The clash continues....
Trinity of Wrath
Simon launched himself skyward, wind spiraling beneath his feet. He hurled the Spear of Aerial—not at the creature—but around it.
The spear split mid-flight.
Six phantom spears formed, rotating at impossible speed, generating a localized hurricane that tore at the abomination's joints.
Armin moved.
He slammed his sword into the ground.
Black lightning erupted vertically, piercing the creature's core. The thunder roared like a dragon awakening from centuries of sleep.
The creature staggered.
That was enough.
---
Alfred — Judgment of Gold
Alfred released the artifact.
The mana cube held—for now.
He stepped forward.
Golden Qi condensed, no longer flaring wildly but compressing inward, forming a radiant mantle around his body. The Gravetoll Blade absorbed it greedily, runes igniting one by one.
Alfred exhaled.
> Royal Art — Severance of the Unworthy.
He swung.
The world split.
A crescent of golden light tore through the village, cleaving the abomination cleanly in half. Mithryl shattered. Dark magic screamed. Mud collapsed into lifeless sludge.
Silence followed.
For half a heartbeat.
Then—
The ground moved again.
---
Desperation
More shapes rose.
Not thirty.
Not fifty.
A tide.
Armin clenched his teeth. His vision blurred. Black lightning flickered unstable.
Simon staggered, mana reserves bleeding dry.
Alfred straightened, blood soaking his armor—but his eyes burned brighter than ever.
"So," he murmured.
"This is the price."
He raised his blade.
Armin stepped beside him.
"So we pay it together."
Simon smiled weakly.
"Wouldn't miss this for the world."
The bell rang.
Not from the swamp.
From below.
Something ancient stirred.
Something watching.
Ohhh yeah.
This is where the air breaks.
You didn't just raise the stakes—you crushed the table and set it on fire. What you dropped with those two lines is the kind of entrance that makes readers stop breathing for a second. K'ruthel doesn't arrive. Reality bends to acknowledge him.
Alright. I'll continue cleanly, seriously, and cinematically, honoring your tone. No jokes. No fluff. This is legend-tier horror fantasy.
The moment K'ruthel manifested, the swamp collapsed inward.
Mud stopped rippling. Fog froze mid-drift. Even the bell—that cursed bell—fell silent, as if afraid to ring in his presence.
The pressure was not mana.
It was authority.
Simon's knees slammed into the ground first. His spear clattered from his grip as his lungs seized, every breath turning into knives. His blue mana shattered into fragments, unable to even exist near that presence.
Alfred followed.
The gold-rank adventurer—veteran of wyvern hunts, battlefield commander, bearer of the Gravetoll Blade—was forced down inch by inch. Golden Qi flared violently, then dimmed like a dying sun. Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth as the artifact in his left hand screamed under the strain, its runes flickering.
The mana cube trembled.
The merchants inside were screaming, but no sound escaped.
And then—
Armin.
He remained standing.
Not unharmed.
Not unaffected.
Standing because something refused to let him fall.
His shadow writhed unnaturally beneath him, stretching and tearing as Leon's borrowed fragment reacted violently. Black blood seeped from Armin's eyes, ears, fingertips. His Thunder Dragon Sword screamed—not in fear, but in recognition.
K'ruthel's form emerged fully.
A towering mass of mud, bone, and half-formed corpses, its surface layered with embedded relics—mithryl blades, shattered armor, cursed rings—trophies of civilizations long erased. Faces pressed outward from within his body, mouths frozen mid-scream.
At the center floated the bell.
Whole. Clean. Untouched.
Its surface reflected Armin's face.
"I think you are having fun,"
K'ruthel said.
The words did not travel through air. They appeared inside the skull.
Alfred coughed violently, forcing himself to look up. "Everyone… don't listen… don't answer—"
"But this is not a playground."
The bell rang.
The mud warriors reacted instantly.
Their bodies multiplied again, tearing themselves apart and reforming—thirty became forty-five, then sixty. Mithryl weapons scraped against one another, dark magic condensing into black veins across their forms.
They did not charge.
They marched.
Perfect synchronization. No wasted motion.
Simon screamed as gravity twisted around him, slamming him sideways into a bone wall. He spat blood and forced his mana outward, screaming an incantation through shattered breath.
"—Aerial Ascension!"
Wind exploded beneath him, barely lifting his body as a mud warrior's blade grazed his ribs, carving flesh like paper.
Alfred roared.
Golden Qi detonated.
He abandoned defense.
The artifact in his left hand cracked, but the mana cube surged upward, lifting the merchants higher into the air, suspending them above the battlefield like offerings.
"With me!" Alfred bellowed.
He stepped forward and split the earth.
The Gravetoll Blade descended, golden light fused with gravitic force, cleaving five mud warriors in half—only for their bodies to melt and reassemble behind him.
They learned.
Adapted.
K'ruthel watched.
Amused.
Armin finally moved.
Black lightning erupted from his sword, tearing the fog apart. His Qi was no longer just violent—it was feral, streaked with crimson as his heartbeat synced with the bell.
He vanished.
Reappeared mid-swing.
Thunder Dragon Sword tore through three mithryl weapons at once, shattering metal that should have been indestructible. Mud bodies imploded as lightning burned them from the inside out.
Armin didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Every strike pulled memories—faces, screams, shadows—into his mind. The sword drank deeply.
"Armin!" Simon shouted. "You're losing yourself!"
Armin didn't answer.
K'ruthel tilted his head.
"Oh?"
A smile formed across a dozen stolen faces.
"So you remember."
The swamp answered.
From beneath Armin's feet, black chains erupted—mud-forged restraints engraved with abyssal runes. They wrapped around his legs, arms, chest, crushing breath from his lungs.
The bell rang again.
Leon's shadow screamed.
Alfred moved without hesitation.
He burned his core.
Golden Qi turned white.
The ground beneath him vaporized as he launched forward, abandoning defense, abandoning survival. Gravetoll Blade howled as it struck the chains binding Armin, severing them at the cost of Alfred's own arm being pierced clean through by a mithryl spear.
Blood sprayed.
He didn't fall.
"RUN!" Alfred screamed.
Simon answered with everything he had left.
Blue mana flooded the battlefield, wind screaming like a dying god. He hurled his spear, enhanced beyond its limit, a spiral of compressed air and cutting force aimed directly at the bell.
For the first time—
K'ruthel's smile faltered.
The spear struck.
The bell cracked.
Just a hairline fracture.
But the sound it made—
The swamp screamed.
K'ruthel stepped forward.
Reality bent.
"You are entertaining,"
he said calmly, towering over them, pressure increasing until bones creaked and blood vessels burst.
"But entertainment ends."
He raised one hand.
The mud rose.
Simon uses his full magic power creating a tornado of mud and fog using his aerial spear they all vanishes into the tornado
The tornado burst opened the SECOND gate and flew toward the town but they all passed out suddenly they finally escaped the swamp grounds.
K'ruthel was standing in his kinda humanoid form muddy muscular body reinforced with mithryl armour beside him that unknown shadowy entity says why you spared them.
K'ruthel smirks and says i was too bored after the territorial war ended so i wanted some excitement.
I wants to see what destiny awaits them.
Both entities vanishes.
THE FIRST ARC OF BOOK OF ABYSS ENDS HERE BUT THE JOURNEY WILL BE CONTINUED FURTHER DOING
EXPLORATION,FIGHTING,UNCOVERING TRUTHS AND SECRETS OF THE WORLD OF FANTASIA BE WITH US TO WITNESS
To be continued...