Fallen Angel's Harem in the Abyss
Chapter 37: There is no Calm in the abyss

Chapter 37: There is no Calm in the abyss

"What?!" Azareel gasped, his silver eyes wide with horror as entire cliff sides broke apart in the distance, chunks of land floating upward, tethered by gnarled tendrils of black void that writhed like living shadows.

Distant howls echoed—long, animalistic, but not quite alive, reverberating through the fracturing landscape.

He turned back to the others, his voice trembling.

"This isn’t—this isn’t an earthquake! The ground is breaking apart! That’s—That’s a piece of the sky!"

"It’s the Abyss," Nyxsha repeated, her ears flattening against her skull as another tremor shook them. "It’s shifting."

Virelya slithered to them with unnatural speed, her coils whipping through the crumbling moss, her veils fluttering like ghosts in the wind.

"It’s how the Abyss ensures no monster rests," she hissed, her golden eyes sharp. "No one stays still long enough to grow too strong, or too weak."

Sylvara, her petals shedding in panic, whispered, her voice a faint melody amid the chaos, "It rearranges. Breaks. Devours."

The ground behind them collapsed with a deafening roar, dragging the cathedral gardens down into a glowing void that yawned like a hungry maw, vines snapping like brittle bones.

Sylvara gasped, reaching out instinctively, but her tendrils shattered mid-air, crumbling to dust.

Azareel’s lungs burned, his grip tightening on Nyxsha’s fur. "Why? Why would it—?"

"To keep us from finding peace," Nyxsha growled, scooping him into her arms as the earth buckled again. "To make sure we’re never alone... or safe."

"Every cycle," Virelya murmured, her coils lashing to steady herself, "places fall. New horrors rise. Old ones return. No path stays known."

They turned as the sky rained chunks of glowing stone, the fragments crashing like meteors, the wind carrying the acrid scent of burnt metal and rotting flowers.

"RUN," Nyxsha barked, her voice a command that cut through the pandemonium.

And they did—bolting across the fracturing glade, the ground splitting beneath their feet.

Sylvara ran now too, her root-feet slicing through the soil with unnatural speed, her elegance shattered, her grace turned wild and desperate.

Even she, the garden incarnate, the dream woven from roots and hunger, had been uprooted, her flowering hair trailing petals like tears.

Azareel’s heart thundered in his ears, the world blurring around him as Nyxsha leapt through the chaos, her massive form a shield.

Ahead, a wall of twisted glass trees shattered upward, bursting into flaming crows with human faces, their beaks screaming curses in forgotten tongues.

Nyxsha roared, batting them aside with one paw while clutching Azareel close, their feathers scorching her fur, their screams echoing like shattered souls.

Virelya let out a piercing hiss as something like a tongue made of bones slithered from the cracks, lashing toward them with wet, grinding hunger.

She bit through it, her fangs sinking deep, shrieking, "It’s bleeding through! The under-thoughts—move!"

Black ichor sprayed from the severed appendage, sizzling on the ground as it writhed and dissolved.

Azareel barely understood the words, the air thick with nightmare, reality blinking sideways.

A river of hands flowed by, grasping fingers clawing at the air.

A mountain with no top rose in reverse, its mouth agape, devouring stars it couldn’t see.

They were falling, running, sliding, climbing—direction meaningless, survival the only compass.

Sylvara screamed—not in fear, but in rage—as a chasm opened beneath her, her vines blooming into thorns that wrapped around Azareel’s body mid-fall, yanking him up before he hit a jagged ledge of obsidian teeth that snapped hungrily at the air.

Far ahead, a piece of floating terrain smashed into another, the collision sending shockwaves that cracked the void. _{fr\eewe.bn(o)v\el.c(o)m}

Blood rained from the fractured sky, warm and sticky, splattering their forms as the Abyss convulsed.

The world bent again, the ground tilting like a beast shaking off fleas.

The Abyss was eating itself.

And they were in the belly.

CRRRAAAAAAACCKKKK!!!!

The sky cracked not with thunder but with soundless sobbing, a pressure that filled the head and chest, squeezing the heart until each beat was a labored gasp.

They didn’t speak—they just ran, their breaths ragged, their forms a blur amid the crumbling chaos.

Azareel’s legs burned, fire lacing his muscles, but he didn’t stop, his silver-white hair whipping in the gale, his torn robe clinging to his slender frame. Nyxsha grunted beside him, her massive form a shield, her golden eyes fierce, her fangs bared against the storm.

Virelya moved like a white blur, her coils whipping through the debris, her porcelain mask cracked but unyielding.

Sylvara’s vines lifted them across impossible gaps, her flowering hair trailing petals like desperate tears.

The earth beneath them jerked—again—a violent spasm that sent cracks spiderwebbing outward.

A chasm opened, swallowing half a hill in a blink, its maw yawning with glowing void that pulled at their heels.

"THERE!" Nyxsha barked, her voice cutting through the roar, pointing to a half-buried structure jutting from the warped slope—a ruined alcove forged from old cathedral bone, its interior shadowed but intact, resembling a ribcage fallen from heaven, twisted and defiant.

Virelya dove first, her coils wrapping around the base like a living anchor. "Stable enough," she hissed, her golden eyes scanning the structure.

Nyxsha shoved Azareel through the low arch, his body tumbling into the dim shelter.

Sylvara followed, her vines closing the jagged opening behind them like petals folding at dusk, sealing out the chaos with a faint, glowing barrier.

Then silence—not peace, but the quiet after a scream, heavy and oppressive, the walls seeming to inhale and exhale with a slow, fleshy rhythm.

They were inside something old, something that reeked of burnt incense and dry rot, glowing veins pulsing through the ceiling like veins in a living heart, casting a sick amber hue over the cramped space.

Azareel crouched low, panting, his back pressed to a curve of wall that felt unnervingly warm, like skin over bone.

Nyxsha sat beside him, her tail twitching, her arms braced on her knees, her black fur matted with dust and sap.

Virelya coiled upside down along the ceiling like a serpentine chandelier, her eyes glowing like predator moons in the gloom.

Sylvara stood with her arms crossed, her vines slowly retracting from the door, her branches brushing the ceiling with soft, scraping clicks.