Abyssborn: Sovereign of Sin and Ruin

{Chapter: 182: Shadows After the Fall}

Through the bloodshot, ever-shifting eyes of the alienated monsters lurking within the ruined defense line, Dex watched the panicked retreat of the native soldiers and civilians.

He could see everything—down to the desperation etched into their trembling hands as they loaded supplies, the agony in their eyes as they abandoned wounded comrades, and the flickering flames of hope they clung to as the demon tide loomed ever closer. He could see it all, and yet… he didn't care.

Dex knew that if he so desired—if he chose to give a single, half-hearted command—he could drown them in a sea of twisted flesh and mutated horrors. The alienated plague beasts, his creations, outnumbered the natives ten to one. All it would take was a simple mental push, and the last remnants of resistance would be crushed beneath claw, fang, and bile.

But he didn't move a finger.

He didn't need to.

The monsters he had unleashed roamed the battlefield like wild flames in a dry forest—slaughtering, devouring, corrupting. Screams echoed from every direction. Bones snapped like dry twigs. Flesh melted like wax as acidic spit coated entire squads of defenders. One soldier's helmeted head was ripped off in a single bite by a fanged abomination that resembled a centipede crossed with a warhorse, while another beast tore open the belly of a mage and shoved its pulsating, spiked tongue into the still-beating heart.

Dex simply watched it all with a bored smirk.

He allowed the monsters to run free—uncontrolled, unchecked. They fought among themselves, devoured one another in territorial rages, and self-destructed in explosions of cursed energy if their mutations spiraled too far. To Dex, this chaos was entertainment. Art.

Even when some of the stronger natives fought back and started to mount a disciplined retreat, he remained seated on a crumbling monolith made of infected crystal, legs crossed like a lazy god watching ants drown. Not once did he attempt to stop his creations from being beaten to death or turned into spell-fried mush.

Why? Because the game was already won.

From his perspective, the destruction of the Line of Disgust had already fulfilled his part of the Abyss Contract. He had unraveled the ancient defense array, poisoned the land with plague, and created enough havoc to grant the Demon Lord entry. His mission—if one could even call it that—was complete.

He was free.

Free to wander, free to scheme, free to indulge in his fantasies or pursue bizarre hobbies. No more constraints. No more obligations.

"I can do whatever I want now," Dex whispered, licking his lips with a forked black tongue. "That's the real victory."

In truth, soul-harvesting and power accumulation were never his true passions. Sure, they were useful—but Dex's motivation had always been simpler and more finer.

He wanted to be entertained.

Carnage. Madness. Betrayal. The fall of kingdoms and the shattering of legends.

Why bother working tirelessly to become stronger when there was no immediate threat, no looming catastrophe to force urgency? He had an infinite lifespan. Time meant nothing. Better to enjoy the show and pluck opportunity from chaos when it presented itself.

If he had his way, the Demon Lord and the native defenders would war endlessly, clashing over smoldering ruins for millions of years, each side growing weaker, madder, more desperate. The longer the battle dragged on, the better the show—and the easier it would be for him to reap benefits in the shadows.

---

But not everyone shared his view.

From afar, Henry Moore—the steel-hearted guardian of the Disgusting Line of Defense—was watching the mastermind with narrowed eyes, blood-soaked blade in hand.

To Henry, the mastermind was no idle bystander. No, he was the mastermind. The source of the plague. The one who shattered their barrier and let the abyssal tide in. To think someone of his power would just sit back and watch?

Impossible.

In Henry's mind, someone like this Mastermind—clearly capable of summoning legions and twisting life itself—must have a deeper, darker scheme in motion.

Perhaps he was planning to assassinate the highest-ranking officers. Perhaps he was waiting for the perfect moment to strike again and ensure their retreat failed. Whatever the case, Henry believed the true battle had yet to begin.

Though he appeared to be engaged in brutal combat with a towering serpent-creature—its scales riddled with weeping boils and its blood burning through the ground like acid—Henry's real focus was elsewhere. He was watching. Waiting.

If the demon behind this made a move, he would strike without hesitation.

He was a demigod in power, a living bulwark forged from centuries of war, and his strength had not waned one bit. If the Demon dared launch a surprise attack, Henry was ready to meet it with a single, devastating blow—one that even gods would feel.

He waited.

And waited.

But nothing came.

The Demon didn't strike. He didn't vanish into shadow. He didn't summon another monster.

He just sat on his infected throne, absently chewing on what might have once been a deer's ribcage, eyes sparkling with amusement.

Henry's blood boiled.

The silence—the inaction—was almost worse than a direct attack.

It meant Dex truly didn't care.

And that was more terrifying than any horde of beasts.

---

"Awoo!"

