They were wrong.
Absolutely wrong—
in all the right ways.
The two ghouls tilted their heads in opposite directions, slow and exaggerated, like predators studying prey that had failed to scream on cue. It wasn't mockery that needed laughter. The gesture alone was enough—a wordless taunt sharpened by patience.
Malgroth and Orazhul were enjoying themselves.
Really enjoying themselves.
They watched Kainen and Aprexion with the kind of delight that only comes from witnessing certainty crack—not shatter, not explode—just bend. Confusion flickered across the Knights' faces, braided with fury, and the ghouls drank it in like aged wine.
Kainen was the first to speak.
He spat the words out, voice low, vibrating with restraint barely holding together.
"Where are they?"
A step forward.
"Where did you take them?"
His aura flared, the ground beneath him reacting instinctively, like it remembered what he was capable of.
"I swear to Centron," he snarled, "I will smite the abomination out of you."
Orazhul placed a clawed hand against his chest in a mock gasp, eyes widening theatrically.
"Oooh," he cooed, voice slick with false sympathy. "Such anger. Such attachment."
He leaned closer, savoring the moment.
"And you call yourself an Airien Knight."
Before the insult could sink deeper, Aprexion cut in—sharp, immediate, uncharacteristically tense.
"Shut it," he snapped. "Where are the students?"
Malgroth chuckled.
No—oozed laughter.
His voice dripped like spoiled intent, thick and invasive.
"Oh, you should already know," he said lazily. "They're in the Free Abyss. Duh."
A beat.
Then the laughter erupted—echoing, layered, wrong. It sounded like a thousand shattered mirrors arguing with each other, distorted audio folding over itself, the kind of sound that made reality itch.
"You really thought," Malgroth continued, "that these kids would have it easy just because you were nearby?"
He circled them slowly.
"All they had to do was give up. Surrender to who they think they are. Let go. Dissolve. And all of this"—he gestured broadly—"would've vanished."
His grin sharpened.
"But no. You keep clinging to your pathetic little doctrine."
Orazhul took over smoothly, voice quieter, more intimate—the kind that didn't need to shout to wound.
"Let me continue," he said. "For an Airien Knight such as yourself, Kainen… you're still deeply attached."
He smiled.
"To your beloved students."
Kainen's jaw tightened.
Not because the words were cruel.
But because they were accurate.
Too accurate.
Orazhul saw it and pressed harder.
"Haven't you lost enough already?"
A pause.
"Haven't you learned how to detach?"
His tone softened, almost tender.
"Don't worry," he whispered. "I have a solution."
He opened his arms.
"Come to me. Let me devour the wheel that steers your sense of self. I'll free you from worry. From grief. From brokenness."
Silence.
Heavy.
Then Kainen straightened.
"I don't need your distorted help," he said calmly. "And you're right about one thing."
His eyes burned—not with rage, but with resolve.
"We Airien Knights ascended beyond mortal comprehension because we learned how to strip ourselves of selfish desire."
Orazhul smirked.
For a being that devoured identities, his ego was loud right now—thrumming, eager.
Aprexion stepped forward.
His tone shifted.
Gone was the usual blunt sharpness. What replaced it was quieter—and far more dangerous.
"But we never became soulless machines," he said evenly. "Higher consciousness didn't erase attachment. It refined it."
He looked straight at Malgroth.
"It reaffirmed our belief that there is purpose beyond the self. Something larger. Something worth protecting."
A breath.
"Something you will never understand."
Kainen joined him.
"We forge our own paths," he said. "And now—"
His aura surged, the world responding like it remembered old wars.
"—we're about to forge the path to your doom."
For the first time, the ghouls' smirks faltered.
Just a fraction.
Just long enough to acknowledge that the truth had landed.
Then Malgroth laughed again—shorter this time.
"Oh well," he shrugged. "Let's test that theory, shall we?"
The air tightened.
And somewhere far below—
in the Free Abyss,
among fractured selves and borrowed masks—
the students fought battles that were never meant to be fair.
The game had shifted.
And everyone could feel it.
The pit…
A yawning, infinite cavity that swallowed every sound, every glimmer of light, every sense of direction. The students froze for a heartbeat, then another, until reality itself seemed to condense around them. Now there was only one way forward, and it was a path carved not through courage, but through desperation.
