Matt woke with the metallic taste of dried blood in his mouth and the dull pulse of the scar in his side. East Borough still slept beneath the gray veil of dawn, but he already felt the world differently. Sharper. Hungrier.
It had all started months earlier, in an alley much like this one. A street vendor—an old hunched man with glassy eyes and lungs ruined by a rotten cough—lay slumped against a wall, dying from a wound that refused to close. His overturned cart held shattered vials, withered herbs, and one intact bottle, cloudy like burnt oil. The man gasped, "Take it… before they steal it from me…"
Matt didn't hesitate. He stole the potion and drank it in a single gulp—sulfur, metal, and something alive writhing down his throat—and knowledge injected itself into his mind like sweet poison.
From that moment on, he suppressed nothing. Dark desires were no longer sins; they were natural instincts. His body had strengthened: muscles tight like cables, sharpened instincts that could detect the movement of a rat ten meters away or the nervous twitch of a liar.
And the best part: Criminal Mind.
Anything in his hands could become a lethal weapon. A knight's sword, a rusted dagger, a bow, a smoking pistol, a six-barreled machine gun… or a simple spoon. He could kill with surgical precision, improvising without effort. His conscience had not completely died—he still felt a faint echo of guilt, like a child justifying a prank—but his heart no longer beat with remorse. Only with need.
The night before, that "doctor," Elara, had changed something. The scar shaped like a withered leaf was not just sealed skin; it pulsed in rhythm with his impulses, whispering in his mind:
Everything returns to the garden. You have taken; now you must nourish.
Every time a criminal desire surfaced—steal, hurt, break—the mark answered with a toxic green heat, as if the earth itself approved… or demanded payment. His ash-gray aura, stained with clots of red hatred, now carried emerald veins twisting like roots. Elara had tied him to a cycle his Abyss did not fully understand. Cross-corruption? A debt to the Mother? Whatever it was, it pushed him to seek answers before that "Mother" claimed him entirely.
Backlund stretched before him: the capital of the Kingdom of Loen, a monster of smoke and steam in the eastern part of the Northern Continent. To the north, Lake Midseashire and the Amantha Mountains separated it from the frozen Feysac Empire; to the east, the Sonia Sea lapped its coasts; to the south lay Desi Bay and the Berserk Sea; and to the west, the Hornacis Mountain Range marked the border with the Intis Republic.
The Tussock River, born in the Mirminsk Mountains, flowed southeast through Midseashire and Awwa County, cutting through the city before emptying near Pritz Harbor. It was the industrial pulse of the kingdom—but also its sewer.
Three churches dominated here: the Church of the Evernight Goddess, with its Nighthawks lurking in the shadows; the Church of the Lord of Storms, commanding armies and skies with thunder; and the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery, blessing factories and inventions. They formed teams of Beyonders, patrolling and suppressing threats.
The Church of the Earth Mother was marginal in Loen—suppressed by the larger churches, with limited influence despite its power in Feynapotter. Few chapels, little luxury. Only solitary devotees and pastors preaching sermons while quietly watching hidden cycles.
Matt only knew of one in Backlund: Harvest Church, a small cathedral in the city, almost disguised as an herbal shop or rural shrine.
Matt needed to get there quickly.
Walking would take hours, and the scar throbbed with urgency, as if the earth itself were pushing him forward. He pulled out some coins stolen the previous week: a few bronze pennies bearing the portrait of George Augustus III and a silver soli or two.
Enough.
He approached a public horse carriage stop on a main street. The driver, a man with a mustache soaked in soot, looked at him suspiciously.
"Where to, sir?"
"Harvest Church. East Diocese, near the Tussock," Matt said, his voice hoarse.
The driver nodded. "About five kilometers. Five pennies."
Matt tossed him the copper coins and climbed into the rickety carriage, which smelled of wet horse and cheap tobacco. The vehicle rattled through the cobblestone streets, passing smoking factories, bridges over the Tussock filled with steamships, and neighborhoods where the smog was so dense the sun looked like a distant coin.
Inside the carriage, Matt flexed his fingers. He picked up a loose nail from the floor and spun it between them. Within seconds his mind calculated angles: he could throw it like a dagger, drive it into an eye, or use it to pick a lock. His Criminal thinking flowed naturally.
But when he imagined using it to hurt the driver—just to test it—the scar burned, and a fleeting image flooded his mind: roots sprouting from a corpse, nourishing the soil.
Don't waste. Nourish.
He cursed silently. This mark was changing him. Or revealing something that had always been there.
The carriage stopped in front of a modest building made of moss-covered stone, vines climbing its walls like green veins. A small plaque read: Harvest Church. The door was slightly open, and the scent of damp soil and fresh herbs drifted outside.
