Echoes of the Abyssal Blade: Path to Free Will-Chapter 77: Entering The Abyssal Ruins

Jonan felt palpitations when he was at the entrance of The Abyssal Ruins. He had tried finding out about it as much as he could, and he trained as much as he could, but now he had to enter it and find The Greatest Opportunity.

Surprisingly, before Jonan could raise his leg to enter the ruin, the entrance flared with a menacing purplish hue, and it blinded him, without even checking the surroundings, he could tell that something was happening to his surroundings.

In real time, that sinister light coiled around Jonan, swallowing him whole, his figure vanishing as though he’d never been there.

Miles away, Rhydian moved.

A streak of motion against the dark, he appeared where the light had risen only moments ago. He surveyed the trembling earth, the way the trees whispered of trespass, and drew a scroll from his coat. His fingers moved in practiced, elegant strokes as he recorded the event in cold, efficient language; no words were wasted.

As though his gaze grew sharper, he felt a stir about him.

An old man, bent with age, leaning on a crooked stick almost muttering nonsense to himself, had unrepentant glints of greed in his eyes as he slowly shuffled into the last rays of light that still emanated scorching heat in the air.

"That light... such brilliance," the old fool rasped. "A treasure for sure. I don’t have the strength to claim it, but I can report it to the city... I may get a reward... golden coins, yes, yes..."

He never finished his next thought.

Rhydian’s hand clamped over his mouth from behind, he was quick and merciless. The old man barely had time to widen his eyes before Rhydian’s other hand twisted his neck with a sharp, wet crack. A pitiful gasp left his lips before his frail body sagged to the dirt, and went lifeless.

Without a word, Rhydian dropped the corpse and stepped deeper into the land, his predatory senses sweeping the surroundings. Two herb gatherers, young men barely old enough to shave, knelt by a patch of flowering roots a little too close to the ruin’s periphery.

They didn’t even see him coming.

Two swift, clean strikes were landed on them, there was not even a time for pleas or terror. The world was already dangerous, but today, for them, it had grown crueler still.

Rhydian’s gaze, shadowed and cold, scanned the blood-darkened soil as he whispered to no one but himself, his voice heavy with conviction and sorrow.

"None of you are wrong... but all of you were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. We cannot risk His Highness’s sacred mission for the young master."

He cleaned his blade, its surface catching the final embers of the ruin’s light, and disappeared into the treeline.

On the other side of the continent, in the fortress of the Starfall family...

A hero’s stronghold, one no one would dare challenge, the Starfall fortress stood defiant against their greatest enemies to this day. Its walls, carved out of stone, towered high and wore the scars of countless wars and the residual chill of endless dead. Even the air inside felt thicker, as though weighted with unseen eyes and unspoken compacts.

In a chamber far from prying ears, two figures sat amidst the flickering glow of cold-flame braziers. The air carried a faint tang of iron and incense.

Draven Starfall stood like a statue come to life, tall, lean, his silver hair falling around his shoulders like a shroud of moonlight. His eyes, dark and fathomless, reflected a map suspended midair, constellations shifting with every pulse of unseen forces. A man who bent not to fate, but bent fate to him.

Opposite him lounged Lenaia, crimson-robed and sharp as broken glass. Beauty and menace coiled in her every motion, and her gaze could skin a man alive. She watched the map with equal intensity, tapping an obsidian nail against the arm of her chair.

"Jonan’s inside," Lenaia murmured, her voice a blend of silk and steel. "Rhydian cleaned the perimeter. No witnesses were left breathing."

Draven gave a single, slow nod and sighed.

"This is the most I can do for you, my son."

Lenaia’s eyes gleamed, a predator catching the scent of blood. "You’re too hopeful for him? Except for that one lord, no one has ever gotten The Greatest Opportunity." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Draven’s gaze didn’t leave the shifting map. "We can never know, The Abyssal Ruins are something even we don’t understand, it’s a pity we cannot enter it, as for Jonan, I do not know why, but I have a feeling that we will get to see something."

