Ethereum Abyss

The Ethereum Abyss is one of the most feared and misunderstood realms in the cosmology of Elossis. It serves as the domain of Noctis, the Chaos God of Destruction, and stands as a metaphysical prison for the faithless, the wicked, and the damned. Often referred to in scripture as The Shattered Realm, The Maw Beyond Light, or The Grave of Creation, the Ethereum Abyss is a swirling vortex of despair, entropy, and devouring hunger, a dark counterweight to the Aetherflow and the cosmic order left behind by Aeonis.

Nature and Geography

Unlike material planes or divine realms, the Ethereum Abyss has no fixed form or geometry. It is an ever-shifting dimension of broken landscapes, twisting voids, and phantasmal horrors, shaped by chaotic emotion and fractured memory. Geography is a lie here—distances are illusions, time flows unpredictably, and direction holds no meaning. Ruined spires float through ash skies, oceans boil with corrupted Aether, and continents collapse into themselves in eternal cycles of collapse and rebirth.

The air of the Ethereum Abyss is said to be thick with the residue of drained magic—the aftermath of stolen divine essence and collapsed worlds. Every breath taken by an unwilling soul is a reminder of futility, a taste of the divine essence once freely given, now corrupted and consumed. Aether cannot flourish here; it decays, unravels, or turns against its wielder.

Function as a Prison

The Ethereum Abyss is not merely a realm of exile—it is a cosmic prison. It is said that it was sealed off from the mortal realm by the Covenant of the Veil after The Great Sundering, to contain the most dangerous forces of reality: chaotic gods and entities, and souls deemed unworthy by the cosmic balance.

According to myth, the faithless and the wicked—those who turned away from the Light of Aeonis, abused the Aetherflow, or sowed despair—are drawn into the Abyss after death, condemned to eternal dissolution. In this realm, existence is punishment: a slow unraveling of identity where beings are left to confront the weight of their sins amid the ashes of a broken universe.

Here, there is no death, only awareness—a spectral existence caught between torment and oblivion.

Guardians of the Abyss

Legends tell of immense and unknowable entities who stand as silent sentinels over the Ethereum Abyss. These beings exist outside the laws of magic and mortality. Some scholars believe they were forged by Aeonis Himself during the shaping of the cosmos—primordial arbiters designed to enforce the boundaries between realms.

Their purpose is twofold:

1. To maintain the seals that contain the Abyss, preventing its entropy from infecting the Aetherflow or other planes.
2. To oversee the slow siphoning of magical and emotional energy from the Abyss’s prisoners—an act believed to feed back into the fabric of the universe, preserving equilibrium.

Their appearance is rarely described the same way twice. Some accounts speak of colossal armored forms, others of ethereal shadows crowned in stars, and some even of living equations made of song and void. They do not speak, they do not intervene, they only watch.

Relation to the Mortal World and Aetherflow

While the Ethereum Abyss is sealed, its influence is not entirely cut off from Elossis. Through Veil ruptures, Ethereal Fluctuations, and arcane recklessness, fragments of the Abyss bleed into the material world. These bleedings manifest as phantasms, corrupted monsters, and visions of despair. Areas near broken Nexuses or unstable Aethertech installations are particularly vulnerable to such intrusions.

Some cults seek communion with the Abyss, believing Noctis to be the true god of transformation and liberation. They regard the Ethereum Abyss not as a prison, but as a crucible, where weak souls are shattered and remade. Others, particularly the Aeonian faithful, see the Abyss as the final punishment for those who betray the divine purpose—a realm from which not even redemption can reach.

Relation to the Aetherflow

The Ethereum Abyss is the antithesis of the Aetherflow. Where the Aetherflow is living, creative, and restorative, the Abyss is devouring, deforming, and entropic. It absorbs and warps Aether, turning it against its wielder or rendering it inert. Some scholars speculate that the Abyss was once a part of the cosmos, corrupted by Noctis after his fall from grace.

This connection is particularly relevant in the emergence of Dark Aether, a corrupted form of Aether channeled from Abyssal leaks. It powers forbidden technology, but exacts terrible costs in stability, sanity, and morality.

Current Role in the Cosmology

Though sealed, the Ethereum Abyss remains a constant threat—a black wound at the edge of reality. Its guardians ensure the prison stays closed, but their power is not limitless. Every use of uncontrolled magic, every rupture in the Veil, every forbidden ritual, thins the barrier between realms.

Should the Abyss fully breach again, Elossis will not survive.