Under a Sky That Doesn’t Exist

—"Hey, wait—!" Elion's voice cracked as he reached for the scout, his lance still sheathed.

But it was too late.

The rookie staggered into the purple-colored grass, his body dissolving like smoke—as if flesh had forgotten how to hold its shape. He didn't scream. Didn't tremble. Just stared upward… and vanished.

Above, a "star" convulsed and slid smoothly across the false firmament.

A silence thicker than the abyss settled over the squad.

—"Where is he?" Kira whispered, her fingers still outstretched, as if she could pluck the remnants of his soul from the air.

Auren crouched, pressing his palm to the earth. No footprints. No blood. Just a faint depression in the grass, as if something had inhaled the boy into another layer of reality.

—"Captain," he said, voice frayed at the edges. "This place… it doesn't follow the Abyss's rules."

Rugal Thoren hefted his sonic hammer, scanning the impossible sky—a dome studded with floating lights, many pulsing in unison like a single, breathing organism. At its center, a moon hung blurred, as if submerged in black water, its light leaching into the air like a stain.

—"We're leaving. Now."

They turned.

Solid stone greeted them.

The floral archway they'd entered through—that living threshold of vines and roots—was gone. No gap. No cracks. As if it had never existed.

—"Where…?" Kira's tattoos flickered, reacting to something unseen.

—"This isn't just the fourth stratum," Auren muttered. His gray eyes darted, calculating, terrified.

Elion spun, grip white-knuckled on his lance.

—"We walked into a trap. This isn't a meadow. It's a… cage."

And the moon was watching.

—"Remember the old man in the Grand Bazaar?" Kira's voice cut through the silence. "The one who sold fake maps? He talked about a 'field under the forgotten sky'… This matches his ravings."

Auren nodded slowly.

—"He said there was a place beyond the fourth stratum—no coordinates, where footsteps never repeated and the sky had eyes. Everyone called him spore-mad."

—"But there were rumors," Elion added. "Hunters who vanished searching for it. Their bodies were never found."

—"He called it Lunaris Virelda in the reports, didn't he?" Kira murmured.

Auren's voice turned to gravel.

—"No. He said the real name was 'The Nest of Fallen Gods'."

Behind them, the grass crunched.

Not from wind. There was no wind here.

The sky shivered. One of the lights detached—too large to be an insect, too silent to be a bird.

The squad tightened formation.

No one spoke the truth aloud:

Lunaris Virelda wasn't just another region of the Abyss.

It was something older.

Something that remembered.

And they… had just stepped into its dream.

The Vraalmur and his Larva observed from the shadows. They, too, were trapped here—but unlike the humans, they understood.

This was no mere place.

It was a thing.

An entity of the Abyss, wearing the illusion of a meadow like a skin.

And then—they saw her.

A human unlike the others.

White hair. Skin etched with tattoos that pulsed in time with the Abyss's whispers. Fingers tracing the air as if plucking secrets from the silence.

The Larva reacted.

Her glow shifted—pale green, translucent blue… then a flicker of gold.

Not fear.

Recognition.

The young woman—Kira—stopped mid-step.

Her gaze drifted, not quite seeing the fissure where the Vraalmur lurked, but sensing it. A shiver crawled up her spine. Her lips parted, as if to speak a name she didn't yet know.

The Vraalmur retreated deeper into the dark.

For now, they would watch.

The squad moved cautiously through the violet grass, their boots sinking into ground that breathed beneath them. Auren was the first to spot the figures.

—"Captain… over there."

Distant shapes wandered the fields—humans, or what was left of them. Some crouched, muttering to the pulsating lichen. Others stared blankly at the false sky. None ran. None spoke.

—"Hunters?" Elion whispered.

—"Or their echoes," Auren replied.

Then they saw it—the village.

Not built by human hands.

A settlement of fused carapaces, bone pillars bent into arches, walls throbbing with wet membranes. Blue light seeped from its cracks. This architecture was alive—or at least, remembered how to be.

At its center, perched on a twisted rock, sat a man cloaked in the hide of an Abyssal beast.

His beard was wild, his eyes sunken. A broken spear lay at his side. The blood crusted on his armor told of battles fought—and lost.

Rugal paled.

—"Yorven Kaas."

Auren's breath hitched. "The Captain of the Bleeding Gray Squad? The one lost in the Fifth Stratum?"

