Behind them, the Convention's glowing boundary hummed steadily, casting long shadows through grass still stained by the violet afterimage of FDR's slaughter. Beyond that light, the field seemed quiet only from a distance, because bodies were already shifting in the dark, twisted shapes regrouping outside the glow while the subterranean floor waited for the real war to begin.
"Remember the map we established," JFK said, taking the front of the group as if the position had been waiting for him. "We are not scattering blindly into the dark. We are dividing the pressure across specific sectors."
"Can you remind me again?" Eryndra asked, arms crossed while a thin stream of white steam vented from her armored shoulders. "I definitely was not listening to that part."
JFK took the interruption as part of the briefing and traced the grid in the air. "We are standing in D1, with the Convention and the entrance behind us. The exit sits at the far end in D4. Along the northern edge, their capital stretches from A2 and B2 to A4 and B4, with a large lake bordering it. The slave barracks complex is in B4."
Eryndra's attention stayed on the invisible grid this time, and JFK moved on before her focus could wander.
With the grid settled, assignments came fast. "Zehrina, C1. Put as much lethal pressure forward as you can while keeping the Convention inside your defensive reach. Grant, Eisenhower, Warrex, and I will push through C2. Captain, FDR, Truman, and Lutrian take C3. Eryndra, C4 has the densest pocket of the surviving first wave directly ahead of you. Wipe it out."
Warrex rolled his shoulders, heavy axes shifting across his back. "Thank Loe," he muttered. "Finally some actual action."
"Take half the drone armada," Roy said to JFK. "I will take the other half for C3. Do not try to brawl them all by hand."
From inside the Convention, Takara cut into the comms. "Do not get cute out there. We are watching everything."
Formation broke across the grid, Zehrina and Eryndra disappearing into the grass as Roy's group angled for C3 under the shadow of heavy platforms and suicide walkers, while C2 swallowed JFK's team head-on.
Sector C2 gave Warrex no stragglers to clean up. What waited there had survived FDR's opening slaughter, bodies warped past any clean cryptid shape, all mismatched anatomy, thick scar tissue, and hate held together by muscle.
One hulking shape crossed the distance too fast for its size, and Warrex got his axes up just before impact. Weight slammed through the block like a moving wall, drove him into the dirt hard enough to crack stone under his spine, and filled his mouth with blood and soil. By the time he got his boots under him again, the pain had pulled a grin out of him.
"Okay," Warrex growled, wiping blood from his mouth. "That is new."
On Warrex's flanks, Grant and Eisenhower fought as if damage were a clerical error they refused to accept. Claws passed close enough to scrape paint, jaws snapped shut on empty air, and every sidestep came with another calm order sent into the drone swarm behind them.
"Shift the heavy walkers to the left flank," Grant ordered, and the same step that carried him inside a monster's guard put his heel through its knee before the claws could close around him.
Tracer fire cut lanes through the grass while suicide drones walked themselves into charging clusters and burst apart. Shockwaves folded bodies into the dirt, shrapnel flashed through the dark, and the surviving monsters kept reaching the machines anyway, tearing gun drones from the air and hammering heavy platforms down under raw weight.
JFK treated the fight as a writing surface waiting for correction. Through the churn of tracer fire and ruptured machines came a commander plated in mismatched iron, its charge aimed straight for Warrex. Another hit like the first would fold him, and the way his boots dug into the dirt said he knew it.
Before the charge reached him, JFK was already airborne, vaulting over the commander with the casual disrespect of a man ignoring gravity's invitation. "Arcane Runic Arts," JFK said. "Penmanship."
From JFK's forearm extended a mana blade shaped like the tip of a fountain pen, thin, sharp, and agonizingly precise. As he dropped through the air, he drew one clean line across the commander's path. The commander split in half along that line, and both pieces collapsed into the grass as if JFK had cut whatever signal kept the body upright.
