CHAPTER 29: WAR IS COMING

The Serpentine Demon received this gift from Cillian with the eager submission of a hound at its master’s feet.

It thought glory was within reach.

Cluck!

A mouthful of blood burst from its jaws.

Cillian’s eyes immediately sharpened.

"Something’s wrong."

As the Abyss’ creator, he felt the truth ripple through him.

This demon had reached the very peak of legend, standing one step away from ascending to the Ascendanct rank, its recovery was unrivaled, and yet it was collapsing.

One side of its vast body withered. The many heads that sprouted from its form festered with sores that burst into foul streams. Its blood thinned, its organs rotted, its body shrank in upon itself.

It was dying.

But how?

Moments ago, it had devoured the Toad Demon and restored itself with frightening speed. Even when Cillian gave it that drop of divine blood, its strength had already returned in full. That blood should have carried it further, yet instead it unravelled.

"Was the blood be too much for its body to bear?"

Through his sight, he watched its very essence tearing apart, collapsing like a dam splitting under pressure.

"No... impossible. No abyssal demon could fail to withstand such a drop, not after fully absorbing it."

For a moment suspicion touched his mind.

"Could the blood itself have been flawed? Could Vice Principal Warren’s gift have been tainted?"

But he dismissed it, Warren’s nature was well-known. The man loathed plots and schemes, and he had no reason to betray him.

Unless...

The thought struck deep.

"The Abyss itself... twisted the blood."

The Endless Abyss was chaos. Its rules corroded and warped all things, maybe even that single drop had been swallowed by its madness.

The moment the Serpentine Demon began to digest the blood, its fate had already been sealed.

Before Cillian could untangle the why, the demon’s body convulsed one final time.

Bang!

It exploded as flesh and blood rained across the plane.

From the ruin came crawling things.

"Insects..."

Fat, black worms writhed in the gore, not invaders but reborn fragments of the demon itself. Every piece of its flesh had become them.

They were weak, almost beneath notice. Yet their numbers were endless, and they tore into one another with manic hunger.

Cillian stood still, watching.

The survivors cocooned. From them hatched warped creatures, each holding a trace of mythical blood mixed with the Serpentine Demon’s corrupted essence.

They fought again. They devoured again and they cocooned again.

The cycle of slaughter spun on until the plane held only dozens of survivors, each strong enough to rival the peak of legends, yet completely unstable, their bloodlines burning with chaos.

And so, they fought once more.

At last, only a single cocoon remained.

It was monstrous , so large it swallowed half the plane. From the black scuttle of those worms to the rise of this single, heaving behemoth, the whole process had taken no more than ten minutes.

As it writhed, Cillian felt a string of petty rules unspool inside the Endless Abyss itself, tiny laws were being given form and meaning, braided from the chaos the plane breathed. With a subtle, almost casual authority, those rules were folded into a set of newborn powers that the Abyss then pressed into the cocoon like a blessing and a brand. Poisonous fog, Corrosion, Blight, Disaster. And worst of of all a grotesque kind of rebirth, a talent for rising again after death.

The cocoon split.

A creature crawled out that filled half the plane. It was a shape of ruin: with eight terrible heads, each crowned with a single horn, tentacles fanning from its chest like writhing banners. It lay down before Cillian as if before a king. Even when it settled, its bulk rose higher than the peaks of mountains . Being near it felt like breathing metal.

Its presence ate at stone; rock blackened and dissolved it into a steaming, foul marsh that turned the air sour. The corruption spread by degrees, then by hunger, and it would only grow faster with time. The thing’s every breath left a stain on the world.

Still, it lay there, patient and humble, trying to please the hand that had chosen it. In the dark sea of its mind a direct channel had formed, not to any voice, but to the will of the Endless Abyss itself. That will was Cillian’s. His choices reached the creature and threaded straight to its heart.

"Maker?" The sound came without pride, almost apologetic. It was a voice that belonged to no single tongue, a gathering of rattles, gurgles and old iron.

Cillian let the smile appear slow on his face. He had carved this hunger into being. He looked down at the thing birthed with so much difficulty and at last felt something close to satisfaction.

"Look up," he said.

The creature raised its heads. Up close its faces were monstrous mosaics: part demon, part serpent, part warped human features folded into one another until nothing clean remained. Their eyes were dull with hunger and new purpose. They were horrific and, even so, obedient.

"Tell me," Cillian asked quietly, "what will you call yourself?"

The creature bowed lower, its voice thin with reverence. "Mirethane," it whispered , a name that sounded like mud and ancient bargains.

Cillian accepted it with a nod. The name fit: the thing was a living blight, a lord of rot and rebirth cast from the very laws the Abyss had favored.

A moment later, in a place far from the plane but connected by the fractured mirrors of secret realms, Vice Principal Warren rubbed his temple, trying to piece together a language he’d only glimpsed.

He frowned, then chuckled with rueful curiosity. "Its name sounded like... Xanthos? Or maybe Barrek? The dialect in that shattered realm is a mess , syllables twist and break when you try to translate them. I also heard echoes like Sahr and Jiren." He set his teacup down and smiled, the kind of small, private smile that told Cillian more than words could. "Strange tongues, but all of them point in the same direction. Everything those fragments mean , corruption, pollution, plane-shattering, It suits his Endless Abyss perfectly ."

Warren took another sip and watched Cillian with a calm that was almost conspiratorial. "He designed the rules so the Abyss could hand a newborn like that its own gifts," he said. "Perfect match, really."

