NOVEL NEXT Chapter 108: Breakpoint
The wind at the rim of the canyon tasted like old minted metal and dust.
Hannya stood with her toes at the jagged lip, veil fluttering across her face, eyes fixed on the black gash that split the world in both directions. The chasm swallowed light; one step past the brink and the earth ended. Sight, sound, and warmth fell into a depth that was no longer part of the material plane.
Greed's Abyss.
Avaritia's [Deep Pocket]. Once a vault without end, now a prison without wardens.
Somewhere far away, in Neel, Avaritia fought to keep his temple and palace from being eaten alive, the gold walls rising, coin-rain turning to cascades as Gula's mountain-sized teeth pressed against half his city, forcing him to fold the battlefield into a private vault. The second vault, the one he was currently in, dragged his people and the Neel temple to a cordoned-off theater for his battle.
The first remained anchored in Hellnia, was beyond his recall. Even a Primordial has limits alone. Especially one suffering the consequences of the platform's penalties.
The barrier above the Abyss shivered, subtle at first, then with a ripple like a tranquil lake being disturbed by a diving boulder. Hannya watched the wavering with the cool patience of someone who'd waited lifetimes for a weakness.
Power stretches thin when you're paying for a war on two fronts. She lifted her hand, fingers already sketching shapes into air as sigils bled into strings, strings into lattices. Her fine strokes creating functions she'd prepared months in advance.
"Hold the perimeter," she said without turning. "And Again, Don't follow me in." She commanded pointedly. No way would she allow her majestic entrance to be hindered by spectators.
"Understood," Shela answered, palm settling on the sword she'd polished through the long trek. Rose set her teapot down on a velvet cushion, exhaled, and nodded, precise as ever. They had been with her since the sedan stopped in the forbidden zone; they would still be here when the dust settled once more.
"Anyone comes near," Hannya added, "Just break their legs and inquire after."
Rose's lips curved, subtly, almost cruelly. "As you wish, my lady."
Shela glanced at the pain demon, her brows furrowed, but she kept her silence and nodded to the request.
Hannya stepped forward. The black membrane hanging over the canyon's throat flexed like a held breath. She continued to draw in the air.
Lines spun into existence with brisk elegance. Concentric rings counter-rotating, glyphs of devil script and human-like syntax threading between them like constellations. It wasn't casting so much as compiling at this point.
Her magic moved like a programming language, and she wrote in it fluently. Functions nested in arrays, safeties stitched into kill-switches, recursion gated by a single symbol.
"Do not follow." she repeated, softer now, to the women behind her as the nervousness seated somewhere small in her chest. If she got clam dammed at this point, she didn't know what she would do to her nosey subordinates.
The array answered with a low, eager hum.
Hannya tipped her chin, eyes bright. "Hannya Magic: [Breakpoint]."
The completed sigil pulsed once and dropped, a delicate wheel of pink-black logic kissing the barrier. Where it touched, the laws buckled; the black turned translucent, then thinned. The shielding flared in protest and faltered. The fight in Neel had left less and less to defend this assault.
An elegant shakedown.
She set one delicate foot on the sigil, then the other, weight balanced as if on a thin sheet of ice. For a heartbeat she just stood there, breathing, an almost imperceptible catch that only someone who knew her would notice.
Then she jumped.
The sigil accepted her entirely; her ankles sank, her calves, her hips. The separated world folded over her. Shela's hand hovered but did not reach. Rose's hands folded over her apron. Hannya raised a hand without looking back and disappeared beneath the surface.
The Abyss took her with the silence of a ledger finally balancing.
~~~
Darkness. A darkness that wasn't empty so much as it was hollow.
Deep within the desolate world, the prisoner opened his eyes.
Three rings turned across each gray iris, slow at first, then with the careful syncopation of a second hand regaining time.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Long practice had taught him to ignore pain; longer practice had taught him to measure it. For centuries, no less than six of them he recently deduced, he had sat in a pitch-black expanse designed to hold riches until purpose changed and was repurposed to hold him.
