"It's incredible…"

The black-and-red vortex within Cillian's eyes slowly rotated as he stared across the battlefield toward the distant soldiers of the Heavenly Army.

"Pure, brainwashed creatures," he murmured. "Completely fused with their faith… faith that has sunk deep into the very sea of their hearts."

His words were thoughtful, as old memories stirred. He recalled a figure he once met during the third trial of the Endless Abyss, Magnus.

That legendary warrior had chosen to burn both soul and body rather than surrender to corruption. Even as his subordinates were devoured by the abyss, Magnus had clung to his faith until the very end.

That battle had been the first time Cillian faced a true legion of belief.

Those radiant warriors had fought with such fervor that even the Endless Abyss itself had been shaken. Their faith had burned so intensely that it had purified the abyssal layers, raising the very dimensional weight of the world they fought within.

The damage, in measurable scale, was minor, only a few tens of thousands of layers, but the fact that they had injured the Endless Abyss at all was something no other force had accomplished before or really since.

It was also during that war that Cillian came to understand the architecture of faith, how divine conviction anchored itself within the sea of mind and became a conduit through which divine fire was born. He learned how belief strengthened gods, how it shaped the spiritual foundation of divine realms.

Ever since, he had carried a fascination with warriors of faith.

That was why, as he watched the legions led by the Angel of Punishment, Peter, march against the Zerg, he couldn't help but study them closely.

Their devotion was identical to Magnus's, perhaps even more absolute. And there were billions of them.

The entire battlefield was filled with soldiers whose devotion rivaled that of the greatest saints. Tens of billions of radiant beings, each burning with unshakable piety.

"I really want to corrupt a few of them," Cillian said softly, his lips curling into a faint smile. "Just to see how they'd react."

His gaze swept across the ranks. Each soldier he looked upon seemed to sense it instinctively, the abyssal gaze. Even here, amid chaos and slaughter, that gaze made their hearts tighten.

As the ruler of the Endless Abyss, even Cillian's casual glance carried an echo of malevolence, a sort of hostility that came not from intent, but from the essence of what he was.

To the faithful soldiers of Heaven, that unseen darkness was unbearable.

And just as Cillian was studying them with amused interest, one figure broke through the shifting chaos and caught his attention.

An angel.

A real one.

Not a divine-level commander like Peter, but a lower celestial born from the mountains of Heaven itself, one tasked with leading mortal armies. She was striking, unlike the formless celestial beings he had seen during the trials. Her body was distinctly human in structure, like a perfectly engineered creation

Red hair burned like fire down her back, her features sharp and her wings spread wide and gleaming.

She noticed his gaze almost instantly. Her head snapped up, eyes narrowing as her expression darkened. Raising her sword, she pointed it straight at him, and then swung the blade downward in a sharp, wordless warning.

"If you stare again, I'll kill you."

Cillian chuckled.

It brought him great amusement. To him, her threat was laughable.

He didn't react, didn't even release pressure. He simply continued to watch her. The defiance of such a small creature only deepened his curiosity.

These angels might be weak individually, but the force standing behind them, the being they called the Angel of Punishment, was anything but.

Peter's very existence loomed across the battlefield like a divine mountain. The sheer confidence of these lesser angels came from his shadow, from the strength that commanded such fear and reverence that even the lowest among them dared to bare their fangs toward Cillian.

"…Interesting," Cillian muttered, turning his gaze toward the distant figure of Peter, who stood overseeing the frontlines.

The Angel of Punishment watched the clash in silence. He paid no attention to anything else, not to the chaos around him, nor Gods like Cillian caught within it.

To him he only had one objective.

The Zerg had to be annihilated. Everything else, the lesser gods, the onlookers and the collateral, was irrelevant.

Cillian understood that gaze all too well. In Peter's eyes, they were nothing but dust, unfortunate bystanders swept up in a divine war.

At that moment, Cillian also began piecing together the hidden logic behind the sealed secret realms and the shifting battlefield. Yet rather than obsess over the mysteries of the realm's distortion, his attention turned toward something far more pressing, Peter's decision to block the entrance to the prototype multiverse and leave them all trapped here.

He already suspected the reason.

But until he confirmed it, it would be foolish to act against the Angel of Punishment directly.

After all, both the Zerg and the Heavenly Army numbered in the tens of billions. Their clash was still only beginning. And with his current power, Cillian had no way of contending with either side head-on.

So he exhaled slowly, letting his divine fire dim. He forced his mind into calm and continued to observe.

He began studying the soldiers themselves, dissecting their fighting patterns, their movements, their bodies.

Unlike the armies of ordinary worlds, these Heaven-born troops had all been altered. None of them were purely biological anymore. Each one had been enhanced through layers of divine technology, body modifications, chemical augmentations, even internal exoskeletons laced beneath their flesh to reinforce muscle and armor their bones.

