Eclipse Online: The Final Descent-Chapter 59: THE STILLNESS BEFORE THE STORM

The air hummed with tension as Kaito and Nyra cut across the treacherous terrain.

The wind howled, wailing across the cliffs and broken ground, but the earth itself was still—eerily so. Neither the vulture squawk nor the crawling unseen vermin disturbed the stillness as they moved by. The world held its breath.

And maybe it was.

The events of the previous night haunted Kaito’s mind like ghostly murmurs. The meeting with the herald of the Abyss—twisted and aged—had unsettled him in a way no war ever had.

The monster had not tried to kill them. It had spoken, cautioned, pleaded almost in a voice that had no right sounding so human. Its warning was not threat. It was prophecy.

The Abyss is within you.

Kaito wiped his forehead with the heel of his palm, where sweat and grime mixed down his face, but the grime didn’t bother him. It was the heaviness in his chest—the growing weight of fear that he couldn’t shake.

The world around them was colorless, noisy, and dull. Each step grew heavier than the last.

He preceded Nyra with the same determined urgency he always possessed, but he could feel the strain in her shoulders. Her stance was stiff, coiled like a bowstring.

Even her characteristic swift glances had become more frequent, her eyes scanning not just for foes, but for indications. The stoic serenity she had adopted as a mask had fissured, if only a little bit.

Kaito’s voice was barely above a whisper. "The creature’s words..."

"I know," Nyra replied immediately, without looking back. "We’ve never faced anything like that before. That wasn’t just some malformed enemy. It knew us."

"It knew me," Kaito said bitterly.

She stopped in her tracks. Slowly, she turned to face him. The wind tugged at her dark hair as her pale eyes searched his face.

"You think this is your burden alone?"

"I know it is," Kaito had said. "I felt it. The Abyss isn’t out there someplace waiting to consume the world. It’s inside me. Watching. Whispers. Becoming. With each fight, with each wound, it grows fat on me."

There was another silence between them, one that cut deeper than before.

Nyra stepped forward. "You’re not alone, Kaito. The Abyss may be inside you, but so am I. I’ve been with you through all the bad dreams. Don’t start to think this is something you have to fight by yourself."

He wished to believe her. Part of him did. But the other half—the half that had listened to the Abyss, that had understood it—remained silent, simmering.

They advanced, their boots a dull rhythm over scorched and broken earth. Trees that had once stood tall and proud now stood twisted and charred, sentinels of a graveyard of what had lived.

The earth sloped forward to a ravine where once a river of crystal purity had flowed. Now it was dry, its bed cracked stone and decaying roots. Everything was dying—or already dead.

Kaito’s mind wandered as they walked. He remembered the void creature’s words, as if it still followed him.

You are the breach. You are the seed. The Abyss does not defeat you—only wait.

They bounced around in his mind, circling like vultures over a corpse. Had it begun already? Was his battle just delaying the inevitable?

"Do you think it’s true?" he demanded finally, after all those years of silence. "That the Abyss is everlasting? That it’s been waiting for me all this time?"

Nyra answered more slowly this time. "I don’t know. But if it did. then it made a mistake." She stared into his eyes. "Because it didn’t reckon on you fighting back.".

Kaito smiled tiredly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "What if resisting is what it wants?"

She didn’t respond. She turned and just kept going. There was no response to that.

The earth shifted as they progressed—less solid, less real. It wasn’t the terrain anymore. Shadows themselves appeared to be longer, more vibrant.

Kaito would catch an occasional glimpse of them moving when nothing else would. Whispers rode the breeze, muted but persistent, like voices that were trying to warn him—or tempt him.

His hand strayed more than once to the pommel of his sword. It felt heavier each time, resenting his presence.

Twilight covered the land like a funeral shroud when the sun finally fell below the broken horizon. Stars scattered into existence above, but they did not comfort. If anything, they seemed to scorn them, watching. Waiting.

They took refuge under a torn overhang, too exhausted to continue without rest. Nyra built a small fire, the flame fighting to live against the cold wind. The light flickered across her face, casting long shadows back from her.

Kaito sat across from her, his gaze far-off.

"I keep replaying the others in my head," he whispered. "All the people we lost. All the people we couldn’t save. What if this is all just punishment for living when they didn’t?"

Nyra didn’t respond. She stabbed the fire with a stick, watching as the embers flared to life and expired.

"You didn’t make it by accident. You made it because you wouldn’t give up. That’s not something to be punished for."

