The world was wrong.
Not broken.
Not shattered.
Wrong.
Renji blinked.
The sky above was a swirling mass of black mist and bleeding stars.
The ground beneath him oozed with a strange, sticky tar that seemed to suck at his boots like it was alive.
He wasn't standing in the ruins anymore.
He wasn't even sure he was standing at all.
The mirror.
The Crowned Wraith.
Velahza's smile.
It all came crashing back, pounding against his skull like war drums.
"Where am I?" he rasped, his voice brittle like dry leaves.
A laughter—not Velahza's, not Zach's, not Mira's—rippled through the mist.
Low. Mocking. Familiar.
"Welcome, scion of betrayal," the voice said.
"Welcome to your soul's marrow."
Before Renji, the ground split open like a rotting wound.
From it rose versions of himself.
Twisted. Broken.
One was bloodied and chained, sobbing in the dirt.
One was dressed in royal black armor, a crown of fangs upon his head.
One was a child, sitting alone in a pool of blood.
And they all stared at him.
Silent.
Judging.
Renji stumbled back, heart hammering.
"This isn't real," he told himself.
The child Renji looked up with wide, accusing eyes.
"You let us die."
A sharp stab of guilt pierced his gut.
Behind him, the darkness shifted.
A shape slithered across the horizon — too large to comprehend, made of twisting arms and gnashing teeth.
The crowned version of himself grinned — an ugly, hate-filled smile.
"No... you became us."
Suddenly the ground split further, a chorus of screams erupting from the cracks.
Bloodied hands clawed at Renji's legs, trying to drag him into the abyss.
He fought, slashing wildly with his sword, but every cut only made the hands multiply.
"Zach... Mira... Seraphina..." he thought desperately.
No answer.
No light.
Only darkness.
Thick, suffocating, ancient darkness.
He fell to one knee, the tar rising up to his chest.
The crowned Renji approached, raising a jagged sword made from bone and grief.
"Embrace what you are," it whispered.
"Or be devoured by what you deny."
The blade came down—
—but was stopped mid-air by a blinding flash of silver light.
A hand gripped the sword.
A woman's hand.
Seraphina.
Her silhouette—blazing, furious, beautiful—stood between Renji and his worst self.
Her voice echoed like a bell through the madness:
"Rise, my heir."
"Your soul is not theirs to claim."
The darkness screamed.
The crowned version howled in rage.
And for the first time since he fell into this nightmare, Renji breathed.
Not the tainted air of this hell, but the sharp, clean breath of hope.
His hand found Seraphina's.
The tar receded.
The hands burned away like smoke.
And Renji stood up.
Sword in hand.
Resolve burning in his heart.
"Not today," he growled.
The mist twisted violently.
The battle for his soul had begun.
And Renji wasn't planning on losing.
The crowned abomination lunged again, its blade screaming through the heavy air—
—but this time, Renji caught it between two fingers.
Snap.
The cursed weapon shattered like brittle glass.
The crowned Renji stumbled back, snarling, but Renji didn't give him the chance.
He moved.
Fast.
Too fast for the horror to react.
His hand blurred like a silver comet and slashed through the crowned figure's throat, severing it cleanly in one blow.
Blood misted the air.
The black tar groaned like it felt the pain too.
Renji turned, grinning—
—not like a hero,
—not like a saint,
—but like something far, far worse.
"You wanted the heir?" he whispered, voice dripping with venom, "Then drown in the king's wrath."
The darkness roared.
The twisted versions of himself charged all at once — dozens of them, crawling, sprinting, shrieking.
Renji's sword flickered in his hand, a liquid shadow of divine light.
And then—
he danced.
Every move was pure death.
Elegant. Precise.
Each step shattered bones, each swing split worlds.
Heads flew. Torsos were ripped apart.
Limbs spiraled into the mist.
The sky itself seemed to tremble.
The blood—oh, the blood—painted the air like an artist gone mad.
And Renji stood at the center of it, shirtless, blood-splattered, eyes glowing silver, grinning that wicked, god-slaying grin.
It was terrifying.
It was beautiful.
It was... inevitable.
The crowned Renji crawled across the ground, trying to escape.
Renji walked over slowly, dragging his sword, the metal screeching against the black earth.
He crouched, grabbed the creature by the hair, and whispered into its ear:
"I am the nightmare you forgot to fear."
Then he plunged his blade into its heart—
—and the crowned monster exploded into shards of black glass.
The mist recoiled violently.
The bloody ground cracked and peeled away.
A portal—small, blinking, weak—appeared in the air behind him, leading out of this forsaken place.
Seraphina's voice rang in his mind:
"Hurry. Before the Darkroot consumes you."
Renji didn't need a second invitation.
He turned and sprinted through the portal, the shredded remains of the nightmare world howling behind him.
—
When he stumbled out the other side, panting, blood dripping down his arms, he found himself in a small forest clearing bathed in soft silver moonlight.
The trees whispered.
The pond from earlier rippled softly.
The air was clean. Real.
He fell to his knees, exhausted but victorious.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"I'm still here," he thought.
He wiped the blood off his blade and sheathed it across his back.
Behind him, the portal crackled once more, then collapsed into nothingness.
The nightmare was over—for now.
But Renji knew something deeper, darker, far grander awaited.
Something ancient.
Something inevitable.
The true Depths of Darkness had only begun to show their teeth.