Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 442: Blackened Heart

Taking out the fissure wasn't a difficult task. After observing it for so long, she's already gotten a feel for its 'pillars'.

If anything, it was far harder to take out the pillar for Solaris and force him to go back.

The difficult part about this mission, however, was that she had to be stealthy about it.

Stealth was never her strong point as all of her attacks have always caused some kind of large phenomenon. If she were to do the same again, there's no doubt that the beast's attention would be dragged towards her included in the Tenebris.

'It doesn't need to be a powerful arrow. Just strong enough to target the strands of support with the help of Allura's Sigil and my blood.' Alice thought to herself.

Opening her hand, blood began to coil above it and condensed into a single arrow.

'It needs to be thinner… Smaller…'

Focusing her mind on compressing the arrow, it began to twist until it was thinner than a twig. But even then, Alice wasn't satisfied.

Notching the arrow onto the bowstring, she summoned Ruinous Void and transformed it into the unbound form.

With this choice, the Personal Artifact broke free of its constraints and transformed into a spiralling black hole with strands of energy surrounding it before imprinting itself upon Alice's hand.

[Ruinous Void – Casting]

Unbound Form: Capable of opening pathways to the Void at will, harnessing the natural forces within the Void to push or pull.

*KRR~

Using the power of the Void around the arrow, Alice began to forcefully compress the arrow until it was now wider than a needle.

It was only now that she was satisfied with it and pulled back on the bowstring.

[Once you take care of the fissure, you'll only have a small window to attack the Tenebris without giving up your location. Can you recover fast enough for that attack o'master mine?]

'Easy, just gotta make sure the arrow doesn't notify it of my presence.' Alice curled her lips into a grin as she transformed Ruinous Void into the Singularity Form.

Singularity Form: Transforms [Key of Destruction – Ruinous Void] into a medium for abilities. Significantly enhancing ability power, casting speed and allowing the user to gain high levels of control over the Void.

'Increased casting speed, enhanced ability power and control over the Void. With all of this at my disposal, it's only natural that I abuse the power of the Void and prevent others from noticing no?' Alice explained as she fired the arrow compressed by Ruinous Void.

*CRACK!!!

Breaking apart the space in front of it, the arrow disappeared as Alice dismissed her bow.

There was no flashy explosion, no torrent of energy no nothing. Just silence as a ripple appeared across the fissure.

Then, from the edges, it began to disintegrate, unable to hold its position.

Many of the beasts still within Terminus tried their best to claw themselves out before the fissure fully closed, but the barrier prevented them from moving at their full speed. They could only watch as their chance at freedom slowly disappeared as the light from the surface faded away.

The beasts who couldn't escape fully have their bodies cut in half by the closing fissure, left to bleed out on the ground.

Looking at the beasts that came through, Alice scratched her chin.

'That's quite the horde… Oh well, at least the fissure is closed now. I'll notify Selen and tell her to escape.'

Crushing a blood bead so that the Selen knew it was time to retreat, the barrier began to fade away and the beasts started to disperse.

[There are three things you need to watch out for when you fight the Tenebris regardless of what level it might be. First is her eyes, the key part of her ability set. Her powers work with vision so when you fight her, be careful not to stay within her vision or if it's unavoidable, try and blind as many of her eyes as possible.

[Second, her umbral domain. It's an ability that all of them have regardless of level. You can think of it as a Hunter's second resonance or the blood moon sanctuary belonging to the Maiden of the Blood Moon that you fought before. Within this realm, she gains a power similar to Kaiden and that she can manipulate any shadow that she can 'see'.

[Not only that, but she also gains a huge boost in all of her powers while draining away the sanity of her enemies.]

'Sanity? You mean I'll go crazy if I'm in her Umbral Domain?' Alice blinked her eyes in confusion as this was the first time she'd heard Cayla directly refer to sanity.

[Indeed o'master mine. The longer you spend within the Umbral Domain, the more you'll begin to hallucinate. You'll misjudge the attack, making it seem bigger and scarier than what it actually is. You'll space out from your own imagination and so on, unable to differentiate between what's real and what's fake.

[Depending on the level of the beast, she can pair it with an ability she gets later that casts a dark mist over the area, increasing the effects of Umbral Domain and making it so that you're surrounded by artificial darkness that can't be dispelled.] Cayla explained.

