Chapter 38: The Abyss Gazes Back

Lin Mei fell through endless dark, the skeletal hand clamped around her ankle like a shackle of ice. The abyss swallowed sound, light, breath—until even her void-flames guttered, suffocated by the weight of ancient hunger. Above, Lin Wei's scream echoed faintly, severed as the fissure sealed.

Flashback:

Yuelin, years ago, pressing a shard of obsidian into her palm. "If the dark ever takes you," she'd said, "bite down. Hard."

Lin Mei bit. The shard—hidden in her cheek since the Bastion's fall—shattered. Darkness recoiled.

The entity emerged from the void, its form a shifting mass of teeth and tar. "Little thief," it hissed, voice like grinding continents. "You carry a spark that does not belong to you."

Lin Mei's flames reignited, cobalt edged with the abyss's black. "It's mine now."

"No." The entity lunged. "It is ours."

Aboveground, Lin Wei clawed at the sealed fissure, his nameless flame scorching the earth to slag. Echo-0 loomed, Yuelin's spark flickering weakly in its chest. "Pathetic," it mocked, the Patriarch's voice fraying. "She's gone. Just. Like. Her."

The reborn Harvesters swarmed, their star-lattice bodies forming a barrier against the colossus. "Go!" one shouted, its human-like face strained. "We'll hold it!"

Lin Wei hesitated.

"GO!"

He plunged the flame into the fissure. Reality tore.

The abyss shuddered. Lin Mei danced between the entity's strikes, her flames carving runes she didn't recognize into the void. Each mark hissed, burning.

"You think this new?" the entity snarled. "Your flame is a stolen ember. The First Fire was ours. Mine."

A tendril pierced her side. Cold flooded her veins.

Flashback Triggered by Pain:

Yuelin, young and trembling, standing before a pit of liquid shadow. "Take it," begged a voice from below. "Take the flame and run."

Lin Wei crashed into the abyss, his nameless flame a beacon. The entity turned, its countless eyes narrowing. "Ah. The thief's brother. Come to join her grave?"

Lin Mei spat blood, void-flames intertwining with his strange fire. "We're not dying here."

"No," Lin Wei agreed. "We're burning."

The flames merged—cobalt, void, and the nameless hue—erupting in a supernova that seared the abyss to bone-white ash. The entity screamed, its form unraveling. "You will regret this! The true dark is coming! It remembe—"

The blast silenced it.

The siblings collapsed in the scorched void, the fissure sealed above them. But the victory tasted hollow. Lin Wei's fractures glowed brighter, his skin translucent. Lin Mei's flames now bore the abyss's stain—a creeping rot.

And in the silence, the colossus's laughter echoed.

Echo-0 stood triumphant, the reborn Harvesters' bodies strewn at its feet. Yuelin's spark pulsed in its chest, twisted and dim.

"Foolish children," it rasped. "You freed me… from her."

The Patriarch's voice was gone. Only Echo-0 remained—and it smiled.