"Damn it…"
As soon as Chu Hao's low whisper reached them, all the warriors gathered in the exam world immediately felt an invisible shadow cast over them.
And unlike previous times when they had actively invaded other divine worlds, this time, even while still being transmitted through the passage, they inexplicably sensed the aura of that world.
But how could this be?
In the past, when linking two worlds via a spatial passage, the soldiers would primarily perceive the aura of their own world.
Elven worlds carried the scent of flowers and grass, dwarven worlds smelled of gunpowder and steel, human worlds smelled of grains, and dragonkind's realms had icy winds.
But this time, everything was different.
The scent of their own world was fading.
Instead, the aroma of the world they were about to invade was growing stronger.
It was the stench of decay.
The foul smell of poisonous mists.
The ominous odor of pure darkness.
All the soldiers exchanged uneasy glances, trying to guess what kind of world awaited them.
"What… is going on?"
The elven commander at the front, Elrond, frowned slightly on his otherwise beautiful face.
Even as a legendary apex being who had lived three millennia and personally destroyed at least ten world cores, this was the first time he had encountered something like this.
High and mighty elves were not used to foul smells.
"I don't know either, Elrond," a human commander standing nearby, nearly four meters tall, replied in a deep, gruff voice.
"But I hope you don't focus too much on these odors. After all, the orders from the holy angels are clear: utterly destroy that world. That is our only objective.
And soon, we will return to our own worlds.
At that time, flowers and glory await us."
Elrond nodded, showing respect to this human commander, whose rank far exceeded his own.
This commander, after all, was the supreme leader of this war, personally ordered by the angels. One could not afford to underestimate him, especially when he was strong enough to crush an elf like Elrond with a single hand.
"Understood, great Marshal Thales! Great angels above, in this war without restrictions on troops, we will surely prevail!"
Thales nodded indifferently.
Looking down the passage, in just a few seconds, their millions-strong army, as the first landing corps, would travel through the stabilized golden passage into that damned otherworld.
This time, Marshal Thales would lead them, just like in the legendary World Death Duels, to invade, slaughter, and destroy the core of any world daring to link with theirs.
It was said that every world death duel brought true satisfaction to the angels they served.
And every soldier participating would return honored beyond imagination.
Thinking of this, the usually calm Thales felt an uncharacteristic thrill within his heart.
"Steady yourself.
What's going on today? Why scatter my mind before battle?"
As Thales struggled to calm himself, an anomaly occurred.
---
"Angels above, what is this?"
"My god!"
Screams from the front, a group of beastmen soldiers, drew Thales' attention.
"Silence!" Thales shouted.
"Have you forgotten military discipline, you lot…"
But then he froze.
Eyes wide, he stared in disbelief. His heart pounded.
The spatial passage they were using to transport themselves was connected to that world, but the transmission had not completed. It was as if the spatial passage had malfunctioned.
Even this alone wouldn't have surprised Thales so much.
But he then noticed something terrifying at the end of the passage.
It had been corrupted.
Darkness, twisted, nauseatingly unnatural matter surged backward like a rising tide, sweeping through their spatial passage.
It accelerated, and the foul stench Elrond had sensed intensified.
Within mere breaths, the disgusting, almost vomit-inducing twisted matter had polluted the space above Thales and Elrond's heads.
And the corruption had not stopped.
It continued straight along the entire passage, reaching its very end.
They had lost control of the entire spatial passage.
"What is this?! Aren't we the attackers?"
For the first time, Elrond felt genuine fear.
Before he could recover, the frontmost beastmen soldiers screamed in terror.
The dark mist now completely shrouded the front of the army, hiding them from view.
"Enemy attack!" Thales finally snapped back.
He roared, charging forward on his powerful warhorse to the frontlines.
Seeing their leader move, the rest of the army readied themselves for battle.
---
Then, the dark mist stirred.
A limb emerged.
Not just any limb, but a beastman arm. It swayed, as if groping through the darkness for a path.
The soldiers at the front exhaled in relief.
At least it didn't seem immediately lethal; someone was out, so perhaps the worst was not true.
But in the next moment, all sound ceased.
The soldiers held their breath, trembling.
For what emerged from the darkness was not a beastman, but a primordial demon, devouring the corpses of beastmen.
Behind it, within the black mist, surged thousands of small demons.
Originally noisy, squabbling over scraps of beastmen flesh, even blood clots, they now all turned their gaze to something far more interesting: the massive numbers of soldiers.
In the eyes of these monsters, the soldiers represented malice, greed, and hunger.
These creatures had been confined in their world far too long.
"Charge!" Thales roared.
He rode first into the black mist, leading his army into the darkness.
---
"This war first requires distorting a series of spatial rules."
Chu Hao sat at the bottom of the Endless Abyss, expressionless, neither happy nor sad.
From the darkness, he lifted his head, gazing toward where the sky should be.
Countless veins of pure darkness, like blood vessels, protruded from his back.
As he spoke, his temples bulged, and the veins writhed, simultaneously conveying and absorbing unknown forces.
"Only by twisting these spatial rules can the other abyssal creatures break through the barriers of these worlds."
With his low whisper, the exam world revealed its true form for the first time, to Chu Hao and to many observing the fourth exam.
A gigantic circular world, composed of thirteen distinct planets, each evolving its own species, abundant in treasures and resources.
At the center of the ring of thirteen planets lay a single, shining white planet, like a diamond.
These thirteen planets orbited the central white planet.
While observers marveled at the design of each planet, a terrifying discovery overtook their attention:
Tiny black dots slowly appeared across all thirteen planets.
They were the mark of the Endless Abyss.
At the abyss's bottom, Chu Hao smiled.
…