Soren gasped, his fingernails scraping against the warm stone floor of the basement as he felt every vein burn with the cosmic energy that was forced into him.
He grit his teeth until his jaw ached, forcing his consciousness to hold until he was sure that he was safe in this accursed dimension.
He forced his trembling arms to straighten.
Every muscle in his body screamed in protest but fueled by his indomitable will, he dragged himself to the cellar steps.
Soren gripped the Dream Sword before driving it to the ground and using it as a cane to force his body upright.
He used the sword as a crutch to slowly crawl up the steps until he finally landed on the top steps, gasping for breaths.
The survivors turned sharply at the sound of the arrival.
Irene gasped while Jase rushed forward, grabbing Soren by the arms just as his knees buckled.
“Big bro!
Are you okay?” one of the children worriedly asked, rushing to Soren.
“I’m… okay,” Soren wheezed, his muscles working overtime to help him breathe.
He leaned against one of the wooden walls, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.
“I… I just need to rest a bit.”
His vision blurred, the overwhelming exhaustion threatening to consume him if relaxed for a moment.
“Are we… safe?” he asked, looking around the room.
The other woman came to his side, smiling gently.
“You did good,” she said, squeezing his shoulders.
“We’re safe because of yo—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the floor beneath them shuddered subtly.
Soren slowly looked up before pulling out the Dream Sword and sent a pulse of energy into it.
The reflection warped to show the outside of the restaurant.
When he didn’t see anything, the reflection zoomed out before the field of view increased.
His blood grew cold.
He saw various Abyssal Creatures rushing over in a frenzy to his location, likely attracted by the activation of the Anchor.
It was definitely not subtle with the violet beacon that penetrated the dark realm or the loud shockwave that came with the activation.
The information he had—or the lack thereof—did not tell him that any of those things would happen.
In fact, it was quite the opposite.
All the stories he heard spoke of the glory that came with the activation of an Anchor.
A horrific, multi-toned howl echoed from the streets outside followed by the stampede of heavy footsteps.
The Abyssal Creatures were coming, no longer afraid of the dead Echoed creature that claimed the restaurant as its territory.
“The beacon,” Irene stammered, her eyes darting wildly from the shuttered windows and wooden doors.
“It—it drew them here!”
Jase turned to Soren’s sitting form, looking at him with wild eyes and gritted teeth.
“You… you bastard!” he screamed, sending spit everywhere.
“You told us to activate the Anchor and look at the mess you dragged us into!
We were safe before you came!”
Soren winced, his mind racing.
Although his head was throbbing and every muscle ached, he forced himself to think of any solution that could get them out of the situation.
There was nothing.
He grimaced, feeling despair grip his heart as he found no solution.
He staggered to his feet, ignoring the yelling from Jase.
“Get the kids in the back storage room,” Soren commanded, his voice tight as he ignored the pain.
“Everyone else, barricade any entrance the Abyssals could use to get inside.”
Irene pulled her husband back, pleading with him to just listen to Soren while the other woman nodded, ushering the kids to the back.
After a bit of convincing, Jase finally calmed down enough to focus on barricading the building before the Abyssals arrived.
The heavy oak tables slammed against the front door followed by the wooden planks being hammered into across the windows in a frantic manner.
Every nail driven did little to ease the terror everyone felt.
In the dark streets of the Abyss, illuminated by the eerie purple auroras in the Void above, the sounds of the approaching swarm grew deafening—the violet beam shooting through the roof of the restaurant acted like a calling beacon that attracted every Abyssal Creature on the island.
Soren stumbled backward after driving a nail to a plank, his back hitting the kitchen counter as his vision flashed.
“We’re locked down!” Jase yelled, his voice cracking as he slammed the final nail on the final window.
He turned back to Soren, his face still pale with residual fury and terror.
He opened his mouth to throw another accusation before the entire front wall of the restaurant buckled inward.
The heavy oak doors creaked as the weight the horrors crashed into them, scrambling to try and get in.
The entire building shook, sending dust and ash that settled everywhere, as the rest of the Abyssals threw themselves against the hastily barricaded windows.
Irene yelped, clutching the kitchen knife she found against her chest. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Soren groaned as he forced himself upright, ready for his final stance.
He tried to lift the Dream Sword, but his fingers refused to close around the hilt.