Matt stepped down, paid the rest if necessary, and pushed the door open.
The interior was dim: simple altars decorated with golden wheat stalks and pots filled with plants that seemed far too alive for an industrial city. The smell of fertile earth surrounded him, and the scar pulsed in response, almost with relief.
Someone waited in the shadows near the altar.
A hooded figure.
"Have you come to nourish the garden, child of the Abyss?" a soft, maternal voice asked.
Matt felt the ground beneath his feet shift subtly, as if it were breathing.
The hooded figure stepped forward and lowered the hood with deliberate calm, revealing a pale face and toxic green eyes he already knew.
It was her. Elara.
Her presence filled the space like roots spreading through darkness, and the scar in his side pulsed in response—not just pain, but an inescapable command.
"This is not an invitation, child of the Abyss," Elara said, her voice low and warm like fertile soil after rain, yet edged with authority. "You have already been marked. Last night's healing bound you to the cycle. Come. This is no place for a wild beyonder like you to stumble through the dark without guidance."
Matt instinctively stepped back, his hand searching for the nail in his pocket as his mind calculated how to turn it into a lethal weapon in an instant. But the scar burned with green heat that smothered the criminal impulse, replacing it with a foreign urgency: submission to the cycle, obedience to the earth.
"What the hell are you?" he demanded. "What exactly did you do to me?"
Elara did not smile. She raised a hand, and the vines on the church walls sprang to life instantly, twisting and weaving into a dense green veil that covered the windows and sealed the main door with an organic snap, like roots cracking stone.
The ground beneath Matt's feet suddenly softened—not like a treacherous swamp, but like soil willingly opening. It swallowed him in a smooth, rapid sink, as if he were falling into a sea of living earth. Elara descended with him effortlessly, her body sinking into the soil as if it belonged there.
They traveled through an impossible passage formed by thick roots pulsing with life until they reached a hidden underground garden beneath the church: walls of intertwined roots that seemed to breathe, flowers emitting a faint emerald glow, and soil so fertile it seemed to whisper promises of renewal and decay. The air was pure, filled with the scent of damp earth and fresh sprouts—a brutal contrast to the industrial stench of Backlund above.
Elara emerged first from the ground and extended a hand to help Matt out. The earth released him reluctantly, as though it already considered him part of itself. She sat on a moss bench that formed beneath her touch and gestured for Matt to kneel before her—not in supplication, but as the inevitable beginning of a lesson.
"From now on, you are mine," she declared, touching the scar on his side with a cold finger. A tiny green sprout briefly emerged from the mark before twisting and sinking back into the skin.
"Not by my will alone, but by that of the Mother Goddess. She chose you as one of her blessed—a direct bond with Her. You are not merely a criminal who drank a potion in a moment of depravity.
The Mother even welcomes the degenerate—the ones who rot so that others may grow. Rejecting this would only accelerate your corruption. The garden would claim you regardless."
Matt gasped, feeling emerald veins twisting through his ash-gray aura like roots invading barren soil. He understood nothing of this—goddesses, blessings, divine favors. His world had been fists, knives, and theft until last night.
"Blessed?" he said hoarsely. "What are you talking about? I didn't ask anyone for a favor. I just… didn't want to die."
"Survival in the hidden world is never free," Elara replied, her tone maternal yet unyielding. "The Mother chose you—or rather, your depravity drew her attention. As her favored, I carry out her will here. You will nourish the garden with your actions, and I will guide you so you do not lose yourself in your own wickedness.
I will be your mentor. I will teach you things useful for a wild beyonder like you—an illiterate in mysticism who does not even know what a Pathway or a Sequence is. Without me, the Abyss would devour you long before you understood it."
Matt did not answer immediately. The Abyss inside him—that criminal instinct he no longer suppressed—felt strangely calm, as if this obligation gave purpose to his ravenous hunger. For the first time, the fog in his mind cleared slightly, revealing a world far larger and more dangerous than he had ever imagined. The scar pulsed in agreement, and the soil beneath him seemed to nod.
Elara stood, the vines around her bending in subtle reverence.
"The cycle begins now. Prepare yourself, child of the Abyss. The Mother does not forgive negligence."
Matt sat on the fertile soil of the underground garden, feeling the roots beneath him shift slightly, as if the place itself were evaluating him. The scar in his side pulsed steadily, a reminder that there was no turning back. Elara watched him with those intense green eyes, her presence like a vine coiling around his will—not aggressive, but inevitable. She settled onto the moss bench, her fingers tracing patterns in the air that caused small luminescent flowers to bloom, illuminating the space with an ethereal glow.