Warrex spat dirt beside the ruined body. "Show-off."
Something low clicked in Grant's throat, close enough to laughter for Warrex to recognize the insult behind it. Eisenhower stayed fixed on the next wave pushing through the drone fire.
C3 gave Roy room to advance without turning every step into a brawl, since FDR and Truman walked close enough to make the monsters hesitate before they reached him.
The hovering camera stayed close enough to make Roy the obvious target, which suited him fine. While enemy commanders watched the performance, portals tore open at measured intervals along his route, and from inside the Convention, Jefferson used each doorway like a gun mount for the Nightshatter's artillery.
Heavy shells shrieked through the portals in a pattern built for logistics rather than spectacle, hammering the B4 slave barracks, crushing elevated watchtowers, and tearing open the cobblestone roads leading toward the capital.
Takara cut into the comms. "Why are you not simply obliterating the city from out here?"
"Because fighting them on home turf is how this turns stupid," Roy answered. "Urban traps, broken sightlines, a maze we do not know, all of that helps them. We want them bleeding, furious, and forced into the open." A shell burst against the distant cavern ceiling hard enough to shake dust from the dark above the capital. "Seven bosses are leading this floor, Takara. They have been growing and organizing for nine hundred years. We need to treat that threat like it is real."
After that, Takara's next question came much drier. "Did you actually think of all that yourself?"
Roy gave a short laugh. "Not a chance. That was mostly Eisenhower and Grant."
Along the outer flanks, Zehrina turned C1 into a quiet failure of command. Moving like a ghost reading a map, she cut away messengers, officers, and anything else trying to carry orders through the dark.
C4 shook under Eryndra's advance as each collision turned packed bodies into flattened grass and craters. Resistance became empty space a second after she reached it, until the battlefield seemed to fail in her direction.
At the D1 border, Lynder had been left with the most insulting job imaginable because the defense line barely needed him. Runic drones handled each rare breach before it reached his range, so the ancient elf looked more offended by boredom than by the war.
On the C2 feed, another monster hit Warrex hard enough to crack the wards across his body, and Lynder repaired them from the border with a lazy sweep of magic. Fresh runes settled over the Beastfolk before the broken ones finished fading, while Warrex drove himself back into the fray too quickly to waste breath on gratitude.
"If we simply linked our magical reserves, we could clear this entire floor in a few moments," Lynder said over the comms.
"We definitely could," Roy said. "But this is a fantastic show, Lynder. A whole production. Think about the publicity for Technomendia and, more importantly, for me."
"And what about the publicity for me?" Lynder asked.
"You do not think Serenity recorded your terrifying rampage earlier?" Roy asked. "Do not worry. We have a special promotional package for you. You are going to be swimming in requests when we broadcast this."
"Requests for monster bounties," Lynder clarified, and then his voice softened around the second possibility. "Or perhaps dates."
Roy's laughter broke across the comms before Lynder could pretend the bait had failed.
"All right," Lynder conceded. "If you change your mind and require my actual strength, I am right here."
Across the grid, Phase Two settled into its working shape because each sector denied the enemy a different kind of control. Command failed on the left as Zehrina cut messages apart, while the right kept collapsing under Eryndra's advance. In the center, JFK, Grant, and Eisenhower turned C2 into a mechanical war built around keeping Warrex alive, and farther out, Roy kept the capital bleeding from a distance instead of feeding his crew into an urban trap.
The Convention stayed alive behind them through work that looked smaller only because it happened away from the killing. Takara kept the internal systems stable while Jefferson maintained the artillery portal, and the younger apprentices watched from the safest place on the floor as survival near the bottom of the world revealed itself as coordination, distance, and overwhelming firepower.
Orden drifted near the edge of the sovereign space with three neat cubes of monster flesh turning through his hands, their muffled screams leaking out each time he tossed them higher. He cheered anyway, delighted by the war as if someone had built the whole thing to keep him entertained.