CHAPTER 31: WAR

In the space-time channel that was about to be swallowed whole by corruption...

"Charge!"

Marshal Thales roared.

No one could tell whether the marshal’s fury came from the black fog gnawing at his mind, from a premonition of the calamity closing in, or from shame at the tremor of fear that had stolen into his heart.

Whatever the cause, the result was the same: the four-meter-tall commander, a man who had weathered countless campaigns, drove his warhorse forward. His axe gleamed in the shifting gloom as he vanished into the fog at the very front.

Such raw defiance shocked the armies of the assessment world standing frozen in the channel. Their own cries of war caught in their throats.

Before them stretched a tide of twisted matter, endless black fog, and the demons it birthed, each with eyes glimmering with a hunger that stripped away courage itself.

For the first time, hesitation bound these warriors in place.

But then, the elf commander Elrond, mounted on his unicorn, raised his voice. His fury cracked through the dread pressing on their souls.

"How dare you... let the Marshal charge alone!"

Brandishing the angel-wrought banner, he spurred his unicorn and thundered into the fog.

The first clash was brutal. The unicorn’s hooves shattered the skull of a hulking native demon, trampling lesser spawn into gore. Blood splashed across its shining coat, yet a radiant light burst from the creature’s body, cleansing corruption with the brilliance of salvation. Even the choking fog recoiled, burned away in patches.

Elrond turned back, eyes blazing, and his gaze shattered the soldiers’ paralysis.

"All troops—CHARGE!"

No one knew which soldier echoed him first, but in that instant the fire still buried in their chests erupted. Banner after banner surged forward, as artillery thundered, arrows darkened the air, and divine spells flared like stars as the warriors hurled themselves against the abyssal tide.

"Fight them back! Drive out these monsters!"

These were not weaklings cowering before corruption. They were the war groups of the assessment world, victors of countless battles, now baring their fangs at the abyss once more.

At the head, Marshal Thales split a tumor-ridden demon in half with one swing of his axe. His wrath poured out as fire, reducing lesser creatures to ash.

He stood as a titan among men, a living mountain of might. Against his fury, ordinary demons were nothing but insects.

"Come on, then!" Thales roared, glaring into the depths of the fog. "Face me!"

Another swing crushed grinning fiends to powder and his shout rolled like thunder:

"In the name of the holy angels! be purified!"

The black fog faltered. The demonic tide recoiled and even the corruption’s spread seemed to halt beneath the marshal’s defiance.

By then, Elrond and the rest had reached his side, steel clashing against the retreating spawn. Thales cast only a brief glance back, his voice calm despite the carnage.

"Reform the ranks. Prepare to advance again."

And with a confident smile, he promised:

"We will cleanse this filth. We will purge their world."

His words reignited the warriors’ hearts. Their weapons lifted high, their battle cries roared once more.

Elrond’s chest swelled as he looked upon the marshal, blood-soaked yet unbowed. "Sure enough," he thought, "only heroes like him can stir men back from despair."

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

But then the ground itself trembled.

The cheers choked off in an instant, and a silence fell.

Soon whispers came, as low, maddening voices from the fog, swelling with each beat of those steps.

Then scarlet eyes appeared. Dozens, hundreds. All glaring out through the fog, clear as fire through smoke. Each glowed with loathing, with hunger, and with a cruel amusement.

Elrond felt the air grow hotter.

Like it was boiling, as though magma was drawing near.

And almost spontaneously from the fog came a colossal fire demon, clad in molten armor, horns black as obsidian. In its grip burned a sword of endless flame, and with each breath it loosed a storm of fire. The channel itself began to melt beneath its heat.

"Legendary... peak!" Elrond gasped, with horror freezing his blood.

But the steps had not stopped.

Behind the fire demon came a two-headed serpent, its scales dripping venom. Then a writhing mass of mud and mouths. Then a beast crawling on bone-spurred limbs, bristling with tentacles. One after another they emerged, each steeped in depravity, each at the peak of legend.

Elrond turned to Thales.

The marshal’s axe was still in his hands, but even his hands trembled.

The Endless Abyss had never intended to retreat.

Far below, in the true darkness of the abyss, a pair of cold eyes opened.

⸻———x——————

"How’s it going?"

In the observation chamber of Grimstone University, one of the tutors leaned forward, his face serious though a faint smile lingered. They all knew why. Vice Principal Warren had been watching Cillian’s trial with unusual intensity, and it was clear to everyone that he was deeply invested.

