Shadow of the Abyss

"My Wife has bloody well gone insane! They warned me about marrying one so young, but I didn't listen."

"Surely it cannot be so bad."

"The wench has been hounding me to find her a partner to join us for the past month."

Altair nearly spat his drink out, trying not to explode into laughter from the nobles behind him in the lobby of Tresimar, a Nobleborn Establishment Hotel. Normally, such conversation would be private, with the Warding placed on the various tables to stop sound from traveling too far; unfortunately for them, Altair had noticed that his Almighty Resistance appeared to ignore such a trivial barrier.

Nearly in tears, he continued to listen, only noticing Ashara's return when she sat down with a precarious look.
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"What?" He asked, clutching his stomach.

Studying him for a second, she said, "You really shouldn't be sitting by the window, my Lord."

"You sound like Raven. Give it a rest." Altair remarked, waving off her worries. He truly couldn't be bothered with assassins. His domain was up, and with his Almighty Resistance, even the strongest of Ninth Circle Mages would find it difficult to harm him. What did he have to worry about? "Did you find us a room?"

"Of course, though, the hostess seemed reluctant to give us the best room." She paused, pursing her lips with a half-measured smile. "I had to invite her to join. I hope you don't mind. She is quite the specimen that is sure to catch your eye."

The grin he gave was not unlike the one he had for the conversation with the older nobleman behind him. Feral Pride pressed against his lips as he rose.

Altair never sensed the incendiary wave igniting into an ocean of cosmic annihilation until a bright golden light consumed his vision. In that split instant, Altair saw the world warp in a way that he could not quite imagine. There was no explosion, no shockwave, only annihilation in the purest form.

The noblemen behind him argued about who would have the honor of being the third man withered from flesh and blood to cosmic dust that later became nothingness. Even Ashara appeared to be taken back as she tried to gather her Demonic Qi—an instant too late—she was taken all the same by the golden light so radiant it seemed almost blinding.

"The Dao of Destruction," Altair thought before everything went blank.

****

"It was a clean shot, Young Master Sven," Avarda said in a flat tone, pulling away from the Rifle, slowly becoming dust, unable to withstand the power of annihilation embowed through it. "Was it really necessary to use such a bullet on him? I thought you were saving it for the Bastard of House, Dawn."

If Sven was pleased, he gave no sign of it, peering at the pillar of golden radiance connecting the Heavens to the Earth. Zelos Dawn was a power he could not afford to take lightly, but Altair Blackwood was an even more dangerous entity. He might not have carried the Snow's surname, but there was no doubt about whose blood he carried.

"Zelos has only just touched the level of God… It'll take time to kill him," Sven said finally, taking the expanding pillar of light through his pale grey ones. It wouldn't be long before the radius of the blast zone grew so wide it consumed all of Vastroph, then the world, if it wasn't stopped. "We used a Kisner XZ Mark Titan. A prohibited cartridge capable of killing even a God. Altair, a fifth Circle should not be an issue. Whatever Godly Arniment he might be in possession of will activate in the face of such concentrated power."

Sven smirked, lifting himself into the air and pulling himself away from the expanding radius.

"So this is what they call Pride…" Cold, mocking laughter appeared to challenge the heavens the way it thundered out of nowhere. "So your name is Sven Loregale."

A cold chill akin to a stranger's palm tracing up his spine ran across Sven's backbone; startled, he turned, forcing himself not to appear intimidated by the sudden arrival of—

"Impossible," He said coldly, without the slightest pinch of emotion in his voice betrayed by the thumping of his heart. "You can't be here. Destruction Laws should have neglected Spatial and Temporal manipulation."

Had he really taken a point-blank hit without any major damage?

Standing ten meters away, Altair Blackwood Snow appeared, slightly worn, with a trace of blood gliding down his forehead. His aura was a bit shaky, if shaky was even the right word for the mountain of pressure he exhibited.

'He has the same type of presence as those bastard Dawns!' Sven thought, tightening his fist.

"Two hundred and twenty-three years old. A Hundred years younger than Zelos, yet you seek to challenge his legend." Altair had his head up high, slightly leaning onto a raven-haired woman.

Avarda frowned but did not reach for his shortsword attached to his hip. Instead, he shot Sven a look that only he could read. Like him, Sven could not sense any sort of killing intent echoing from Altair or the young woman by his side—only cold indifference.

Altair breathed, and the chaos ensuing in the city, the shouts at the massive light, the confusion and panic that were thundering went silent.

"Loregale…the Forsaken Knights of Genisis," Altair continued, drawing the streaming blood from out of his face. He chuckled as if he said the most amusing thing.

Sven found nothing amusing about such a fact. His family was indeed one of the Thirty-Four Knight Families that once took the oath to protect the True Ruler of Genisis. The Unnamed King, who was said to not exist; An Honorable Mission, except for the fact that Genesis was not a monarchy but a republic.

And so the question was often asked, of whom did these Thirty-Four Knights serve?

They had earned the title Forsaken, for they swore an oath towards a nameless king never to be called.

Sven himself did not know whom he served, though he was assured by his Father that Genesis was not what it appeared to be. How true that was, he could not say. Not that it mattered. He would serve whomever it was said to be.

"Master…" The dark-haired woman voiced, reluctant to let him go.

Altair shrugged her off, standing on air without effort, a rather impressive feat for someone of his low cultivation. "I'm fine. Can you get rid of that pillar of light?"

Amethyst eyes ignited. "I will not leave your side."

Altair shot the woman an unpleasant smile before he gave a start towards Sven. "I did not think a knight like you would try to assassinate me like so. You managed to injure one of my people quite badly."

The crowd below was growing, some watching, shouting, and pointing at them as they spoke. Some transcendent and other more powerful mortals watched with intense focus.

"Just badly?" Sven smirked at his joke. He was not sure how Altair had survived, but he was sure no one else would either. Not unless they were a God, but there was a God there; they would have defended themselves or at least invoked divine protection upon the area they resided in. No. Altair had no God with him.

"The pleasure of immortality…" He continued, stopping nearly a meter away. "I must say, Sven… you are surely brave, making an enemy out of me when your family is barely even considered nobility amongst the Thirty-Four Knights of Genisis. It makes no difference. After I kill you… I'll bring you back and have you kill everyone you ever loved."

Sven gave no sign of concern over such an empty threat. He was palatine. The resurrection of any palatine was near impossible outside a few deities across the Myriad Heavens.

Palatines were different from other Mortals. Sure, they could be mortals as well, but they were destined for immortality. Destine to rule with a level of Authority that few could conceive about. All that power came with a price, and so was the natural order of causality.

"You are nothing but a fool! A mortal boy trying to seek immortality unable to understand just how wide the gap between Heaven and Earth is."

A sword wrought out of darkness itself congealed into Altair's palm, buzzing with a thrumb of something sinister, devouring light with each pulse of its ominous nature. "The Vale and the Abyss reside outside the Heavens and the Earth. I am above what you speak of."

A jolt made its way through his body, a sort of guard that his innate instant could not ignore. Someone was strong before him—a Palantine— one unlike the Myriad Heavens had ever seen.

"My Lord, allow me to handle this," Avarda interceded on his behalf. "There is no honor in you fighting an injured man, much less a dead one."

"Ava—" Sven tried to speak, but Avarda would not listen, stepping forward. "I cannot have my Lord fight against some Fifth Circle as a Ninth. This will be a quick battle. I'm not sure how you survived, but it will end when I place your skull over a pike."

Altair Blackwood was grinning; that was the only word for it. It was so sinful even the crowd below began to shake. For they, too, could sense it in the air.

Sin