Echoes of the Abyssal Blade: Path to Free Will-Chapter 103: Abyssal Beasts

Jonan exhaled a breath, watching it fog faintly in the cool night air. His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Dreavows and the poisoned hearts of those who ruled them. A land where kindness was currency and cruelty an art form. Here, among brutal strangers, he saw more honest humanity in a single evening than he had in years among his own people.

"What a bitter thing", Jonan thought, "To get this and to feel more at home among the strangers of a different land than at his own home."

forget. The aroma of roasted meats and spiced roots filled the great tent, where Dragon’s Tooth members gratefully partook of Hawk’s Eye’s generous feast, their exhausted faces betraying how long it had been since they’d eaten in peace.

Idhar’s gaze drifted back to Jonan, still seated at the far end of the tent, his pale skin catching the warm glow of the fire like polished bone. His silver-blue eyes held an inward distance, as though no one here truly existed for him. Even the noise and revelry around him seemed to brush against him without stirring so much as a twitch.

They looked mindless, without any thoughts of their own, which could only be commanded.

A low growl rose from them in unison, a bone-deep sound that seemed to shake the very ground.

Raerin’s hand tightened around his spear. His face, already drawn, turned grim. This wasn’t a single beast they could rally against. This was a swarm, led by the humanoid abyssal creature in front of them.

"Aye," Raerin said. "If I were you, I’d think the same. And I won’t ask you to trust him. But I’ll tell you this much—he’s not our enemy. Whatever bloodlines run in his veins, whatever land spat him out... the boy’s lost more than he’ll speak of."

Idhar grunted, neither agreeing nor denying, but letting the conversation settle there. It was a warrior’s courtesy. Raerin appreciated that much.

Before they could press the matter further, the tent’s entrance stirred. A soft bell chime announced new arrivals, and one of Hawk’s Eye’s watchmen stepped inside.

"Chief Idhar," the man announced with a respectful dip of his head. "The chief of Hollow Root colony wishes to pay respects."

Idhar raised a brow, casting a quick glance at Raerin before waving a hand. "Let them enter."

In strode a woman, broad-shouldered and sun-darkened, with a furred mantle draped across one shoulder and a jagged bone talisman hanging from her throat. Her hair was bound in thick braids adorned with carved wooden beads, each one a marker of an old conquest. She wore the garb of a fighter, loose yet durable, bearing the colors of dried leaves and earth.

"Chief Tovanna of Hollow Root," she introduced herself, her voice deep and even. She offered a respectful nod to both men, then spared a lingering glance at Raerin, eyes flickering briefly to the foreign strangers gathered behind him.

Raerin rose from his seat and inclined his head. "I am Raerin of Dragon’s Tooth. My people and I are honored by your presence."

Tovanna grunted approvingly. "Word travels fast through these layers. Strangers from the fifth... not many live long enough to claw their way back from there. I thought it worth seeing for myself if the tale was true."

Raerin’s face tightened a little, but he met her gaze with unflinching calm. "It’s no small task," he admitted. "But the path back to one’s own kind is often the hardest."

She nodded. No further words were needed between them. She understood.

It wasn’t long before the second colony arrived, this one heralded by a pair of tall, dark-skinned men carrying spears tipped with shimmering crystal. They parted the tent’s flaps for a slender man with hawk-like features and robes of deep indigo, his face marked with ceremonial ash.

"I am Veorren, chief of Ash Vein colony," the man spoke with crisp, careful diction, as though weighing every syllable before it left his tongue.

Introductions were exchanged, polite but cautious. Raerin could sense the weight of scrutiny in Veorren’s gaze, a man accustomed to hiding daggers behind words, though none unsheathed just yet.

Then, at last, came the third. The final visitor arrived without fanfare — a heavy-set, grizzled man with a thick beard streaked with gray, his armor battered, but his bearing as steady as stone. He offered no ceremonial greeting, only a nod.

"Grath of Stonemarrow," he said simply, his voice like gravel. "I heard strangers walked these lands, and I don’t much care for surprises."

