"Direction, twenty degrees..adjust, adjust!"

An artillery commander of the Hayes stood at the edge of the blackened land, compass in hand. Behind him, soldiers in gas masks heaved massive shells into place, each one engraved with runes that glowed faintly green.

The cannons waiting beside them were monsters in their own right, engines of war built from the union of alchemy and technology.

These were no ordinary weapons, they were the pride of the Hayes: the magic cannons.

Unlike the crude artillery of steam-powered worlds, these devices married precision engineering with sorcery. Their intricate cores stabilized blasts, while the embedded arrays amplified each strike. These were the monsters that could fire the weapon Hayes scientists called the death bomb.

Each shell carried within it chemical poisons that spread like plague. Once detonated, no living thing could survive the ground it touched.

The commander raised his arm. His eyes gleamed cold through the lens of his mask.

"Fire!"

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The cannons answered at once.

Dozens of shells roared into the sky, each trailing a sickly green comet-tail as they crossed above the battlefield. They looked almost alive as they fell.

Then came the impact.

BOOM!

The ground shook, black soil tearing apart beneath the explosions. The blasts themselves were vicious, but what made the weapons feared was what followed.

Green mist rose from the craters like breath from a poisoned earth.

The haze rolled outward, clinging to the ground in waves. The first little demon caught in it froze. Its eyes bulged wide, throat clamped as if invisible hands were strangling it. A wet gurgle escaped its mouth before its body erupted in grotesque pustules that swelled and burst in rapid succession.

But the corruption did not stop there.

The creature collapsed, twitching, clawing at its dissolving flesh. Its muscles melted, blood curdled into pus, and its eyeballs sliding free as its frame sagged into a puddle.

In less than ten seconds, what had been a snarling little demon was nothing more than a quivering pool of filth.

All across the black earth, it was the same.

The mist consumed them without mercy. Entire swarms writhed, melted, and collapsed into sludge. The ground itself changed, its black-and-red surface turning sickly yellow-green under the chemical stain.

Only a few of the mutated demons, those with warped resistance to toxins, managed to stagger forward. But their survival was short-lived.

"Attack!"

A Hayes soldier, armored head to toe, surged through the fog. His curved blade shimmered under a strengthening spell as he closed the distance in seconds. With a single swing, he cleaved through a demon's neck.

The creature's head rolled, before a boot crushed it into paste.

The others tried to rally, but the Hayes had brought more than soldiers.

"Bang, bang, bang!"

A hulking war machine, plated in black iron and carved with a skull emblem, unleashed its fury. Twin barrels roared, spitting streams of glowing rounds that tore through the remaining demons. Flesh, bone, and ichor exploded in sprays as the machine advanced, guns screaming in rhythm.

Its driver laughed wildly, slamming more controls. Additional weapons flared to life, hosing down anything that twitched.

None of the demons could stand against it.

All around, Hayes infantry pressed forward in disciplined waves. Their enchanted armor repelled claws and teeth. Their blades cut with precision. With equipment and blessings, even the lowest among them fought at a strength equal to rank-five warriors.

In less than an hour, half the battlefield was a wasteland. The vanguard pressed deeper, smashing through hatching cocoons, burning nests before the creatures inside could crawl free.

Reports streamed back to the command post.

"Well done."

The Hayes commander scanned the updates, a rare smile tugging at his lips. Enemy casualties piled high.

"These abominations are twisted but weak. They fall faster than wheat before the scythe."

He looked around at his officers, his tone rising with grim satisfaction.

"This world will break easily beneath our feet. Continue the advance. Burn out every trace of resistance. Establish a forward base, we'll take this realm as our own."

⸻———X——————

Far below, at the heart of the Endless Abyss, Cillian sat upon his throne.

Through his divine perception, he observed countless battlefronts. At one corner of the field, he studied the mythical creature, its many bodies fought fiercely, but one by one they were being seized by his demons.

Cillian leaned back, chin resting lightly on his hand. His voice was calm, but his eyes shone with curiosity.

"I wonder what rule binds your flesh… what spark drives your constant rebirth. If I grafted that essence into the Endless Abyss, what would emerge?"

He mused on the possibilities.

But then, his attention shifted.

His gaze flicked toward the desert's edge.

"…?"

A ripple of destruction tore across the black land. Dozens of his demons vanished in an instant, melted by a poisonous rain unlike anything this world had yet produced. Entire swathes of territory dissolved beneath unnatural green smoke.

Cillian's lips curved faintly. Less in anger and more in curiosity.

"What is this?"

He turned his sight deeper, and there, he found them.

Armored soldiers with strange machines and shells that glowed with toxins.

At first, he wondered if this was another intelligent race born of this realm. But as his divine vision swept over them, he noticed something more subtle.

Behind each soldier, faint threads stretched outward, lines of ash, laced with curses.

