The dust of the shattered throne still clung to Gomi's cloak like the ghost of everything he had destroyed. Each step down the newly revealed staircase was heavier than the last. The deeper they went, the less the world resembled a place meant for living things. The air itself seemed to shudder in their presence, thick with the weight of silence.
The steps bled into shadow until the light behind them was nothing but a dim heartbeat of memory.
Ahead, a pale glow pulsed in rhythm with their footsteps.
The final region of the Pit awaited them—
The Pale Abyss.
It was not a place built for mortals. It was before time, before endings—
a space that existed only where despair met divinity.
The world opened below them into a vast plain of glassy nothingness. The air shimmered like the breath of dying stars. Stones hung suspended midair, frozen in place as if gravity had simply forgotten them. Beneath the translucent ground, rivers of light flowed like veins under flesh, carrying whispers instead of water—voices of the countless souls who had perished here.
Hosogiri stopped short, his hand brushing the mist that coiled at his knees. It felt cold and warm at once, alive yet lifeless.
"This place…" he murmured. "It's like walking through the memory of a god."
Hoguro didn't answer right away. For once, his voice carried no humor, no false comfort. "No," he said quietly. "This is where even gods come to die."
A shiver rolled through them. Not from cold—but from the awareness that something was aware of them.
At the far edge of the abyss, a monolith rose from the glass—tall, colorless, perfect. No markings. No words. But power hummed beneath its surface like a heartbeat buried under skin. Gomi stepped forward, drawn to it. His fingers brushed its side—
and it breathed.
The stone flared to life, flooding his mind with visions—
a throne of bones,
a king falling from the sky,
a gate sealed in lunar fire.
And then—darkness.
The image lingered, imprinting itself like a scar.
Hosogiri reached for him. "Gomi—"
"I saw it," Gomi whispered. "The last gate."
That night, they camped near a grove of crystalline trees that glowed like caged starlight. Their reflections trembled in the pale mist, silent and perfect. Hoguro slept quickly, one arm over his eyes. Hosogiri stared at the horizon, restless. Gomi didn't sleep at all.
He sat by the fire, staring into the glass-like ground. Beneath it, light pulsed faintly—heartbeats of the dead. For the first time in a long while, he looked exhausted. Not from battle. From being.
Hosogiri's voice broke the quiet.
"Do you think there's peace past this?"
Gomi didn't look up. "No. But maybe there's purpose."
The words sank into the mist, swallowed whole.
And far off—beyond the veil of silver fog—
something moved.
A sliver of violet light, shaped like a person.
Gomi stood instantly. His hand brushed the hilt at his waist. He didn't need to speak. The others felt it too—
something old, something watching.
He knew.
It had begun.
The final descent was not into ruin. It was into reckoning.
The Veiled Truth Beneath the Moss
The moon had vanished behind the jagged ridges of the Pit's end. The stars above seemed afraid to shine. The fire they'd built had long since died, leaving only embers that breathed smoke like the last sigh of the dying.
Something in the darkness shifted.
A glimmer. A shadow. A pulse of light.
Then silence again.
When morning came, the sky was an endless grey bruise. Hosogiri stirred beneath his blanket, his eyes shadowed. Hoguro stood against a cracked wall, his expression unreadable. Gomi was already awake, standing near the crumbled ruin that jutted from the ground—a stone archway half-swallowed by moss, its steps spiraling down into blackness.
"He's not coming back," Gomi said softly, staring at the place where the figure had vanished.
Hosogiri frowned. "But what if that wasn't a wanderer?"
"It wasn't," Gomi answered. "But we won't learn anything by standing still."
They entered the ruin.
The air grew damp, clinging to their skin. The walls pulsed faintly with green veins of light, fungus or spirit residue—they couldn't tell. The ground was slick with old blood and rain that hadn't fallen in decades. The silence was alive. Forced. Like something holding its breath.
"This wasn't just a ruin," Hoguro whispered. "Something fed here."
And high above them, pressed against the roots that hung like veins through the ceiling, someone listened.
Her hair was dark violet, long enough to drown in shadow. Her eyes glowed a deep, fractured blue—the same color as Hosogiri's.
Minagami.
Years ago, when Hosogiri vanished, she had sworn she would never stop searching.
She had clawed her way through rumor and ruin, chasing echoes until all that was left pointed downward—into The Pit.
A place no one returned from.
But Minagami didn't care. The blood of the Oni burned too fiercely in her veins to surrender. And though she was born human enough to dream, her curse made sure she would never rest. Her Oni power, once dormant, awakened through pain—not rage. It was a vow carved into her soul: she would not die until she found him.
Her magic was unlike others.
It whispered to the dead. It silenced her footsteps. It made her invisible to the very things that hunted mortals.
Now, finally, she had found him—
her cousin. Hosogiri.
Alive.
Changed.
And beside him walked Gomi Kira.
The kid the world called the Final Oni King.
Minagami didn't reveal herself. Not yet.
She needed to see what he was.
What he'd become.
Whether the laughter she remembered from their childhood still existed behind those tired eyes.
Because she knew the curse too well. The first time an Oni awakens their magic, something inside them shatters.
Half-bloods especially.
They look the same. They sound the same. But their hearts?
Corrupted.
A subtle rot that eats from within until what's left is neither human nor demon—just hunger and fury.
She had resisted it. Barely.
She feared her cousin hadn't.
Because once you fall into that abyss, even if you return, you never come back whole.
Minagami's hands trembled as she watched him walk below, unaware.
If he had lost himself, she'd do what needed to be done.
Even if it meant killing him.