He grit his teeth before he strained his muscles to finally lift up the thin longsword.
A ghastly screech howled to the right of Soren before the sound of wood splintering came, sending splinters flying.
A bloody red arm struck through the window, frenzied as it tried to tear the hole larger.
“DIE!” the woman who hid the children screamed, raising a meat cleaver she found high into the air before bringing it down.
The cleaver struck the arm and nearly amputated it, causing the creature outside to scream before it redoubled its efforts.
Soren, seeing this, stumbled over before he raised the longsword high and struck down.
The blade easily sliced through the half-amputated arm, cleaving it right off with a spray of black blood.
The creature outside screeched in pain as it quickly withdrew its arm, an eye replacing it with furious eyes.
Soren quickly stabbed it.
On the opposite side of the restaurant, where Irene was, the sounds of breaking wood could be heard, filling Soren with dread.
He turned around, weakly running towards the breach to reinforce her when an arm snapped through the breach, trying to force itself in.
Irene raised her arms with the kitchen knife before driving it down to attempt the same thing the other woman did.
However, the black arm caught her arm.
“Noo!” Jase, her husband, screamed, abandoning his breached window as he ran over to his wife.
The pitch-black arm yanked her, slamming her against the window as she screamed in pain in fright.
Soren raised his arm, rearing it back before weakly throwing it.
The Dream Sword flew across the room before it sliced the arm and fell onto the floor with a clank, creating a superficial wound that barely drew blood.
With one last devastating pull, the creature pulled Irene through the window into the dark streets, exposing the restaurant to the horrors outside.
“You Angeldamned beasts!” Jase yelled, just barely failing to save her.
He moved to jump out and save his wife before Soren grabbed him and yanked him back.
“You can’t,” Soren panted, straining his weak muscles to prevent Jase from going outside.
“It’s futile.
She’s gone.”
Jase panted before he turned his furious eyes at Soren and slapped him across the face.
“You!
You did this!”
Soren stumbled backwards, holding his face.
He didn’t even try to deny it.
It was his lack of knowledge that got him killed.
If he wasn’t so stupid to activate the Angeldamned Anchor, none of this would’ve happened.
However, he had no time to feel sorry or angry at himself.
He gripped his necklace and raised it to his face.
“Do something!” he screamed, pleading that some miracle would happen.
“I know you’re something special!”
The necklace stayed silent, pulsing the same white light it radiated since he first got to the Abyss.
He growled before he let go of the necklace and punched his chest, coughing up blood as he did.
“Angel dammit!
If you’re going to inject your cosmic energy into me and nearly kill me, at least do something!”
The energy expelled from the Anchor remained stagnant in his body, refusing to do anything other than burn every vessel in his body.
He thought that he could at least awaken from the harrowing experience but it merely served as a debilitating curse against him.
An Abyssal stepped over the splintered wood and into the room, grinning with its eerie teeth and bloody mouth.
It had a leg sticking out of its mouth before it slurped, swallowing the last remains of Irene.
Soren gritted before he raised the sword, accepting that he wouldn’t be getting any help from his necklace nor the energy pulsing through his veins.
Fine, he lived doing things his own way, he might as well die doing things his own way too.
He heard the sounds of the other windows breaking halt but ignored that fact, staring at the eerie creature in front of him.
It was a towering, humanoid figure made of shifting, inky blackness and six tentacles floating ominously behind it.
Its head, however, was a swirling white abyss with a wide grin that was stained red from the bloody meal it consumed.
When he tried to look away, he found he couldn’t.
It was at least a high ranking Formless creature, if not Echoed.
Its insidious power forced Soren to stare at it, his head feeling like it was going to explode if he didn’t look away.
He felt blood drip from his eyes before a blinding pain exploded from his chest, breaking the connection between the creature in front of him and releasing its hold on Soren. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Soren stumbled backwards, eyes closed as he refused to look in the direction of the creature.
He heard the sound of a war cry erupt beside Soren, causing him to look to his side to see the remaining woman run at the Abyssal and leap up with another meat cleaver in hand.
“DIE!” she screamed, bringing the cleaver down on its face .
Three tentacles flew from the sides of the creature and drove straight into her chest, killing her instantly.