Vainglory inhaled. The air had no scent. And yet…
There. A change. Like a draft through a sealed vault.
He stilled, every ounce of attention sliding to the thing most mortals mistake for nothing, a subtle change in pattern.
In the Abyss, time is a cruel joke; hours mask themselves as years, and years play at being days until memory is smudged and vague. He had survived it by talking to himself, counting heartbeats, measuring mana tides, listening for the mechanical rhythm of divine law attempting to block the messages that tried to reach him and sometimes failed. The 'DING' of notifications. The sound that carried through the air but by rule.
He had come to expect that rhythm, six months between deliveries, same weight of essence, same fracture pattern in the glyphs, but this wasn't that. This was something else.
He flexed against the stakes without moving. Thorns rooted in spine and skull obliged by hurting him in new places, as designed. The white chains brightened, then dimmed, reading him, misled by his refusal to thrash. He unknowingly smiled slightly. Patience is not passive; it is a blade you only ever draw once.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The air shifted again. Vainglory's eyes tracked the stutter; the rings hesitated, skipped a beat, resumed. Somewhere above, the laws flexed. Somewhere above the Abyss, a barrier let go of something it was holding on to too tightly.
He thought of Greed as an accountant thinks of a rival. Predictable, confident, always balancing books in public. Then he thought of the one who had begun to stitch his deliveries with structure, the [Unwavering Believer] who tossed him essence like coins into a fountain.
And, Unconsciously, tuned his eyes back to the true cadence of time. He did not think of hope. When you've been betrayed, hope is an expense you carry in silence.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
A ripple then went through the Abyss, a law-level tremor, not the great, lazy movements of Greed's hand but the precise shiver of someone writing a structured script on the other side of a locked door.
Vainglory did not move, which is to say, every muscle prepared at once.
Tense, and surprisingly expecting.
"Interesting…" he said to the dark, voice a shade above a breath. The sound did not echo. It never does here.
His eyes rotated again, cleanly. The stutter did not return.
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And then, like a coin dropped into a bowl across a silent temple, he heard it.
DING.
But not the usual gilded notice threaded with the Order law's clumsy censors. This one was too quiet, too intimate. More a permission than a declaration.
'A breakpoint.' he thought, without knowing why.
He closed his eyes, not looking at the panel. He already knew it's meaning.
An entity has entered his proximity.
"Come in, then," he murmured to whoever could not hear him yet, "before he notices."
~~~
The Abyss was quiet and completely dark.
A thin ring of pale pink script opened overhead and lowered Hannya to the abyss like an elevator stopping at the first floor. Her white kimono fluttered once, then settled. The slit she had cut in Avaritia's barrier sealed above her with a neat snap, and the world returned to black.
There were no walls, no distinct floor, no sound. Only magical pressure and distance.
Hannya felt a tremor run through her. But It was far from fear. It was excitement she had carried for a year.
"So close," she whispered. "Now… how to find you."
A soft tone chimed in her ear.
DING.
Her System's panel opened in front of her, lines of clear text shining in the dark.
[
[Red Thread Heart] is now active!
Proximity conditions met: the red thread has marked the path of pure, undying, and true love.
~The body remembers the essence, the soul cradles the memory, the mind's desire is granted.~
]
Warmth spread through Hannya's chest, as if her blood had recognized something it had been waiting for. There was no change in the air, but something definite shifted, like a status being updated.
Hannya smiled. "System, aren't you getting a little too sentimental?"
Her eyes returned to the phrase 'the body remembers the essence'. She exhaled a small laugh through her nose.
"Lewd." she muttered, amused. Then, more seriously, the essence of glory. She knew that signature now, the energy she had followed for a year of offerings and long-distance help. If Quantifier said her body remembered, her blood would do the rest.
She turned slowly until a subtle pull settled under her sternum, the way a compass needle settles when it finds north. The direction clicked into place.
