Abyssal Awakening

She found herself in a river of blood. The iron on her tongue, the stench of death lingering in the air.

"W…why…." A soft voice trembled but the girl didn't listen.

She raised her fist.

*CRACK!!! CRACK!!! CRACK!!!

Repeated blows after blow. She held the young boy in front of her by the neck, punching without stop. Every punch with the desire to kill.

Even when her hands became bloodied, even when the bones protruded out of his face, she didn't stop.

Such was the ritual.

Either she died or he died.

Therefore, she could only ask one thing of him.

"Die for me."

Strangling the last breath of life out of him personally, the girl stood up in the river of blood.

She glanced around her coldly and glanced down at her hands.

Despite the wounds and damage she sustained, she found herself feeling the urge to laugh.

Jumping out from the river of blood, another girl lunged onto her back, biting down hard against her neck and tearing off a piece of flesh.

"Die! DIE!!! WHY DID YOU KILL HIM?!" The young girl shouted with bloodied tears in her eyes.

However, she didn't flinch. Ignoring the wound on her neck, she threw the young girl over her shoulders. Clawing down with her hands, she began to tear the girl apart.

Hunger… An overwhelming sense of hunger dominated her mind.

Hunger for battle, hunger for war, hunger for food.

Food…

Ah… That's right, wasn't there food in front of her? She's been starving for almost a week now. Left to fight for her life in this river of blood.

So what if she takes one, simple, bite.

"Ria!"

"Huh?!" Sitting up in a daze, Ria could see Luke shaking her shoulders while helping her get rid of her cloak.

"You were in the shade for too long." He explained as Ria shielded her eyes and sat in the sun.

Looking up at the sky, she couldn't help but sigh.

"Were you remembering the past?" Luke asked, sitting down near her.

Both of them were saved from the Eclipse thanks to Gin. But between the two of them, it was clear that the incident left a stronger impression on Ria.

"A little. Probably because we're where the Eclipse has influence." Ria sighed, covering her eyes.

"I see…" Luke didn't know what else to say as the past was a sensitive time for Ria.

She always put on a happy and energetic but that was only a mask to hide the past. Granted, that's not to say she wasn't a happy person in general. But every time she thought back to that time, she always lost the smile that usually appeared on her face.

"Don't worry about it. It's only for a moment anyways, I'm sure I'll stop being like this once I leave this place." Ria turned onto her side and chuckled.

"It's not like I'm complaining." Luke shook his head.

It's not exactly something that Ria could disclose to others. And even if she did, she could never fully explain the agony that she had to go through.

The morality that she had to kill within herself at the time in order to survive.

Even if she picked it back up, it was never the same. She can't deny the fact that she did what she did.

How many that she killed.

How many that she… consumed.

Thinking of this, Ria suddenly stood up and ran to the side before throwing up.

Luke patted her back, simply letting her know that someone was beside her.

Someone who understood what she had to go through.

Wiping her mouth with her sleeves, Ria stumbled back and found a spot to sit down.

Looking at the sand, she couldn't help but run her hands through it.

"Do you think… No, it's not even a question. They definitely resent me ahaha…" Ria let out a hollow chuckle as she leaned on Luke.

"Then it's all the more reason for you to dismantle the Eclipse. At least then, there won't be any more like them right?"

Closing her eyes, Ria nodded her head.

Resting for a little while, Ria stood up.

"Alright, that's enough moping around. Can't dismantle the Eclipse if I'm just depressed about what happened in the past right? We still have a week or so before the Eclipse period. Since we keep looping back to this place, let's map out the terrain a little." Ria put on a brave front as Luke simply smiled.@@novelbin@@

"Alright. But I'll take the lead this time. At least then, it'll be easier for us to keep track of our footsteps."

Standing up, Luke pulled out a strange tool from his pouch. A product of Abyssal Engineering that helps with making maps and marking out their footsteps.

One that is usually used for escaping a forest or a labyrinth.

Following behind Luke, Ria tried her best to distract herself from her thoughts of the past.

