Axel returned to the Abyss without a sound.
No screech of a gate, no tearing of space just a dark flicker in the air that pierced the silence, then vanished.
The first thing that greeted him was the smell.
Not the usual rot that haunted these lower layers, but something closer to old blood, pus, and the breath of a mouth that had devoured life. He raised his head and looked.
The ground was mined with corpses.
Arkanis. Dozens no, hundreds. Severed limbs scattered in the open, chests split, eyes frozen in their final terror. Some bodies were headless, others sliced cleanly in half. And others... had been eaten.
Bite marks. Huge fangs had torn through flesh to the bone. Axel didn't stare long, didn't examine the chaos like someone in shock, but like someone who knew it, lived it or perhaps created it once.
Unrestrained chaos, but…
He thought, stepping away from a corpse still exhaling its final bubble of darkness.
