NOVEL WEB Chapter 5: Chapter 5 – The Devouring Abyss
The temple was gone.
The world was wrong.
Aeron could still feel Selene's warmth fading from his hands, the blood dripping from his fingers. He had screamed, he had struggled—but he had been powerless.
And then, something had answered.
The seal inside him—his mother's final spell—had shattered.
And the thing that had been locked away for so long—his true self—had been set free.
---
The Hunger That Sees
Aeron fell through nothing.
There was no sky, no earth—only an endless void, twisting and writhing like something alive. It was not merely darkness. It was hunger.
A place where even light was devoured.
The whispers came next.
"Feed…"
"Feast…"
"You are Ours…"
The voices slithered into his ears, his bones, his soul. They knew him. They had waited for him.
And in the center of the abyss, it waited.
A god.
Or something worse.
It did not have a form—not truly. It was a shape of endless mouths, devouring itself, consuming its own existence, never whole, never satisfied.
A presence that should not exist.
And yet, it was inside him.
It had always been inside him.
His mother had tried to hide it.
But hunger is patient.
And now—
It had won.
---
Devour
Aeron screamed as the thing poured into him.
His flesh turned to ash and remade itself. His veins became black rivers. His bones cracked, hollowed, filled with something that was no longer human.
He was eating.
Not with his mouth—no, something deeper.
The darkness itself was being consumed.
And it was not enough.
The hunger spread, stretching outward, devouring the void.
And still—it was not enough.
The abyss trembled.
The whispers became screams.
Even the gods were afraid.
And then—
Aeron opened his eyes.
And the world began to die.
---
The Return
When Aeron awoke, he was kneeling in the ruins of the temple.
The fires had gone out.
The statues had been devoured.
Even the sky—the very stars—had vanished.
Because he had eaten them.
And his father was standing before him.
Smiling.
"Do you see now?" Malik whispered. His voice was calm. Delighted.
Aeron shook.
He was not the same.
His body felt different. Lighter. Hungrier. He could feel reality itself curling at the edges, struggling to remain whole.
Because his very presence was devouring it.
"What did you do to me?" His voice echoed. Doubled. Tripled.
Malik only chuckled. "I did nothing. You simply became what you were always meant to be."
Aeron's hands trembled.
Selene was dead.
His mother was gone.
And his father—
His father had been waiting for this.
"You are the end, my son," Malik whispered. "The god who feasts upon gods. The last hunger. The final truth."
Aeron's vision blurred.
He could see it now—the way the world bent around him, the way reality itself recoiled from his existence.
His power was not fire.
Not ice.
Not destruction.
It was gluttony.
To consume. To devour. To feast upon all things until nothing remained.
And Malik—
His father had given him to it willingly.
No.
No, he refused.
The hunger inside him growled.
A voice—his own, yet not his own—whispered in his skull.
"Why refuse? The world has done nothing for you."
"They let her die."
"They let you suffer."
"Eat them. Take them. Make them part of you. Let there be nothing left but you."
Aeron's fingers dug into his arms.
He could feel it—his new nature—pulling. Dragging. Calling.
And Malik—
Malik only smiled.
"Embrace it, my son." His father spread his arms, as if welcoming him. "Let me see the god you were meant to be."
Aeron's breath came in ragged gasps.
The world was wrong.
He was wrong.
His father had taken everything from him.
And now, he wanted Aeron to become something worse.
No.
No.
NO.
Aeron screamed.
And the world began to break.