###

Sitting not far from a waterfall, Jin could be seen with his legs crossed.

He had his eyes closed while a pair of chain blades rested on his lap.

'Focus…'

He could feel the wind brushing past his skin, the floral scent of flowers and tree leaves, the sounds of the waterfall colliding against the river.

The world was a tangled mess of the senses. Countless sounds in conflict for dominance, a myriad of smells fighting for supremacy.

He only had one job.

That one job being to spot the anomaly within this array of inputs. Even the slightest disturbance needed to be focused on and analysed.

The movement of bugs, swaying of the grass.

Anything that disturbs this… 'natural' rhythm must be accounted for.

*DING!!!

His arm flinched as a single chain whipped up, colliding against a needle that was aimed at his back.

Despite the successful block, he didn't show a single reaction. He knew that it was far from over.

Thanks to Alyss creating a new set of marital arts that fused pieces of the Eclipse Reaver with other attacks, it was far easier for him to tap into this 'instinct' that has been engraved onto his body.

All that was left now was for him to fully embrace it, to control it.

'There are three steps to establishing the Zone. I've completed the first step of sensory.' Jin thought to himself, trying his best to maintain this calm state.

This stillness of mind.

The second requirement of the Zone was for him to understand his maximum reaction range.

Once an attack has breached his sensory range, how far does it have to travel for him to be able to react to it in time?

What if there were multiple projectiles or attacks? How much time does he have to digest and react to the oncoming danger?

Right now, his detection range was around 8 meters. It wasn't big by any standards nor was it small. But the concern was his reaction range. It kept fluctuating between 4 meters to 7 meters.

Sometimes he'll be too late to react whereas sometimes it just comes to him naturally.

By keeping himself in a focused state, Jin wanted to achieve a state of consistency. He wanted to use his muscle memories to help him establish a range.

The third step, which was probably the easiest step, was the Counter range. How much time he needed to unleash an attack to offset the danger approaching him.

His zone was incomplete but in a 3 meter radius around Jin, there was a faint boundary that could be sensed if one was proficient with the Zone.

If he could sort out the issue with his reaction range, which was simply a case of experience and digesting the knowledge, he would be able to expand his Zone.

But as of now, Jin has yet to succeed.

An incomplete Zone that was above the level of a simple weapon domain. Find more chapters on My Virtual Library Empire

That was his current level.

Twirling the blades around him, Jin managed to block a few more needles before freezing up.

One of the needles had breached his defences during his counter and embedded itself into his shoulder before turning into a mist, numbing and paralysing his entire body.

"Hmm… You managed to survive 7 waves again. Seems like this is your bottleneck for now." Alice muttered, appearing near Jin as she retrieved the blood mist, freeing him from the paralysis.

"Seven again? You're joking right?" Jin sighed in frustration while Alice shook her head.

"Nope, you can count for yourself. I think there's a limit to how much you can get from me and Alyss since even if we're… Training you thoroughly, a part of us is still holding back.

"We don't want you to die after all, that would only benefit the Eclipse." Alice shrugged while Jin wanted to throw a rock at the girl.

After all, her definition of 'holding back' was simply not killing him. Sending him to a state of near death was perfectly fine by her definition. At this point, he lost count of how many times he almost crossed the bridge of no return.

"So what now then? Do you want me to go kill a bunch of bandits or something?" Jin asked, putting his shirt back on.

After all, his Zone was still incomplete. He needed to maximise the sensory inputs he's receiving in order to reach the requirement for the first step.

Now that he was experiencing this personally, it simply baffles him to no end on how Alice was even able to tap into this state so easily.

"Something along those lines. The Sovereign sects must've been anxious waiting for us to show up. I think we shouldn't keep them waiting, it'll be quite rude after all." Alice grinned as she figured she spent enough time giving Jin some one to one training.

During this time, Alyss had fully digested everything she had learned up to this point. She wanted to test out her findings on a worthy opponent as soon as possible and the best candidates were the leaders of the Sovereign sects or the Demon Extermination Squad leader.