Into the breach

When David opened his eyes, he was in a strange 'tunnel' made of different colors. There were a lot of things traveling beside him at different speeds, some objects were as fast as a bullet, while others were slower than him. But there was only one thing that remained at his speed just a couple of meters in front of him: The shadow man, his sword was still piercing his chest, and he was visibly struggling to summon his dark flames.

[You have entered a space rift!]

[While you travel inside the space channel, you cannot use mana nor spiritual force!]

[Beware of flying objects!]

[2:58 left to exit space channel]

-I need to kill him before we arrive!- he quickly calmed down and formulated a plan while his enemy was still in confusion.

A car passed beside him, and he used it as a springboard to reach for the sword, but his hand got grabbed at the last second and threw him against a building. He broke a window but grabbed the frame at the last second.

"Well well well, this little vermin got too high-up, let me end your life!" he grabbed the sword in his chest and tried to ignite it instinctively, but nothing came out, he snorted and tried to reach him by jumping from a passing wall.

David dodged to his left with a roll as the sword pierced the frail wall, he tried to evade a few more times but got a few more wounds on his already broken body. Parts of him began to turn into ash with every attack, but before the last strike, the man dodged instead of attacking, David was confused, but soon the answer came.

He got hit by a skeleton traveling at roughly 80 km/hr. His upper half got brutally separated from his bottom half just before the whole body turned into ash. His soul tried to remain in touch with the bones, as he forcefully possessed the body.

[You have used Possession under the pressure of a space channel]

[Possesion will end when the pressure from space channel loosens]

A pale blue flame erupted from the chest of the skeleton, and two little embers lighted up in his eye sockets, he showed his middle finger towards the shocked man, who gritted his teeth and catapulted himself towards David.

They started to brawl in the middle of the channel, throwing punches at each other and cracking their vessels in the process, some of the debris from the building started to accelerate and pierced them in various places, including some of David's ribs.

The fight made them accelerate as well, and they started to catch up to some smaller objects, one of them was David's S&W. David headbutted him and used his body as a springboard to reach the gun. He shot once against the man. However, the projectile resumed the flow of the channel, piercing everything in its path.

"Seems like your little toy doesn't work" the man chuckled and readied the sword again, David didn't throw away the gun and instead used it as a 'club.'

[00:30]

[00:29]

[00:28]

The tickling counter was at a corner of David's interface. But he didn't pay any heed to it. He used the handle to break the jaw of the man and received an impact on his ribs, destroying some of them. Both of them got filled with cracks, and some of their "pieces" were far ahead in the channel, the brawl entered a critical state were it could be decided by a precise strike.

The rhythm broke by the appearance of the man's scythe, who smirked and tried to push away his enemy. But by doing so, David noticed the weapon flying towards him and grabbed it with his free hand before he could. He tried to decapitate him, but the man threw away the sword to grab the scythe, smirking at David.

"You will die when we left this place, you know?" A blinding light appeared not far from them, signaling the end of the tunnel.

[00:10]

"I'm sure of that. You will eat my soul if I don't kill you."

[00:06]

"Foolish answer." he started to laugh as they neared the exit, and his black flames started to engulf him and the scythe.

[00:03]

"Foolish man." he aimed the gun at the man's head and pulled the trigger, piercing his head and turning his body in ash.

[You have exited the space rift!]

[Welcome to Niflheim's third layer: The Abyss!]

The rift closed when both of them passed and crashed a couple of meters apart from each other. Thankfully, nothing exploded even after the crash.

David ignored the notifications and possessed the skeleton and grabbed his sword from the ground. When he felt a suction force coming in front of him, he started to run towards it and discovered a weak pitch-black soul trying to devour him. He stabbed it with the sword without question, and the blade swallowed it.

"PHEW...I don't know how I've lived this long, thank you, God." he laughed and dropped to the floor. The rift a couple of meters in front of him vanished shortly after like it never existed, and everything went silent. Just then, he looked at the notifications.

[You are currently in Niflheim's Third layer: The Abyss, a place for the pathless souls to rot for eternity]

[You got tainted by the Abyss' aura, and received a permanent debuff: Curse of The Abyss]

[You can no longer leave The Abyss]

[Congratulations! you have killed Meiyerditch, from the Soul Devourer path!]

[Spiritual force 54 (+10)]

[You have gained 100 XP!]

[Congratulations! you have killed a foe above your realm!]

[You have gained 100 Bonus XP!]

[You have leveled up!]

[Spiritual force: 64 (+10)]

[Mana: 30 (+10)

[You Have leveled up!]

[Spiritual force: 74 (+10)

[Mana: 40 (+10)]

[At this point, you may choose a path.]

[Your actions and affinities affect your options, choose wisely.]

