NOVEL NEXT Chapter 65: The Abyssal Bazaar
The moment his Soul Corruption hit the critical, fifty-percent threshold, the world as he knew it ceased to exist. The agonizing, physical torment of the war raging in his soul did not stop. But it became a distant, muffled echo. His consciousness, the part of him that was still Edward, was violently, brutally, and unceremoniously ripped from his convulsing body.
He was not floating in a void. He was not drifting in a sea of light. He was falling.
A long, terrifying, and impossibly fast descent through a dimension of pure, screaming, geometric chaos. He saw colors that had no name. Heard sounds that were mathematical equations. Felt emotions that were alien and vast. The place between places. The raw, untamed static between the channels of reality.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the falling stopped.
He was standing. His feet were on solid ground. A strange, shifting mosaic of cracked obsidian and shimmering, solidified nebula-gas. He was no longer in the dark, iron-walled wagon. He was somewhere else. Somewhere ancient. Somewhere terrible. And somewhere that felt, in a strange, horrifying way, like a homecoming.
He stood before a pair of gates. Impossibly tall. Forged from a spiraling, dark metal that seemed to writhe with a slow, malevolent life. No wall. No fence. The gates simply stood there. A grand, ominous entrance to nothing, and everything.
He had arrived. He had met the entry requirement. This was the Abyssal Bazaar.
The Bazaar was not a city. Not a market in any human sense. A chaotic, impossible metropolis. It seemed to exist in a state of perpetual, twilight flux. The "buildings" were jagged, crystalline structures that grew and shifted like living things. Their angles all wrong. Their geometry a defiance of mortal comprehension. The "streets" were rivers of slow-moving, iridescent fog. Strange, alien constellations swirled in the dark, starless sky.
And the denizens… The merchants of this place were not the familiar monsters of the Ashen Market. They were beings of a different, older, and far more terrifying caliber. He saw a creature whose head was a swirling vortex of eyes. Its many spindly arms arranging a collection of whispering, soul-trapped skulls. He saw a merchant that was a pillar of pure, sentient flame. Its voice a chorus of crackling, melodic cinders. These were not fugitives from the system. These were the things that existed outside of it. The things that the system itself likely had nightmares about.
This was not a place of commerce. It was a place of cosmic transactions. The currency here was not just Soul Points. A childish, simplistic invention of the Oblivion Core. Here, they traded in more fundamental, more precious commodities. He could feel it in the air. A thick, palpable psychic marketplace. He could feel the weight of the trades being made. Memories bartered for forbidden knowledge. Years of a lifespan exchanged for a single, reality-bending artifact. Emotions, pure and raw, being sold as exotic, intoxicating drugs.
He was no longer a customer in a shop. He was a piece of raw material in a grand, cosmic factory. The merchants were all looking at him with a new, terrifying, and deeply professional interest.
He was still wearing the tattered, scorched remnants of his battle gear. His spiritual form a perfect, ghostly echo of his physical one. He looked down at himself. With his now-permanent Soul Gaze, he could see the war still raging within him. He saw his own soul, a chaotic, flickering light, being devoured by the sickly, green-black cancer of the Eternal Rot plague. While his own, ravenous, dark corruption fought back. Consuming both the plague and his own spiritual integrity.
He was a walking, talking, and exquisitely rare commodity.
A new figure detached itself from the swirling fog. It drifted towards him. A being of pure, unadulterated shadow. Its form was vaguely humanoid but constantly shifting. Its only stable features were a pair of glowing, crescent-moon-shaped, silver eyes. And a smile that was a jagged, predatory rip in the fabric of its own darkness. It wore the tattered robes of a merchant. It trailed a faint, cloying scent of old, forgotten secrets and deep, cosmic regret.
"Ah," the shadow-merchant rasped. Its voice was a chorus of a thousand, dying whispers. A sound that seemed to snake directly into the most paranoid, fearful corners of his mind. "A new soul. A fresh arrival. And a lively one, at that."
The merchant's silver eyes narrowed. Its smile widened. It didn't look at him. It looked into him. Its gaze peeled back the layers of his being. Reading the story of his pain. His power. His corruption. Like an open book.
"A Soul Devourer," it whispered. The words were a note of genuine, professional appreciation. "A rare and vintage specimen. And tainted… oh, exquisitely tainted… by the Life-Eater Plague of the Rotting God."
The shadowy being drifted closer. Circling him like a carrion bird assessing a particularly interesting kill. "You are dying, little one. Your soul is a battlefield. It is about to be rendered into a cloud of useless, chaotic dust. A terrible, terrible waste of such a unique and flavorful essence."
The merchant stopped in front of him. Its featureless, shadow-face now just inches from his own. "But you are in luck. You have stumbled into the one place in all of creation that can help you. The one place that sees a plague not as a disease, but as an opportunity. We have… things… that can help you."
Its shadowy hand gestured to the chaotic, impossible bazaar. "We can give you the power to control your plague. To master it. To turn that which is devouring you into a weapon that will devour your enemies. We can save you, little soul. We can make you a king."
The offer was a lifeline. A single, miraculous branch extended over the abyss into which he was falling. He could survive. He could be stronger. He could win.
"For a price," Edward rasped. His own, spectral voice was a faint, weak echo. He knew the rules of this place instinctively. Nothing was free.
The shadow-merchant's smile widened. A terrifying, crescent-moon-shaped gash of pure, predatory delight. "Oh, yes," it whispered. Its voice was a triumphant, silken hiss. "For a price. Everything has a price."
It raised a long, shadowy, and insubstantial finger. "We do not deal in the crude, fleeting currencies of lesser realities. We deal in substance. In permanence. We deal in that which makes you… you."
The merchant's finger touched his forehead. The touch was not physical. It was a profound, intimate violation. He felt the creature's consciousness sifting through his own memories. Browsing them like a connoisseur in a fine wine cellar.
"We can grant you mastery over your plague," the merchant whispered. Its voice was now a hypnotic, irresistible promise. "We can turn your poison into your power. All we ask for, in fair and equitable trade, is a single, small, and utterly insignificant thing."
An image, pulled from the depths of his own mind, materialized in the air between them. A perfect, crystal-clear memory. A moment of pure, untainted light. It was the memory of Sarah. In the moonlit training ground. Her face filled not with fear, but with a profound, unwavering faith. Her small, shy smile a beacon that had saved his very soul.
"This," the shadow-merchant concluded. Its voice was a soft, final, and utterly damning whisper. "All we ask for in return… is the memory of the one you are trying to protect."