When Divinity Leaks
Far from the forest, beyond the mountain passes and silver rivers, stood the radiant heart of the continent—, the Central Dominion.
At the highest spire of the only faithful church nearest the wild frontiers, candles flickered without wind.
Inside, beneath a vaulted ceiling painted with constellations of forgotten saints, a woman dressed in white froze mid-prayer.
She was called Seraphine, a Saint of the Nameless God.
And she felt it.
A pulse.
Not holy.
Not profane.
Something between.
Her eyes opened slowly. “Divinity…” she whispered.
Then her expression darkened.
“…and Abyss.”
The sensation bled from the direction of the eastern forest—the territory near the cliffside settlements. Worse still, beneath that fractured divinity, she sensed another current. A ritualistic hunger. A congregation. A cult that bent knee not to heaven—but to an Abyss General.
The Saint rose.
“Prepare riders,” she commanded quietly. “And notify the Argent Bastion.”
Beyond the cathedral walls, the Dominion stirred.
Back in the forest, Aethyr felt them too.
He stood before Thorn’s grave.
The wind did not move.
The forest did not breathe.
Even the insects had fallen silent.
The cliffside base was not celebrating anymore.
They were afraid.
He could feel their eyes on his back.
Velra approached slowly, her steps careful. The air around him shimmered faintly—like heat above desert sand—but it carried a cold that made her bones ache.
“How could they fear the one who saved them?” she asked, though her voice lacked conviction.
Aethyr did not turn.
“Because the one who saved them,” he said quietly, “now looks like what they’re being saved from.”
Velra swallowed. The aura leaking from him was subtle—but wrong. The scent of damp stone and deep caverns clung to him. Something abyssal coiled beneath his skin.
Even she—who trusted him—felt her instincts recoil.
Then she noticed the way he was staring at Thorn’s grave.
Unmoving.
Silent.
Her thoughts faltered. So even you grieve.
Aethyr knelt.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” he murmured.
The wind shifted.
Behind him, the baby dryad stirred.
When he approached her, the forest recoiled. Leaves curled inward. Branches trembled as if he carried a plague.
But the small dryad reached for him.
Tiny roots wrapped around his fingers.
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A faint green glow blossomed where she touched him.
He exhaled.
From his cloak, he withdrew the purified tree core. Its surface pulsed softly with residual life essence.
He placed it against her bark-like chest.
“Grow,” he whispered.
The dryad absorbed it slowly, and Aethyr sat beside her, closing his eyes.
He needed control.
The abyssal essence leaking from him had grown unstable after the last battle.
As he meditated—The world went dark. Not black. Not empty.
But deep.
Shadows drifted like slow-moving currents.
And something stood within them.
Tall. Armored in bone and chitin.
Eyes like fractured stars.
The Abyss General.
It regarded him with amusement.
“So,” the General’s voice echoed, like stone grinding under pressure. “A godling rotting from within.”
Aethyr’s gaze hardened. “You retreated.”
“I repositioned.”
The shadows thickened.
The General raised a clawed hand.
Every abyssal presence in the forest answered.
“You wished to protect them?” it continued softly. “Then watch.”
The connection snapped—
Aethyr’s eyes shot open.
His breathing sharpened.
“System,” he said calmly.
[Calculating.]
“Survival probability. Myself alone.”
[70%.]
“The base?”
A pause.
[10%.]
He closed his eyes.
Then opened them again.
“Mini-map. All living signatures within the forest.”
The map unfolded in his vision. Red dots—hundreds—erupted from every direction.
They weren’t retreating.
They were converging.
On the base.
Aethyr stood instantly.
He lifted the baby dryad.
“You’re not dying today.”
He moved fast—faster than anyone at the base had ever seen—slipping into the labyrinthine root tunnels beneath the forest. He placed her in a hidden grove chamber only he knew, layered in natural wards.
“Stay.”
He sealed it.
When he emerged—He roared.
Not a human sound.
