"Let me first explain the key points of this battle."

The commander of the Hayes placed a shimmering magic map on the war table, its surface rippled with a faint blue light. Around him stood the highest officers of the three great legions, the Death Messengers, the Exterminators, and the Poison Corps. Behind him, two additional space channels glowed as more forces poured through: the legion of great scientists and the legion of magic users.

From those gates came a flood of war machines and arcane devices, hauled in piece by piece. Many were unstable prototypes, their power yet untested, but a war of worlds left little room for caution. The base quaked with the endless procession of steel, smoke, and sorcery.

"The first priority," the commander said, tapping the map with a gloved finger, "is to push back the collapsing front lines."

"Which front?" the Death Messenger commander asked, frowning deeply. His eyes traced the glowing contours of the map, and his face darkened. The marks of retreat spread across every theater of battle.

"Not one," the commander replied grimly. "All of them. Every front is breaking."

The commander lifted a report from his adjutant and passed it forward. The pages carried sketches of twisted landscapes, black stains spreading like wounds, and soldiers broken by corruption.

"Our enemy does not fight like any we have faced before," he continued. "When their bodies fall, they do not remain. They dissolve into black corruption that poisons the land, the air, and even the water. These stains birth new creatures, weak in strength but endless in number."

He swept his hand across the map, where the lines of infection bled outward from every battlefield. "Every step we surrender becomes a nest for their spawn. We cannot allow them time to spread. Our only choice is to advance, even against overwhelming resistance."

The Death Messenger commander's jaw tightened. The Poison Corps officer leaned back, expression unreadable behind his mask.

"Our objective is clear." The commander's voice hardened. The map shifted to reveal a vast swirling gate, the space gate of the Endless Abyss. "We must strike into the black lands themselves. We must seize their gates. Only then will we hold the coordinates of their world and turn from defense to offense."

——————x——————

While the Hayes clan prepared for war, Cillian was doing the same within the Endless Abyss.

Yet his preparations were nothing like theirs. Where the Hayes relied on engines of war and alchemical science, Cillian wielded the raw power of his domain.

At the Abyssal incubation pools, he bled a single strand of essence into the black waters, a shard of poisonous blood drawn from a distant toxic plane. The pools writhed in response, their red-black cocoons bubbling and splitting open. From within emerged new shells, green and blue, marked with venomous veins. Soon, swarms of lesser demons with resistance to poison would crawl forth and march to the frontlines at his command.

While they were cannon fodder,they were still necessary. Like grains of sand in a storm, their sheer number would grind the enemy down. Without them, the Abyss would crumble.

Cillian left the pools and descended into the endless dark beneath his throne. There he sat upon bone and shadow, and the black fog rose to cloak him. His will stretched outward, fusing with the abyssal mists until he was no longer flesh but the will of the domain itself.

From the churning vortex of the Abyss's core, tendrils of shadow uncoiled, pushing against the veil between worlds. The sky itself began to warp as a black star took shape.

Within the depths of the Abyss, Mythical beings stirred. Colossi of nightmare opened their eyes as Cillian's will touched them.

——————x——————

On the No. 3 front, where the Hayes clan had drawn their lines, the Ratmen cost was already staggering.

"Damn! The soul-eaters are coming!"

A young Hayes soldier broke down at the sight of the approaching horde. He had lived through their horrors once, watching comrades torn apart and devoured. Their screams haunted him, and the memory alone shattered his courage.

He dropped his rifle, stumbling backward in panic. Though the demons were still kilometers away, he could not bear to remain. He turned and fled, until a heavy blow smashed into his face. Blood sprayed as he crashed to the ground.

"Back to your post, soldier!"

Through the haze of pain, he looked up and saw the masked officer of the Poison Corps glaring down at him. Behind the mask, contempt radiated in every word.

"Pick up your gun," the officer growled. "Or die here as a coward."

The soldier froze as the officer turned his gaze back to the battlefield. A sneer crept into his voice.

"Just a mob of brainless beasts…"

Around them, dozens of heavy war machines ground into place. Rust and blood caked their frames, but their barrels gleamed, freshly loaded. Each shell was engraved with runes of decay, symbols of the Poison Corps.

"Fire."

The command thundered, and the world erupted.

Cannon fire split the plains apart, shockwaves tearing through soil and stone alike. Where the shells struck, the ground disintegrated into ash. Demons caught in the blasts were obliterated, their forms erased before they could even scream.

