "We have to fall. It's the only way to move forward."

Without another word, Vastarael took the first step, his body breaking through the wooden planks with a sharp crack as he let himself fall on the planks Phaenora destroyed. For a moment, there was nothing but a vast, cold emptiness, the abyss yawning beneath him.

"Stay there if you want."

Phaenora followed swiftly after him.

Narisva hesitated only for a moment before she too stepped forward, her defiance and cockiness replaced by the grim understanding that this was the only way.

And then, all three of them were gone, swallowed by the darkness below, the tunnel collapsing behind them.

°°°°°°°

Vastarael was falling for thirty minutes. And yes, he counted.

He always had a mental habit of counting in his mind, both in his first and second life. And this time, it wasn't different. He could feel the presence of Narisva and Phaenora around him but he couldn't see them.

Even his telepathic link with Phaenora was not working.

And for thirty one minutes and twenty eight seconds, they finally reached the end of the abyss. Narisva Starisnova instantly lowered the gravity around them before their bodies turned into red paste on the black floor.

"Handy ability," Phaenora admitted, rising up as she looked around. "So this is the end of the deep abyss, huh?"

What met their gaze was unexpected.

The ground beneath them, though solid, was glossy like polished obsidian, reflecting faint glimmers of light from above. It stretched out in all directions, forming a vast, black valley enclosed by towering jagged walls of onyx-like stone that seemed to drink in any light.

Far above, a faint white light shimmered, like a veil of stars behind an invisible curtain. The ceiling of the abyss seemed impossibly high, the source of the light unreachable, casting the valley in a dim, ethereal glow that made the shadows dance ominously across the ground.

"This doesn't feel like an end," Vastarael murmured, his gaze narrowing as he scanned the edges of the valley.

"Of course it's not the end," Narisva said, her voice laced with sarcasm. "You think the gods of this twisted tunnel would make it that easy? No. This is just another layer of their game."

She gestured to the light far above. "That's probably the way out and I guarantee it's going to make falling for thirty minutes feel like a warm-up."

"Can you altered gravity to get us up there?"

Narisva shook her head. "It will make me completely vulnerable if I do. Who knows what's waiting for us up there."

Phaenora rolled her eyes but didn't argue. Instead, she stepped forward, her boots clicking softly against the obsidian-like surface. The sound echoed faintly, disappearing into the distance.

"It's not just the ceiling that's unsettling," she said. "Look at the walls. They're… alive."

Vastarael followed her gaze, his eyes sharpening as he studied the jagged, towering walls.

At first glance, they appeared to be made of smooth black stone, but as he focused, he could see faint, almost imperceptible movements. The walls pulsed and shifted subtly, like a living organism breathing in slow, deliberate rhythms.

"Alive?" Narisva scoffed, though her tone betrayed unease. "It's just an illusion. Or a trap. Don't fall for it."

Vastarael crouched low, his gaze narrowing as his fingers brushed across the sleek, obsidian-like surface. There, beneath the faint ethereal glow of the abyss, he noticed patterns etched into the ground.

As he traced the grooves with his fingertips, a subtle vibration ran through him, almost like the ground itself was alive, pulsating with an ancient heartbeat.

"Murals?"

Phaenora tilted her head, peering down at the ground but seeing nothing.

"Murals? What are you talking about, Veneri? All I see is black glass."

Vastarael ignored her, his focus shifting to Narisva.

"Narisva, use your gravity manipulation. Lift us just high enough to see what's etched here."

"Fine," she said with exaggerated reluctance, lifting her hands.

A shimmering starry aura enveloped the trio, and they began to rise slowly into the air, just enough to look down on the ground beneath them.

What they saw made all three pause.

The mural below them was a masterpiece of celestial craftsmanship, etched with painstaking precision.

The first floor mural depicted a towering, god-like being, its sheer scale dwarfing everything around it.

This figure was monstrous in size, its features shrouded in a mist of power that seemed to radiate from the depiction itself. It stood in the center of the image, arms outstretched as if holding dominion over the world before it.

But what drew their attention most were the eight islands spread out beneath the colossal figure.

The details were so vivid it was almost as if the islands were alive, frozen in motion on the surface of the abyss. Each isle was distinct, surrounded by calm, shimmering waters that seemed to flow across the mural despite being a mere carving.

"The Erna Isles," Phaenora whispered in confusion. "But… they're not frozen. And the Lake of Miracles Island... it's missing. There are supposed to be nine islands, including the human kingdom Volxane. This… this is before the isles froze over. Before the Lake of Miracles even existed."

Vastarael's gaze was locked on the human kingdom depicted among the isles, Volxane. The kingdom was shown thriving amid the warm, bountiful waters. Its cities were vibrant, teeming with life, with ships sailing effortlessly between the islands.

"This is what the Erna Isles were," Vastarael said softly, his voice laced with the weight of realization. "Before they were consumed by ice. Before the Frozen God came."

"But why?" Phaenora asked, her tone turning uneasy. "Why would the Lake of Miracles not exist here? That's… that's impossible. The lake has always been a part of the Isles. It's the origin of the Raurekai."

"Is it?" Narisva countered. "Maybe we've been lied to. Maybe the lake wasn't always here. Maybe it was… something else."

Vastarael's expression darkened as he studied the mural more closely. The towering being above the islands seemed to radiate a strange authority.

Was this entity the key to the Isles' transformation? Was it the creator or the destroyer of the isles?

Vastarael realized that the only way to escape the First Epoch Cycle was to know the origin of the island. And so, he began collecting his thoughts.