Raerin met the man’s gruffness with a firm clasp of forearms. "A fair instinct. But we mean no harm."

One by one, food and drink were shared, as was custom. It was a mark of civility in these treacherous lands — breaking bread before breaking bones. Conversation eased, though tensions did not vanish. Stories were traded in fragments, each chief revealing just enough to maintain face while keeping deeper motives veiled.

When Raerin spoke of their harrowing descent from the fifth layer, and their struggle to claw their way back up to the first, all three colony chiefs listened intently. Their expressions shifted — Tovanna’s hardened face softened in grim empathy; Veorren’s gaze flickered with something like intrigue; and Grath grunted in reluctant admiration.

"A cursed feat," Grath muttered. "Those below the fourth are forsaken in most of our books."

"And yet here we sit," Raerin said quietly.

After a time, without fanfare, each of the visiting chiefs presented gifts to Raerin’s people. Simple things — bundles of dried meats, medicinal herbs, water skins treated with preservative wax, and a few sets of hide-wrapped footgear for the long journey back down the layers.

"Your path won’t be easy," Tovanna said, pressing a small pouch of bone talismans into Raerin’s palm. "These’ll keep the rot gnats away if you pass through the Bleeding Ravine."

Veorren gifted him a slender, silvered dagger. "An old piece," he said. "Meant for the veins of beasts that don’t die easy."

Grath, predictably, said little, but left a heavy satchel of earthroot powder — precious for treating infected wounds — beside Raerin’s seat before taking his leave.

Raerin accepted every token with both hands, bowing deeply to each in turn.

"I swear," Raerin said, voice low and hoarse with sincerity, "my people will remember this. If fate crosses our paths again, know that you’ll have friends in Dragon’s Tooth... and in the Warring Dragon Colony, should we make it there."

Tovanna raised her drink. "If fate wills it, stranger. If not, then may you find death on your feet, and not your knees."

The other chiefs gave their own parting words, and one by one, they left the great tent, their shadows vanishing into the night.

As the fire dimmed to coals, Raerin remained seated, his fingers absently tracing the bone talismans Tovanna had given him. He felt the weight of the evening’s events settle upon him — the cautious alliances, the unspoken threats, and the quiet kindness of warriors hardened by a land that gave little room for mercy.

Across the tent, Jonan still sat alone, untouched plate of food beside him, eyes lost in the glow of dying embers. He looked... tired. Not just physically, but in a way Raerin recognized too well — the exhaustion of someone carrying the weight of a homeland they could never return to.

Jonan exhaled a breath, watching it fog faintly in the cool night air. His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Dreavows — to its crowded streets, its glittering towers of stone and glass, and the poisoned hearts of those who ruled them. A land where kindness was currency and cruelty an art form. Here, among brutal strangers, he saw more honest humanity in a single evening than he had in years among his own people.

What a bitter thing, Jonan thought, to feel more at home among beasts than men.

And for the first time in months, his chest ached.

Not from wounds or strain.

But from the long-forgotten weight of missing a place... even a flawed one.

Raerin noticed the distant look in Jonan’s eyes and, after a moment’s hesitation, made his way over. He crouched beside the boy, setting a hand lightly on his shoulder.

"Hard night?" Raerin asked softly.

Jonan didn’t look at him, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "Not the first."

Raerin chuckled, leaning back on his heels. "You remind me of my son," he murmured. "Stubborn. Quiet. Too much in his head for his own good."

And then, as if summoned by silent command, the ground around the figure rippled. From the darkness, they came.

Multiple hound-like creatures slunk into view, their forms were a grotesque mockery of nature. Their hides were stretched too thin over their skeletal frames, diseased grey flesh pulling tight against bone, patches of raw muscle exposed and weeping.

Their ribs were jutted outward like blunted blades, and along each creature’s spine, jagged, uneven spikes protruded—like the barbed ridges of some ancient predator.

But it was their faces that truly curdled the blood. Elongated muzzles split wide to reveal cavernous, drooling maws. Tongues, long and pink, lashed the cold air, each one slick with viscous, stringy saliva.