"Not ideal..." Warren exhaled, his brow furrowed.

"But you’ve seen it. The Endless Abyss hasn’t been breached. From the start, Cillian never intended to let warriors from the assessment world enter his domain and wreak havoc. Instead, he struck first and turned the invasion on its head, forcing a confrontation in the passage itself, where his abyssal demons and the Divine Realm soldiers can clash head-on."

On the projection wall, the once radiant golden channel between the two worlds had warped into a storm of black and red. Within, Cillian’s abyssal legions surged, pressing the advantage.

"Oh?" A tutor’s eyes lit with interest. "That’s clever."

He had studied the outlines of the fourth assessment before. The early stage always carried the same impossible weight: surviving the flood of alien armies pouring in like the tide. Yet here was Cillian, twisting the rules, forcing the war into a bottleneck.

But Warren’s expression only darkened. He tapped a control rune, shifting the image. "You’re missing the point."

"This boy is reckless. Completely utterly reckless."

The projection widened.

"For reasons I can’t fathom, Cillian hasn’t focused on one world or even two. He’s invaded all thirteen planets of the assessment world simultaneously."

"You know what that means," Warren went on, his tone sharp. "Each of those planets shelters entire civilizations, countless alien races bred for war. And yet..he’s begun what can only be described as a..."

"...Crazed war."

The instructors stared at the display. Their eyes widened.

From the Endless Abyss, vast tendrils writhed outward, punching through the crystal barriers between planes. They hooked into the thirteen worlds like harpoons, drawing them closer. On every surface, black stains bloomed—small at first, then multiplying, spreading like an infection.

Where the Abyss reached, its demon armies poured in. Cities burned and forests blackened as Oceans churned into sludge.

But the assessment world was not passive. The sudden incursions roused champions too numerous to count: warbands of titans, steampunk armies, spellbound knights, beasts older than memory. All stirred to resist.

——————x——————

Deep below, in the heart of the Endless Abyss, Cillian sat cross-legged.

The corridor battle did not hold his focus. Brutal as it was, it was only a diversion. His gaze was fixed instead on the thirteen blackened marks spreading across the assessment world.

"The channel is only the surface," he murmured. Tendrils of abyssal matter pulsed like veins from his back, embedding themselves deeper into the void. "The true battle is with the corruption and rot."

His eyes lifted, sharp and calm.

"If I can consume thirteen worlds at once, if the tunnels bind fully, then..."

His lips curved faintly.

"...none of them will ever escape."

——————x——————

Assessment World. Thirteenth Planet.

A land of dwarves and gnomes.

On the walls of an artisan city, smoke and sparks mingled with blood.

"Damn it! Where are these foul creatures coming from?" roared Ironfelt, a dwarf veteran with half his beard burned away.

His hand still clutched the cracked barrel of a musket, useless now. Behind him loomed a great steampunk war machine, its cockpit torn open, legs sheared off by a demon’s bite.

The beast had chewed through metal with flesh and teeth alone.

Another dwarf, his head bandaged, struggled beside the wreck with a wrench. "I don’t know what they are, but there’s too many of them." He glanced down the wall. "Look at the ground. Look at the bodies."

Ironfelt followed his gaze. The battlefield was littered with demon corpses, and even in death they defiled the land. Their flesh melted into poison, as their blood smoked like acid.

"If not for our rifles and machines, we’d be dead already," the bandaged dwarf muttered.

"Maybe." Ironfelt swapped his ruined musket for another. "But we’re still stand—"

The words broke as a sound seeped into the air. A hollow cry, yet so sharp it dug into their bones.

"Ah..."

The call of a demon.

Ironfelt vaulted to the parapet, firing without aiming. A lesser fiend collapsed, skull burst, its blood spilling like poison across the stone.

"Hah! Just a stray." He chuckled, lowering the rifle, and turned back to scavenge among the fallen for one last flask of liquor.

But the bandaged dwarf clutched his shoulder. "Wait."

"What now?"

"The bodies. They’re gone."

Ironfelt frowned, half a bottle in his hand. "Isn’t that good? Saves us the cleaning."

"No, look closer."

He did, and froze...

The corpses had indeed vanished, but the land beneath was worse. Grass had withered, the stone cracked, and the earth was sunken.

What should have been solid ground now seemed like a falling, endless pit. Cocoon-like husks pulsed in the dirt, feeding on it.

Ironfelts liquor slipped from his grasp.

"This land..." the bandaged dwarf sighed. "Is rotting..."