The moment I opened my eyes, I couldn't breathe.
Water crushed against me from every side, cold and endless.
Something was pulling me downward, dragging me deeper into the abyss.
My lungs screamed for air.
I fought upward, kicking and clawing against the pressure, but the force kept dragging me down.
Then I felt it—an ominous presence.
A whisper in the water.
A weight pressing against my mind.
Panic flared through me.
I kicked harder—but it was useless.
The deep wanted me.
I clenched my fists, summoning my shadow.
It wrapped around me like a second skin, and I willed myself into intangible form—barely able to move now.
Slowly, painfully, I pushed upward.
My head broke the surface, and I gasped, coughing up seawater.
What lay before me made my blood run cold.
A beach of pale, dead sand stretched out before an endless, rotting forest.
Above it all, the sky was a sickly blue, almost bruised.
Parts of my body started to solidify again.
Fear gripped my heart.
I forced my limbs to move, swimming frantically toward shore.
My fingers scraped against the rough sand.
As soon as I touched land, a hex echoed in my mind:
> [ You have arrived in the Sorrow Veil ]
[ You have reached the first region of the sorrow veil ]
[Sapphire Abyss ]
[ A task has appeared ]
[ Kill the Guardian of the Mourner of the Abyss ]
[ Reward: ??? ]
The coldness inside me deepened.
Sorrow Veil?
There were no records of it anywhere in reality.
That meant only one thing:
This place was unexplored.
Unknown.
Unforgiving.
I collapsed onto the sand, my body sticky with seawater and something worse—something that clung to my soul.
I summoned EverBloom and splashed water on my face.
The chill helped. A little.
I drank a small mouthful before dismissing it.
But the second wave of fear hit even harder.
I had no weapons.
Hide. Hide now.
I forced myself up and stumbled into the forest.
The trees were twisted things, their blackened branches clawing at the sky.
Light barely reached the ground.
"Shadow," I whispered.
"Scout ahead."
My shadow slid forward, melding into the darkness.
I closed my eyes, expanding my sense outward.
The shadows in the forest shifted—and none of them were human.
Not friends.
Not allies.
Spawns.
Something brushed past me.
A ghostly serpent, translucent and shifting like water, slithered by.
Its scales shimmered between existence and nothingness.
It let out a soundless wail—a vibration more than a noise—that clawed into my mind.
Suddenly, my legs moved on their own.
My body was no longer mine.
Shit—it's using a submission attack.
My feet dragged me toward the ocean.
Step by step, closer to the cursed water.
Dread filled every part of me.
I tried to resist, but even my voice wouldn't obey.
I was a puppet, tied to invisible strings.
There was only one chance.
The Black Flame.
I clung to the thought, desperately reaching for it—not with words, not with movement, but with will.
I pictured its fabric, its weave—the way it burned against reality itself.
Come on... come on…!
Just as my foot hovered over the ocean's edge—
The Black Flame ignited in my hand, roaring to life.
The serpent reeled back, screeching without sound.
And I was free.