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The swirling abyss roared. It screamed ceaselessly, prompting Abhishek to bring forth his sword and force the beast to relent, but not before leaking several of its contents into the digital space he occupied.
But his work wasn't done there. The grey mold he had created still required detail to bring to life. Abhishek relented, but the force was too mighty. He reluctantly opened Quixel Bridge and began searching for maps to assign, no end in sight.
Time waits for no man, and Abhishek was no exception. Hundreds of megabytes of PBR data collected in the vast reaches of his hard drive, the bumpmaps slowly but carefully encroaching on his free space.
Abhishek relaxed. He knew Toolbag 4 would come to his aid. He could find some solace and comfort in its workspace, the intuitive canvas freeing him of the UV chains that bound him tightly for years. He painted with a mad fervor, bringing forth the spirit of Picasso onto his abomination.
Sometimes the abyss would skulk back into its lair and he would be free. But most often, its bellows grew ever louder, forcing him into the final stage - a stage he despised. His journey came to a finale at the doorstep of Unity, but despite the end being so close he had never felt farther away from his sanctum.
The high definition render pipeline had been the eternal thorn in his foot, peppering Abhishek's every advance with rivers of red in the console. It would take him time - more than be believed Father Time had provided him. But Abhishek forged on, knowing that with every step he took, he would be closer to the finish.
He tuned his pointer to 8000 DPI. Now with the speed of Hermes and the rage of Ares, he moved majestically between the timeline, the inspector, the animation controller and the scene, violently slamming his ligaments on every hotkey, his grace barely outpacing his anger.
At the very last, he assigned his waterfall of human-to-machine translation onto his primary viewfinder and clicked on the right-facing triangle. The F11 key took the beating, capturing timeless visages of his work, his unholy work, saving them for all eternity.
Abhishek sighed a breath of relief. This was the final step forward. He opened up his gateway to the Net and sent his photographs to servers over all the world. He was able to take some comfort in the many humans that visited his work and appreciated it, but even he knew that it would never be enough. It would never be enough to outweigh the influence of the abyss.
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