Beastbound: Reincarnated in the Abyss

They did not have to wait long.

The Veiled City rippled beneath their feet. Bridges that had lain still began to tremble, sending gentle quakes through the arches. Above them, towers twisted, their windows rearranging into shapes that suggested eyes — not watching, but narrowing.

Raen pulled back from Ember Vow just in time to see the center of the ruined plaza flare with light. The mass of dark, melted masks that had once been the throne quivered. Thin cracks spidered across its surface, leaking pale blue radiance that pooled into shallow streams along the glass.

[System Notice: Reality Flux Spiking]

[Warning: External Domain Authority Invading Local Matrix]

Raen's hand tightened around his blade. Hollowfang's fur stood in a serrated ridge along its spine. Despair Maw let out a groaning growl that vibrated the entire bridge, its vast body tensing.

Ember Vow touched Raen's arm. Her voice dropped into a careful hush, but her words carried sharp clarity. "It's him."

"Yes."

The molten mass cracked wide, splitting with the slow, deliberate care of a predator's jaws opening. From within stepped Kahless.

But it was not the Kahless Raen had fought — not exactly. This figure wore a new mantle: a cloak of silver mirrors that moved in small, overlapping plates like fish scales, each reflecting Raen's own face back at him. Upon Kahless's brow perched a crown crafted of fractured glass, shards dancing slightly as if whispering secrets to one another.

"Brother," Kahless crooned, stepping lightly onto the bridge. His boots left small prints of frost that spread into tiny delicate filigrees before fading. "You have no idea how much I hoped it would be you who came here to try and claim the city's heart."

Raen did not answer. Words were air, and Kahless had always twisted air into poison. Instead he raised his blade, letting Memoryweaver hum through his grip.

Kahless's lips curled. "Straight to violence? No clever barbs? No cold logic to strip me bare? I'm almost disappointed."

He tapped one fingertip against the crown. Tiny shards broke away, floating up around his head like lazy fireflies. Each one held a scene — Raen at different ages, different guises. Raen wearing armor slick with another man's blood. Raen laughing as a city burned. Raen weeping in a dark room while Hollowfang curled around him protectively.

"Your story is rich, Raen. So many contradictions. So many raw edges to catch a blade on."

The crown's shards spun faster. Each mirror flared bright, and the air itself seemed to ripple.

Then Raen was no longer standing on the bridge.

—

He stood instead in a familiar hall — one he hadn't seen since his mortal life. Long banners hung down, emblazoned with his former sigil: a serpent coiled around a broken spear. The scent of steel polish and cold sweat clung to the air.

Footsteps approached. From a side passage emerged a younger Raen — no scars across his throat, no weary weight in his eyes. His armor gleamed like fresh coin, his posture arrogant, sure of victory.

This other Raen sneered. "So here you are. The pathetic future I was destined for."

Raen didn't react. His grip on the Memoryweaver aspect inside his chest only tightened.

The illusion-Raen stalked closer. "You traded the real world for a sewer of beasts and madness. You let monsters teach you how to love — how to suffer — instead of conquering as you were born to do."

Raen's throat worked. The hall wavered, threatening to vanish, but he forced himself to hold still. "Conquering without conscience is rot. You're just rot waiting to happen."

His younger self laughed. "Is that what you tell yourself at night when Ember Vow isn't there to keep the shadows away? That you grew something noble in the dark, instead of just rotting slower?"

The hall shivered violently. Windows cracked, shedding glass like rain. Raen closed his eyes, breathed deep, and let Memoryweaver flow. It found every memory of the price he'd paid to become something other than this — Hollowfang's loyalty, Despair Maw's careful nearness, Ember Vow's hand on his chest the night she whispered that even curses could be loved.

When he opened his eyes, the young Raen was gone. Only empty armor remained, hollow and crumbling.

—

He snapped back to the bridge.

Hollowfang was snarling, biting at illusions that skittered away as thin black shapes. Despair Maw writhed, jaws gaping but striking nothing. Ember Vow crouched by Raen, her hands on his shoulders, runes blazing at her wrists as she fought to anchor him.

Kahless tilted his head, the mirrored crown rotating with him. "Did you enjoy that reunion? I could give you more. The first boy you ever left to die. Or the mother you forgot before you learned to swing a blade."

Raen forced his muscles to steady. Each breath scraped, but held.

"No."

He let Memoryweaver surge. Lines of soft gold light erupted from his skin, stabbing outward to pierce the floating shards around Kahless. Each mirror cracked under the assault, showing not Raen's failures but brief, quiet images: Ember Vow pressing her forehead to his, Hollowfang pressing close after a hard fight, Despair Maw lying beside him like a massive shadow when nightmares clawed at his sleep.

The mirrors shattered.

Kahless's eyes widened, a fine web of fractures spreading across the crown. "No!" His voice rose, raw and shaken. "You don't get to rewrite this. You don't get to strip me of your ugliness."

"Wrong." Raen stepped forward, Memoryweaver burning hot enough to sear his veins. "My memories are mine to forge — my truths, not yours."

He lunged.

Steel met glass. A shriek tore through the city, so loud towers swayed, spitting fragments down into the void. The bridge cracked under their feet, spiderweb lines racing outward.

Kahless screamed again, not words but something primal. The crown splintered. Shards exploded outward, slicing shallow cuts across Raen's cheek, but he didn't slow. He drove his blade up under Kahless's ribs, twisting. The mirrored cloak fell limp, silver plates clattering down the bridge and sliding into darkness.

The world went still.

Kahless staggered back, hands clutching at the wound. His mouth moved, shaping a final, confused protest — Why didn't it work? Why couldn't I break you?

Raen only met his gaze with grim certainty. "Because you never understood how much stronger truth is than pretty lies."

Then Kahless fell backward. His body broke apart before it even hit the glass, dissolving into thin gray mist that fled like frightened insects.

—

Silence rolled through the Veiled City. The towers straightened. The windows closed. The watching statues turned away, suddenly disinterested.

Raen stood in the middle of the cracked bridge, chest heaving. Ember Vow pressed against him, one hand tangled in his collar.

"It's done," she whispered.

"Here, yes." Raen let his blade drop. Memoryweaver's glow faded to a faint ember in his chest. "But there will be others. Rivals. Remnants of Kahless's schemes."

"Then we keep walking," she said simply. "Together."

Hollowfang prowled up beside them, bloodied but defiant. Despair Maw slithered in slow loops, its breath evening out.

Raen looked ahead. Somewhere beyond the city, deeper Abyssal layers waited. New courts. New gods. New rules to break.

He felt Ember Vow's fingers tighten at his side, and for the first time since his execution in the mortal world, he realized how little that truly frightened him.