The dungeon spat Drax out in a ripple of dark mist, the abyssal residue rolling off his coat like smoke. His breath was still rough—heat still thrummed beneath his skin from devouring the Dungeon Lord's essence. The creature's screaming madness, its twisted final act of self-slaughter, still echoed in the back of his skull.
Pathetic thing… devoured by its own gluttony.
The morning light outside was painfully bright.
And waiting for him—right at the brink of the portal—was Adam Veyr and three elite hunters from the Obsidian Crest Guild. Their armor gleamed. Their weapons hummed with enchantments.
But none of that mattered.
Adam's jaw tightened when he saw who emerged.
"So it was you," Adam hissed, stepping forward. "The runt who killed my brother."
Drax just blinked slowly, almost bored.
"Kane killed himself," he said. "I simply outlived him."
One of Adam's hunters snarled, "You've been a dead man since the moment you stepped out."
They moved—to surround him, to pounce, to cash in the 300 million credit bounty—but Drax didn't even reach for a weapon.
Instead…
Something behind his eyes shifted.
A cold, tidal sensation rose from the deepest pit of his inner world.
The Endless Black Sea churned.
The colossal red moon towering in the abyss shuddered…
And opened.
Drax's pupils thinned into razor slits—identical to the moon's single, unblinking gaze. His irises bled into a crimson glow, swallowing the whites of his eyes entirely.
ABYSSAL EYES — AWAKENED
Adam stepped back instinctively.
"What… the hell are your eyes—?"
The moment they met Drax's gaze—
—they were no longer standing in the real world.
Adam and his three hunters crashed to their knees as reality inverted. The sky above was a twisting, bruised swirl of black and red. The ground was cold, pulsing like living flesh. And towering over everything was the Giant Black Tree, its countless tendrils writhing like they were sniffing them.
And above it all…
The Red Moon, fully open, staring down with a slit pupil that seemed to pierce directly into their souls.
Their thoughts began to unravel instantly.
"What… what is… why can't I breathe—?!"
"My mind—my mind—MY MIND—!!"
"Make it stop—please—please—PLEASE—"
Adam tried to stand, veins bursting in his neck, but the moment he looked up, the moon seemed to speak directly into his skull:
K N E E L .
And he did.
His team began to scream—high, broken, animalistic sounds. Two of them clawed at their faces. One started banging his head against the ground.
Adam's vision blurred, brain fracturing under the weight.
This… this is not a human… this thing… this thing isn't—
And then—
A voice cut through the nightmare like a blade of white light.
"Drax! ENOUGH!"
Tessa stood between them, her inner world flaring in a surge of blue-green light that ripped the connection apart.
The abyss snapped shut.
Adam and his hunters collapsed onto the dirt, unconscious—though "unconscious" was generous. Their minds were shattered, eyes twitching, foam gathering at the corners of their mouths.
Tessa turned to Drax, chest rising and falling sharply.
"What were you doing?!" she hissed. "You can't kill an S-rank hunter! Do you have any idea what that would start?"
Drax's eyes slowly returned to normal, the red glow fading.
"They were planning to kill me," he said simply.
"I know," Tessa shot back, "but letting them die inside your inner world? That's worse, Drax. The hunter nations would declare war on you."
He shrugged.
"They walked into the abyss. I didn't push them."
Tessa pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You're impossible… and terrifying."
Drax stepped past her, brushing off dust from his shoulder.
"Tessa."
She stiffened.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
She froze—caught off guard. "You… really…?"
He smirked. "You stopped me from cleaning up the trash. I guess that's something."
Tessa glared, torn between outrage and the faintest pink thawing on her cheeks.
"You need better hobbies," she muttered.
"Working on it."
He walked away, the air behind him still trembling with leftover abyssal pressure.
Behind them, Adam Veyr twitched violently on the ground—his mind still trapped in the image of the red moon's stare.
And somewhere deep inside the abyss…
The moon blinked.