"What? uh… um..."
The words were not words—just noise. Fragments of thought pressed through cracked lips. Kalem didn't even know if he was speaking or just dreaming his voice.
"You are awake."
"Why don't you die?"
"How will you die?"
"Burn yourself."
"Scar yourself."
"Become us."
The voices spiraled in his ears—layered and hungry, some whispering with reverence, others barking like commanders or laughing like children. No pattern, no rhythm. Just an overwhelming tide of sound that pressed in like a swarm of insects.
"Where… ahh… huh…"
"Fool."
"Brave."
"Demon."
"Human."
"Weapon."
"Dog."
"Insect."
"Coward."
A scream tried to claw its way out of Kalem's chest, but only a dry, fractured sound escaped: "Ugh—hyah?"
He bolted upright, his whole body spasming like a puppet cut from strings and yanked again into motion. His vision swam. For a long moment, the world around him didn't make sense.
There was no sky—just a dome of jagged obsidian and pulsing light. The light wasn't natural. It cast no shadows, had no direction, no warmth. It existed like a hallucination painted directly into his brain.
Ominous. Sickening.
Everything around him shimmered with that unnatural glow—the rocks, his skin, even his breath when he exhaled.
"He… Hea… Ha… Hy…" Kalem choked, pressing a hand to the ground. "Heavy mana…"
His voice cracked, barely audible. The air clung to his lungs like syrup. It wasn't breathable in any normal sense. It pressed into his chest and skull like a third set of lungs trying to inhale for him—fighting his instincts.
"How… am I… alive?" Kalem whispered, dragging his other hand to his chest. He expected wounds, blood. Death. But his fingers brushed the scorched metal of his chest plate. Warm. Vibrating softly with stored energy.
It came rushing back—memories out of order. The stampede of abominations. The crate left behind. The tearing of armor, flesh. The gate. The voices—the voice. Running. Screaming.
He blinked rapidly, struggling to remember something he had once read back at Arcathis Academy. A lesson buried deep in the lectures of magical ecology and ancient phenomena.
"When mana becomes so dense it warps the air into something tactile…
When light is stripped of color, and breath feels like drowning in ash…
When time seems to blur and thoughts loop endlessly—
That is not nature. That is concentrated collapse. A zone unfit for man."
He should be dead. But he wasn't.
"Lucky."
"Skilled."
"Prepared."
"Accident."
"Deceiver."
"Genius."
"Unaware."
The voices crept into the cracks in his thoughts, laughing softly now.
Kalem forced himself to sit straighter. His fingers moved shakily to the buckles on his chest plate. He needed to see it. Confirm something.
He managed to loosen one strap—
Pain. Not pain—obliteration. His vision flared white. His nerves sang. It was like every inch of his skin was being pulled inside out, as if something behind his eyes screamed in protest.
"Yahiwicchrr!" Kalem grunted and hastily refastened the buckle. The pressure eased—but the message was clear.
He touched the smooth metal again, eyes narrowing.
"The Lynthian crystal... and the ruins," he murmured, piecing it together through the haze. "They're holding the external mana at bay. Forming a resonance field... Just enough to stop me from being boiled alive."
His breath caught. A small, bitter laugh escaped.
"And here I thought my mana had grown," he said. "Thought I was finally catching up."
His mind, for a moment, drifted to the others.
Nara—reckless, relentless, too fast for reason. She'd probably try to cleave through the Abyss like it owed her something.
Jhaeros—cold precision, always quiet, always watching.
Isolde—dignified, powerful, terrifying when she wanted to be. Her eyes had never missed anything.
Lyra—clever and cruel in equal measure. Too sharp for her own good.
And Garrick—gods help him—writing history as he saw it, he better not get in trouble.
Kalem smiled despite himself, the warmth of old memories clashing with the chilling atmosphere.
"I wonder what Tharic and Vornar are doing now…" he said softly. "Probably—"
"Cursing you."
"Mocking you."
"Missing you."
"Mourning you."
"Planning to kill you."
"Searching for you."
He flinched. That one hurt.
"Way to ruin it," he muttered bitterly.
He took in his surroundings for the first time since waking. Stone, scorched. Bones, some melted into the earth. The distant wall of the gate loomed behind him still, sealed tight. Ancient. Silent.
And yet the air trembled like it was listening.
Kalem sat back, letting the fire sword rest across his knees. Its blade shimmered slightly, barely visible against the ethereal light.
He leaned against the gate, his body bruised, battered, barely functional—but not broken.
Not yet.
For a long while, there were no voices. Just the beat of his heart and the quiet hum of his armor.
Then—
"For now."
He didn't react. He simply stared ahead, unmoving.
Because for the first time since falling into the Abyss, Kalem wasn't panicking.
He was waiting.
Planning.
Let them whisper. Let them ask for his blood, his soul, his name.
He had survived worse than voices.
The gate loomed behind him. What lay beyond it was unknown.
But he would find out.
Not yet.
But soon.