Chapter 13: The Price of Power
Chapter 13: The Price of Power
The world had gone quiet.
Where once the Divine and the Abyss clashed in symphonic destruction, now there was only the low, droning hum of the void—the True Abyss.
Hikaru stood alone in its center, arms spread, his body hovering above what was once Arvania's sacred capital. Now, it was swallowed whole. Buildings, mountains, forests, even light itself had been devoured by the writhing dark, like ink spilled across parchment. His amethyst eyes flickered with unstable power, glowing in tandem with the endless abyss beneath him.
He had done it.
He had summoned the Forbidden Depth—the True Abyss, not just a fragment, not a whisper, but the source.
And now it was hungry.
The Divinarch floated before him, but the mask of divinity was gone. Its form had become ragged, its once-blinding glow dulled and cracked. Its wings flickered like dying embers. From the gash in its chest poured ichor not gold, but red—divine blood.
Gods could bleed. Gods could die.
"This is your end," Hikaru said, his voice low, almost emotionless.
The Divinarch didn't reply. It raised its blade—Luminastra—one last time.
With a silent nod, Hikaru responded, gripping his own weapon—Abysscleaver, now infused with the pure essence of the True Abyss. The blade wept black mist, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
They charged.
The world shifted. Time dilated. Reality twisted.
Wherever their swords met, laws of nature shattered. Lightning turned into crystal. Gravity reversed. Dimensions folded in on themselves like pages in a cursed book. This battle no longer belonged to mortals or even gods.
This was beyond fate.
---
Elsewhere—beneath the True Abyss…
Selene struggled to maintain her footing on what little ground remained. The Vanguard behind her had retreated, some too shaken to move, others driven mad by the whispers coming from the shadows around them.
The True Abyss spoke to those unworthy.
It offered power—for a price. Promises of godhood. Immortality. Vengeance. Love.
Selene had heard it too. She almost fell to it.
But one thought—one face—kept her grounded.
Hikaru.
She had loved him before he fell. Before the world betrayed him. Before he embraced the darkness to survive. And though he had changed—scarred, cold, distant—he had not broken.
She refused to let him break now.
Gathering her remaining power, she placed both hands on her chest and drew out the last piece of the Divinarch's soul shard within her. It burned her palms, but she didn't care.
"If I can't save you with strength," she whispered, "then I'll save you with truth."
---
Back above the abyss…
Hikaru landed a devastating blow.
The Divinarch's wing exploded in a burst of shattered light. It reeled, screaming—not in pain, but in fear.
Hikaru could taste it now—victory. He could end this. End the gods. End the world's chains. With the Divinarch gone, there would be no more "Chosen Ones." No more fate-bound heroes or kingdoms ruled by divine puppeteers. No more lies.
He raised Abysscleaver.
But before he could strike the final blow—
Selene's voice pierced the void.
"Hikaru, look at yourself!"
It echoed unnaturally, resonating through the abyss.
He turned, and for a moment—just a moment—he saw her.
Floating on a platform of light, her hands outstretched, glowing with celestial fire and tears in her eyes.
"This isn't you. Not the real you. You said you'd destroy the chains… not become another one!"
Hikaru faltered.
The abyss surged in response, as if angry at her words. Tendrils of black lashed toward her.
"Selene, get out of here!" he shouted, his voice cracked with emotion for the first time in years.
"No!" she cried. "I won't abandon you again!"
The abyss hesitated. The tendrils paused.
Even the Divinarch, half-broken and barely able to stand, lowered its weapon.
A moment of silence.
Hikaru lowered Abysscleaver. His heart thundered in his chest. He could feel the abyss inside him trembling—not with power, but with uncertainty. The will of the Abyssal Lords clawed at his mind, demanding he strike, demanding he finish the cycle.
But her words echoed louder.
He remembered her laugh. Her stubbornness. The way she stood beside him even when the others cast him out. She had been the only one who never looked at him like a monster—even after the fall.
He looked at the Divinarch. At his own reflection in its dimming light.
What had he become?
---
Inside the abyss itself…
A voice emerged.
Ancient. Cold. Timeless.
"You disappoint us, Abyssborn."
It was not one voice, but many. The Abyssal Lords—beings older than creation, banished beyond the veil. They had chosen Hikaru as their vessel, their retribution, their sword.
"You were to sever the divine order. End the Light. End the Balance."
"Yet you hesitate."
Hikaru closed his eyes. "I never swore loyalty to you."
"You drew our power."
"I forged my own path."
The voices hissed, coiling like serpents in his mind.
"Then you shall perish with your precious balance."
Suddenly, black fire erupted from within Hikaru's own body. The Abyss was trying to consume him. Repossess the power. Destroy its failed champion.
He dropped to one knee, screaming, muscles tearing, bones cracking. The air around him twisted violently. His veins glowed a sickly black. His own soul began to rupture.
Selene leapt toward him.
She caught him in mid-air, her own light flaring in defiance of the darkness. She pressed the Divinarch shard against his chest.
"Take it," she whispered. "Balance it."
Hikaru's eyes widened.
The shard sank into him, mingling divine light with abyssal shadow. Agony turned to clarity. The black fire receded. The voices screamed, but faded, silenced by the impossible fusion of god and void.
He rose.
Changed.
No longer purely Abyssborn.
No longer bound to the gods.
Something new.
Something beyond.
---
The Divinarch staggered back. "What are you…?"
Hikaru turned to it, his new eyes—half light, half shadow—piercing through its soul.
"Not your savior. Not their pawn. Just a man…"
He pointed Abysscleaver, now reforged into a blade of twilight, humming with balance.
"…who finally found his own path."
And with that, he moved.
The final clash echoed across the heavens.