"Not good!"

The creatures leader's instincts screamed at him. He roared a warning and dropped low, rolling across the dirt just as a foul wind passed over his scalp. A black hook, dripping with stench, sliced the air above him and buried itself into the trunk of a tree.

he gasped, a brief surge of relief flooding him.

But that relief lasted only a heartbeat.

Click. Click.

"Ah!"

A scream tore through the jungle. The leader turned, and his eyes widened in horror.

Another warrior, one of his own, had been caught. A crude black hook punched straight through his subordinates abdomen, the barbed iron links rattling as they pulled tight.

The hooked man thrashed, blood spraying across the roots at his feet. Then, with a violent tug, he was dragged into the jungle's shadows.

A wet, hungry chewing came from the darkness, the sound froze every living soul.

"What… what is that?" one of the creatures whispered, his voice trembling.

None dared move. Only the leader managed to act, his survival instincts stronger than fear.

"Run!" he bellowed. "Run and warn the rest! Tell them—"

His words died on his lips. The hook flashed again, faster than thought, and tore through his thigh. He screamed as the chain dragged him, his fingers clawing at the earth to no use. From the blackened treeline, something vast stirred.

A shape stepped out.

An enormous demon, grotesquely fat, her flesh sagging in folds. Her thick legs shook the ground with each step. In her left hand, she gripped the chain attached to the hook, tugging it back with casual strength. In her right, she clutched a bundle of other chains, each one ending in the broken body of a lesser demon enslaved to her will.

Her eyes gleamed scarlet, and her lips peeled into a sneer.

Behind her poured hundreds more twisted forms, each uniquely vile, from spined beasts with eyes blooming across their hides, to crawling horrors with too many limbs, pale figures that dripped venom from their mouths. All of them marked with the same abyssal corruption, their gazes burning red with mindless hatred.

The creatures leader saw them and felt his heart sink.

This invasion was different. These demons were not like the ones he had fought in past generations.

"Go!" he screamed again, forcing his voice to carry through the terror choking his throat. "Let the priests call upon the gods!"

But even as he spoke, the truth pressed in on him. The so-called gods his people prayed to had failed before, and he was sure these new horrors carried no fear of divine punishment.

The chains rattled again.

——————x——————

Two days later, the jungle was unrecognizable.

The fresh scent of rain-soaked leaves had been replaced by the stench of blood.

Once-bright flowers shriveled black, their petals curling inward. The cries of animals had fallen silent.

Where proud predators and prey once danced in balance, now only abominations roamed. Twisted abyss-beasts, stalked through the ruins of the jungle. They bore jagged fangs, swollen limbs, and eyeless faces, their minds stripped away. They killed without thought.

The plants were no longer innocent either. Roots drank greedily from spilled blood. Vines twitched and coiled like predators, lashing out at anything that passed near. The jungle itself had become an accomplice to the Abyss.

Death had taken root, and spread.

These abyss-beasts became a plague upon the land. They devoured every surviving animal, then turned toward villages, slaying entire settlements in their frenzy. To the different races, they were not beasts but curses, a shadow of death descending over their world.

Yet this world was not defenseless.

It possessed four great beings, creatures so powerful that mortals called them gods.

One soared through the skies, a feathered serpent whose wings commanded the flocks and swarms above.

Another lurked in the oceans, a monstrous blend of crab and octopus.

A third stood within the planet's fiery heart, a colossal elf-shaped titan of magma and flame.

The last was not one but many, a hive of endless incarnations crawling beneath the deserts, its consciousness scattered across countless bodies.

The tribes revered these four as their guardians, the Four Great Gods. Their influence was vast and against lesser invasions, they had always prevailed. Even now, they barred the demons from their sacred domains, drawing lines the Abyss could not yet cross.

——————x——————

"The attack is proceeding smoothly."

Cillian's eyes opened within the depths and through his connection to the Abyss, he watched the black stains multiplying across the planet's surface. Each mark spread outward, gnawing away at the world's fabric.

He smiled faintly.

Every stain would grow until it merged with others, the corruption spiraling outward in ever-expanding rings. In time, the world itself would become indistinguishable from the Abyss. Its lands would twist, rivers would bleed and its people would break.

And when the final veil collapsed, the entire plane would be harvested. Its bloodlines, abilities, and very rules would be absorbed into the Endless Abyss, strengthening Cillian's dominion.

He knew this because had done it before.

Seven times, since graduating Grimstone academy. He'd consumed seven worlds

This would be the eighth.

He calculated that within the week the Abyss would reduce this world to rot. The mythical creatures here, those so-called gods, posed no real threat. They might slow the spread, but they could not stop it.

All he had to do was wait. His demons were loyal, tireless, and obedient. They would not falter.

The Abyss would claim this world.

At least… that was the plan.

Cillian's gaze shifted. In the void beyond, a gray star drifted closer, its pull brushing against the same world he now coveted. It was not part of his design. It was something else, another force, stretching its hand toward the same prey.