"Soon…" she said, meaning the meeting of course. And… privately, the 'essence' she planned to wring out of him later.
She grinned as her outline blurred. She activated [True Dream Body]. The woman became a compact cloud of black mist. Her hair, sleeves, and ankles dissolved; only intent remained. The mist shot forward, low and fast, the way a river runs when it finds a channel. She moved at breakneck speeds, only forward.
~~~
Deeper within, Vainglory opened his eyes once more.
Gray, with three fine rings inside each iris. The rings rotated, slow and exact.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He examined the usual things without moving, the white chains, steady; the red, blood tribute curse seals, a degree quieter; the stakes and thorns, unchanged.
His brows knitted together.
The rings in his eyes brightened. A controlled gold spread through the irises, not like light but like a lens setting that reveals another layer. His [All Seeing Eyes] looked past the 'surface' of the Abyss to the rules beneath it.
There, he saw a red thread.
It ran straight out of his chest and down to the ground, thick as a rope. It coiled once around his feet, then stretched away into the dark like a track line. It pulsed in a steady pattern…no, a heartbeat, but a clean correspondence. It hadn't been visible a moment ago. Now it was obvious, like a road painted on a black canvas.
He stayed very still.
'[Parallel Opinion]?' He asked inwardly.
Silence. No joke. No advice. No soft push toward comfort. The ability said nothing.
No reply… an oddity.
He noted it.
'PO cannot see this, but my eyes can. New observable: a thread exists outside that channel's reach. Not imaginary. Not bait from Greed. Continue to observe.'
He let the rings turn again and followed the line along the ground.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He widened his focus. Distance is easier when you let the eyes work and the body stay quiet. The thread went on and on… and finally met movement.
A black cloud was coming. Low, cohesive, and very fast. It moved like something that had chosen a target and would not climb or drift until it arrived. For a heartbeat he saw white silk glint inside the mist, then the dark closed over it again.
His eyes widened a fraction.
'So, that is the way you choose to arrive… Priestess?'
A small spark rose in his chest, but he pressed it flat… why did he assume it was her? It wasn't last time.
Either way, someone was coming, and rapidly.
"Interesting," he said, almost smiling. The word disappeared into the dark, but he didn't need it to travel far.
~~~
Hannya felt the tug grow stronger. Her system panel hovered at the edge of her vision, confirming what her body already knew.
'Pure, undying, and true love!'
That pleased her more than she let show.
She condensed her mist tighter and lowered her profile. Less like a flowing bank, now more like a spear flying close to the ground. The Abyss gave her nothing to push against; she generated her own momentum and held it. The pull under her sternum was steady, as if someone had tied a ribbon there and was drawing her in with patient, even strength.
"Kikiki! I feel it, I'm close!" She laughed once, quick and bright.
"Lead on!" she told her body, though it already was.
She passed over perfectly smooth 'ground' with no texture, and still understood the right way to go. The dark did not move around her; it allowed her to pass smoothly. Somewhere ahead, she would hit the point where distance ended and the person she wanted began.
~~~
Vainglory studied the area where the red thread traveled along the floor.
'Believer.' he thought, not speaking the word, he had no real proof, but… he knew. A year of deliveries had a pattern. This felt like that pattern given a body.
His rings made another slow rotation. The cloud sharpened into a shape rolling toward him. He saw white again at its core. Kimono, most likely, then black mist folded back over it.
'She will expect recognition.' He kept the thought factual. 'I recognize the intent, the pattern, the subtle energy now. I do not know the name. But this is enough.'
He adjusted his focus and posture without moving a muscle. The red thread hummed lightly against his sternum. It was not uncomfortable. In fact, he could barely feel it at all, it was simply there, like a new rule written in simple language.
"Come, then," he said, voice low. "Show me what you bring besides essence and words."
~~~
Hannya let the mist thin until her view of him was clear.
Hannya crossed the last stretch like a storm-shaped arrow.