"And if it kills him?"

A flicker of uncertainty passed through Draven’s expression, so brief it might have been a trick of the light.

"Then he was never meant to be. And we begin again."

But his voice carried less conviction this time, and Lenaia noticed.

Before another word could be traded, a knock came. Quiet, but precise.

"Enter."

A woman stepped through. The temperature in the room seemed to dip at her arrival.

Freya Starfall.

Black hair like liquid night, violet-glimmer eyes that held storms barely contained. Power radiated from her like heat off scorched stone, though she moved with the grace of a predator at rest.

"Grandfather. Lenaia." She bowed her head, not too low, never too low. Not here.

Draven’s mouth quirked into something like a smile. "I didn’t expect you, Freya."

"I wouldn’t disturb you unless it mattered," she replied, voice steady but carrying the undertone of something raw beneath. "I need guidance."

Draven gestured. "Speak."

Freya sat. Her back was straight, hands clenched against her thighs.

"I broke through, again."

The words were simple. Their weight was not.

Draven arched a brow. "Beyond Mortal Ascension? You were already straddling the edge of legend."

"I believe..." she drew a breath. "I believe my strength is now comparable to a Grade Seven Abomination."

The air in the room thickened. Even Lenaia stilled, a flicker of rare surprise breaking her mask.

"Explain," Draven ordered.

Freya’s throat worked as she recalled it.

"It was a dream, or maybe it was a memory. I stood in a world ruined by fire and void, a voice spoke to me, it said... ’You are the final blade. The dawn must be carved from your blade.’ And when I woke... my body had changed."

Draven’s face hardened, his obsidian gaze narrowing.

"The Voice of the First Blade."

Lenaia’s expression turned grim. "hmm, It’s good that you are getting stronger."

"It seems your bloodline has awakened, it’s good that you have become stronger," Draven murmured to himself. "If I had known about Freya before, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to get that damn dragon’s heart and blood, and had to plan such such ominous thing, well we can only see it to the end."

Freya’s words settled into the chamber like a stone dropped into deep water — ripples unseen but inevitable. The faint flicker of the cold-flame braziers cast shadows that swayed like phantoms, their light struggling against the sudden heaviness in the room.

Freya sat rigid, her breath slow but controlled. She hated showing uncertainty, but there was a weight on her shoulders now, a tight coil inside her chest that hadn’t loosened since she’d awoken from that accursed vision. Her fingers tightened against her thigh.

"Grandfather," she said quietly, her voice a low note in the heavy air, "what does this mean for me?"

Draven Starfall regarded her in silence for a long moment. The flickering map’s glow reflected off his obsidian eyes, giving him a cold, almost inhuman glimmer. He exhaled through his nose, the sound more an expression of thought than weariness.

"You’ve crossed a threshold few in history have approached," Draven said finally, his voice like iron wrapped in silk. "Most climb through cultivation paths, refine their spirit, body, and bloodline to break mortal chains. But you — you were chosen."

His gaze sharpened, as if to pierce through the marrow of her bones.

"That dream you had was not a delusional one. The Voice of the First Blade speaks only to those who stand on the edge of awakening their bloodline. What stirs within you now..." he gestured, his fingers slicing through the air, "...can be the beginning of your ruin or your ascension."

Freya’s jaw flexed. "I need to know what I’m becoming."

Lenaia chuckled softly at that, a dark, mirthless sound that danced against the oppressive air.

"We’re all becoming something, girl," she murmured, tipping her head back against the high-backed chair. "Some of us monsters, others celestials, and there are also those who become those horrific beings. It’s the nature of this world."

Draven sharply looked at her, silencing her.

Freya didn’t bother to focus, as she had her own plans in her mind, "Grandfather, I will go to the frontline, with my strength now I can even resist a Monarch."

Draven looked solemn, but he nodded and said, "Yeah, your strength is already at the forefront of all the geniuses, there is no need to hide your strength anymore, you can openly attack now."