He frowned.

If this star collided with his Abyss, the world's core might not endure. It could shatter.

And then neither would claim it.

——————x——————

One hour before the great channel from the Abyss could open, another rift split into being. Not black and red, but gray.

From it marched a figure clad in armor as dark as night. He stepped through, removed his helmet, and drew a long breath of the corrupted air. A smile curved his lips.

Behind him stretched an army.

An army which stretched further than the eye could see

"Hiss… ha…"

The dark figure stepped out of the gray rift, armored from head to toe.

"What an intoxicating world," he murmured, his voice rough but filled with satisfaction.

"No alchemical smog. No industrial smoke choking the sky. Not even the cursed resonance left behind when dark gods fall. Pure and Untainted."

Beneath the helm, his features were strange yet still humanoid. Gray fur covered his face, sharp rodent teeth gleamed, and his twitching nose betrayed a predator's sense of smell. But it was his eyes that set him apart, glowing violet, a faint blue shimmer swimming in the depths. They burned with the excess of magical energy coursing through his body, proof of a race that had long since mastered the fusion of magic and science.

And he was not alone.

One by one, more soldiers marched out from the gray channel. Each bore the same hybrid armor, an ingenious creation of metal, alchemy, and sorcery. The plates were forged from alloys so strong they could withstand the strike of a war-beast, yet so light they hardly burdened the wearer. Within the armor's frame, hidden mechanisms of alchemical design enhanced every movement, letting its bearer run faster, leap higher, and unleash bursts of chemical fire.

More astonishing still were the runes carved into the armor's outer shell. Intricate magic arrays pulsed faintly with power, granting even common soldiers the might to rival seventh-rank beings.

Their appearance told the truth plainly: they did not come from a primitive world. Their homeland behind the rift was terrifyingly advanced.

"Commander."

A soldier approached, saluting crisply. "The first wave has crossed. Five legions have already entered the channel, and the magical armored regiment follows. Heavy weapons will arrive soon."

The one called Commander nodded slowly. His whiskers twitched, and his eyes gleamed. Confidence radiated from him. His people had waged endless wars since the dawn of their Dark Age. They knew no other way to live.

"So," the soldier pressed. "What are our next orders?"

The Commander turned, gazing across the barren landscape with disdain. A grin split his face, sharp teeth bared.

"First, establish a forward base," he said. "Then prepare to march. We will plunder this world's resources, strip it bare, and claim it as our colony. Its people will bow or burn."

He laughed, the sound carrying like iron against stone. "These natives can no more resist us than a child can stop a storm. The iron hooves of our magic armies will crush them flat."

Behind him, the rift pulsed wider. The world he came from loomed beyond it, a colossal realm of steel and sorcery that bred endless armies like his own.

"Interesting…"

Far below, at the bottom of the Endless Abyss, Cillian paused. His work analyzing the crystal wall's spatial rules was nearly complete, yet his senses flickered as something caught his attention. He opened one eye, peering across the veil into the world above.

His sight fell upon a battlefield of sand.

The desert stretched endless, battered by winds that never ceased. Once it had been harsh but alive, its sparse creatures clinging to survival with stubborn vitality. But now the Abyss had poisoned it.

The sands blackened, soaked with corruption. Life shriveled at its touch. Hardy beasts and plants that had endured centuries of drought collapsed, their bodies rotting into foul sludge. From their corpses sprouted horrible tumor-like growths that twitched and writhed. The Abyss plants spread like cancer, swelling outward each time they squirmed, gnawing mile by mile into the desert.

Yet resistance rose.

Something stirred within the land itself, a force so strange that even Cillian leaned forward, curiosity piqued.

A mythical creature unlike any he had ever studied had begun to gather its strength. It was no single being, but a collective. Incarnations burst forth across the desert—stone-skinned elves born of sand and rock, monstrous sandworms that tore through the black soil, swarms of spirits carried on the wind. Creatures with different forms, habits, and habitats, but bound to the same whole.

A hive of incarnations stretching across the desert, answering a single will.

Cillian's lips curved.

"The application of rules… or a bloodline I've never encountered?" he mused.

"Fascinating."

He sent forth his command, his will rippling like a black tide through the Abyss. To the demons clawing across the desert came his order:

Capture it at all costs.

Losses incurred would be irrelevant the knowledge mattered more.

He would dissect this thing.

Yet as his attention fixed upon the collective beast, a detail slipped past him.

On the far horizon, figures appeared. A dozen of them, alien to this world. Their forms bore no resemblance to the desert's natives. They stood watching, with their gazes heavy with suspicion as they beheld the incarnations rising from the sands.

Their armor glinted faintly in the sun and their eyes burned violet.

The children of the gray rift had arrived.

And the desert was about to become a battlefield of three masters, the natives, the Abyss, and the invaders from beyond.

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