The defense of the Academy was a momentary stabilization, not a victory.
The Resonance Cascade had established a foothold, the largest of which was a vast, sprawling landscape bordering the capital—a region corrupted into a regional Fold's Nest.
The Celestial Demon Assembly (CDA), acting under the unavoidable mandate of the war, ordered an immediate, full-scale offensive.
Our unit was merged with the remaining Supreme Divisors and the highest-ranking combat corps.
The mission was not subtle: Annihilate the regional Nest.
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I. The Scarred Landscape
The deployment site was a desolate plain where the Law of Astra'vhel had been completely erased.
The atmosphere was thick with chaotic frequencies, and every form of life was a distorted, dying testament to the Fold.
This landscape was a scar, saturated with thousands of Denvigon patrols and numerous Denvigorix forming defensive lines.
But the central feature dwarfed the surrounding corruption.
In the heart of the waste lay a colossal, spiraling wound in the earth—a deep Abyss that seemed to defy geometry.
It was dark, silent, and radiated a cold, powerful distortion of space.
My Echo Mapping instantly registered its complexity: it was layered, sinking into alternate pockets of reality—a secondary, regional gate to a different, infested world.
The Supreme Divisors gathered—Zylos, the Doom-Reaver Titan, was present, his hostility towards me now overshadowed by grim resolve.
"The objective is the Nest at the bottom of the Abyss," Zylos stated, his voice heavy.
"This is not a skirmish. We know what is required. Thousands of lives will be the price for collapsing this center of infestation."
He looked directly at me, the High Supreme Divisor, testing the anomaly.
"We accept the necessary loss for the greater good of Order. What is your calculation, Tier Null?"
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II. The Calculation of Sacrifice
My internal response was immediate and devoid of emotion.
I heard the frantic, desperate heartbeats of the combat corps, the philosophical acceptance of death from the Supreme Divisors, and the cold, stable pulse of Elysa back at the Academy, analyzing the strategic data.
Loss was not tragedy; it was a necessary input for the output of victory.
"The calculation is obvious," I stated, my voice flat, holding my blindfolded face to the terrifying Abyss.
"The statistical probability of success increases exponentially with localized Existence Threading at the source.
If the loss of two thousand lives secures the collapse of the Nest, the formula is sound."
My cold adherence to the mathematics of war chilled the other Divisors more than any demonic roar.
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III. The Descent
The army moved, surging toward the Abyss in a blinding wave of traditional demonic energy.
I advanced at the forefront, not as a leader, but as the essential, destabilizing element.
The battle raged at the lip of the chasm.
While the Supreme Divisors battled the Denvigons and the intelligent, articulating Denvigorix on the surface, I reached the edge of the dimensional sink.
The Abyss was less a hole and more a metaphysical inverted well.
I felt the sharp, sudden pressure change as I entered the first layer.
The laws of physics twisted.
Fenrir's voice, though distant, echoed in the deepest part of my mind:
"Good. You embrace the necessary loss.
Now, introduce your superior chaos to the structure of the Nest.
The Abyss is the next lesson."
I descended into the echoing darkness of the first layer, plunging toward the regional Nest, fully aware that I was entering a space where the rules of life and death held no currency.
The true cost of my title was about to be paid in the blood of those I was obligated to protect.