"What if the Abyss has something different in mind?" Kaito asked.

"Then we burn it," she replied immediately and firmly.

Kaito grinned, but it was small of it. "You always say such things. Like it’s so easy."

"No. Not easy. But it’s simple." Nyra replied.

They did not talk much after that. The fire died down, and they slept alternately in shifts, though neither of them slept well. Night passed like a deep breath, heavy and dreamless.

The sky was gray as a sulky eye by morning, and the cold had grown bitter. The ground swelled up in front of them, hardening into a jagged line of peaks. The tops were blades slicing through the air, their stone faces etched with black obsidian scars and unnatural, glowing runes.

"This is it," Kaito whispered. "This is where the pull is."

The sensation had grown stronger with each step. It was beyond intuition—it was vibration. The same throb that pulsed in the Abyss resonated through the mountains. The same darkness. The same hunger.

Nyra glanced up. "This does not feel right."

"Like all else these days," Kaito muttered.

They started the climb.

The path was brutal, a deformed course of shattered stone and narrow ledges. The wind shrieked at them, cutting with shards of ice and ash. With every gasp, Kaito could feel the mountain trying to unravel him. His muscles burned, his bones cried out, but still they ascended.

Hours passed in silence until the world below them melted into shadow and mist. The stars alone remained, and even they seemed dim now. The summit loomed over them, and with it, the promise of answers—or hell.

When finally they reached the top, Kaito went down on one knee, panting. Nyra knelt beside him, her breath steaming in the cold, her face pale from exhaustion.

And then they saw it.

A gigantic archway of stone sprouted at the center of a round plateau, ringed by ruined pillars fissured and worn by time.

The ground was strewn with strange carvings—glyphs that glimmered faintly with an otherworldly shine. Something old had stood there. Something sacred. Or evil.

Kaito rose to his feet slowly, the weight in his chest growing heavier with each step. The arch pounded as he approached, and with every beat, something within him stirred to life.

"What is this place?" Nyra whispered, her voice full of wonder, half-silent like a prayer.

He shook his head. "I don’t know.".

As he neared the archway, the symbols ignited. A low hum filled the air, and then a voice—not spoken, but felt—echoed in his mind.

You’ve come far, Kaito. But this is where the true test begins.

The voice was neither male nor female. It was vast. Ancient. It spoke not to his ears but to his soul.

Kaito froze. "Who are you?"

A fragment. A gatekeeper. A warning.

"You can’t escape the Abyss. It is within you. And it will consume you. But you can sever the connection—to destroy it—if you are willing to pay the price." The voice spoke in a haunted tone.

Kaito’s heart pounded in his chest. Freedom. Real freedom. It pulled at the edges of his sanity. "What price?"

"Sacrifice. The Abyss will not be severed by violence. It has to be replaced. An exchange, equal. A vessel for a vessel. A soul for a soul." The voice replied.

Kaito recoiled backward. "You expect me to offer myself to it?"

"No. Not you. Someone else." The voice said.

His blood went cold.

Nyra moved closer, her gaze narrowed. "What is it saying?

Kaito gazed at her, horror slowly engulfing him. The price. It was not just pain. It was not death. It was she. Or someone else he loved. A soul strong enough to equilibrate his in the balance—pure enough to act as a counterbalance.

He spun back towards the arch. "No. There has to be another."

"There is always another. But not all of them save. Some only lead farther." The voice said horrifically.

The light of the arch intensified. Pictures flooded Kaito’s senses—worlds engulfed by the black, cities reduced to rubble, endless hordes of hollow warriors marching under a clouded sky. He himself walked among them, in the black armor, his eyes vacant, his blade smeared with the black.

And then he saw something else.

Nyra—alone, haughty, the final light in a world drowned in shadow.

The vision faded. Kaito fell to the ground. He sensed her hand upon his shoulder.

"What did it reveal to you?" she whispered.

"A future I shall not permit." He responded with a glimpse of confidence.

He stood up, the shake in his limbs not of fear—but determination.

"I won’t offer anyone up," he told the arch. "Not her. Not anyone."

The symbols guttered, dimming as though disappointed stars. The voice came back, quieter.

Then you must bear it with you. until the end.

The energy was gone. The arch fell silent again.

But the gate remained open.

Kaito pushed Nyra. "This is just the beginning."

"Then let’s end it before it has even begun." Nyra exhaled.

Together, they passed through the arch.

And the tempest began to form.