But just as Cillian's eyes tracked their combat flow, a sudden ripple of energy flashed before him.

A message emerged from the twin-world structure shaped like an "8," passing through the Abyssal filters before materializing before him.

The seal broke, and a familiar demonic mark glowed faintly in the air.

It was from the Demon Prince, Fabudi.

He and his siblings had successfully seized control of their entire target world.

And within that world, they had secured the rare rule.

"Well done…"

Different from what Cillian expected, the Demon Prince Fabudi showed an extremely powerful and unquestionable dominance. In addition, several of his "brilliant ideas" had already allowed him to leave his brothers and sisters far behind.

Fabudi was not only the first among the Demon Princes to exert direct influence on the creatures of this world, he was also the first to establish a foothold and begin spreading his power across it. When all of these achievements were added together, Fabudi had secured the largest share of control in this world.

Although his siblings soon followed and broke through the crystal wall of this realm, their efforts paled in comparison to Fabudi's first-mover advantage. Against his influence, their contributions looked unimpressive.

——————x——————

The Demon Prince Fabudi knelt before Cillian, raising his hands in solemn reverence.

Kneeling beside him were the other Demon Princes, his new brothers and sisters, though half of them trembled under the suffocating weight of the moment.

"Great Lord, these are the rules you desire…"

In Fabudi's hands was a rule condensed by the divine fire of the Abyss, an important principle that allowed both the world's consciousness and one's self to grow through sacrifice. It was also the very reason Cillian had come here.

Cillian nodded, extending his hand.

A wisp of black mist carried the crystallized rule toward him. His eyes narrowed slightly as he began to taste the essence of this law, examining every fragment of its structure.

The process stretched on endlessly, almost measurable in hours.

Finally, after an indeterminate time, Cillian opened his eyes.

"Good," he said softly. "You did well, Fabudi."

In Cillian's eyes, a black and red vortex spun slowly, pulsing with divine depth.

"As a reward, your position will be stabilized. You may keep your title as Demon Prince for a longer term."

He paused. "As for greater rewards… you still stand to prove yourself further."

Upon hearing this, Fabudi trembled with excitement. He understood clearly what that meant the acknowledgment of the Lord of the Abyss was not a just a compliment. It was a promise.

A promise that as long as he avoided grave mistakes, he would continue to rule his planes for a long time to come.

The thought alone nearly made him leap in joy, though instinct quickly restrained him. Because at that moment, a chilling wave of danger emanated from Cillian's body.

Yet Cillian did not intend to harm him. He was simply preparing to fulfill the rest of his promise.

"You…"

As Cillian spoke, endless black mist surged from the Bloody Throne. These dark currents were not illusions they were the embodiment of the Abyss' full power.

"In the previous war, some of you did not show your worth."

At those words, half of the Demon Princes began trembling violently, collapsing to their knees in desperation.

"Lord… please!"

"Mercy, Great One!"

Some even attempted to flee, opening spatial doors in frantic panic, but before any of them could escape, Cillian sighed.

A single breath of that sigh carried enough authority to erase hope.

The black mist swallowed them whole.

"You share my blood and my authority," Cillian's cold voice echoed, "but your performance…"

The sound of melting flesh replaced their screams. Thick black liquid began dripping from their bodies as if they were candles dissolving under flame.

Their wails reverberated through the bottomless Abyss.

Fabudi stood aside, watching the execution unfold with quiet delight. The surviving princes around him were much the same, they didn't pity the fallen. They enjoyed the sound.

Fabudi's eyes gleamed red as he watched Cillian absorb the essence of the unworthy, reclaiming their authority with casual ease.

Truthfully, part of Fabudi longed to ask for more power, but fear kept his tongue tied.

Yet, to his astonishment, after the punishment was done, Cillian turned his hand and said coldly,

"Here."

With a flick of his fingers, the Abyss' remaining power flowed outward, splitting among the surviving princes. Each share was determined by their merit and contribution in the recent war.

Fabudi received more than half of the total authority of the Abyss, more than all the others combined.

Fabudi's body trembled as he looked within himself. His crimson eyes widened in awe.

Inside, countless new muscles twisted and grew, his strength multiplying beyond measure.

At the same time, his soul's affinity with the Abyss reached its peak. knowledge

poured into his mind.

He could feel the change. Even though he had yet to ignite divine fire, something deep within his soul had evolved.

"Lord…" he whispered reverently, bowing until his forehead touched the dark ground.

But Cillian wasn't paying attention to him anymore.

He sat silently upon the Bloody Throne, eyes fixed on several faint residual souls flickering in his grasp.

Because at that moment, Damon's voice whispered through his mind, carrying a new plan.

A plan was tied directly to those broken souls.

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