Omid Islands

Chapter Fifteen · The Abyss Gate

The encrypted letter was found by Zheng An.

He discovered it in Zhou Duo’s private study — not in plain sight, but hidden inside an old book on the lowest shelf, tucked between pages seventy-three and seventy-four, folded into a small square, sealed with wax bearing a mark Suyan had never seen before.

The mark was a circle. Inside the circle, a curved line. At each end of the curve, a small dot — like two eyes.

Zheng An brought it to her while she was organizing documents in her room.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Zheng An said. “But it was hidden deep, and —” he paused, “I found three letters like this in Zhou Duo’s study. The other two had already been burned — only ash remained. This is the only complete one.”

Suyan took the letter and examined the wax seal.

“Do you recognize this mark?”

Zheng An shook his head.

Suyan placed the letter on her desk and began studying the seal.

It took her about half an hour to find the method of opening it — not prying it apart, but using a thin needle to trace the seal’s edge, find a tiny gap, then slowly, carefully peel the wax from the paper while keeping it intact.

The letter unfolded.

The writing inside was in a script Suyan had never seen.

Not the common script of the Omid Archipelago. Not any island’s dialect writing. Something older — a script that seemed to have vanished long ago.

Suyan stared at those characters for a long time.

Then she suddenly remembered something.

Her grandmother — had once taught her an “ancient script.” It was the Thirteenth Island’s internal clan writing, used only by the core bloodline, completely unreadable to outsiders. Her grandmother said the script had been lost, known only to a very few.

Suyan hadn’t studied it carefully at the time. She only remembered part of it.

But the part she remembered —

She lowered her head and looked at the letter again.

She recognized several characters.

“Abyss.”

“Key.”

“Blood.”

Suyan spent three full days decoding the letter.

She wrote down every ancient character she could remember, then used analogy and deduction to reconstruct the ones she didn’t recognize. The process was slow and painful. Many times she thought she’d found a pattern, only to have the next character overturn her reasoning.

But she didn’t give up.

On the third night, she finally translated the entire letter.

She wrote the translation on a sheet of paper, then sat there, staring at the words, not moving for a long time.

The letter read:

“The Thirteenth Island descendant has appeared. Her blood is the key to opening the Abyss Gate. Three hundred years ago, we sealed that gate, but the seal is weakening. If she cannot be found before the next tidal cycle, the seal will collapse entirely. When that happens, the power of the abyss will pour through the cracks, and no one will be able to control it.”

“Find her. Control her. Then use her blood to reinforce the seal.”

“If she refuses to cooperate —”

“Use her life.”

Suyan stared at that last line for a long time.

Use her life.

Her blood was the key to the Abyss Gate.

Her life could be used to reinforce the seal.

Which meant —

Someone wanted her dead.

Not because she was a Thirteenth Island descendant. Not because she was investigating the truth. But because —

Her blood, her life, was a tool to certain people.

Suyan brought the letter to Omid.

She placed the translation in front of him, then stood and waited while he read.

When he finished, he was silent for a long time.

This silence was heavier than any before — deeper, as if something had been touched in the very core of him.

“The Abyss Gate,” he finally said, his voice low. “I know what this is.”

Suyan’s pulse quickened.

“You know?”

“My great-grandfather’s diary mentioned it.” Omid said. “He wrote that the true reason for destroying the Thirteenth Island wasn’t land or resources — that was only the surface justification. The real reason was —”

He paused.

“Beneath the Thirteenth Island, there is a gate.”

“That gate leads somewhere — somewhere no one knows. Three hundred years ago, the Thirteenth Island’s clan chief Su Lan discovered the gate and — tried to open it.”

“The other eleven island lords learned of this. They were afraid. They didn’t know what lay beyond the gate, but they knew that if Su Lan opened it, the entire archipelago’s power structure might be overturned.”

“So they united, destroyed the Thirteenth Island, and sealed the gate.”

“But the seal was maintained by the Thirteenth Island’s bloodline power — because only that bloodline could control the gate.”

“Three hundred years have passed. The seal is weakening.”

“And you —” he looked at Suyan, “are the only one who can reinforce it.”

Suyan stood there, silent for a long time.

Her thoughts were in chaos.

The Abyss Gate.

Beneath the Thirteenth Island, a gate leading to an unknown place.

Her blood — the force maintaining the seal.

Which meant —

She wasn’t just a seeker of revenge.

She wasn’t just someone searching for truth.

She was —

“What am I?” she asked, her voice barely audible, as if asking herself.

Omid looked at her for a long time.

“You are —” he said, “the last guardian of the Thirteenth Island.”

That night, Suyan sat alone by the window, watching the sea, thinking for a long time.

The Abyss Gate.

Guardian.

These words circled in her mind again and again, as if something were trying to make her understand, but her mind kept resisting.

She had come to First Island for revenge.

She wanted to find the truth, wanted those who killed her family to pay.

But now —

Now she found her fate was far more complicated than she’d imagined.

She wasn’t just a seeker of revenge.

She was a guardian — someone guarding a gate, someone whose bloodline maintained a seal.

And what lay beyond that gate?

She didn’t know.

But she knew she had to find the answer.

The next day, Suyan went to see Lord Jiang.

Jiang listened to everything she said, then was silent for a long time.

That silence unsettled Suyan — not ordinary silence, but the kind that said I always knew this day would come.

“You know about the Abyss Gate?” Suyan asked.

Jiang nodded.

“My mother told me.” She said. “She said beneath the Thirteenth Island there is a gate, and that gate leads to —”

She paused.

“Leads to what?”

“The source of the tides.”

Suyan’s breath caught.

“The source of the tides?”

“All tidal power in the Omid Archipelago,” Jiang said, “comes from the same place. That place is beneath the Thirteenth Island. The gate is the entrance to it.”

“Three hundred years ago, Su Lan discovered the gate. He wanted to open it, to directly contact the tidal source, to obtain a power that transcended all islands.”

“The other eleven island lords learned of this and were afraid. They united to destroy the Thirteenth Island, using the Thirteenth Island’s bloodline power to seal the gate.”

“But the seal isn’t permanent.”

“At intervals, someone from the Thirteenth Island bloodline must reinforce it.”

“Three hundred years ago, they thought destroying the Thirteenth Island would seal the gate permanently. They were wrong — the seal is weakening, and the rate of weakening is accelerating.”

“If the seal collapses entirely —”

She looked at Suyan.

"The tidal source will go out of control. All tidal power across the

…(truncated)…