Story Title :- Veins of the Abyss
Chapter 3: Trial of Teeth
The obsidian blade sliced through the air like a guillotine.
He barely ducked in time.
The woman in the bone mask moved with terrifying grace. Her sword kissed the stone behind him, cleaving it like parchment. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Every swing was a question: Do you deserve to live?
He answered with movement.
A roll, a dodge, a counter—but her blade was always a breath ahead.
He slid under a slash and sprang back, chest heaving. Blood dripped from a shallow cut across his shoulder, hissing faintly as it touched the ground.
Her blade was alive.
“You’re fast,” she said, circling. Her voice echoed in the ruined cathedral like a requiem. “But you fight like prey.”
“I’ve killed Dominion enforcers,” he snarled.
She laughed.
“I’ve trained them.”
Then she came again.
He activated Echo Vein—but something was off. His vision blurred at the edges. His nerves twitched. Too soon after the last fight. The system wasn’t fully stabilized.
He fought anyway.
Every movement became instinct. A pivot here, a parry there. But she read him. Anticipated. Her foot landed squarely in his ribs, throwing him against a crumbling pillar.
He coughed blood. The world spun.
She stalked toward him, lowering her sword.
“Most Godmarked don’t survive their first combat,” she said. “Even fewer survive their first awakening. You’ve done both. But that’s not enough.”
She knelt beside him.
“Power’s easy. It’s will that matters.”
He tried to rise. She planted the blade beside his neck.
“Tell me your name.”
He hesitated.
“I don’t have one.”
“Wrong answer.”
She backhanded him across the face. Pain flared white.
“You do now,” she said. “You’re Ash. Born of ruin. Tempered by flame.”
He blinked. “Ash…”
“You want to live, Ash? Then fight like someone who’s already dead.”
She stood, turning her back to him.
“That was your test. You failed. But you failed loudly. That means they heard.”
“Who?”
She didn’t answer.
A distant tremor rattled the cathedral floor.
“Protocol 006,” the system whispered in his mind. “Aberrant Presence Detected.”
Ash staggered to his feet.
Far above them, beyond the shattered dome, the sky turned black—not from clouds, but from wings.
Dozens of them.
Creatures born from Abyssal fractures. Hulking, horned, leathery-skinned. Beasts that hadn’t seen daylight in a century.
“Did you lead them here?” he gasped.
She smirked behind the mask.
“No. You did. When you killed those enforcers.”
Ash’s blood went cold.
“They were tagged?”
“Every Dominion officer carries an Abyssal trace. You bled three. That scent doesn’t fade.”
The sky split with shrieks.
The woman threw him a small device—metallic, etched with sigils.
“Abyss pulse bomb,” she said. “Will stun them. Ten-second delay. Get clear or get shredded.”
She leapt toward the cathedral’s upper level as the first winged beast dropped through the broken ceiling.
Ash turned, gripping the bomb.
It looked like nothing. A toy.
But the runes were hot.
The system flared again:
“Let’s see what you’re hiding,” he whispered.
He activated Pulse Sync.
He smiled through the blood.
“NO.”
He threw the bomb high.
The creature lunged for him, jaws open wide—
And the sky exploded.
The bomb lit the cathedral like a second sun. Sound vanished. The wave hit like a sledgehammer. Ash flew back, bones rattling, air ripped from his lungs.
When he opened his eyes, the cathedral was gone.
The beasts were ash.
Smoke rolled through the ruin.
And in the distance, a siren wailed.
The woman in the mask appeared beside him, untouched by the blast.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “You should be dead.”
“I get that a lot.”
She studied him.
“I could train you. If you don’t die first.”
He met her eyes.
“I don’t plan to.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“You’ll need more than plans. You’ll need blood. Sacrifice. And you’ll need to understand what it means to be Godmarked.”
Ash breathed in the sulfur-smoked air.
And for the first time… he smiled.
End of Chapter 3
