20 years seemingly flew by in the blink of an eye.
The nights were quieter now but Aden never forgot that strange vision from his infancy—the flickering lights, the icy air, the glimpse of Paimon hovering above him.
[System Installation… 35%]
For 20 years, it hadn't moved.
The number sat frozen, like a stubborn glitch. Aden had checked the tab daily as a child. Then weekly. Then… not at all. Eventually, he gave up hope that it would ever finish installing. Maybe it never would.
He assumed that Paimon had something to do with the glitch but beyond that there was really nothing he could do.
And so he lived and he grew up.
His parents, Diluc especially, made it his mission to teach Aden everything he knew about fighting. They spent long mornings at the back of Dawn Winery, where he taught him how to wield a claymore.
"You've got strength," Diluc would say, wiping sweat from his brow. "But strength without control is wasted."
The one problem with Aden was that he was never able to resonate with any elemental ability.
Jean, when she had the time, would guide him through more precise swordwork. Her style was elegant and fluid, her instructions gentle yet firm. She never scolded, only encouraged. Whenever he got injured, she'd use her elemental burst which would instantly heal him of all his injuries.
"You don't have to fight like me," she'd tell him, kneeling beside him when he stumbled. "Find your own rhythm. Your own style."
Year after year, test after test, the results were the same. He couldn't channel Pyro. Nor Anemo. Nor any other element. Not even a flicker of dendro.
A feeling of shame began to settle in his chest.
He never cried about it—but at night, when the house was still, he'd lie awake staring at the ceiling, wondering why.
He was used to the silence by now. Used to the feeling of stillness inside him. The system—his supposed gift—had become nothing more than a memory.
Until it returned.
A sharp hum pierced the calm of the night. A glow flared into his vision, forcing his eyes open
[
System Reboot engaged.
System Installation Re-started
System installation Complete.
Abyss System Active.
Congratulations Aether, you are now the Abyssal Monarch.
]
The words burned into his vision, line by line. For a second, he thought he was dreaming. But then the surge hit him.
Raw energy rushed through his limbs. His body trembled. His breath caught.
Then came the overload.
Tabs—dozens of them—flashed open, flooding his sight with cascading data. Stats. Guides. Tutorials. It was chaos.
[
New Title : Abyssal Monarch
Main Ability : Arise
Sub Ability : Absolute Resonance
Level : 1
HP : 10000
ATK : 5000
Crit Rate : 5%
Crit DMG : 100%
Intellect : 5
Mana : 200
]
He clenched his fist.
A gust of Anemo swirled around his hand. It felt real. Natural. The way it should've felt all along. He laughed, overwhelmed by the sensation—relief and excitement bursting from deep within.
But his elation was abruptly severed as the room was swallowed by darkness—just as had once happened when the System first tried to activate. Then, from somewhere within the suffocating void, a sound emerged.
It wasn't music and neither was it wasn't chanting.
It was devotion—the unsettling harmony of a congregation murmuring his new title: "Abyssal Monarch."
Layered voices, ancient and unmoored from time, rose like a glorious orchestra, not out of joy, but fear-laced reverence, as if they sang not to celebrate him, but to contain him.
To his left, something glowed and moved—a flicker in the obsidian dark.
Paimon drifted into view , humming the same praise that the distant congregation sang. She hovered weakly, as though her life force was drifting away.
Where her golden crown had once glowed with celestial light, there now sat a jagged crown of thorns that made her head hum in pain.
She floated toward him.
"Aether…" she whispered, her voice splintering like glass underfoot. "Paimon has fought it… for so long…"
Her eyes, once full of mischief and light, now swam with sorrow. And fear. And tears.
"…but it has defeated her," she cried.
She reached out, her hand quivering in the air between them. "Please… forgive Paimon… for failing you…"
Her lips pulled into a frail tragic smile, "Ad astra… abyssosque… Traveller."
Her body shuddered—once. It then went still, dropping slowly next to his bare feet. His toes felt the warmth leave her.
In that moment, the void shattered like a mirror dropped from heaven.
The cold, the chanting, the darkness—all of it collapsed into nothingness, peeling away like smoke caught in sunlight. Warmth returned and light seeped in from every corner.
Aden found himself kneeling on the cold stone floor, cradling her tiny body in his hands. She was gone.
[
System Notification : Extract Shadow ?
]