As the commander of the Hayes forces issued the order, several army heads exchanged uneasy glances.

The command seemed reckless, an advance that would bleed them dry. Yet hesitation had no place in their ranks. They would obey, for the Hayes orders were absolute.

So the Hayes armies surged.

"Forward, into the black lands!"

Across dozens of fronts, officers led their soldiers in relentless assaults. Engines roared as whole battalions hurled themselves toward the demon strongholds.

For a time, the battlefield tipped violently in Hayes' favor. Their heavy artillery and mechanized war engines blasted apart nest after nest. Under coordinated strikes, towering demons fell in clouds of ash, their corrupted ichor searing into the soil. Hayes soldiers cheered as they claimed each stretch of blackened ground.

But beneath the roar of victory ran another quiet sound: despair.

Because for every demon slain, five Hayes soldiers were dragged down screaming, torn apart by claw, venom, or shadow.

The advance was rapid, but built on bodies. Flesh became their currency, and the price was crushing morale.

Soldiers clutched their rifles with trembling hands, unable to block out the whispers crawling from beyond the black horizon.

They called it "auditory hallucination." The term among the troops. Men swore they heard voices singing, coaxing them toward surrender, urging them to open their throats in laughter as their comrades burned.

——————x——————

While Hayes pressed its attack, elsewhere in the world something older began to stir.

Far from the fronts, deep in a jungle untouched by the Hayes or the demons, the people of a native tribe carried out a desperate ritual. Strong-armed guards dragged weeping children and villagers toward the mouth of a lava cave.

"Go, children," a high priest said, his voice quivering as he tried to steady them. "You are not dying, you are becoming one with the gods."

Another elder raised his trembling staff toward the cave. "Within, the god of our world undertakes ascension. Your sacrifice will empower it to drive out the invaders!"

But even as they spoke, their voices broke. Each priest watched their tribespeople, their own family, thrown into the fiery maw. Their lips shouted of faith, but their hearts whispered guilt.

"Damn the invaders," one priest muttered through clenched teeth. "Damn both the demons and the Rats for this."

At the caves base, near the flowing lava, a roar thundered outward. A wave of oppressive heat rolled across the jungle. All present collapsed to their knees, trembling.

"More…" The voice shook the earth. "I need more!"

Silence followed, heavy and suffocating. Then, with grim resolve, more villagers were led forward. Their wails echoed into the fire.

None of the priests noticed the truth. The aura within the cave was no longer radiant, no longer divine. It was thickening, darkening, polluted. The land around the cave blackened, veins of abyssal taint spreading like cracks across the jungle.

⸻———x——————

"Report!"

An adjutant rushed into the Hayes command tent, saluting sharply.

"Sir, troops at Battlefield 13 have reached the core region where the gates stand. A team of magic instructors is already there, setting up reverse-tracking circles on the structures."

The commander's eyes lit up. "What? Are you certain?"

The adjutant handed him a photograph. In it, robed wizards stood before the towering archways, carving runes into the ground, their circles glowing faintly.

"Excellent." The commander's voice carried rare hope. "Send word. All nearby forces are to reinforce Battlefield 13. Defend the mages at all costs, they must finish analyzing the coordinates of the enemy's world."

But the adjutant hesitated. His expression was uneasy. "Sir… the report from the field says they may not need support."

The commander narrowed his eyes. "Explain."

"For ten minutes now, the gates have stopped transmitting enemy soldiers. The demons have… withdrawn. It's as if they abandoned the gates willingly."

The commander felt the world tilt. A hammer seemed to crash against his skull.

His breath caught, dread surging through him like ice.

"No…" he whispered. "This is a trap."

And then it began.

Across the planet, every living being froze. From Hayes soldiers to the demons and the native tribes. All looked skyward.

The heavens tore open.

A scarlet vortex bled across the entire sky, vast enough to smother the sun. From it spilled tendrils of writhing darkness, like endless chains of smoke and shadow. They coiled around the world, squeezing, binding.

A sound rose with them. A song.

It was not music, but a hymn of ruin. A chorus of whispers and screams, laughter and sobbing woven together into something that burrowed into the mind. It was the voice of evil made melody, of desire devouring restraint.

It was the song of the Endless Abyss.

The commander stumbled out of his post, trembling. "Oh no…" His eyes widened with a terrible realization. There was something he had forgotten.

He sprinted toward the research facility where the captured legendary demon was held. Guards followed, weapons raised. But when they arrived, the facility was already silent.

Bodies lay scattered across the floor, researchers and soldiers alike, frothing at the mouth, many already dead from poison.

And at the far end of the corridor stood the four-armed demon.

It grinned, jagged teeth flashing. In one hand it dragged a half-corrupted researcher, flesh twisted into a mass of writhing tendrils. With the other, it pressed the victim's bloodied hand to a control panel. A gateway surged open, revealing a wasteland of endless night and spreading corruption.

