Chapter 53: Abyssal Descent
"What’s happening?"
At the forward base of the Hayes army, panic rippled through the ranks. The commander, still reeling from the escape of a legendary demon, froze when the sky itself began to sing. The terrible sound that clawed at the soul.
In that same moment was when sanity nearly completely faltered.
Above, a vast world of black and crimson descended, a shadow that dwarfed their own. The crystal walls that once shielded their plane were fracturing, not by tools or alchemy but by sheer force, visible as jagged cracks like shattered glass spreading across the heavens. The descent of the Endless Abyss had torn the veil apart.
"What kind of world is this...?" the commander whispered.
He had seen worlds fall before, but none like this. Before the Abyss, even he, hardened by countless campaigns, trembled. He felt it in his bones: his existence, his world, all of it felt insignificant.
All his strategies, and his victories, felt so small, so meaningless.
He let out a chuckle, it was never about conquering the Abyss, they were fools to think so.
"It will be the one to conquer us..."
For the first time, the commander admitted the truth. His greed had cost countless lives. Yet, regaining a fragment of clarity, he made his final decision.
"Adjutants," his voice was steady by sheer will, "issue new orders. Tell the soldiers at the front that reinforcements are on the way from the mother world."
A ripple of relief stirred, but his next words froze the room.
"All guards, take the scientists, alchemists, and magicians. Evacuate them through the space passage. Once you’ve crossed, close it from the other side. No ordinary soldier is to leave this world."
Soldiers looked up from their posts, stunned, eyes filled with disbelief. Their calm, battle hardened commander they trusted was now asking them for the impossible, no different to ordering their deaths.
"Sir, you can’t...!"
"You’re sending us to die!"
Some tried to flee toward the portal, others raised their weapons in fury. But the guards, conditioned to obey without hesitation, forced the researchers through, ignoring their screams. The command post shook with chaos.
The commander’s voice cut through it all.
"Do you want the mother world destroyed?"
His words stilled them.
Soldiers froze mid-stride, staring at him. He removed his helmet, his expression raw, his violet-blue eyes burning with grim resolve.
"This is not a battle we can win. Their world is too vast, too twisted. If we allow the coordinates of our home to remain, this evil will follow us there. If that happens... all of Hayes will fall."
He fell to his knees before them, his voice bitter.
"So I beg you... stay. Buy time with your lives. Let the ritual erase every trace of our coordinates. Let the researchers escape. Only then does our mother world have a chance."
Silence fell heavy. Then a soldier strode forward and struck him across the face.
"Spare me your speeches," he spat, glaring down at the commander. "I’ll stay, not for you, but for the children of our world."
Another came, hitting him as well.
"I grew up choking on poison air and drinking foul water. But after our conquests, my parents tasted food and water they never dreamed of. For them, I’ll stay."
One by one, soldiers stepped forward. They cursed him, struck him, spat at him. Yet none raised their weapons again. Their hatred burned, but their will hardened. They would not forgive him, but they would carry out the ritual.
Minutes passed. The base emptied. Only the commander and a few thousand remained, their eyes locked on the black fog spreading across the horizon. In the distance, countless Hayes soldiers still fought on, believing reinforcements were coming.
The ritual circle flared. The last space channel collapsed, erased at the cost of thousands of lives.
"You’re too late," the commander whispered to the mist, smiling through blood and tears. "Our world is beyond your reach. We’ve lost this battle, but not the war. You’ll take only our bodies and souls."
But then, the fog stirred.
Cillian stepped forth from the Abyss, his form rising from shadow, his gaze unreadable. A smile touched his lips, calm and terrible.
"I think you misunderstand," he said softly. "Your souls mean little to me."
Cold dread struck the commander, he racked his brain, trying to remember if he had missed anything.
"I came for the view."
Cillian lifted a hand, and space itself cracked. A black and crimson passage opened before him, unstable yet vast, its end fixed upon the Hayes mother world.
He looked back at the now completely broken commander, his smile deepening.
"The taste of your despair is exquisite."
And with that, Cillian stepped into their world.
Cillian had already received the coordinates, they were engraved by the four-armed demon on its escape, the Ominous descent had only ever been for his own entertainment.
’The taste of hope rotting into despair, well worth it’
As he stepped through the unstable space channel into the Hayes clan’s mother world, his joy died down somewhat the sight that greeted him was bleak beyond words.
The world was broken.
