• The Abyss

How was The Abyss created?

It was a question that had troubled the Continent for hundreds of years. Mages spent years of their lives studying the anomaly, in hopes of figuring out what had created it.

The only rational answer that they could come up with was that the War of Celestials had caused it. What else could have?

It had appeared for the first time ever after the War had ended. Different Bridges tearing holes in the atmosphere, creating a direct passage to the deadly world.

But these passages also led out of the world, and into theirs. Monsters of different sizes and levels of monstrosity made their way into the Continent, hunting down humans and feasting on them. 

These monsters were called Hellbenders because of the fiery magma energy that seemed to course through them. And the pernicious world was called The Abyss because that was exactly what is was—an abyss—hell. An unfathomed depth, immeasurable, profound, full of uncertain evil but very certain death.

When the numbers of Incarnate Bearers began to increase in the realm, they started to venture into the Abyss. Whenever the atmosphere tore open, there was always a Bearer or an adventurer keen on going in to see what truly lied inside that world. But there was hardly any coming out.

It was until the first ever Utopian level Bearer that the Continent finally knew what The Abyss really was. His name of Stevlarys [Torrent of the Perpetual] and he unlocked the greatest Influence ever known to man. An Influence that granted him the power to create a kingdom of his own. An entirely new realm which was called [The Eternal Land]. 

The presence of this artificial world suddenly began to shine more light on the existence of the Abyss, especially when another Utopian, Theodon [Herald of Mortality] unlocked his. It was a realm of the dead known as [Brimstone]. 

It didn't take long for the Mages to realize that The Abyss was similar to these other artificially created realms. The only confusion was that the realms were created by a Bearer, but The Abyss did not seem to have a creator at all. So the question of how it had arrived on the Continent was still unanswered. 

They only had an explanation of what it was; A Paradoxical Expanded Realm. The other worlds created by Stevlarys [Torrent of the Perpetual] and Theodon [Herald of Mortality] were simply called Expanded Realms. The Abyss was given the tag 'paradoxical' because it differed in the sense that it had no creator.

It had just appeared.

For many more years, more Bridges kept tearing open in different locations over the Continent, releasing Hellbenders into the world. The Bridges would usually close after the Hellbender it had unleashed returns or gets slain.

Bearers took it upon themselves to kill any Hellbender that bridged into the main world, but soon, in time, the first ever Convergence Ceremony would take place.

The Celestials in their pride, could not let humans who still possessed the power of the Old Gods destroy the Hellbenders, so they gifted their powers to the chosen children of each Duke in the Continent to go into The Abyss, find the source and end it for good. These children were called Avatars.

As more Ceremonies past, the Celestials began to see the occasion as some kind of game rather than a serious issue, and even the Meisters and Dukes began to see the event as a competition. Until it became one.

The Convergence Ceremony was no longer about Avatars going to work together to destroy The Abyss, but competitors battling to be the last survivor after The Abyss is destroyed, with the promise that their Wing will be blessed by all the Celestials and they would be hailed as the Continent's Champion.

This was how it had always been in the Continent, for hundreds of years. 

But the night Spheris Arnadel took the Essence Box from the Duke's vault, a change was bound to happen. A tale to be told. A story to be written. One that could past down from generations to generations.

The story of fate.

- ☯ -

The grounds in The Abyss rumbled and a Bridge tore out of the atmosphere. The wind blew in rage, circulating the Bridge as dust rose from the ground.

When it all came to an end, five pairs of feet were on the ground.