—"Two years ago," Kira murmured. "They said an Abyssal swarm devoured him. That his team was annihilated."

—"Lies." Rugal stepped forward.

The man lifted his head slowly, as if waking from a dream.

—"...Rugal."

—"Yorven." Rugal's voice was rough. "Gods. How are you alive?"

Yorven's lips twitched—not a smile, but a spasm.

—"I'm not. I just… remain."

Rugal knelt beside him. "What happened? Where's your squad?"

—"Dead. All of them. We entered through the Fifth Stratum—chasing rumors of an unmapped zone. Found it. Woke up here." His hollow gaze flicked to Rugal. "And you?"

—"Fourth Stratum. Another unregistered entrance."

The two men locked eyes.

—"Then this place slithers between the layers," Yorven rasped.

Kira stepped closer, her tattoos flaring. "Did you explore it? What's out there?"

Yorven's throat worked.

—"The meadow stretches. But further in… the sky lowers. Becomes a black dome. That's where the Two live."

—"Two?" Elion tensed.

—"One is flesh and fury—a wall with legs. The other…" Yorven shuddered. "It sings. Calls you. Eats you from the inside."

Auren's voice was steel. "And beyond that?"

—"A structure. Like a castle. Made of bones, roots… and something else. It pulses. The doors are sealed. Those who try to enter…" His voice broke. "They don't die. They just stop being human."

Rugal stood, jaw clenched. "Then why stay here?"

Yorven didn't answer at first.

When he did, it was a whisper:

—"Maybe I'm waiting for death. Or… a sign that hope exists here."

Hidden in the shadows, the Vraalmur listened.

His Larva trembled against his spine, her glow a sustained note of warning.

Rugal stared at the impossible horizon of Lunaris Virelda—the fields trembling with dormant life, the star-strewn sky that breathed.

—"Yorven," he finally said, his voice like wet gravel. "Is there a way out?"

The man lifted his head slowly. His eyes no longer focused on the physical. They saw only bleeding memories.

—"No," he whispered. "None that we found."

—"Did you try?"

—"For months. Then years. We dug. We climbed. We retraced our steps. The routes erased themselves… landmarks moved. Here, Rugal… logic fails. Space dreams. It's like being trapped inside a lung that decides when to inhale—and when to spit you out." His cracked lips twisted. "And it never spits."

Silence settled, broken only by the false sky's static hum.

—"But there was… a flicker of hope," Yorven admitted. "A crack. A moment when something shouldn't have worked… but did."

Rugal's brow furrowed.

—"What?"

—"The magic of gods. Not the Abyss's corruption, not Imperial seals. True magic—dawnlight. The fire of ancient pacts. A radiance this place rejects… and so, can wound."

—"Aurora magic? High-tier divinity?"

—"Yes. The kind wielded by the Dawn Gods' disciples. Our mage… Kelen… discovered he could tear a rift in the air itself. A seam between layers. He only managed it once. It was small. Unstable."

Rugal leaned in, gaze sharp as blades.

—"Why didn't you escape?"

Yorven swallowed.

—"To hold the rift open, someone had to stay. Feed it with their ether. Sustain it until the others passed. The toll was… brutal. And if they faltered too soon—" His throat bobbed. "—the rift closed. With them inside."

—"And Kelen?"

—"He was young. Terrified. He agreed… but when the rift began to form, he saw the Abyss between strata. The things that move in the nothingness. He flinched. Refused to be the one left behind."

—"What happened to him?"

—"The singing beast found him as he slept. Ripped him apart without touching him. His screams…" Yorven's hands trembled. "If he'd sacrificed himself, maybe some of us would've escaped. But I understand. I wouldn't have wanted to stay here alone either. This place doesn't forget… and it doesn't forgive."

Rugal's fists clenched, knuckles cracking like stressed stone.

—"So it's still possible."

—"Maybe. But you'd need a conduit strong enough to wield divine Dawn magic… and willing to die for the rest."

A heavy quiet fell. In the distance, a light drifted down from the sky like a petal. Not a star.

An eye.

—"Tell me, Rugal," Yorven rasped. "Do you have someone like that?"

On the promontory above, shrouded in shadow, the Vraalmur and the Kharis Larva observed in silence.

The Larva pulsed—a weak, gold-green flicker.

And for the first time in cycles beyond counting…

The Vraalmur understood the word "sacrifice."