The demon's eyes glowed with cruel delight.

In its guttural tongue, it whispered, "Little one… open your eyes."

It raised its head toward the scarlet vortex above.

"The Abyss you sing of… is already here."

When the true form of the Endless Abyss descended upon the world, every battle on the front lost its meaning in an instant.

"What… what is this?!"

In the jungle, a high priest lifted his eyes to the scarlet-black vortex that now blanketed the sky. His voice trembled as the colossal spiral churned above them, vast as eternity itself. The vortex was like the gaping maw of a beast, lined with jagged fangs, hungering to devour the world whole.

"This is the end… the end of all things! God, save us!"

Another priest fell to his knees, praying to the god whose "ascension" they had fed with sacrifice. Yet, what he did not see was how the elemental spirit beneath the mountain grew restless. The spirit, sensing the Abyss, began to demand more from its worshippers, its hunger rising with the chaos overhead.

On the other side of the battlefield, Hayes soldiers froze in shock. They had been cheering at the gates they'd fought so hard to secure, their voices still ringing with hollow victory. But before their eyes, those magnificent gates began to wither and rot.

"No…"

A soldier in a scholar's robe stared at the collapsing gate. His despair was written across his face. After so much blood spilled upon this blackened earth, their only prize had turned to dust.

Unseen to them, Cillian had already reclaimed the spatial authority of the Endless Abyss. With that act, the gates lost all meaning, they were no longer "bridges,".

For the Hayes, this was both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing: they no longer had to claw at the coordinates of the Abyss.

The curse: the Abyss itself had arrived. Whether they wished it or not, they were all bound for a one-way passage into its depths.

Black rifts tore open across the sky and earth, stretching like the limbs of some monstrous octopus, binding this world in a choking grip. The laws of space cracked as Cillian's power unraveled them. And through the rifts, gateways capable of bypassing the world's crystal walls opened, portals fit for horrors that should never walk this soil.

The ground shuddered.

Boom!

Mountains quaked. From deep beneath the crust, a monstrous shape surged forth. It was like a wild boar twisted into nightmare, its flesh corrupted, its tusks warped into jagged scythes. A single exhalation from its cavernous lungs birthed a tornado that hurled Hayes soldiers through the air like brittle leaves.

On its head writhed several curved tentacles, each a mark of Abyssal authority. Any god who saw it would have known at once: this was a mythic entity, an avatar carrying layered dominion.

And yet, this was only the beginning.

"Hahaha! Zeke, you've gone and frightened the children!"

The skies darkened further as storms of filth and rot gathered in thick clouds. From their heart, a vast shadow emerged. Wings like rotted canvas unfurled, each span blotting out the sun. A laugh split the air, sharp as thunder.

Osiris the black dragon of corruption spread its wings, its body crawling with tentacles and lined with a thousand glaring eyes. Where it flew, storms scoured the land bare. Mountains shattered beneath its winds. Forests withered and the earth itself cracked and dried at its passing breath.

Osiris's voice rumbled with manic delight.

"After endless sleep, a banquet awaits me the moment I awaken! Truly, the Lord of the Abyss is generous!"

With a howl of joy, it plunged into the Hayes army below. The impact shattered the ground, sending earth and metal flying in molten shards. Soldiers scattered, screaming, as Osiris laughed, plucking them up like morsels.

"Hahaha! Fresh flesh and warm blood!"

But then..

"Pft!"

The dragon spat them out violently. Its many eyes squirmed in disgust, its thousand tongues hissing. The soldiers it had devoured carried not the sweet iron tang of life, but the foul, acrid stench of corruption. Their souls stank of chemicals, as if soaked in oil and poison.

"What… is this filth? You taste worse than carrion!"

Osiris's laughter twisted into fury. Its many eyes focused on the stunned soldiers.

"You are no mere mortals… you are followers of fallen gods!"

The Hayes soldiers could not comprehend the words. To their ears, the dragon's voice was a storm of whispers and screams, an abyssal tongue that clawed at their minds.

"Fire! Fire, damn you, kill the monster!"

One soldier, trembling, fired the first shot. Bullets peppered Osiris's scaled hide, sparking harmlessly.

"Ohoho~"

The dragon chuckled. "You remind me of dwarves and gnomes from the worlds I consumed before. So small. So fragile. So very amusing."

Zeke's voice rumbled from the earth below,

"Enough, Osiris. Destroy them. Lord Mirathane awaits, we cannot linger."

At that, Osiris's thousand eyes narrowed, his grin fading.

"Ah… true. Forgive me, little ones. The jest is over."

His vast body began to change. Corruption swelled. His wings and belly split, pustules swelling and bursting in grotesque rhythm. From the rents in his flesh spilled new life, countless Abyssal spawn, dripping with black ichor, screeching as they clawed their way into the world.

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