The Warden's corpse sank slowly, twisting as faint currents tugged at its broken limbs. The water around it still shimmered with the residue of dying magic — particles drifting like dust through a cathedral's light.
But Kuro barely noticed the body.
The memory fragment inside him pulsed like a living ember.
> Remember…
What was lost…
The world blurred.
Darkness folded inward.
And suddenly—
He wasn't in his own body anymore.
He hovered above an impossible sight.
■ A City Beneath Infinite Pressure
Massive towers spiraled from the seafloor like obsidian spires. Bridges of chitin and pearl connected them in curves that defied gravity. Glyphs glowed along the buildings like veins of living light, illuminating an entire metropolis beneath the crushing weight of the abyss.
The Old Sea Race.
Alive.
Prospering.
Unbroken.
Creatures swam through the city's vast plazas — some humanoid, others serpentine or cephalopodic, all possessed of an eerie elegance. Mana-lanterns drifted through the water like floating stars. The sea hummed with structured energy, tuned, balanced.
This was no ruin.
This was a civilization.
And at its heart…
A coliseum of spiraled stone.
Inside, a pulsing throne made of fossilized coral.
And atop it—
A figure.
Tall.
Regal.
Unmoving.
Its eyes were closed, but its presence rippled through the entire city like a heartbeat.
A Leviathan King.
The source of the Abyss's will.
Kuro felt instinctual terror.
This… this was the power ruling the sea long before humans evolved.
Then the vision changed.
■ The Fall Begins
The city trembled.
Glyphs dimmed.
Lanterns flickered.
Citizens looked upward.
A shadow covered the city — vast, shapeless, a presence older than the abyss itself.
Something descended.
The pressure cracked buildings.
Currents warped.
Creatures screamed as they were crushed into spirals of bone dust.
Kuro felt it like a spear through his mind:
The Primordial Leviathan.
The true abyss.
The thing that ruled even the kings.
It tore through the city without touching it, its presence alone ripping space into ribbons.
Wardens surged up from the trenches, hundreds of them — pristine, unbroken, loyal guardians. Their armor gleamed with runic light. They moved in perfect unison.
They attacked the impossible.
Their attacks shattered against it like raindrops against a mountain.
One by one, they folded.
Crushed.
Flattened.
Erased.
The Leviathan King rose from his throne.
He extended one hand.
A star ignited between his fingers — a burning sphere of compressed mana so dense it warped the water around it.
He hurled it.
Reality cracked.
White.
Then black.
■ A City in Ruins
The vision flickered.
The city was a skeleton.
Towers crumbled.
Glyphs dead.
Silence everywhere — except for the murmur of the abyss reclaiming its domain.
The Leviathan King lay shattered at the citadel's base, his essence leaking away like drifting ash.
One Warden remained.
The same type Kuro had just slain.
It approached the dying king, kneeling in the dust.
The king raised a trembling hand to its helm.
His voice, faint as a dying current:
> "If the Abyss chooses another…
You must destroy it.
No matter what form it takes."
The Warden bowed.
Its body dissolved into the darkness, awaiting its commands in timeless slumber.
The king's last whisper echoed:
> "The Abyss will seek a vessel…
And that vessel will devour the sea."
The memory shattered.
---
■ Back to Reality
Kuro gasped as the vision vanished, his tentacles spasming.
The ruined abyss returned — familiar, silent.
But something inside him felt different.
He understood the Warden's purpose.
He understood the mark burning in his flesh.
The Abyss was searching for a new vessel.
A vessel to do what the Primordial Leviathan had done once before — ascend beyond life, beyond death, beyond sanity.
A vessel to replace the Leviathan King.
And it had chosen him.
Kuro's body trembled.
Not from fear.
From the terrible weight of realization:
He wasn't evolving by his own will.
He wasn't growing because he was strong.
The Abyss was shaping him.
Molding him.
Claiming him.
> [Abyssal Evolution Path: Cephalord Sequence Activated.]
[Progress: 17.88%]
[Warning: Cognitive Stability Decreasing.]
Kuro stared into the void.
For the first time since reincarnation, he felt something human again:
A spark of rebellion.
"Not yet," he whispered in his mind.
I choose my path. Not you.
The Abyss pulsed around him — amused.
The next evolution had already begun.