Here is the expanded text at 1,400 words:

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The moment the Daemon died Enzo pulled the domain down.

The darkness peeled back and the world returned around him, light and sound and the distant noise of the battle rushing back in all at once.

Victoria appeared in front of him.

She had one hand pressed down on another Daemon, pinning it to the ground with the kind of force that didn’t leave room for argument. It struggled. Not effectively.

She looked at Enzo once.

That was enough.

He understood.

—chuuu

The void cutters went in clean.

[You have slain a Daemon]

[Harnessing Void Energy]

[You have received an Echo Treasure]

The Daemon stopped moving.

Killing it had been easy. Easier than the last one. The treasure came through in the form of a giant sword, its shape assembling itself at the edge of his awareness, waiting to be called.

He filed it away.

"We’ll rendezvous with team two."

Victoria straightened and looked to him, already moving her attention forward to the next piece of the situation.

Five Daemons left.

Three were already pinned down by her people elsewhere on the battlefield. The other two had gone dark the moment Victoria and Enzo surfaced in the area, pulling back and using the chaos of the wider war as cover.

They couldn’t go hunting for them right now.

Daemons were still incredibly powerful beings. Going after ones that were actively hiding and waiting for the right moment was a different operation than catching one mid-flight in a panic. It required setup. It required people in the right positions.

They didn’t have that yet.

"Move," Victoria said, and they went.

.

.

.

.

"That guy is insane."

Near the forest line a soldier watched the figure ahead of him with his mouth slightly open, feet planted like he had forgotten he was supposed to be doing something.

A figure bathed in flames was in the middle of the treeline exchanging blows with a monstrous beast, each impact sending shockwaves outward that flattened the grass in rings. The beast was enormous. The figure didn’t seem to care.

"I know."

The soldier behind him smacked him across the side of the head.

"Now focus."

He grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back toward the ion cannon, which was sitting half-loaded and pointing at nothing useful.

The horde of corrupted beasts moved like an ocean of ants across the field, except unlike ants these things could take a direct hit from a high-tier weapon and keep closing the distance. The soldiers on the ground knew this. They had been learning it for three days in real time.

"The Ark is flying back!!"

Someone shouted it from the far end of the line and heads turned upward.

A giant contraption dove down from the sky, angling hard, dropping speed as it came in low over the battlefield. The release doors opened and several canisters tumbled out in sequence.

—boom boom boom boom

The ground shook with each impact, the sound stacking before the first one had finished rolling, rattling through armor and bones and teeth. Where the canisters landed the horde compressed inward for a moment then stopped.

A gap. Temporary.

In minutes the Ark had already angled away, peeling off toward another section of the battlefield where the calls were louder.

In all essence this was a war between humanity and corruption.

But the truth sitting underneath that was simpler. Humanity was being fully armed by the Red of War and her faction. The weapons, the Ark, the ion cannons, the coordinated squad structure. None of it came from the soldiers themselves.

The federation would become aware of this eventually.

Soon, probably.

But that was a problem for after survival.

.

.

.

Zeke saw them before they landed.

He was mid-exchange with a giant beast, flame coating both arms up to the elbow, trading blows at a pace that had been going on long enough that his breathing had found a specific rhythm to match it.

He caught movement in the sky above and tracked it without breaking stride.

Victoria and Enzo, barreling downward in his direction.

"Hey, catch."

Enzo’s arm came forward without slowing down and the giant sword left his hand in a clean arc, dropping toward Zeke fast.

[You have received a Divine Treasure]

Zeke’s eyes registered it before his hands did.

He frowned at the sword hovering at the edge of his awareness, taking in the weight and shape of it in the second he had available, the information settling quickly.

This came from a son of corruption.

That meant it sat at the same level as the white tower. That kind of output, sustained over the next stretch of the fight, would change what he could do and for how long.

He nodded once.

A wave of his hand and the sword appeared fully, summoned and real, the blade catching the light as he turned back to the beast in front of him and swung downward.

The beast came apart in one motion.

Clean through the middle. Both halves hit the ground separately.

"Hm."

Enzo watched it land, nodded to himself, and followed Victoria as they pushed forward through the air.

.

.

.

.

Three days had passed since the beginning of the war.

Three days, and the two kills from the start were all they had managed between them.

The other Daemons were on high alert now. The moment Victoria or Enzo appeared anywhere on the battlefield they pulled back, abandoning whatever position they had been holding and sacrificing whatever forces they currently had without hesitation.

They were not interested in fighting.

They were interested in surviving long enough for the math to shift.

Their strategy was clear. Keep the war running. Hold their positions at the edges. Let the corrupted beasts spread across Varo King World continue funneling toward the castle, wave after wave, wearing down the defenders through volume alone.

By the time every beast on the planet had converged on this location, holding the castle would become nearly impossible.

The numbers would just stop making sense.

Enzo understood the shape of it now.

They had to find the other Daemons fast.

Not eventually.

Fast.

Every hour the war continued on these terms was an hour the Daemons bought for free, standing back while the horde did the work for them.

The clock was already moving.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​