If only they could outmaneuver these endless ghouls.
Ghouls with half-formed faces, stitched together from broken selves, trapped here because living beings had failed to reconcile their inner demons. The pit wasn't just a location—it was a dump, a graveyard of discarded identities. And the ghouls fed on every hesitation, every flicker of doubt, every crack in the mind over matter.
Jack's eyes darted across the shifting darkness, scanning and scanning, only to find more remnants of lives that had fractured and been left behind. Shadows of possibilities that never had a chance, twisted echoes of choices never made. He swallowed, feeling the weight of them pressing against the edges of his consciousness.
Osei and Sonia worked tirelessly beside him, swinging and striking, clearing paths with instinct and determination. Sonia's red field exploded into flashes, knocking ghouls off balance before they could fully form. Osei moved with the subtle elegance of instinct manifest, each strike precise, slicing through the nightmarish reflections of torment.
Kennedy and Charles crouched near the pit's edge, not forming a portal, not yet. Instead, they bent frameworks and code together, crafting a propulsion sigil beneath their feet—a way to push them outward, away from the bottomless black. Their hands moved in fluid motions, pushing magic and logic into a single coherent force. Slowly, it began to hum, a steady pulse of escape waiting for them.
Ian's blade danced through the vines of distorted reflections, a mirror of his own self twisted and clawing at him. Every slash cut the chaos into smaller, more manageable pieces, though the reflection always seemed to reform faster than he could anticipate. Yyvone stood a step back, vigilant, ready to mend wounds before they could even register in the body. Her presence alone acted as a barrier between the team and collapse.
And then it worked.
The propulsion sigil activated beneath their feet. Slowly, steadily, they were pushed upward, spiraling along the edges of the pit. The vines that had been so dangerous before became their temporary lifelines. Their hands gripped tightly, feet finding purchase where none seemed possible, and every push upward was a victory over gravity, fear, and the gnawing presence of the ghouls.
Around them, the surface above began to appear, shimmering faintly in fractured light. And then, from the shadows, they saw him.
Henry.
No.
Something else.
Something different.
The violet electricity that had always marked him was gone. Now, his form was only a silhouette, sparking with a red that burned like molten flame. Every hair stood on end, every nerve taut with the intensity of what they were witnessing. Jack's throat went dry. He knew the version of Henry that could respond, could speak, could guide—but standing in front of him now was something entirely unknown, a shadow of possibility and consequence.
A question, a warning, a promise.
Jack stepped forward instinctively, but his legs faltered. The others froze behind him, unwilling to intervene, unwilling to break the fragile equilibrium of presence and power.
Then, without warning…
Boom.
A surge erupted from the silhouette, a force both protective and assertive. It was a refusal made manifest, a declaration that no one would breach this boundary without consequence. The team was thrown backward, pulled down into the pit once more.
But this time, they caught themselves.
Hands latched onto vines that had moments ago been deadly, now their only salvation. They hung there, suspended between the pit's bottomless maw and the surface they could almost see. Their Avian arts remained dormant, unactivated—they dared not expose their inner realms here, not in this place where even a single misstep could unravel them.
The pit had no end.
It had only void.
And there was no room for falling.
Jack pulled himself upward, inch by painstaking inch, every motion an assertion against the pit's pull. His chest heaved; every breath a challenge to the invisible weight pressing against him.
And then, just at the edge, he saw it.
A hand.
Henry's hand.
It wasn't just a hand—it was a lifeline, the anchor Jack had been searching for, the only certainty in this endless, twisting void. His fingers itched to grip, to hold on, to finally be pulled out of this nightmare. Henry wasn't just his friend here. Not anymore. He was his brother. His tether to stability, to alignment, to everything that had kept Jack from fracturing along the edges of the abyss.
Hope surged.
It clenched in Jack's chest. It sang through his limbs. He could almost taste the relief that was so close, almost feel the lift of being yanked from the pit's cruel grasp.
And yet, just when hope had its strongest hold…
Despair stole its glory.
Henry's grip tightened. His fingers curled, desperate, frantic—but the movement was not what Jack expected.
Instead of pulling Jack toward him, the lifeline released.
He Let go.