Hounds of the Abyss: The Last Choice to Protect Paradise
At the very bottom of the Abyss, there is a door that nobody knows about. It leads to the 'bottom' of the world. Guarding this door are twin hounds with fluffy white hair: Fuwawa and Mococo. Fuwawa, the elder sister, has calm aqua eyes; Mococo, the younger, has sparkling pink eyes and boundless energy. Every day, they drive away 'those who wander in' from outside the Abyss. That was their job. That was their mission. One day, a girl named Lily is found collapsed at the entrance of the Abyss. She
Hounds of the Abyss: The Last Choice to Protect Paradise - Waves of Nihility: The Blood-Soaked Left Arm, the Unbroken Bond, the Isolated Hound
The pale blue glow of the luminous moss cast a quiet light across the cavern walls.
The White Hollow. The home base of Fuwawa Abyssgard and Mococo Abyssgard. It sat in one corner of the cave network that spread from the Gate of Narva—the entrance to the Abyss. The mosslight on the walls was the only illumination in this underground place where day and night blurred into one.
Fuwawa stood over the two sleeping forms on the bed.
Mococo was asleep, her arms wrapped around Lily. Her sister's short white hair mingled with Lily's pale blonde, shimmering faintly under the glowing moss. Mococo's sleeping face was utterly defenseless, her lips slightly slack. Lily, too, breathed softly and peacefully within Mococo's embrace.
(...It's already so late.)
Fuwawa exhaled quietly.
Gran Duskwalker's declaration sat heavy in the depths of her chest.
*Dispose of the Vessel of the Key. Otherwise, you are unfit to be a Hound.*
The back of her left hand throbbed with a small, sharp pain. The Brand of the Contract's Fang. The mark of a Hound, inherited from her mother.
Fuwawa picked up her Spear of Light. A weapon generated from a Hound's soul. When she gripped it, a pale blue light leaked from between her fingers. That light illuminated the faces of the two sleeping girls for just a moment.
(Mococo... Lily...)
She turned her feet toward the depths of the cavern.
—The lowest level of the Abyss. To the Door of the End.
The darkness of the Abyss was deeper and heavier than any night on the surface.
Fuwawa descended through the layers of Narva Grandis, relying only on the faint glow of her Spear of Light. The first layer, the second, the third—the paths she walked on patrol were empty now. The goblins and orcs had sensed a Hound's presence and held their breath.
When she reached the fourth layer, the air changed.
Cold. And sweet. Like rotting flowers, yet resembling the smell of blood—an aura of void.
Fuwawa's long white hair swayed softly in the windless cavern.
(Close.)
She stopped and readied her spear.
As she descended through the fifth and sixth layers, the ancient patterns carved into the walls began to flicker faintly. They were warnings linked to the seal of the Door of the End, readable only by the Hound clan.
—Seal, unstable. Erosion, expanding.
Fuwawa's water-blue eyes shone cold as ice.
"...Far sooner than expected."
She stood at the entrance to the seventh layer.
The deepest chamber, where the Door of the End waited. The place only Hounds were permitted to enter.
Fuwawa took a step forward.
The seventh layer didn't even have luminous moss.
There was only darkness. And the Door of the End.
Roughly three meters tall, a meter and a half wide. A door of unknown material stood alone in the deepest reaches of the Abyss. Countless patterns were carved into its surface, each one emitting a faint, pale light.
But that light had clearly weakened.
Fuwawa stood before the door.
The Brand on the back of her left hand burned—past pain, into searing heat.
"...Lily's influence reaches even here."
She regripped her Spear of Light with both hands. She would reinforce the seal with this spear. That was her duty.
—But.
That was when it happened.
*Rumble...*
A sound came from beyond the door.
Something was knocking from the inside.
Fuwawa's breath stopped for an instant.
*Rumble... Rumble...*
The sound grew steadily louder. The patterns on the door's surface flickered violently. The pale blue light turned to a dark, crimson red.
"It's coming...!"
Fuwawa thrust her Spear of Light toward the door.
