Beastbound: Reincarnated in the Abyss

The Abyss did not sleep.

Raen walked beneath a sky that flickered like dying stars, Hollowfang trailing beside him like a silent sentinel. Each step forward stirred the mist beneath their feet, but the air carried no sound. Even their breathing felt swallowed.

Somewhere beyond the crooked forest and bleeding trees, a sound trembled.

A cry.

Not a beast's roar. Not a scream of terror.

A cry of mourning—soft and stretched thin across eternity.

Raen stopped.

Hollowfang growled low, uneasy.

"Do you hear it?" Raen asked, his voice a rasp of memory more than breath.

The growl ceased. Hollowfang's ears twitched.

The cry was closer now.

It wasn't coming from ahead.

It came from *below*.

Raen knelt, fingers brushing the cracked earth. The ground pulsed faintly beneath his palm, like something buried deep still dared to grieve.

[Second Bonding Candidate Detected. Emotion Required: Suppressed Guilt]

[Entity: Unnamed. Classification: Dormant.]

He inhaled sharply.

Guilt.

He had enough of that to offer.

Raen moved without command or plan, guided by instinct—or maybe penance. The forest bent away as if recognizing him. Hollowfang stayed close but didn't lead. This was a path Raen had to walk alone.

The trail twisted into a narrow ravine. Stones here were not inert—they *watched*. When Raen's foot touched the floor of the basin, silence tightened like a noose.

Then he saw it.

Half-submerged in the earth, curled like something that had tried to bury itself rather than live, lay a creature of unending sorrow.

It had no eyes. No face. Just a wide, endless maw filled with teeth and shadows, as if grief itself had been shaped into flesh.

[Entity Identified: Despair Maw]

[Status: Dormant. Danger Level: Severe. Bonding Risk: High.]

The cry grew louder, not in volume but in presence. It was in Raen's chest now, vibrating against the hollow parts of him.

He knew this feeling.

It was the weight he carried in silence.

The things he never said after the war.

The names of men he sent to die and never dared to remember aloud.

The faces of the children burned because of the orders he gave.

His hand trembled as he stepped closer.

[Warning: Bonding Will Require Emotional Acknowledgment. Collapse Possible.]

Raen dropped to his knees.

"I remember them," he whispered. "The ones I failed. The ones I didn't save. I told myself it was duty. But the truth is... I didn't let myself grieve. I was too proud. Too afraid."

The creature twitched.

Chains made of spectral light slithered from its chest, coiling through the air like hesitant questions.

[Bond Status: Eligible. Emotion Confirmed: Suppressed Guilt. Initiate Chainmark?]

Raen reached forward—not as a soldier, not as a beastmaster.

But as a man broken enough to understand sorrow.

The moment the chains touched his skin, pain lanced through his spine, not physical but soul-deep.

He screamed.

Visions tore through him:

Men crushed under siege towers. A medic sobbing over a fallen boy. A town Raen never meant to destroy, reduced to ashes.

He didn't fight it.

He let it burn.

The cry changed.

No longer endless.

No longer alone.

[Bond Complete. Despair Maw Acquired. Soul Stability Increased: 31% → 56%]

The beast unfolded.

No longer monstrous, not in the same way.

Its sobs faded into stillness, and it approached Raen, slowly—quietly.

It bowed its misshapen head.

Raen touched it gently.

"You don't have to mourn alone anymore."

Despair Maw said nothing.

But Raen could feel it—like a bruise loosening under sunlight.

---

That night, if one could call it that in a place where time no longer flowed, the three of them sat beneath a hollowed tree. Hollowfang slept curled around them, while Despair Maw rested like a shadow with weight.

Raen stared at his hands.

Two marks now.

Two beasts, each born from a wound he refused to name.

He didn't feel stronger.

But he felt seen.

The System buzzed softly.

[Unstable Energy Detected. Proximity Alert.]

[Entity Approaching From: Layer Five Gateway.]

Raen's gaze lifted to the dark horizon, where the fog moved as if disturbed by a grin.

Something laughed.

Not out of joy.

But madness.

And it was coming for him next.

---