Rotting skyscrapers jutted into the gray sky, their steel frames gnawed away by time and corrosion. Entire districts lay abandoned, their walls scarred by the clash of uncontrolled magic and volatile chemicals.
Every street, every river, even the very air shimmered with toxins and curses, remnants of a civilization that had poisoned itself to near desolation.
This was not a living world. This was a grave.
Cillian stood upon a fractured boulevard, his boots scraping against broken glass, and closed his eyes. He drew in a slow breath of the corrupted atmosphere.
"Hiss..."
The taste lingered, bitter, heavy, clinging to the tongue like smoke. Opening his eyes again, he spoke softly, a trace of amusement in his tone.
"The air smells of corrupted souls and poisoned smog. Fascinating. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such concentrated curse magic... and this one has lasted for centuries."
He turned his head.
Beside him knelt a legendary demon, its body torn and battered from battle. Around it lay the mangled corpses of Hayes soldiers, their flesh already feeding the Abyss. Despite its wounds, the demon’s eyes burned with feverish excitement as it pressed its head low, trembling in awe. For the first time, it faced the true Lord of the Abyss.
"Lord Almighty!" the demon rasped, raising its claws. "These are the coordinates I offer to the Endless Abyss!"
Above it, dozens of scarlet symbols, abyssal runes woven from flesh, blood, and soul hovered in the air. They glowed faintly, invisible to mortal eyes but unmistakable to Cillian. These were the coordinates of this world, the beacon that would bind it to the Abyss.
It was the fate of all demons. Whether slain or victorious, they would always leave behind a mark, coordinates which would always find their way back to the abyss.
Sometimes through deliberate ritual, sometimes simply in death. Either way, the Abyss would follow. Worlds could delay, with no escape. Demons were termites, cockroaches, impossible to eradicate completely.
And once the door opened, more would always come.
"You have done well," Cillian said at last, his gaze falling on the quivering creature. "What is it you desire as your reward?"
The demon shook, almost unable to contain itself.
"I want power! Territory! Slaves, yes, countless slaves!"
There was no shame, no hesitation. Demons did not pretend to virtue. They bared their greed openly, secure in the knowledge that the Abyss rewarded service.
Cillian gave the faintest nod. That was enough. For him, the demon’s greed was nothing compared to the gift it had delivered. This broken creature had given him what he hungered for most: an opening.
Because hidden within this dying world was something far rarer than the poisoned sky or cursed land. A god. A true, naturally evolved god,lay in this world.
His lips curved in anticipation.
And then the Hayes soldiers arrived.
The thunder of boots shook the ruins. A hundred thousand men marched into the hollow city, their ranks bolstered by heavy alchemical engines that ground forward like beasts of iron. Towers of smoke rose as weapon arrays charged with lethal energy. Lines of magicians and elites followed, their chants weaving into a chorus of battle-spells.
They surrounded the collapsed space passage, sealing off every path of retreat.
On one side stood the armies of Hayes endless ranks, armed and ready.
On the other, only Cillian and the wounded demon.
The numbers were absurdly lopsided. But as the Hayes legions closed in, Cillian’s lips curved further into a smile.
He lifted his head and spoke a single word.
"Advent."
The world cracked.
A sound like shattering glass roared through the city as the ground split beneath Cillian’s feet. Ravines tore outward in all directions, trenches widening as if the very crust of the earth was breaking apart to make way.
Soldiers stumbled, their formation breaking, and then came Whispers, chuckles and screams A chorus of madness filled their ears, the laughter of demons, the roars of abyssal beasts, the cries of souls burning in endless torment. The voices gnawed at sanity, each soldier hearing a different agony.
And then a claw, the size of a mountain appeared, thrust up from the ravines, black and crimson, ridged with scales. It sank into the earth, and where it touched, the chemical toxins and curses of centuries vanished.
Not healed-but replaced by something fouler.
The pollution of Mirethane.
The eight-headed disaster forced its way into the world.
"Lord..."
With a tremor that shook the ruins, Mirethane lowered its colossal heads, letting Cillian stand atop one of its crowns. From the chasms behind, more poured through, armies of demons, crawling, flying, dragging themselves into this poisoned world.
The Abyss had arrived.
Cillian stood tall, like a dark silhouette against the storm, gazing across the broken cityscape. His eyes fixed on a distant palace radiating the only source of danger in this world, hidden deep within the poisoned horizon.
His voice was calm, almost thoughtful, as if speaking to himself.
"Now then... it’s time I saw your true face."
His smile deepened.
"The one hiding at the heart of this world..."