"—Seal it!"
Water-blue light poured from the spear's tip, flowing into the door's patterns. The light of reinforcement. The power to push the seal back from within.
But.
*Crack.*
A fissure ran through the cavern wall.
Fuwawa turned toward the sound.
*Crack, crack, crack!*
Countless fractures spidered across the wall. And from the gaps in those cracks—
Black tentacles seeped out.
Hands of the Void.
Black, tentacle-like entities that oozed from the bottom of the Abyss. Formless, they devoured the memories and existence of whatever they touched. The enemy the Hounds fought against for all eternity.
Fuwawa pulled her Spear of Light from the door and leveled it at the tentacles.
"...So you've come out."
Her voice was calm. But her fingertips trembled slightly.
The more she used the Spear of Light for battle, the weaker the seal became. If she sealed, she couldn't fight.
—Fight, and the seal weakens. Seal, and she cannot fight.
Fuwawa now faced that structural contradiction head-on.
The tentacles stretched slowly toward her.
One, two, three—
They poured from the cracks in the wall, one after another. Every tip was aimed at Fuwawa.
"...Come, then."
Fuwawa swung her Spear of Light.
Water-blue light split the darkness.
*Slash!*
One tentacle was severed. Black mist scattered into the air.
But from the severed end, new tentacles grew.
*Slash! Slash! Slash!*
Fuwawa kept swinging. The water-blue light traced arcs through the darkness. Tentacles were cut down one after another, vanishing into black mist.
But there were too many.
This was incomparable to the small-scale seepages she had dealt with before.
Tentacles poured endlessly from the cracks in the wall.
(At this rate...)
Fuwawa gritted her teeth.
Should she use the Spear of Light to reinforce the seal, or to fight?
Choose one, and the other would collapse.
(If I use the Contract's Fang...)
The Brand on the back of her left hand flickered.
The Contract's Fang. The power to devour the memories of a target's existence and return them to the void. But using it consumed her own memories as the price.
For her, who had already lost part of her mother's memories, any further cost was unbearable.
(But at this rate...)
The tentacles closed in on Fuwawa's feet.
She planted her Spear of Light into the floor and chose to continue reinforcing the seal.
Water-blue light flowed into the door's patterns.
But the tentacles didn't stop.
(Complete restoration is... impossible.)
Fuwawa applied only emergency measures, then pulled the spear free.
"...I have no choice but to retreat."
She began running back the way she had come.
The tentacles pursued her.
Fuwawa raced up through the layers of the Abyss.
The sixth layer, the fifth, the fourth—
The tentacles chased her endlessly.
A black wave crawled along the cavern walls, covered the ceiling, filled the floor.
(Just a little further to the White Hollow...)
Fuwawa ignored the burning in her lungs and kept running.
When she reached the third layer, she noticed something wrong.
Part of the tentacles had overtaken her, stretching in a different direction.
The passage leading to the White Hollow.
The path to the bed where Mococo and Lily slept.
"...I won't let you!"
Fuwawa changed direction, running to cut off the tentacles.
Her heart pounded violently.
(Mococo...!)
The entrance to the White Hollow came into view.
In that instant—
The tentacles broke through the cavern wall, tracing a trajectory toward the bed.
Fuwawa reflexively threw herself in front of them.
She thrust her left arm forward like a shield.
"Don't you—touch Mococo!!"
*Slash.*
The tentacle carved deep into Fuwawa's left arm.
Fresh blood sprayed.
"—!!"
Fuwawa's face twisted with pain, but she didn't fall.
Blood dripped from her left arm.
That wound—
It was in exactly the same place as the old scar carved into her when she had pulled eight-year-old Mococo up from the frozen cliff.
*Flashback.*
A rainy day. A frozen cliff.
Eight-year-old Mococo slipped and fell from the cliff's edge.
"Big Sister—!!"
A small hand desperately tried to grab Fuwawa's.
Fuwawa leaned out and caught it.
But she cut her own left arm deeply on a sharp rock.
