Chapter 8

An orc soldier roared and swung his iron axe. The three abyss creatures charging at him didn't even get to scream. One clean swing went through all three of them. A pale red energy exploded from his body. His Aura spread like smoke and hardened into a faint shield. When a fourth creature dove at him from the side, its claws bounced off his shield like a bird slamming into stone.

He didn't stop to look. Around him, more orcs were doing the same. These forty warriors weren't just soldiers. They were the elite, handpicked from the Orc Kingdom. Blood-soaked, armor-clad, each one gifted with divine aura from the Orc God. Muscles like boulders, nerves like wires, and spirits that refused to bend. Their blades moved like they'd trained for this fight their whole lives.

But none of them were smiling.

One of the orcs glanced up, eyes locked on the largest figure in the distance,a tauren in full steel armor, standing two meters tall and gripping a warhammer that looked heavier than most men.

"War Chief!" the orc called out, panting. "We can't hold much longer!"

Seven hours had passed since they dropped into the abyss. Seven hours of endless blood. His aura was fading. His weapon was cracked in multiple places and poison marks stained his armor. Even his breathing sounded broken.

And yet the monsters didn't stop.

The abyss creatures weren't strong, not on their own. Most were just first-stage trash. But they came in waves,no end. The battlefield was already covered in piles of their corpses. Stinking, twitching, stacked high like rotten meat.

But they kept coming.

What made it worse,what terrified the orc more than anything,was that some of them were adapting at an obscene rate. One grew armor halfway through a fight. Another mimicked the orc's battle stance. One even used the orc's own move against him. And the most horrifying of them were figuring out how to use aura.

The orc stared around, shaking. "What kind of place is this?"

"Don't panic!" the tauren shouted back. He crushed a floating brain-creature with one swing, its insides splattering across the rocks. "We're close! Just a few kilometers more, and we'll reach the core of this cursed world. One hit, and it all ends!"

He roared again, and it echoed down the stone walls like a war drum. The orcs answered him, barely holding themselves together, but pushing forward anyway. Their spirits burned even as their bodies failed.

Just ahead,hundreds more abyss creatures waited, hissing and howling.

A few hours earlier, far below that battle, Cillian sat at the base of the abyss.

He was the abyss now,its will, its voice and its mind.

The moment he gave the order, the whole world trembled. The creatures paused. Then they moved.

"Kill the invaders."

The thought spread through the abyss like a wildfire. From the lowest cracks to the highest cliffs, every monster heard it. And more than that,Cillian showed them what was coming. Orc warriors. Strong bodies. Weapons blessed by gods. All theirs for the taking

He gave the order: Eat them. Adapt. Evolve.

At first, it worked perfectly. The monsters surged toward the upper layers like water crashing upward. Magic, claws, poison,everything was used. Cillian felt proud.

But hours passed, and he frowned.

"These invaders…" he muttered, "they're weaker than I expected."

"ROAR!"

The tauren leader smashed the last abyss monster nearby and stumbled forward. All around him was silence. No more monsters. No more allies.

He was the only one left.

But he could see it now,up ahead, a hill. His heart raced as he climbed. Just over that slope, he would destroy the core and finish the mission. Victory was close.

Except it wasn't.

The moment he reached the top, his legs froze.

Not a glowing crystal. Not a divine heart.

Just… a hole.

A tunnel stretched downward, darker than anything he'd ever seen. And from inside that tunnel, monsters climbed. Crawling. Sliding. Screeching.

The tauren dropped to his knees, staring. "The core… it's below?"

This wasn't the world's center.

This was only one layer.

They hadn't even cleared the first floor.

The true core of the abyss was still buried at the bottom of a dozen more.

The last orc fell to his knees and let out a soft breath. He didn't even lift his weapon when the monsters swarmed him.

"The first assessment is complete."

In the observation room, Warren had already left, but the tutors were buzzing. Every screen still showed the battle. Every scene was more unbelievable than the last.

All forty elite invaders had died. Not one made it past the first layer. The room was in shock.

A younger tutor muttered, "The design is insane."

Another stepped forward and brought up an image on the projection screen. A floating, disfigured monster covered in magical eyes.

"This is a Beholder," he said. "I studied its anatomy. It's perfect. Its body is like a magic engine. Each eye produces a different spell. Curses, fire, ice, paralysis, It's like having twenty wizards in one."

The room nodded in agreement. Beholders were a,not a special group of abyss creatures,they were stable. Common, even,a whole race.

"But there's no way that evolved naturally," the tutor insisted. "That's a design. A brilliant one."

"Bullshit," another mentor growled. "Look at this thing."

He pulled up another image,something massive. A giant with a hundred twisted arms, each limb stitched together from different creatures. Eyes in all the wrong places. Bones sticking out. Veins tangled like wire.

"A hundred-armed giant. Strongest brute in the abyss. Can't use magic, can't use aura. It just punches."

He crossed his arms. "You think it's designed? No one would build that. It's chaos. That thing came from the environment."

The argument went on.

Some swore Cillian planned every detail. Others were sure it was evolution and pressure. In the middle of it all, one tutor raised a hand.

"Everyone," he said, "you're missing the real question."

They turned to him.

"If Cillian did design these creatures,or even if it's just the environment that shapes them… then what's he really trying to make?"

The room went silent.

He smiled faintly. "Do you think these monsters are the end goal?. I think he's aiming for something bigger."

The tutor looked around uneasily.

"What kind of creature," the tutor whispered, "is worth building a world like this to create?"