But when Hosogiri stopped suddenly and looked up—eyes sharp, breath caught—
she froze.
"I feel something," he whispered.
"Same," Gomi murmured, narrowing his eyes toward the ceiling.
For a heartbeat, everything stopped.
Then… nothing.
They moved on. The sound of their boots faded into the depths.
Minagami stayed behind, clutching her stomach, trembling between relief and grief.
"I'm not ready," she whispered to herself. "Not yet."
Echoes of Doubt, Clash of Shadows
The dungeon spiraled deeper. The vines along the walls began to glow with pulsing veins of white-blue light. The air thickened—alive with hums and whispers, as though the walls themselves were breathing.
Gomi ran his fingers along the stone. "Feels wrong."
"It is wrong," Hoguro said. "This place wasn't built—it grew."
Hosogiri closed his eyes, sensing the vibrations. "Something ancient's below us."
Gomi grunted. "Then we move carefully."
But the Abyss cared nothing for caution.
A sudden click.
The air shifted.
Then the ground vanished beneath Gomi's feet.
He fell.
"GOMI!" Hosogiri shouted, his hand reaching too late. The shaft swallowed him whole, the sound of impact echoing up seconds later.
He landed hard, shoulder-first, and rolled into a crouch. The chamber around him was circular, lined with statues of headless Oni, each bound in chains. The floor shimmered faintly, alive with whispers. Gomi spat blood, rising slowly.
"Perfect," he muttered. "Exactly where I wanted to be."
Then—movement.
A figure stepped from the darkness.
Dark violet hair. Eyes of dying light.
Minagami.
They stared at each other in silence that felt centuries long.
Gomi's stance shifted, defensive. "You again. Knew I felt eyes burning holes in my back."
She didn't answer immediately. Her aura shimmered faintly—violet flame wrapped in whispers. "You carry his scent."
Gomi frowned. "Whose?"
"Hosogiri's."
The name lingered between them like the ghost of a memory.
Her voice shook. "Tell me… is he still himself?"
Gomi hesitated. "He's alive. That's all that matters."
"No," she hissed, eyes narrowing. "That's not all that matters."
Before he could answer, she moved—
blindingly fast.
A spear of violet energy erupted from her palm, slicing through air where his head had been an instant earlier. Gomi spun, flames bursting from his skin in reflex. They collided—crimson against violet—exploding the silence into chaos.
The walls screamed.
Magic tore the air apart. Gomi's crimson fire devoured oxygen, while Minagami's cursed silence tried to erase it from existence. The collision created a storm of unearthly light, shredding the vines from the walls.
"I didn't take him!" Gomi roared. "I saved him!"
"You tainted him!" she screamed back, tears streaking through soot on her face. "Do you know how long I searched?! How many years I spent chasing whispers of this cursed pit?!"
Her blade of spirit light came down—
he caught it with bare hands, flames coiling up his arms. The heat scorched skin and blood alike, yet neither yielded.
"You fight to protect," Gomi said through gritted teeth. "So do I."
Their eyes locked. For a heartbeat, the battle stilled.
And in that silence, something changed.
Minagami's shoulders fell. She saw not an enemy—but someone broken. Someone carrying too much. Her magic faltered. The flames around them dimmed.
"Truce," Gomi said, lowering his hand.
She hesitated. Then took it.
Their palms met—warm and trembling.
The ground beneath them answered with a deep, earth-shaking groan.
The dungeon cracked open like an eggshell. Light—blinding, gold and black—spilled from below, surging up like liquid fire. Gomi stumbled back. Minagami screamed as the walls began to tear apart.
"What is this?!" she shouted.
Gomi's eyes widened. He could feel it—something ancient awakening beneath the Pit, something vast enough to drown everything they had ever known.
"No…" he breathed. "Someone's coming."
The light pulsed again—
and the world split open.
The Descent of the Unknown
Far above the abyss, on the shattered surface of the world, the sky bled black.
Something fell from it.
A figure—shrouded in flame and shadow—plummeted through the clouds, smashing through each layer of the Pit like a spear cast by the gods. Each impact sent tremors through the abyss, shockwaves splitting the stone, silencing even the dead.
The air screamed. The abyss answered.
Gomi fell to his knees, clutching his head. The Oni blood inside him howled in recognition.
Whatever was coming… wasn't human. Wasn't Oni.
It was older. Hungrier.
Through the collapsing ruin, a shape burst into view—a body wreathed in black-gold light, its face hidden by a cracked mask of bone. The pressure alone bent the air, crushing the breath from their lungs.
Minagami gasped, stumbling backward. "What… is that?"
Gomi didn't answer. His eyes were wide, unblinking.
Because in that creature's aura, he felt it— the same energy that burned within him. The same curse. But multiplied. Twisted. Infinite.
The figure landed with a sound like thunder, black wings unfurling behind it. The floor splintered underfoot, sending shards of glass and bone spiraling into the void.
It raised its head slowly, and for the first time, they saw its face beneath the mask—
half human, half something else.
Eyes like broken moons.
It smiled.
"Finally found you," it said.
The voice was a chorus of echoes, male and female, young and ancient.
"You've carried my curse long enough, Gomi Kira."
And then—
everything shattered.
The Pale Abyss collapsed into itself.
The rivers of light turned red.
The last gate began to awaken.
Gomi's scream tore through the ruins as the figure descended upon him like judgment made flesh.
The final arcs of the Pit had begun.
And there would be no peace at the end of this story—
only truth.
And the truth was cruel.
Next Volume: Your Nothing But… FILTH! Volume II – The Final Arcs.
Everything changes from here…