Pain. Bleeding.
Even so, she didn't let go of her sister's hand.
She pulled her up. Desperately. With all her strength.
And she lifted Mococo onto the top of the cliff.
"Big Sister... Big Sister...!"
Mococo was sobbing.
Fuwawa held her sister with her blood-soaked left arm.
"...It's all right. Mococo."
—The wound from that day now ran open again in the same place, as a fresh gash.
Fuwawa stared at her bleeding left arm.
(...I'm not fighting for justice or for the law.)
She became clearly aware of the depths of her own heart for the first time.
(I'm just completely dominated—body and soul—by the fear of losing my sister.)
Blood dripped to the floor.
*Drip. Drip.*
Fuwawa regripped her Spear of Light with her blood-soaked left hand.
The tentacles seemed to react to the smell of her blood and had stopped moving.
But soon, they began to move again.
Fuwawa retreated into the White Hollow.
Inside the White Hollow.
Fuwawa leaned against the wall, breathing raggedly.
The wound on her left arm was deep. The bleeding wouldn't stop.
She tore the hem of her clothes and wrapped it around the wound.
The white cloth turned red before her eyes.
(Mococo... Lily...)
Fuwawa looked toward the bed.
The two were still asleep.
The presence of the tentacles had reached the entrance of the White Hollow and stopped.
For now, they were still safe.
But it was only a matter of time.
That was when—
"...You're safe, Fuwawa."
A low, dignified voice.
Fuwawa raised her head.
An aged Hound stood there.
Gran Duskwalker. The patriarch of the Hound clan. The previous generation's brother. Hair that had once been white was now tinged with gray. His long white hair, flowing down his back, swayed in the cavern air. His left eye was gold, his right water-blue. Rumor said one had been devoured by the void. The old scars covering the left half of his face told the weight of his life. He stood a hundred and eighty-five centimeters tall. He always leaned on a cane, but when it came to it, he could fight without it.
"...Lord Gran."
Fuwawa tried to straighten her back, but the pain in her left arm made her grimace.
Gran looked alternately at Fuwawa's injured left arm and at Mococo and Lily sleeping in the back.
"...You cut that same place again."
Fuwawa nodded silently.
Gran spoke slowly.
"Thirty years ago, my twin sister became a Vessel of the Key."
Fuwawa's breath stopped.
"I followed the law and devoured my sister with my own hands. With the Contract's Fang, I returned the memories of her existence to the void."
Gran's voice was heavy as stone, echoing through the cavern.
"At the end, my sister smiled. ...She said, 'Kill me.'"
Gran's gold and water-blue eyes gazed into the distance.
"Since then, I could only hold myself together by treating the law as absolute. Don't be swayed by emotion. The law is the law. I told myself that, and I've lived thirty years that way."
Gran faced Fuwawa directly.
"Fuwawa. Do you want to protect your sister? Or do you want to protect the world?"
Fuwawa couldn't answer.
Her blood-soaked left hand trembled.
"If you leave the Vessel of the Key alone, you, Mococo, and the world will all end. Whichever you choose, you will lose something forever."
Gran's words pierced deep into Fuwawa's heart.
"...I..."
Fuwawa's voice was hoarse.
That was when—
"...If I weren't here."
A fragile voice echoed through the cavern.
Fuwawa and Gran looked toward the voice.
Lily had risen from the bed.
Her pale blonde hair, close to silver, gleamed under the luminous moss as if wet with rain. Her deep purple eyes were moist with tears. Her slender body trembled faintly. She clutched the Arca Fragment at her chest with both hands.
"Every time I get closer to the Abyss... this stone grows hot... and it resonates with the Brand on your left hand, Fuwawa..."
Lily's voice came in broken fragments.
"As long as I'm here... the seal keeps wavering... If I weren't here..."
Lily gripped the stone at her chest tightly.
"If I... weren't here, would that be better...?"
Those words meant that Lily herself had begun to accept that she was something to be disposed of.
Fuwawa saw in Lily
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