The pull under her sternum grew sharp and bright. Her heart beat hard enough to feel in her throat, excitement pressed against her ribs, but she pressed back and kept her breathing even.
When the distance finally thinned to 'close', she made her spectacular entrance.
Her mist bulged, then burst outward in a ring. A dense, billowing fog wrapped the space around Vainglory, swallowing sight in every direction. The Abyss remained soundless, but the fog itself moved with a presence. Slow rolls, gentle swirls, a deliberate stage curtain drawn across the world.
Inside that shroud, her body took full shape again.
White sleeves slid into existence. A slim waist gathered in silk. Horns caught the thin, unreal light with a reddish tint. Hannya touched down as if stepping off an invisible stair and, without hurry, reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small palm mirror.
"Makeup, check." she said softly.
She angled the glass, confirmed her liner hadn't smudged, and pinched her cheeks just enough to bring a little extra color. Then she tucked her lips in and drew them out to sharpen her cupid's bow, tastefully suggestive.
Satisfied, she set the mirror to the side, sucked in her cheeks a little to refine her jawline, and narrowed her eyes to an older, calmer look.
"Maturity, check." she murmured, thinking of her previous life's iron rules. Men liked confidence, poise, and the sense that you'd seen more winters than you looked. The tell tale signs of a capable delegator.
She adjusted her kimono next, sliding the collar wide so it perched just off her shoulders, arranging the fall of silk to lengthen her neck and define a tactful line of cleavage. As Noh said, an investigation always starts with clues.
"Mystery, check."
A smile pressed at the corner of her mouth. She hadn't earned this moment to enter like some rookie. She would enter the way a queen arrives to collect what belongs to her.
"[Method Actor]." she whispered.
The innate ability moved through her body at once. Every motion from the last hundred practiced entrances layered into one. The exact weight of her step, the angle of her chin; aloof, but not cold. The tilt of her wrist as she walked; inviting, but not pleading. The rhythm of her hips; measured, but not exaggerated. Hannya set herself into that role and let it carry her forward.
Beyond the fog…
Vainglory watched everything.
His eyes were not fully flared, the rings turned slowly, the gold stayed thin, but even at half engagement, they read what normal sight could not. The mist, for him, was thin gauze. He saw her check the mirror. He saw the cheek pinch, the slight lip polish, the collar slide. He filed the sequence under 'preparation' instead of 'deception', no twitch of pulse, no breath stutter that marked a lie. Just a woman arranging herself. The ability was rather interesting though, it was difficult to see the layer of difference, but it indeed left a heavy impression.
Strange, though, to see it here. Another devil crossing the Abyss to him. Worship between devils was rare and usually a mask for negotiation. A year of carefully weighted offerings said she was not pretending. He set the thought aside and watched carefully.
The first sound reached him. The small, musical jingle of anklets.
Jingle
The second sound followed: the clean, steady clack of wooden geta striking an unseen floor. The pattern was unhurried and exact, the way a shrine bell's rope knocks the wood the same way every time.
Clack
Inside the fog, Hannya moved.
The mist began to rotate in a wide circle, pulled by her presence. It thickened, expanded, and then, as if on her cue, burst open in front of Vainglory, parting like curtains to reveal a clear lane.
She appeared at the far end of that lane, a few paces away, walking toward him with the smallest sway of satin and the calm of someone who knew every pair of eyes in this world belonged to her for the next ten seconds.
Their gazes met.
Hannya's face was veiled. Her eyes, petal-pink and sharp, lit in a way even she couldn't tame. Relief, happiness, and something like triumph. She held it in, but it colored the center of her gaze.
Vainglory marked it. 'Sincere'. No tremor. No hesitation. The aura around her body flowed smooth and coherent, 0.982 by his quick measure. No liar's flare. Her heartbeat stayed in pace with her walk. Nothing about the joy flickered.
She stopped at a respectful distance and let the veil carry her smile.
"Now," she said, voice even and warm, "what's a handsome like you… doing in a place like this?"