Prince of The Abyss

The Withered Flower district, the magical city where commoners live their lives to the fullest. The place where freedom isn’t just a word, but something everyone has.

Or at least, that’s how the book inside the Blue Rose district describes it.

Yet if you were actually to live inside this vicious place, you would know

they are all lies.

In reality, the Withered Flower district was a graveyard pretending to be a city.

Freedom? That word didn’t exist in such a place. Freedom was for the strong, not the weak; that was just how things were.

If you weren’t strong, your life might as well not have a meaning at all.

It was the place even the warm gaze of the sun feared, hiding itself from whatever evil lingered inside the dark alleyways it couldn’t touch. And as such, rain had been bestowed upon this district for decades now.

Nobility had tried to cover the hidden truth about the Withered district, but recently, it had been harder to do than ever.

With the king’s daughter, Iris, being chosen to become the vessel of the great God of Praise, people had feared... ”It” coming back. And what better place for a being so wicked even hell kicked out, than the graveyard of hope itself?

The place was left unpraised, and as such, lacked belief.

The Blue Rose district had been more paranoid than ever. It had been almost six years, and still no sign of his appearance. Some thought that the higher-ups were just overthinking it. And just because Iris had miraculously awakened after years, and as the vessel of their great god, it didn’t mean anything.

But a question still lingered:

Why all of a sudden?

Sadly, to this day,

there is no answer.

...

So with the Withered district being a graveyard, why did so many people want to visit it? Well, aside from the lies people are told, the district is actually a very complex marketplace. The only thing that gives it purpose, without it, it might as well just be destroyed.

It had also been the only way for the district to develop.

Though living as a merchant isn’t as great as you might think.

Let’s just say, the nobles aren’t so nice to their suppliers. And they definitely don’t like high prices.

Like they say, it hurts their pride to even buy from such a place, but something that is actually expensive?

That is exactly what had just happened to our little merchant friend right here.

His son had sacrificed himself to find something valuable for him and his family to sell so they could get up on their feet. So he had entered a book way beyond his power and had sadly passed away, but luckily, not before transferring it to his father.

The Codex wasn’t just a system. It was a trading paradise. Sadly, its prices were through the roof, and it was tough to sell something while millions of people also sold the same thing. It also didn’t help that the Codex didn’t allow objects from Earth to be sold.

After receiving the gift from his son, his father had dug a grave for him. Yet nobody resided inside.

When somebody dies inside a book, their rotting body remains inside, feeding whatever monsters live inside the stories.

Even without a body, the grave still meant everything to their family. But they couldn’t dread for long. Their son had not died for nothing.

Well, except he might as well have. One golden coin was all the family got. They had tried to negotiate, but their buyer was a very important man, so it was useless.

Inside the Codex’s trading paradise, the same valuable would have been sold for at least fifty golden coins. Of course, if you even found a buyer interested in yours specifically. So getting just one had buried a knife deep inside the man’s heart. Not because he had lost such a valuable object,

but because he lost his only son’s life with it.

As your little friend was walking home, he suddenly felt someone breathe down his neck. This, however, wasn’t uncommon in such a place.

The man flinched before slowly turning his head, only to find nothing. Only the darkness.

The man took a deep breath to calm himself down. Something strange was bound to happen while walking inside a dark alleyway all alone; it wasn’t something he wasn’t used to.

”One golden coin, huh? Is that really how much you value your son’s life?”

The merchant froze. That voice, it was coming from his shadow. But that wasn’t possible; shadows couldn’t talk. They weren’t alive.

It had to be a cheap trick. Some kids messing around.

And yet... how would some kids know that?

”You really are a disappointment... your son died for nothing, and your wife has been selling her body to a noble to pay your debt for years now.” The voice continued. It seemed as if it were almost pitying the man for his unfortunate life.

”And you have been completely oblivious.” The voice laughed, amused and mocking the man.

The man clenched his fist, almost as if he were about to try striking his own shadow.

”Wow, wow, calm down. Don’t be angry at me. I’m not the one who sold my own son’s life for a single gold coin.” The sarcasm dripping from the voice was the last straw for the man. Putting all his anger inside his fist, he struck his own shadow.

But of course, he hit nothing.

Had he truly gone crazy?

Yet the voices seemed to have stopped. Had it... really worked?

”I heard you recently had a daughter. I wonder what makes you even think it’s yours in the first place? She doesn’t really look like you.”

That... as much as the man wanted to disagree, was also what he had thought for some time now. And now, after learning what his wife had been doing to keep up with their debt, this possibility only grew....

Wait, was he truly believing what this shadow was saying? No, it wasn’t like he was believing it, he knew what it was saying was true. After all, it was his shadow; it knew everything he did, maybe even more.

Yet he couldn’t help but pray for it to stop. It was better for the truth to stay hidden than for him to know.

As this was happening, the figure of an old woman appeared at the end of the alleyway. Her amber eyes and hair were a living embodiment of autumn. Even at her age, she still carried herself elegantly, as if she had not aged at all.

”Do not fear. I have come to help.” The old woman smiled at the man. Her voice was full of hope, enlightening something in the man’s soul. Hope was rare inside the district; those who even had the littlest were considered blessed. If someone could get rid of the voice, she was the one.

”I only require a little payment for my work.” That was all the man needed. He grabbed his wallet and all his golden coins and gave them to the woman, and then... the voices stopped.

It worked. It truly worked!

The man couldn’t be happier, leaving the alleyway and with... the truth.

...

As the old woman was counting the golden coins, another figure appeared from the shadows. One of a small boy. His blue eyes were like an ocean, one hiding countless evil creatures inside, and that had once been a calm sea.

His golden hair, once as bright and charming as the sun itself, had almost lost all of its color, adapting to the daily life inside the Withered Flower district. Inside his hair was a silver hairpin shaped like a moonflower, once worn by his mother on her wedding day.

The old woman smiled, looking at him.

”Ah, Aether. Good work out there. We’ll have enough to survive for at least a day.”