CHAPTER 32: WAR(2)

The soldiers on the wall froze in disbelief.

"This... what is this?"

Even Ironfelt, whose voice rarely trembled, could not hide the unease in his chest.

Around him, dwarves and gnomes stared into the distance, their faces pale.

The land that had once been theirs, land that had grown fields of green and rivers of silver, now stretched out as a barren and twisted wasteland. In an instant, the soil had blackened, the air had thickened, and the corpses of the demons they had just slain had dissolved into nothing.

But worse than the decay was what replaced it.

Across that blackened earth, strange cocoons rose like tumors, writhing and pulsing with unholy life. They were not native to this world.

They were being transmitted, dragged through from another dimension. The crystal wall of the plane itself had been corroded, and the Endless Abyss was bleeding through.

The cocoons twitched, swelling, as something inside clawed to be born.

"Fire!"

A roar split the paralysis. A burly dwarf, hand cannon in his grip, raised his weapon and let the steel thunder speak. His voice carried over the stunned ranks like a hammer blow.

Ironfelt knew him well, he was a neighbor, a drinking companion, and now the garrison officer entrusted with defending the city.

"Quickly! Destroy these monsters before they hatch!"

Bang!

The officer’s shell slammed into a cocoon. It burst with a wet crack, spilling blood and mucus as a half-formed demon was blown apart, its body scattered across the poisoned ground.

The hand cannon’s roar shook the soldiers from their fear. Dwarves scrambled to reload their weapons, others rushing to supply them with powder and shot. Gnomes darted between them, carrying crates of gear and ammunition. Those who still had their mechanical war machines leapt into cabs and cranked them to life, pistons hissing, gears grinding as the pride of their civilization stomped forward into battle.

Boom!

Boom!

The war engines roared, and steel fire poured into the writhing field of cocoons.

For a moment, the tide seemed to turn. Dozens of cocoons shattered beneath the onslaught, spraying filth and fragments of demon flesh. But the rest only convulsed faster, driven by the instinct of survival, and the first shell cracked.

A demon was born.

It crawled from the ruptured cocoon, dripping with gore. Its scarlet eyes opened.

It froze, it’s beheld a world with blue skies and white clouds, completely different from where its ancestors had been born, its body trembled, overwhelmed by the beauty.

But beauty lasted only a breath.

The steel leg of a war machine slammed down with a crash, crushing its body in an explosion of blood and bone. Its broken head flew backwards, and as its vision blurred it heard the harsh shouting of the dwarves in their engines.

A shot pierced its skull, ending its fragile life. But its fragments would not fade, they would sink back into the Abyss, nourished by the corruption, until it rose again as something stronger.

An hour later...

The battlefield had quieted. The air was thick with smoke, and the ground was littered with shattered cocoons and steaming ichor.

"Hah! Hah hah hah!" one dwarf wheezed, his face streaked with soot. "The monsters this time were weaker than I thought!"

"Fragile indeed, I thought we’d be buried."

Laughter followed. The warriors leaned against their machines, drained but alive. The cocoons had been shattered before most demons could crawl free, and those that had emerged were cut down in seconds by metal and fire.

It was, by all appearances, a victory.

And yet, the black earth was spreading.

"It doesn’t matter," Ironfelt muttered, trying to steady his own nerves. "We have the angels. Their priests will come and they’ll cleanse this filth."

He tossed a half-empty jug of liquor to the garrison officer, forcing a grin. "Come on, old friend. Let’s drink while we’re still breathing."

Bang

The jug bounced off the officer’s chest and rolled to the ground. He hadn’t moved to catch it. Instead, his face had gone pale, his hand trembling as it pointed skyward.

Ironfelt felt it then — a weight in his gut, a foreboding that made the hairs on his neck rise.

He turned his head upwards, slowly.

A black and red vortex churned above the plane, its spirals tearing into the sky. At its center, an immense eye stared down in cruelty.

Below it, the earth ruptured again.

Cocoons, countless cocoons, erupted from the soil. Their shells were marked with twisting red-black patterns that glowed with a sick light. The writhing was faster now, more violent. The forms inside were no longer shadows, their muscular bodies were already visible, claws pressing against the thin, weakening shells.

One cracked open. A demon crawled free, its eyes burning not with confusion, but with pure malice.

And as more cocoons split, the army of the Abyss began to awaken.

"Pray," Ironfelt whispered, his voice hollow. "Pray to the angels above us..."

⸻———x——————

Meanwhile, Inside the observation room...

"Wait, how does Cillian have so many soldiers?"

One instructor’s voice cracked as he stared at the projection.