Jase, using the death as a cover, snuck up to the Abyssal’s side and stabbed it with the kitchen knife Irene dropped.
The creature merely looked down, its white abyss encaptivating him before it swung its arm against Jase, sending him flying across the room.
He crashed against the back kitchen door and slumped against it.
Soren gritted his teeth, trying to dispel the dread that threatened to consume him as he looked at the Dream Sword.
It revealed the creature extending its six tendrils at Soren, letting him dive to the side as the tendrils struck air.
If he couldn’t look at the creature directly, what would happen if he looked at the reflection of it.
Noticing that looking at the reflection of the creature’s white abyss didn’t capture him in its deadly ability, he weakly grinned.
At least he got to screw over the creature’s fun a little bit.
The Abyssal seemed to grow annoyed at that, taking its first few steps since entering the restaurant towards Soren.
Soren’s small triumph dulled as he realized he was still royalled screwed.
Three black tendrils whipped through the air with newfound, terrifying speed as it flew towards Soren.
Feeling déjà vu, he threw his weight to the left, crashing hard into a shattered prep table and narrowly dodging the three tendrils that pierced into the wooden floorboards where he once stood.
He stood up, ignoring the blinding bolts of agony that shot through his body and the black spots that threatened to consume his vision.
He knew he couldn’t dodge another.
His body screamed at him for even trying the last one.
The white-faced monstrosity tilted its head, stopping in place.
Its grin grin widened into an impossible arc as it seemed to realize that its prey was cornered and crippled, unable to escape its inevitable fate.
Slowly, through the reflection of the Dream Sword, the remaining three tendrils detached from the Abyssal Creature’s side and approached Soren.
They hovered over him, ready to drive down and pin him to the floor in agony.
The tendrils lunged.
Soren swung his sword and managed to cut two of them off.
One, however, managed to break through the Royal Guard’s Armor and impale straight into his shoulder, making him scream in agony as black filled his vision.
His grip on the Dream Sword weakened before he let go of it, too weak to even process anything but the pain.
He heard heavy steps walking towards him until he felt himself being raised into the air, the dull ache in his shoulder flaring.
Soren was forced to be met face-to-face with the Abyssal Creature, staring directly into the white abyss and spine-chilling grin.
It seemed to take pleasure from others staring directly into the white abyss rather than outright killing them.
Although the pain from the cosmic energy occasionally severed the connection between him and the creature, it was no use.
It was a constant cycle of brain throbbing and soul retching pain that drove Soren to the edge of unconsciousness.
Blood dripped from his eyes and nose as his mind fragmented under the abyssal gaze.
He found both his mind and soul breaking under the torture he was going through.
The monster’s grin stretched even wider, its dark tendril twisting inside Soren’s shoulder before its mouth grew impossibly wide, ready to consume Soren’s head whole.
The jaws hovered inches from his face.
The wooden ceiling above the kitchen exploded downward in a shower of shattered wood, stone, and blinding emerald light.
Before the creature could snap Soren’s head off, thick vines burst through the roof like iron cables, wrapping around the creature’s midsection with a bone-crushing force.
The creature was thrown backwards and pinned violently against the far wall.
Soren crumbled to the ground, no longer pinned to the air by the dark tendril and released from the mind-crumbling gaze.
A man quickly landed beside him, kneeling as he quickly put a hand against Soren and filling him with a warm and comfortable light.
“You’ll be okay,” the man whispered, increasing the output of the warm healing light.
“Stay with me.”
The creature screeched, a multi-layered noise of rage as it thrashed its remaining tendrils to slice through the thick green vines.
As it freed itself, it threw its four tendrils towards Soren and the healer.
“Watch out,” Soren croaked, trying to warn him.
The healer simply smiled gently and ignored the deadly tentacles coming at him.
Before the tentacles could hit them, space seemed to flip as the tentacles reflected in place, turning straight towards their host and impaling themselves inside the Abyssal Creature.
A sharp, crisp click of leather boots echoed against the wooden floor before a tall and imposing woman clad in midnight-blue armor walked out of the window where the Abyssal came from, a glowing longsword resting at her side.
She looked at Soren, ignoring the screeching Abyssal Creature as the lightest smile graced her lips.
“You’re safe.”
Soren finally fell unconscious, succumbing to the sweet darkness.