—————x——————

Cillian let the swamp steam and the new creature breathe. The name had landed. The Abyss had answered. The world shifted a little beneath their feet, and for the first time in a long while, he felt the truth of his work settle like a new stone.

"Mirethane?"

Cillian responded with a smile to the terrifying monster before him, a beast that occupied half the plane.

"Nice name."

As the ruler of the Endless Abyss, he recognized this creature. Of course, the recognition was not hollow or ceremonial. He could feel the very name of Mirethane pulsing at the core of the Abyss. Two faint syllables, drifting upward like ripples disturbing a still pond. At first, the effect seemed shallow, almost fragile. But for the creatures of the Abyss, such a ripple was no small matter.

It meant that if descendants bearing Mirethane’s bloodline were ever born within this world, the power of that name would awaken in their souls.

Some would inherit fragments of the terrifying abilities Mirethane now held. Even if Mirethane itself were to perish, it would never truly die. On the contrary, the strongest of its bloodline might be reborn through its name after its complete death.

Though the soul might differ, the strength it carried and its disaster-born power,and perhaps even its curse of rebirth would return with the name.

This realization made Cillian’s mind flash with an idea.

"Devil’s... true name?" he murmured. "A bloodline inheritance, bound to the power itself?"

Looking at Mirethane, Cillian raised a hand and patted one of its horned head. The monster shuddered, lowering all eight heads with a humility strange for such a nightmare. Cillian once again felt something that was becoming increasingly less rare, satisfaction.

"Not perfect yet," he admitted softly, "but the foundation of the True Name ability has appeared."

It was the clear embodiment of the principle of rebirth hidden within the drop of mythical blood he had claimed for the Abyss.

And with it, his world had gained more than one treasure: a swarm of new rules, a powerful mythical creature, and an ability that carried the promise of eternity. Mirethane’s power already rivaled that of a mythical beast, perhaps even surpassing them in direct combat.

For the first time, Cillian understood what such creatures truly were. Once born, they bent themselves to their world.

They prayed to it, obeyed it, and in return the world transformed its laws into gifts of power.

That was why mythical creatures grew so terrifyingly strong, they were natural heirs of the laws they were born beneath. They were also bound by them. Few such creatures could ever betray their own worlds, for their strength was inseparable from the realm that birthed them.

But then another thought stirred, dangerous and unorthodox.

"What if I captured mythical creatures from other worlds," he whispered, "and twisted their powers with the help of the Endless Abyss?"

His lips curved slightly, eyes glinting with greed. "Would they fall into corruption instead of dying?"

The thought alone was enough to make his pulse quicken. Myths called them blessings, miracles, warriors beyond reckoning, the kind of beings gods themselves coveted. And yet, Cillian wondered if the Abyss could devour them, twist them into something even greater.

Still, he shook the thought away. "Not yet. I don’t have the chance to test it. For now, I must strengthen the foundation of the Endless Abyss. The fourth assessment is only days away."

⸻X——-

While Cillian buried himself in preparations for a life-and-death clash with the assessment world, the other researchers pressed forward with their own simulated invasion tests. Across the academy, divine worlds bloomed and faltered like sparks in the wind. Many students had already cleared the first assessment and were rushing toward the second.

Among them was Zach Kingston. His research was nearly complete.

Within his divine world, he raised his hand, and his voice rang out like law:

"In the name of your Creator..."

Zach Kingston gazed upon the thousands of surviving alien invaders pinned beneath the roots of the world-tree sapling, Diluhagang. Behind him stood tens of millions of radiant elves, their eyes bright with devotion.

"Bury them beneath the roots of the bearer, Diluhagang! This is their punishment. This is our proof of survival!"

The elves answered with thunderous zeal. Graceful figures hurried forward, seizing the aliens and casting them into vast pits, shoveling soil upon their writhing bodies with no regard for their screams. Soon the roots of Diluhagang coiled tighter, dragging the invaders down, consuming them utterly. Their strengthwas broken down and absorbed as nourishment for the tree, which in turn fed power back into the world itself.

When the last cries had faded into silence, Zach Kingston withdrew from his divine world with quiet satisfaction.

Behind him, countless elves fell to their knees, worshiping the god who had given them life and victory.

Above their bowed heads, the young sapling of Diluhagang shimmered with vitality. Its leaves burned with light as it drew on the essence of the fallen. Soon, three new rules would take root in Zach’s world, expanding its very foundation.

"Congratulations, Zach!"

"Unbelievable! You finished so fast!"

"How difficult was the assessment?"

Excited voices greeted him as fellow students crowded around. His "fans" chattered endlessly, their admiration genuine.

Zach smiled warmly. "It wasn’t too hard. I had some good luck."

Compared to the cold, inhuman aura of Cillian, Zach Kingston was a beacon of warmth. His gentleness drew people in. If Cillian was the void, Zach was the sun, steady, radiant, endlessly approachable.

He laughed easily with his peers, but behind his bright smile lingered unease.

What is Cillian doing?

Between their last meeting and now, Cillian should have completed all his research. Yet no new papers had been released, no fresh data uploaded.

Silence stretched where his agonizing brilliance should have echoed.

Zach’s mind whispered a possibility that made his pulse quicken.

⸻X———

Meanwhile, in the Endless Abyss, Cillian moved with a certain focus, as every resource was used towards preparation, he made sure the demons multiplied, watching their numbers rise like a tide of darkness.

The air thickened, heavy with the metallic tang of blood. The stench spread through the Abyss, carried on unseen currents.

Every demon lifted its head at once.

They knew what it meant.