Not divine. Not abyssal. Something hybrid.
The roar cracked across the forest canopy like thunder, carrying pressure that froze birds mid-flight and sent weaker abyss creatures skidding back in terror.
Friend and foe alike felt it.
Velra rushed toward him.
“Aethyr—” “Run!” he commanded.
The word struck like a shockwave.
The first wave hit seconds later.
A black tide crashing through trees.
Aethyr slammed his hand down.
A barrier erupted around the base—translucent, layered with divine script and abyssal geometry intertwined.
The first abyss creatures collided—
And exploded.
Black ichor sprayed across the shield.
More came.
From all sides.
The barrier shuddered violently.
Cracks of light rippled across its surface.
Inside, the people screamed.
Aethyr breathed slowly.
If he fought head-on, he could survive.
But they would not.
So he made a decision.
His shadow stretched unnaturally at his feet.
It peeled away.Rose.
Solidified.
A second Aethyr stood there—identical, but dimmer. No golem. No heavy aura. Only condensed shadow and will.
Velra stared. “What are you—”
“You’re taking them west,” the real Aethyr said. “Toward Dominion territory.”
“And you?”
He didn’t answer directly.
The shadow clone spoke instead.
“I will escort them.”
The clone stepped forward, aura suppressed, controlled.
The real Aethyr turned back toward the forest.
The barrier cracked again.
He lifted both hands—Then did something reckless.
He let the abyss inside him bloom.
Dark patterns crawled across his skin.
His eyes shifted—one silver, one void.
To the creatures beyond the barrier—
He looked like one of them.
The shield dropped.
The abyss surged forward
And halted.
Confusion rippled through the swarm.
Aethyr stepped past the boundary.
“Follow me,” he whispered.
Then he ran.
Not toward the base.
Away from it.
Deeper into the forest.
The abyss followed instinctively, drawn to his blooming essence.
Hundreds diverted.
Then thousands.
The shadow clone didn’t hesitate.
“Move!” it ordered the base.
Velra snapped out of her shock.
They ran.
The clone remained at the rear, cutting down stray creatures, but without the golem’s heavy presence it moved with terrifying efficiency.
Still—
Not enough were diverted.
The second wave emerged from the northern ridge.
Too many.
The clone assessed quickly.
Probability dropping.
Then—
The sky shifted.
Golden spears of light tore downward like falling stars.
Each impact obliterated clusters of abyss beasts.
A horn echoed across the battlefield.
From the western treeline marched soldiers clad in silver-and-blue armor bearing the crest of a sun split by a sword.
The Central Dominion.
At their head rode a woman in radiant mail—eyes glowing faintly.
A Saint.
Behind her, disciplined ranks formed a defensive perimeter with seamless precision.
“Argent Bastion formation!” she commanded.
Luminous barriers overlapped.
Spell circles ignited.
The abyss tide faltered.
The shadow clone watched silently.
So.
They came.
Hours later—
The survivors crossed beyond the forest’s edge.
Before them rose towering white walls reinforced with crystal pylons.
A fortified frontier district of known as the Argent Bastion.
It was not the capital proper—but a military refuge city designed to house displaced frontier populations.
Wide streets.
Barracks converted into temporary housing.
Priests and healers moving efficiently among the wounded.
Refuge banners raised.
Velra looked back toward the forest.
Smoke rose faintly in the distance.
“Where is he?” she whispered.
The shadow clone stood at the gate.
Silent. Watching.
Then— It dissolved into drifting black motes.
Back in the depths of the forest—
The real Aethyr knelt in a crater of scorched earth.
His body flickered between divine glow and abyssal darkness.
The swarm he lured had finally thinned.
But the General’s presence lingered.
Watching.
Waiting.
Aethyr exhaled slowly.
He was alone now.
Exactly as planned.
But the forest had changed.
And so had he.
Above him, the sky dimmed.
And somewhere beyond sight—
The Abyss General smiled.
