World at War

First team operation. Petrillo and Dominick breach a demon nest while Abigail provides overwatch. Petrillo freezes when a mid-tier demon uses the host's voice to beg for mercy. Abigail's golden power destroys the demon — terrifying her allies with its magnitude.

Dominick trains Petrillo in close-quarters knife work for engaging demonic vessels, blending technical combat instruction with emotional honesty about killing possessed hosts.

Haatim confronts the demon possessing his sister Nida in an abandoned church, with the full team providing perimeter support. Nida surfaces briefly to beg him not to come back. When Haatim attempts exorcism, both Nida and the demon scream identically—confirming they are too integrated to separate.

Arthur privately assesses Abigail's corruption. Observes enhanced speed, golden vein patterns, altered autonomic responses. Teaches her the dissociation technique he used for 28 years - observe emotions without reacting rather than suppressing them.

The full team convenes a war council after Abigail reveals the tether discovery. Arthur proposes using Abigail as bait; Haatim argues for destroying Belphegor's relay network to force him into the open.

From Petrillo's perspective, Arthur and Haatim argue over strategy—attack Belphegor now versus wait—with Dominick intervening to end it. Later, Petrillo and Emma share a quiet midnight kitchen moment, the first time they use each other's first names, finding a brief pause of humanity amid the war.

Abigail returns to the team facility after six months alone. She arrives at 3 AM, hesitates before entering, reunites with Haatim, then the team gathers one by one - Dominick, Petrillo, Frieda, and finally Arthur, whose embrace cracks her carefully maintained armor.

Abigail and Haatim conduct a deep grounding session where she explores the corruption's architecture rather than fighting it. She discovers the corruption is a bidirectional tether connecting her to an ancient, pre-Belphegor entity that exists in a void.

Abigail fights three escalating demon engagements in a single day, each time drawing more power than intended. After losing five seconds to the corruption's full-clarity vision during the third fight, Arthur reveals she has entered the second stage of corruption progression—the offering...