The bombardment continued, shrapnel slicing through the air. Waves of radiation, inscribed into the shells themselves, bled into the earth, turning vast stretches of land into dead zones. Within minutes, an entire swath of the battlefield had become uninhabitable, a poisoned sore carved into the skin of the world.

The officer turned, kicking the panicked soldier once more.

"On your feet. Pick up your weapon." His voice cut through the shouts of the Poison Corps soldiers, who reveled in the destruction.

The young man trembled, fumbling for his rifle as the officer cast one final glance at the charred plains.

When the Hayes legions finally poured into the field, the planet's face changed at once, at least outwardly. Armored squads, magic cannons, and alchemically enhanced infantry pushed the demon lines back.

Every engagement became a furnace: Hayes steel and shell met abyssal evil in a rain of fire that the world itself would struggle to survive.

Demonic magic dissolved rivers, blackened plains, and left behind a land that bred new monsters from its soil. Hayes' weapons did equal harm in their own way, from straight up explosives to death-bombs and rune-guns shredding the landscape and life alike.

The difference, for now, was ammo. Where the Abyss relied on endless spawn and corrosive blight, Hayes had munitions enough to blank entire battle zones. Under that pressure many demon contingents were reduced to ash before they could close for melee and now the Hayes advance gained traction.

Reports came in like flurries.

"Battlefield No. 3: Poison Corps repelled the assault and are launching a counterattack."

"Field 16: Exterminators have advanced thirty kilometers, approaching the black earth."

"Field 7: Death Messengers engaged; thirty peak-legendary level enemies neutralized."

"Great Scientist Corps heading to Sector 9."

The commander of the Hayes clan allowed himself a small, hard smile as the map shifted: black shrank, purple Hayes holdings expanded. For the first time since the incursion, the front appeared to stabilize.

Then the new dispatch came. The commander frowned as a researcher handed over a thin packet stamped with urgency.

"What is this?" he asked, blue-purple eyes narrowing.

"Casualty report, sir—psychological casualties." The researcher's tone was flat, almost clinical.

The commander's smile died. "Explain in plain terms."

The researcher took a breath. "Soldiers are developing psychological disorders at an accelerating rate. Not due to chemical failure, the suppressants in their bloodstream test normal. They are breaking down collectively, becoming more violent, impulsive, bloodthirsty. Some commit blasphemous acts mid-battle, shouting of otherworldly presences. Incidents are rising exponentially."

Silence stretched. The commander felt a cold recognition. Since first contact, his men's temper had been thinner,. Even he had lashed out minutes ago at a subordinate for asking questions he did not want to hear. Now the truth settled on him like ash.

"So the drugs work, but it's not a chemical failure." The commander's voice was low.

"This is something in the enemy, an effect on the mind and will?"

"Exactly, sir." The researcher's face was impassive. "Our analysis suggests a kind of mass, unconscious breakdown. It spreads through exposure, through sight, smell and proximity. The soldiers become ravenous, We…." He stopped. The numbers on his holo were ugly.

"End this war fast," the researcher said, blunt. "If the collapse continues, we will lose not only men but command cohesion. The only way to stop the contagion is to eliminate its sources before it spreads further."

The commander turned back to the map and the arrows of advance. For a long moment he simply stared at them, fingers tapping a rhythm on the table. Then he made a decision no one wanted to hear.

"All nonessential garrisons, withdraw to the assault lines. Consolidate position, every available unit, move forward now. Seize the gates and end this war." His voice carried the weight of command and the iron calculation of necessity.

Elsewhere in the forward base the four-armed demon, still captured and bound, whispered on an operating table. Its voice had a thread of venom that coiled around the mind of the weakest researcher present. That researcher had gone pale; hands clutched his skull as if to keep the whispers out. Despite the doctoring and the armor and the strategy, some piece of the Abyss had already crawled into their midst.

Beyond the base and out on the plains, the Poison Corps' heavy vehicles rolled into position. Colossal multi-barrels raised like the teeth of a mechanical leviathan. Shells carved the earth into powder and a shimmering, nauseous radiation that turned whole sectors into forbidden ground. The officer in the mask kicked a trembling private back to his feet, then looked again at the blasted no-man's-land.

"The real war has only just begun," he said, voice edged with grim humor as his men readied to fire again.

And in the endless dark where the Abyss breathed, something watched with slow attention. The black star above the world pulsed as Cillian felt the Hayes response and answered in kind. Each side fed the other's escalation. The maps, the reports, and the plans mattered less and less, because the planet itself was now a prize the gods and monsters would contest with everything they had.

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