Chapter 99: The Pit

The lead had arrived through Alouis’s continued intelligence work, a half-forgotten Imperial survey reference to a location deep in the outer sectors, a vast, ancient chasm the old records simply called the Pit, flagged centuries ago with warnings similar to those surrounding the sealed convergence point, a place from which nothing that fell within ever returned.

“It’s mentioned in the same era of records as the convergence point,” Alouis explained during the hastily arranged briefing. “Different phenomenon, but possibly connected or maybe. If the Remnant’s Phase Three involves something tied to these ancient, sealed locations, I thought it was worth investigating immediately, before their forty-eight hours expire.”

But this stubborn ren had insisted on going himself, old instinct toward direct understanding overriding his own continued exhaustion from the recent delivery, and Reven and Yegard had both argued fiercely against it, old protective fear warring against the urgency of the ticking clock, until a separate, simultaneous crisis, a fresh Remnant movement detected near the Capital’s southern border, pulled both men away at the exact same critical hour, leaving Ren to travel with only a modest security escort and Alouis herself.

“This…This feels very wrong,” Ren admitted, studying the Pit’s jagged, forbidding edge from a safe distance, the chasm stretching down into impenetrable darkness that seemed to swallow even the light from their scanning equipment. “I really don’t like that both of them are gone right now.”

“The border movement needed immediate response,” Alouis said, though something uneasy had settled into her own expression as well. “We’ll be quick. In and out, just enough scanning to understand what we’re actually dealing with and nothing else.”

The attack came without warning, the surrounding rock formations erupting with sudden, violent motion as a dozen creatures tore free from concealment, nothing like the monsters Ren had encountered before, something twisted and wrong about their movement, as though whatever had shaped them had drawn on considerably darker forces than ordinary interstellar wildlife.

“These aren’t natural,” Ren said, already summoning his blade, old instinct sharpening despite his lingering exhaustion. “Someone made these.”

The security escort engaged immediately, and Ren fought alongside them with fierce, desperate focus, old training carrying him through strike after strike despite his body’s continued recovery from the delivery weeks earlier. But the creatures kept coming, relentless and coordinated in a way that felt deliberately, horribly planned, and Ren felt cold understanding crash through him even as he fought.

“This is a trap,” he shouted to Alouis, parrying a vicious strike. “They knew we’d come here.”

“Fall back toward the transport,” Alouis ordered, her own blade cutting through one of the creatures with brutal efficiency even as two more replaced it.

Ren turned to retreat, and that was when the largest of the creatures broke through the security line entirely, moving with terrible, calculated speed directly toward him, and he barely had time to raise his blade before the impact crashed into him, considerably more force than the creature’s size should have allowed.

He felt himself stagger, felt the ground give way beneath his feet where the Pit’s crumbling edge had been weakened by the chaos of battle, and then there was nothing beneath him at all, only the terrible, endless dark rushing up to swallow him whole.

“Ren!” Alouis’s scream tore through the air, raw and desperate, but it was already too late, the darkness closing over him completely as he fell, the world narrowing to nothing but cold, rushing air and the terrible, growing certainty that this was it, this was finally, genuinely the end.

He didn’t feel himself land. He simply stopped existing, consciousness and breath and the warm, steady pulse of the Fate Bond all extinguishing at once, severed so completely and so suddenly that it felt less like death and more like simply ceasing to have ever been there at all.

Three star systems away, Reven felt it before any message could possibly reach him, a violent, catastrophic absence tearing through his chest where the Fate Bond’s warm, constant presence had always lived, and he collapsed mid-stride, a terrible, wordless sound tearing from his throat as Yegard caught him, already feeling the same horrifying void crash through his own chest in perfect, devastating synchronization.

“Ren,” Yegard gasped, the name barely audible through his own overwhelming shock. “Reven, I can’t feel him. I can’t feel him at all.”

Reven couldn’t properly answer, grief and horror crashing through him with such overwhelming force that coherent speech felt entirely impossible, old certainty collapsing into something he couldn’t properly process, couldn’t properly survive.

Alouis’s transmission reached them minutes later, her voice raw and broken, confirming the horror their own bodies had already, impossibly told them. “He’s gone,” she said, barely able to form the words. “He fell, into the Pit, I couldn’t reach him in time, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Reven barely heard the rest, grief and rage crashing together into something vast and consuming, and he was already moving, old military discipline the only thing holding him upright as he issued commands with a voice that didn’t sound entirely like his own.

“Full recovery operation,” he said, each word costing him something enormous. “I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care what resources it requires. I want that location secured, and I want answers.”

Elsewhere, in a place carved deep into rock and shadow, far beyond any sensor’s reach, a figure watched a small display with cold, clinical satisfaction, the image showing Ren’s still, lifeless form, recovered from the Pit’s depths by means no ordinary rescue team could have possibly managed.

“Phase Three is complete,” the figure said, something satisfied and terrible in their quiet observation. “Exactly as planned.”

A subordinate stepped forward, something careful in their posture. “And the body, sir?”

The figure’s gaze didn’t shift from the display, something ancient and patient settling into their expression. “Bring his body,” they said simply. “We have considerable work ahead of us, and very little time to properly begin it.”