Fallen Angel's Harem in the Abyss
Chapter 40: There is no Calm in the abyss - 4

Chapter 40: There is no Calm in the abyss - 4

But eventually, the rumbling faded, the groaning sky above beginning to still, the flesh-walls no longer convulsing.

The bloody mist in the air thinned, drifting away like exhaled breath.

The Abyss was settling, a temporary peace, a breath held before the plunge, the world pausing to admire its new scars.

They emerged onto a narrow plateau, flat and cold, a few skeletal trees twisting in the wind, their bark peeling like scabs under the crimson sky.

Nyxsha fell to her knees with a grunt, gently laying Azareel down onto the dry rock, his body limp, his breathing shallow.

He didn’t move, his silver eyes half-lidded, blood pooling beneath him in a shimmering stain.

"...Azareel?" she whispered, leaning close, her voice cracking, her golden eyes wide with worry.

His eyes opened—barely, a faint glimmer in the gloom.

"Still here..." he murmured, his voice a fragile thread.

Nyxsha let out a shaky breath, sitting beside him, her arms crossed but her tail curling protectively around his form.

Sylvara knelt nearby, pressing a glowing petal to his chest, its light seeping into his wounds, clotting the blood with a faint, floral hum.

"He’ll live," she said softly, her amber eyes dim with exhaustion.

Virelya sniffed the air, her coils twitching, her porcelain mask tilted upward. "We’re not safe for long. Something’s—"

She stopped, her golden eyes widening. So did everyone else’s.

Ahead, beyond the plateau’s ridge, the landscape ended—not in a gentle slope or crater, but a sheer, jagged cliff, newly formed, its edges raw and bleeding void.

And beyond it, far below, a new region had carved itself into being—a city, if it could be called that, pulsing with red and gold light, obsidian towers chained together by bone bridges that writhed faintly.

Smoke twisted from every crevice, coiling like serpents in agony.

Statues of laughing, eyeless women stretched from the towers like guardians, their mouths open in silent screams.

A massive heartbeat—dull, thunderous—echoed once every few seconds from beneath the city, vibrating through the ground like a buried drum.

The whole place looked like a festering organ given structure, a place of birth... or sacrifice, its glow inviting yet repulsive, drawing the eye like a wound that wouldn’t heal.

"What the abyss is that...?" Nyxsha whispered, her voice low, her golden eyes narrowing at the pulsating horror below.

Azareel stared from the ground, too weak to lift his head, but his silver eyes caught the glow, wide with a mix of awe and dread.

The new hell waited, its heartbeat calling, the Abyss’s reconfiguration birthing something unknown and unforgiving.

.

.

.

The wind had gone still, the Abyss’s perpetual howl reduced to a whisper, as if the world itself were listening.

The ridge trembled beneath their feet, the cracked plateau crumbling at the edges like stale bread under pressure, flakes of stone tumbling into the void below.

From its jagged lip, the city loomed—a black labyrinth of obsidian towers lashed together by writhing bone bridges, pulsing with a dull red light that throbbed like veins in a colossal heart.

Each pulse echoed with a deep, wet sound, vibrating through the ground, a rhythm that set teeth on edge and stirred something primal in the chest.

Nyxsha crouched low beside Azareel, her massive arm wrapped protectively around his frail form as he leaned weakly against her side, his silver-white hair matted with dried blood, his breathing shallow.

Sylvara stood tall and silent, her flowering hair swaying though no wind stirred, her amber eyes fixed on the pulsating horror below, petals shedding faintly like tears.

Virelya coiled along the edge, her porcelain mask tilted downward, her golden, slit-pupiled eyes narrowed and unblinking, her veils fluttering in the stale air.

The city watched them—not with eyes, but with a palpable awareness, its red glow seeming to beckon, to hunger.

It didn’t move, but it watched, the bone bridges creaking faintly, the statues of laughing, eyeless women on the towers frozen in eternal, mocking glee. _{fre ewe bnove l.com}

"We’re not going down there," Nyxsha said finally, her voice clipped, her golden eyes hardening as she scanned the crimson spires.

"That place reeks of worse things than nightmares. You can feel it, can’t you? The air tastes like blood and lies."

Azareel didn’t speak, his silver-gray eyes, flecked with rain-blue, staring downward, half-awake, half-drawn into the city’s hypnotic glow.

His stumps twitched occasionally, a reminder of his lingering pain, his body still weak from the collapse.

Virelya slithered closer, her upper body leaning over the edge, her arms folded beneath her chin.

"That city shouldn’t exist," she whispered, her voice a breathy hiss laced with unease. "There wasn’t even a basin here yesterday. The Abyss grew that place fast—like a scab on rot."

Sylvara finally spoke, her voice softer than the absent wind, her crimson leaves rustling faintly.

"It’s alive," she murmured, her hand pressing against the ground, roots snaking briefly into the stone. "I hear it breathing. The garden vines in my skin recoil just looking at it."

"Good," Nyxsha said, standing up, her black fur bristling as she glanced back the way they came. "Then we’re not going."

She turned, her massive form shifting, but there was no "back."

The Abyss had shifted again, the plateau no longer connecting to any familiar passage.

The trail they’d used to escape the collapsing ruins was gone—replaced with bone-like ridges that curled into sheer cliff walls, impassable and mocking.

Even the air felt different, heavier, laced with the faint, metallic tang of something new and wrong.

Nyxsha’s fur bristled further, her tail lashing.

"What...?" she muttered, her claws flexing against the stone.

They began to move—cautiously, fanning out to search for an alternate route, their footsteps echoing in the tense quiet.

But the deeper they ventured away from the cliff, the more obvious it became: they were walled in.

Massive stone veins pulsed from the ground, forming ridges like vertebrae rising from flesh, blocking paths with jagged, unyielding barriers.

Where open terrain had once stretched, now loomed steep drops too far to climb, chasms yawning with glowing voids that whispered faint, unintelligible promises.