"These aren't natives…"

Cillian's eyes sharpened, his voice dropping to a low murmur.

"They're from another world. And more…." His gaze lingered on the cursed threads, the faint echo of divine fire that clung to them.

"…they carry the blessings of gods."

At the edge of the Hayes' advance, one of their soldiers halted mid-stride.

His breath caught in his throat as the ground before him split open.

From the cracked soil, a structure clawed its way upward, gates of flesh, bone, and rot interwoven into a grotesque arch. The air itself trembled as voices bled from beyond.

"What is this? A door?!"

The Hayes soldiers at the front had been laughing as they cut down little demons, blades flashing, boots grinding corpses into the soil.

The march across the black earth had felt like a hunt rather than a battle, death bombs cleared the swarms before they advanced, and the scattered survivors were quickly laid to waste.

Before them, several tall structures blocked the way. They looked like doors, but not any doors one would craft in good will.

The little demons had never posed a challenge. Even armed only with claws and numbers, they had been obliterated by the Hayes war machine. Now, with entire units carrying enchanted rifles, heavy armor, and alchemical grenades, the Hayes troops felt invincible.

Which made the sudden appearance of the doors all the more unsettling.

They stood crooked in the soil, their frames shaped from rotten flesh, broken bones, and the corpses of fallen creatures. At their tops, jagged symbols were smeared in dried blood, half resembling numbers, half madness.

A soldier sneered through his mask. "Hissss… what is this? A building built by these little freaks?"

Another frowned, gaze narrowing. "Maybe. Look at it, the filth. Who else could've made something like this?"

One of them didn't hesitate. He swung the launcher from his back, rune-light crawling along the barrel.

"Why waste time guessing? Blow it apart."

He fired.

Bang!

The grenade struck, detonating in a blossom of flame and smoke. The soldiers waited, the blast was strong enough to kill an eighth-rank beast, it would scatter the thing into gore.

But when the smoke cleared, the door still stood.

Not even scorched.

"What…?" the gunner muttered, lowering his weapon. His comrades shifted uneasily, disbelief written across their masked faces.

A structure surviving a blast strong enough to down an eighth rank? Unless—

La low, writhing whisper rose from behind the gates.

More weapons swung into place. "Something's wrong. Fire again!"

Explosions lit the battlefield, grenade after grenade pounding into the door. Yet still, it endured, and the whispers became a chorus.

The soldiers gritted their teeth. The Hayes were hardened killers, and still the sound sank under their skin. They dismissed it at first as the black earth gnawing at their minds. After all, Hayes warriors medicated weekly to suppress emotional side effects. Surely it was only the battlefield.

The gate pulsed and then it opened.

A little demon stumbled through. Then another, then another then dozens more.

The Hayes soldiers burst into relief.

"So that's all?!"

"Just these pests again!"

"I thought something big was coming through!"

Guns thundered. Swords flashed and the newcomers were torn apart in moments, their blood slicking the gate's base until the ground was thick with meat and ichor.

But the relief didn't last.

The real nightmare followed.

The gate shuddered. A figure stepped through, and every Hayes soldier froze.

It was massive. Its flesh was a deep, sickly purple. Tumors swelled across its twisted body, and its face was a grotesque mockery of shape. Most horrifying were its eyes, hundreds, thousands of them, blinking open across its skin, each filled with malice, hunger, and hate.

The soldiers trembled and their weapons shook in their hands.

"Ahhh…" The thing inhaled, voice thick and wet.

"Sweet… the taste of flesh and blood, the air of poison… this new world smells delicious."

It tilted its head, savoring the air like fine wine. Behind it, more horrors pushed through the portal, each demon more twisted than the last.

The Hayes soldiers began to falter.

"OPEN FIRE!"

Weapons roared. Dozens of death bombs rained down, bursting into poisonous fog thick enough to kill anything with a breath. The haze rolled over the demons in choking clouds of yellow-green.

The soldiers held their ground, weapons raised.

"Did we… kill it?"

Then sound of a wet slither came.

From within the smoke, a long, maggot-ridden tongue lashed out, striking across a soldier's mask. The man screamed, stumbling back, only for the fog to split open and reveal hundreds of eyes glaring at him from the dark.

A voice, layered and mocking, filled the air:

"You were looking for me, little cutie~"

The demon's clawed hand clamped onto his shoulders, its bulk looming. It inhaled deeply, pulling the poisoned air into its lungs, then shivered with delight.

"Mmm… these gifts you offered me, I love them. They remind me of home…."

Its teeth split into a grin. "Now, let me return the favor."

Its maw opened wide.

⸻———X——————

At the edge of the black earth, the Hayes vanguard was annihilated.

Not one soldier survived.

Not even their souls escaped the demons' grasp.

The report, bloody and brief, was carried back to the Hayes commander.

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