The world around Lucius' turned dark the moment he passed through the event horizon of the anomaly. He felt the simultaneous sensation that he was being pulled apart and squished, something that should not have been possible, and his mind struggled to make sense of it. Thankfully that only lasted for a few brief moments, and soon color returned to his vision—a lot of color. Lucius felt solid ground beneath his feet as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness assaulting him. He ducked low to the ground and covered his eyes, squinting to try to get a look at his surroundings.
Lucius' vision soon adjusted enough for him to take in his first images of the Abyssal realm, and when he did he found it jarringly different than he had expected. "Really... A rainbow?" The sky looked no different than the sky of a sunny day on Earth. However, what Lucius thought was a rainbow, he soon discovered, was something else entirely. He realized moments later that the coloring was all wrong, with the only shades of color being bright yellow and red. As his eyes followed the bow of colors spreading across the sky, he discovered that it wasn’t a bow at all—it was a full circle, and in the center was a massive green orb.
"It's a planet..." he mumbled in fascination as he stared up at the sky.
Lucius pulled his mind back from the distraction and surveyed his surroundings for danger. The ground was covered in rocks like a riverbed, but he did not see any water. Out of the rocky ground grew various plants that would not have been too out of place on Earth. He wouldn’t call it a forest, the large plants were spread too far apart. It was like someone had taken a forest and stretched it out to cover more area than it was meant to. The large trees were quite beautiful though, with perfectly white bark and bright red leaves. If Lucius had seen this place in a movie he would have complained that it was too colorful to be believed.
Looking back at the anomaly behind him he realized that it was not floating in the sky like on Earth. Instead there was a ring of runic symbols carved into the ground, the portal lay flat in the center. There was a pathway connected to the portal leading off into the distance, it also contained runes on either side. Every few seconds the runes would flicker with red light—a clear sign of the power flowing through them.
Lucius kept his aspect activated as he slowly followed the path. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing up at the planet and the disc around it every few steps, when he eventually noticed that the planet was not alone in the sky. Lucius climbed a tree to get a better look at what could only be described as a massive floating abomination, moving across the distant horizon. It was the size of a mountain, containing thousands of long, fleshy tentacles that drifted along below the bulk of its mass. It was grotesque and disturbing to Lucius. He was so put off by the sight that he didn’t even bother wondering how something so large could float; he simply avoided looking at the thing. Luckily, it was far enough away that he could avoid it altogether.
Lucius continued to follow the path through the sparse trees. He noticed a few more Abyss creatures wandering through the area along the way but was able to easily avoid them with his aspect. After following the path a bit further he caught sight of his destination, the path ended at a large black tower made of stone. The tower contained the same runic inscriptions, but the ones on the tower were much larger and moving power toward the top. Archways led into the tower on all four sides, and a large spiral staircase sat in the center, it moved both up and down. The building felt out of place in the forest, Lucius felt an innate unease welling up inside him as he looked at it, the kind of feeling you might get when you see a parasite climbing out of a living insect. It was tragic and malevolent.
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As he shortened the distance between himself and the tower, Lucius began to pick up a sound. It was still faint, but it was unmistakably the sound of screaming. The voice sounded human and female. He stopped to try and make out anything else from the voice, but all he could discern was that it was coming from higher up in the tower. Lucius moved cautiously through the archway and into the first floor of the tower, gazing at the dark stone walls around him. There were no decorations or furniture, just cold black stone and runic writing. He moved toward the stairs and began climbing up toward the sound of the screams.
As his head passed the bottom of the next floor he began moving as cautiously as possible, until eventually he could see the entirety of the room above. What Lucius saw in that room was an inhuman nightmare. Standing in the center was a being that appeared to be a man at first glance, but as he looked closer Lucius noticed that the man's body was covered in pulsing webs of black. The webs started in a large mass at the top of his head, spreading out around his body like the growth of a fungus. The man's face had a lifeless appearance, and his eyes were pale and glazed over. He wore no clothing, allowing Lucius to see that the trails of black covered his entire body. The nails on the man's fingers were long and sharp, he was currently using those nails to dig his blood covered arm into the belly of a woman. There was a stone edifice in the center of the room, on top of which lay a human woman, the creature was torturing her. The woman's body had been completely brutalized, but what was left of her clothing was enough for Lucius to understand that she was a soldier.
Lucius couldn’t help but shake in anger and disgust as he saw what was happening. The woman’s arms and legs were already gone—he could see them lying in destroyed piles on the floor around her—and he was surprised that anyone could be alive after their body had been so destroyed. As the creature shoved its sharp nails into her stomach, Lucius suddenly heard words being spoken, even though the man's lips did not move: "Suf-fer..." The voice was deep, gravelly, and inhuman. The woman let out another pain-filled scream, but she was clearly in shock and was losing the strength to do even that.
Clenching his hand tightly around his sword Lucius crept into the room. He had to walk a wide path around the creature to avoid stepping in the blood and giving away his location, but he managed it and slowly made his way to the monster’s back. Lucius raised his sword up high, lining it up with the back of the creature's head. Mustering all his strength, and feeling the massive dose of adrenaline surging through his body, he lunged forward and pushed the tip of his sword into the back of the creature's skull.
Matriarch's Fury did not let Lucius down, and its amazing piercing ability did its job. The power of the sword combined with Lucius' incredible strength allowed the tip of the sword to break through the back of the creature's skull. He kept pushing until the the sword went all the way in, coming back out through the creature's forehead. Lucius stood still for a moment expecting to see the familiar message from the system, but instead all he received was a heavy elbow in the gut from the creature in front of him. Lucius stumbled backward in shock as the force of the blow caused him to pull his sword back out of the creature's skull.
The creature turned around angrily, searching for its assailant, but luckily for Lucius his aspect saved him from any follow-up attack. When it realized that it could not locate Lucius, the creature began slightly hovering off the ground as red glowing mist was released from its hands. Lucius still hadn’t caught his breath after getting the wind knocked out of him but he managed to roll out of the way, just in time as a beam of red energy came out of the creature's hand and sliced through the place he was just standing. Lucius jumped to his feet and approached the creature’s back once again. This time aiming for its heart he struck out with his sword. The blade pierced deep into the monster's body and Lucius did not wait around for it to counterattack, hastily pulling back his sword as he dodged out of the way narrowly avoiding another beam of energy.
The beam missed Lucius, but the immobilized soldier was not so lucky. The red energy sliced up one side of the stone edifice and down the other, cutting what remained of her body in half.