On the screens, a dwarven-gnomish city was collapsing in real time. Tens of thousands lived there, ringed by stone walls, armed with muskets, engines of steel, and proud workshops that had supplied their people for centuries. Yet in just a few hours, it was being overrun by the endless spawn of the Abyss.

Not one of these demons was a legendary combatant, yet the pure tide drowned every defense.

A dwarf with a shattered gun knelt by his fallen brother, clutching the corpse’s hand.

His face turned to the angel statue in the city square, and he wept as he prayed, Around him, the last defenders gave themselves to desperate struggle.

Each explosive blast of powder and shot was bought with blood. Every war engine that self-destructed carried the last stubborn will of its pilot.

But outside the shattered walls, the black soil spread, and now High-ranking demons were descending.

The prayers would not save the city, it would fall.

At the cities heart, the holy statue of the angel had been splattered with gore. The stone face, smeared with the flesh of its worshippers, now seemed almost alive, wrinkled with pity, and twisted with anger.

It stood motionless, watching its own city be dragged into the Abyss.

Many of the instructors watching felt a pang of sorrow.

But only for a breath, they had seen this too many times. Their own divine worlds were stronger, their cruelties deeper. They reminded themselves, gods do not weep for mortals.

"Still, how did he do this?" one instructor muttered. "How is Cillian summoning so many demons at once?"

The view shifted to another world. This time, an elven city. Different race, different land, yet the same ruin, demons pouring through, homes destroyed, prayers swallowed by fire. More images flickered across the walls, more cities under siege. Black stains multiplying like infection.

Vice Principal Warren said nothing. He gathered his faith, tracing the line back toward Cillian’s abyssal domain. He wanted to se...no needed to know how the boy had birthed such an army.

Yet when he tried to peek into the abyss, darkness was all he found. Darkness..and one red eye staring back at him.

The entire vision of the Endless Abyss was sealed. Even with the school’s system, no one could pierce it.

Murmurs spread through the chamber. "Our sight is blocked? Does that mean...."

"Has Cillian already ascended? Is he hiding his divine world as a god would hide their sea of mind?"

Normally, the instructors could view any graduate’s divine realm through the system with ease. But now Cillian’s Abyss was walled off, wrapped in a crystal-dark barrier that defied intrusion.

For a moment, they almost believed it. That he had shed mortality, and stepped into the ranks of gods.

But Warren’s voice cut through the room, firm and sharp.

"No. He has not ascended."

The others turned to him, startled.

"He’s using rules," Warren continued. "If you were to look into the nature of low-latitude worlds you’ll find there exists dark laws you can use to mask your divine worlds from others. And he’s not hiding because he’s won, he’s preparing for defense."

"Defense? Now? But he’s clearly on the attack, he has the advantage!"

Confusion swept the chamber. None could understand what enemy he was bracing for.

⸻———x——————

In the principal’s office...

Elara leaned back, her gaze steady on the stream of images.

She was one step away from the realm of Star Gods, her power was vast enough to thread entire galaxies with a thought. No matter how wide this war spread, her eyes could trace its every line.

And just then, something shifted.

Her lips moved slightly. "So... it arrives at last."

In one vision, an orc warrior, bloodied and scarred, knelt with his mate in his arms. Her body was twisting, half-claimed by the infection of abyssal creatures. Insect tails grew from her flesh, her organs rotted, her blood spilled onto the ground and crawled as tiny shrieking larvae.

"Great angel," the orc wept, "please save her."

Another picture flared. A lizardman, hands clasped before a statue. "Cleanse me of this corruption."

A spirit, a human, a gnome, each in turn, voices breaking, whispering the same plea.

"Angels... Angel..."

Countless prayers braided together, their light rising through the planes, merging into a place beyond words. And in that place, something stirred, something that had been long asleep.

The heavens grew heavy.

With a low rumble the oracles returned.

"The Lord’s messengers have heard the cries."

"The first servants awaken to purge the filth."

"Then the angels, under His light, will rise again."

The star system itself shuddered.

The dragon’s nests, sealed for ages, cracked open, and ancient wings tore the skies.

The World Tree bloomed in fire, treants wrenching their roots from the earth to march once more. In the deep canyons, the eyes of primal beasts lit with hunger for war. In abandoned workshops, dust fell from steel giants as the dwarves’ ancient war engines awoke from centuries of silence.

One by one, the guardians of thirteen worlds shook off their slumber. Summoned by faith, and roused by rage.

But Cillian was not watching them.

He raised his eyes to the fourteenth planet, the pure white star.

And from its heart, a pair of eyes gazed back at him through the dark. Eyes that pierced the Abyss, unblinking.