During the era when Ayr was still around, Velouria had sealed this beast away due to its nature of bringing fear and severing the contracts that bind people. And depending on whether or not they were a Lord or not, they could also nullify to some extent, the rule that Velouria put in place.

Meaning that even if beasts adhere to the rules set by Velouria, they'll forever remain as a beast.

[And the last ability that you should be careful of is Blackened Heart. I've only ever seen this ability activate once so I don't know the conditions of obtaining it or the activation requirements. It's not available as a Sigil either so I can only speculate. But when it does activate, it'll begin to siphon the lives of those around her. With each life taken, she can survive another lethal attack.]

'The f*ck??? So I can't kill her in one go then?' Alice paused in annoyance.

With this kind of safety net, how was she supposed to kill her before she turned around and just cancelled all of her contracts?

[There's no guarantee that she has this ability o'master mine. I'm just letting you know so you don't get taken off guard.] Cayla shook her head but that only caused Alice's smile to twitch.

'Cayla… I want you to recall my luck. Recall all of the enemies I've faced and everything that's happened. Then, I want you to think to yourself. Knowing my luck, will she or will she not have this Blackened Heart ability?' Alice answered by giving her a question.

Thinking about this, Cayla was silent.

[. . . Fair point.]

'So what now? How am I supposed to one shot a beast that can siphon lives from the beasts around it?' Alice asked, sitting down with a sigh while she kept her eye on the Tenebris who was taking a stroll through the outpost.

Her eyes connected by the dark energy scoured the corners, taking the lives of beasts and man alike and leaving nothing but drained husks behind.

[It depends. Her Blackened Heart struggles to siphon lives if the target is strong. Or if there's no target at all. You'll have to isolate her so that she can't gain lives even after a surprise attack.

[Though to do so, it'll no doubt warn the beast and put her on guard.]

'Can she siphon lives from the dead? So if she's surrounded by beasts that I've killed, would she be able to gain lives?' Alice furrowed her brows.

She needed to create an ideal hunting ground before Torgeir's blood ran out of effectiveness. She had the option of drinking the blood of beasts but the longer she stayed in this state, the worse the backlash from her artifact would become once it wore off.

[She can't. But her range is unknown. It might cover this entire outpost or it might just be the area around her.] Cayla shook her head.

'After all that, it basically comes down to killing her while nothing is around her right? Either that or kill her fast enough so that she can't regenerate and retaliate.' Alyss replied in boredom. All of this planning and talking bored her as she'd rather just fight and duke it out with the beast.

'I suppose. But it's good to know what she does. She seems to be the casting kind so flipping her controls might not work as well as we hope. Let's go for Tiamat as the sixth since it gives us the biggest boost in energy. I'm not exactly worried since the fissures closed anyways and Tiamat's nowhere in sight.' Alice gave her body a stretch.

Tiamat's ability of draining colour from the world was mostly a visual effect. The true effect was siphoning and condensing all of the ambient energy into a single orb.

'Gotcha. Switch out with me if it gets hard to dodge.' Alyss nodded with a smile.

'Of course, we're two people in one body after all. Can't clap with just one hand.' Alice chuckled.

Activating her artifact, she kept it in the singularity mode and utilized the power of the Void.

To isolate her existence within a barrier and prevent energy from leaking out until the last moment when she would fire her attack.

Resonance!

Red spider lilies blossomed across her body but Alice wasn't done.

Partial Bloodline Release!

A malevolent aura erupted from Alice's body but this time, it held a hint of fallen divinity. The final embers of a god.

Sensing this, Alice understood it must be Nyer's doing from the time she was in the Inverted World. The resonance between the current her and the product of the past. But now was not the time to think about this.

Taking a deep breath, she aimed her finger towards the Tenebris in the distance that had no idea Alice had locked onto her.

A convergence of energy manifested in front of her finger. From a single mote of fire, it collapsed into a spark as fragments of the Void overlaid the attack. Colour began to drain from her surroundings, reinforcing the spark.

Crackles of energy danced from Alice's body, tearing apart the ground around her but Alice ignored it.

"Feast o' flames of mine."

*BANG!!!

A bestial figure appeared behind her, cracking open its jaw and funnelling more power into the spark.

This was her maximum output. The strongest Void Flux.