"...Wow...that's a lot to take in" He sat down, and properly examined the information, sent a message to Kevin saying that he was fine and looked at his sword, there was a little black ember orbiting it that formed a face in agony sometimes. "Who's the little vermin now?" he chuckled a few times and then looked at his surroundings.

He was in a cave made of red stones, purple crystals gave off a faint light, and there was purple miasma permeating the air, he ignored the gas and stood up to stretch a little, "let's choose a path before exploring, i don't want to be anyone's dinner soon."

-I want to select a path-

[Paths available]

[Golemancy branch (Magic)]:

- Elemental magic path (v)

+ Basic path that specializes in the four main elements.

- Metal bending path

+ Specialization in metal magic and its properties.

- Ice magic path

+ Specialization in ice and water magic.

- Magical engineering path

+ The study of magic through science and rational experimentation.

- Dice magician path

+ The study of magic centered around probability and luck.

[Mechanical path (technology)]:

- Mecha pilot

+ Basic path that specialized in piloting mechanical robots efficiently.

- Mechanic

+ The study of mechanics at a deeper level, letting the user build and customize machines.

- Ship captain

+ Special training to become the captain of a ship.

- Djinn path

+ Combination of magic and technology to create robots with magic circuits.

- Ice titan path

+ Specialization in ice magic and mechanics to build machines with ice affinity.

[Unespecialized branch]:

- Soul devourer path

+ The path to becoming stronger by consuming souls.

- Necromancer path.

+ Control over the death and its forces.

- Conqueror's path

+ The birth of an iron legion capable of conquering cities and destroying countries.

"Huh...that last one sounds very curious, it's the most interesting in the list," He thought about it a little and chose it, it would be fun to conquer some cities or something similar to that, but at the moment he tapped it an alert appeared in front of him.

[WARNING!]

[Conqueror's path is the more dangerous path available in Niflheim!]

"It makes it even better!" He laughed and tapped it again.

[WARNING!]

[YOUR EXISTENCE ISN'T ACCEPTED IN THE ABYSS]

"What the-" Purple flames engulfed him and started to devour his soul, he could feel his soul emptying until just a weak silver ember remained in the center of it.

[The Abyss has consumed your unuseful parts]

[Your path and soul got adapted to the Abyss.]

[Your new Path is]: Heart of the Abyss.

[The difficulty of the path adjusted.]

[Heart of the Abyss is now the most dangerous path available in Steel Soul Online]

[Changes made to your body available in the "Path" section]

The flame receded and revealed his bones again, they were repaired and were white as the snow, in his head, two little horns grew, and his sword turned into ash before being absorbed by his flame, which had the form of a purple heart.

---

On the surface of Niflheim 33 beings raised their heads with different expressions: shock, greed, curiosity, wonder, but deep enough them was a unanimous feeling: Fear, they traveled the Conqueror's path, and that let them know when another one of them rise. They had an agreement to kill and devour every soul that tried to be another conqueror on sight because they can shake their cities, or even take it away from them, but one existence was on top of the danger scale for these lords.

"An abyssal lord has been born..." muttered a Fallen angel in a white palace, he unfolded his four pairs of wings and walked towards the balcony.

"The abyss, huh, I missed kicking the ass of those beasts" A hunter who wore animal pelts laughed loud enough to be heard kilometers away from his city.

"The one that could shake the world has been born...I need to make preparations." A shadow inside a floating castle disappeared from its throne, only to reappear in front of an army of titans. "Activate emergency level zero, Wake up Quezatlcoatl!" "hen he finished his words, a deep and guttural roar came from the city as it transformed into a giant winged snake.

"The Abyss? I don't care..." A deep voice resounded as a giant turtle walked the endless wasteland carrying a city on its back.

Across the world, the other lords started to make preparations and prepare for the inevitable war against the demons from the Abyss. However, the peasants didn't realize it. They continued their unlife while suffering the influx of annoying players in the cities.

---

In the main office in TriDa games, there was a room full of people wearing white coats watching monitors and chatting between them about aspects of the game. A notification appeared in their monitors. Tiny in the sea of other things being showed like battles of spaceships, ancient dragon flying in the sky, or players that explored the worlds. But that little notification halted everyone in the room.

"It came quicker than we expected!"

"What happened? Why the Abyss lord has been born?! It was supposed to come into existence in 6 months!"

"A player? What is a player doing in the Abyss?"

"I don't know! it shouldn't be possible!" answered someone typing in his computer, "Apparently he fell in a space crack and ended there!"

"Space crack? oh...shit, the teleportations in Niflheim..."

"It still doesn't explain it! the council should not let anyone become an Abyss lord!"

"Check the server rooms! we may have a malfunction somewhere!"

Everyone was confused and yelling for answers, some of them were analyzing the situation, and the leader of them was calling their superiors, but one thing was for sure: they got a lot of work ahead and a lot of rewriting to do.