"Let us begin with the basics, child of the Abyss," Elara said, her voice echoing like wind through leaves. "You have stumbled into a world you do not understand—a wild beyonder who drank a potion without knowing the consequences. That brew placed you on the Pathway of the Abyss, a dark road, one of the twenty-two pathways that exist in this hidden world. Each pathway is a sequence of powers, born from the characteristics of ancient beings and gods, leading toward divinity… or madness."
Matt frowned, his criminal mind processing the information like he was planning a robbery. "Twenty-two pathways? What the hell does that mean? I just… felt the change. Stronger. Sharper. No guilt for what I do."
Elara nodded patiently. "Pathways are the routes that Beyonders like you follow to ascend. I will mention only a few so you understand the landscape.
Yours, the Abyss, belongs to demons and deep corruption, where evil becomes an endless chasm of desire and depravity.
Then there is the Seer pathway, which deceives reality with illusions and manipulations of fate.
The Apprentice pathway allows one to cross barriers, teleport, and record the powers of others.
The Sun pathway brings purification and holy light, burning away impurity.
The Mother pathway—my own—also called the Planter pathway, nurtures life, earth, and creation, healing and generating from roots to origins themselves.
The Demoness pathway gradually transforms its Beyonders toward femininity and spreads catastrophe through seduction, plagues, and moral corruption.
And the Red Priest pathway focuses on war and destruction, inciting conflict with fire, traps, and strategies that provoke chaos and weaken enemies."
She paused, letting the words sink in like roots into soft soil. Matt felt a chill; the world he knew—alleys, theft, survival—suddenly seemed like a drop in an ocean of shadows and power.
"But you are not alone in this," Elara continued. "There are churches that control these pathways, guardians of order in kingdoms like Loen.
The orthodox ones dominate here: the Church of the Evernight Goddess, whose Nighthawks guard the night and purge heresy in secret; the Church of the Lord of Storms, whose Mandated Punishers wield thunder to strike down deviants; and the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery, whose Beyonders—Artisans and members of the Machinery Hivemind—create and control mechanical artifacts.
My church, the Church of the Earth Mother, is more marginal in Loen, suppressed by the greater churches. We have few chapels like this Harvest Church. We do not maintain armed squads. Only quiet devotees who heal in silence and watch over the cycles of life."
Matt spat onto the ground, though the moss absorbed it instantly.
"I know churches. People pray for miracles or protection from storms. But official Beyonders? Sounds like guard dogs with powers. I'm not the praying or cult-joining type."
"Faith is not optional in this hidden world, little criminal," Elara replied with a quiet laugh.
"And there are factions beyond the churches.
The Aurora Order worships the True Creator, a fallen god they believe to be the rightful ruler of the world, spreading chaos through fanatics and terrorist acts to bring about his resurrection.
The Rose School of Thought mixes depravity with discipline, following aspects of the Mother and the Chained, practicing bloody rituals and control of desire. They are divided into factions of indulgence and temperance.
And the Life School of Thought studies fate and life in order to avoid madness, guiding apprentices through strict master-disciple chains.
These factions wage wars in the shadows. Align with the wrong one, and you will be destroyed."
She leaned closer, locking eyes with Matt.
"Now let us speak about you. You are Sequence 9 of the Abyss: Criminal."
"You no longer repress your desires. Theft, violence, the urge to hurt—they are natural instincts now. Your body strengthens, your senses sharpen. And your Criminal ability grants physical enhancement, instinctive danger detection, and mastery with weapons—any object becomes effective, from a dagger to a spoon. You are also naturally skilled with firearms and with committing crimes without easily being detected.
But without control, the potion will consume you, leaving only a mad shell behind."
Matt flexed his fingers, remembering how the nail in his pocket felt like a lethal extension of himself.
"Yeah… I feel it. But how do I control it? How do I not lose myself?"
Elara touched the scar, sending a pulse of green warmth through it.
"That is where the Acting Method comes in."
"It is the key to digesting the potion—merging with its powers without being dominated by them. You act according to the name of your Sequence. For Criminal, you do not simply commit shallow crimes. You embody the role's deeper essence.
Study its nature: the city is a forest where everyone is both predator and prey. Impulses are not sins but biological functions.
By acting the role, you deceive the mental imprints within the potion, pretending to be the perfect 'Criminal' until they integrate with you.
But remember this above all: you are only acting. Do not confuse yourself with the role, or you will lose your identity and descend into madness.
This method is vital for low and mid sequences. In higher ones, it becomes more complicated.
Do it correctly, and you will digest the potion faster and reduce the risk of losing control when you ascend.
It is an ancient principle: do not dominate the power—act it, and it will recognize you."
The underground garden seemed to agree with a soft whisper of leaves.
For the first time, the Abyss within Matt was not just hunger.
It was a role he could play…
or one that would consume him if he failed.