The feral cry tore through the air like a jagged knife, echoing across the ruined fields as the first wave of demon hounds surged forward from the blighted land.

A massive wolf-like demon, its fur bristling with writhing black tendrils and its fangs dripping with acidic saliva, was the first to breach the defense line. Its eyes burned with abyssal flame, and it moved with horrifying speed, its claws tearing deep trenches into the blood-soaked soil beneath its paws.

But what greeted it was not an orderly retreat of frightened natives nor a structured resistance.

No—what it saw was chaos. Pure, unfiltered madness.

A battlefield drenched in violence.

The interior of the defense line had become a sprawling hellscape. Twisted, grotesque monsters, some towering like giants with gaping maws across their torsos, others crawling like centipedes with human faces stitched into their backs, were locked in brutal combat with the last of the native defenders. Blood sprayed across shattered walls as limbs were torn off and torsos caved in under monstrous fists.

The wolf demon hesitated, its snarl faltering.

These things… these warped abominations… they weren't part of the Demon Lord's army.

They were alien, aberrant, more Abyss than Abyss—monsters seemingly stitched together in mockery of life. Some had bones growing outward like jagged spears, others leaked black smoke from cracked, pulsating carapaces. It was as if someone had summoned a bestiary from a mad god's nightmare and unleashed it onto the battlefield.

Still, the demon made its choice.

Snarling, it lunged into the fray, aiming for a cluster of native soldiers trying desperately to regroup under the banner of a battered knight.

But before its claws could strike, the creatures it thought were allies turned on it.

Without hesitation, the abominations lashed out. Bolts of lightning, jagged shards of bone, gouts of roiling green acid, and streams of poison needles exploded toward it in an instant. One spike pierced the wolf demon's shoulder, spraying boiling blood. Another punctured its thigh. A searing blast of violet fire lit up its face, and the beast howled in pain and fury.

They didn't care who or what it was.

To them, it was just meat.

And this scene—this betrayal—repeated itself again and again as more demons spilled in from the corrupted wasteland.

Some demons were shredded alive by razor-toothed worms erupting from underground. Others had their skulls crushed beneath the stampeding claws of tentacled horrors. A few who retaliated found themselves dragged into the air by winged monstrosities and torn apart mid-scream.

Within minutes, the defense line had devolved into a four-way massacre: humans, demons, plague-born abominations, and the unaligned madness monsters all colliding in a sea of blood and fire.

It was no longer a war. It was a feeding frenzy.

The very earth groaned under the weight of carnage.

Buildings that once stood as proud symbols of unity—crafted by dwarves, elves, and men working side by side—were now collapsing like sandcastles in a storm. Stone towers burst apart from internal explosions. Barricades melted under acidic fog. The once-sacred Watcher's Temples cracked down the center, bleeding magical energy as its protective enchantments collapsed, leaving only a screaming vortex of unstable arcane fire in its place.

The sky itself wept ash and red mist, as if mourning the ruin below.

Standing amidst the devastation, Alison—commander, guardian, and one of the last defenders—narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

Her once-pristine armor was battered and scorched. Her longbow, carved from the heartwood of a thousand-year-old tree, trembled in her grasp.

But her spirit had not yet broken.

With every breath, she watched her new home fall further into irrecoverable ruin. The place she had sworn to protect for centuries—gone. Her comrades dead, their bodies now mangled shapes in the mud. Her legacy shattered in a single afternoon of madness.

"...Enough," she muttered, voice hollow yet resolute.

She inhaled deeply, the stench of blood and fire burning her lungs, then turned away from the collapsing stronghold.

"We head to the teleportation point."

Her command was quiet—but in that moment, it was more final than any war horn or battle cry.

The soldiers flanking her obeyed without a word.

These weren't rookies. They were veterans—survivors. Their armor was stained in a thousand hues of blood. Their eyes were heavy with grief, shame, and fury. Yet they moved with grim discipline, dragging the wounded, carrying what relics they could, and protecting Alison at the center.

As they retreated, more monsters charged past them toward the heart of the destruction. And still, the abominations attacked without discrimination, feasting on demons and natives alike. Screams filled the air, echoing off the broken stones like twisted hymns to a forgotten god.

Alison didn't look back again.

There was nothing left to save.

Only the promise of vengeance, and the bitter memory of everything they'd lost.

---

Several dozen minutes later...

Henry Moore brought his blade down with a brutal roar, cleaving the festering, plague-ridden beast in front of him into twitching chunks of rotted meat. Steam hissed from its torn flesh as blood boiled under the cursed energy lingering in the air. Guts splattered across the battlefield like grotesque garlands, and a low growl rumbled from his throat—not of satisfaction, but of grim determination.

******

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