The silence in the interrogation room shattered like glass.
Every phone in the building went off at once in a cacophony of alerts, vibrations, and rising panic. Agents shouted to each other in the hallways. Boots pounded against tile. Somewhere, an alarm began to wail.
Lucien's hand went to his pocket instinctively. His phone screen glowed bright red.
[Emergency Alert – All Hunters]
Rift Detected: Rank B
Location: Jerusalem Security Perimeter – 300m from the Dome
Status: Active Breakout
All available Hunters report immediately.
Lucien stared at the words, his breath catching in his throat.
Jerusalem.
The healer who had been tending to Cédric looked up, her face pale. "The Dome...? That's impossible. Nothing opens near the Dome."
Cédric winced as he sat up straighter, one hand still pressed against his bandaged wound. "Lucien." His voice was steady despite the pain. "You need to go."
Lucien turned to him sharply. "You're injured."
"I'll be fine." Cédric waved him off. "The healers here will take care of me. But you..." He met Lucien's eyes. "I see it on your face. You need to go there."
Lucien hesitated, torn between duty and instinct.
Cédric smiled faintly. "Go, my friend. I'll catch up when I can."
Lucien placed a hand briefly on Cédric's shoulder, then stood. Without another word, he turned and walked out of the room, his footsteps echoing down the corridor as the building emptied around him.
Behind him, Cédric leaned back against the wall, exhaling slowly.
"Be safe, Lucien," he whispered.
The streets of Jaffa were chaos.
Hunters poured from every corner of the city, rushing toward transport vehicles, summoning mounts, activating movement skills. The sky above flickered with teleportation circles as higher-ranked Hunters bypassed traffic entirely.
Lucien ran.
He pushed through the crowds, his twin swords bouncing against his back, Orc Cleaver heavy and reassuring. The alerts kept coming... updates, coordinates, warnings.
[Breakout Contained]
[Rift Stabilized]
[Hunter Teams Forming]
By the time Lucien reached the checkpoint at the edge of the security perimeter, a full convoy had already assembled. Military vehicles, Association vans, and dozens of Hunters stood in formation.
And beyond them, rising against the sky like a wound in the world itself...
The Dome.
Lucien stopped.
His breath left him.
The structure was massive and easily a few kilometers wide, its surface shimmering with the same unstable light as a rift. Violet and black hues swirled across its exterior, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. It was neither solid nor liquid, neither stone nor energy. It simply was, suspended above the ruins of what had once been the Holy City.
Nothing inside was visible. No buildings. No streets. No sky.
Just that endless, swirling void.
Lucien's hands trembled.
This is what became of Jerusalem.
The city he had fought for. The city he had bled for. The city where his brothers had died.
Gone.
Swallowed whole.
He stood there for a long moment, staring at the Dome as memories clawed at the edges of his mind... memories that weren't quite there, fragments of battles and oaths and flames.
"Hunter ID, please."
Lucien blinked and turned. A guard stood before him, hand extended, expression professional but tense.
Lucien pulled out his card without a word and handed it over.
The guard scanned it, frowned, then scanned it again. "Lucien de Mireval... Rank E. Blacksmith class." He looked up. "You're cleared to enter the perimeter, but..."
"I know," Lucien said quietly.
He walked past the checkpoint, following the flow of Hunters toward the rift site.
The rift itself was smaller than he'd expected.
It hovered a few meters above the ground, a swirling tear in reality no larger than a doorway. Blue light bled from its edges, casting eerie shadows across the scorched earth around it.
A team of Hunters stood in formation nearby... six of them, all clad in reinforced armor, weapons drawn.
Behind them, Association officers barked orders into radios, coordinating containment protocols.
Lucien approached.
One of the officers noticed him and stepped forward, blocking his path. "Hunter de Mireval?"
"Yes."
The man glanced at a tablet in his hand. "You're cleared to observe, but you won't be entering the rift."
Lucien's jaw tightened. "Why not?"
"Your class and rank don't meet the minimum requirements for a B-Class rift," the officer replied smoothly. "Association policy."
"I cleared a C-Class rift alone," Lucien said, his voice calm but edged with steel. "You have the report."
The officer didn't blink. "Policy is policy."
Lucien stared at him for a long moment. The man's expression was too neutral, too rehearsed.
Mazen, Lucien thought. Or someone above him.
He stepped back without argument, his eyes shifting to the rift.
The team was preparing to enter now, checking equipment, activating buffs. Their leader was a tall woman with a spear... she raised her hand.
"Formation delta. Standard sweep. We go in, clear the immediate area, and report back. No heroics."
The team nodded.
She stepped forward, and one by one, they followed her into the rift.
The light swallowed them whole.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then the rift screamed.
A high-pitched, metallic shriek tore through the air as the swirling portal suddenly collapsed inward, its edges crystallizing into jagged, translucent shards. The light died. The hum vanished.
What remained was a solid, frozen surface... just like glass, but darker, shot through with veins of black and violet.
The rift had sealed itself.
"What the hell...?"
"Get a reading! Now!"
"Is it still active?"
"Someone call HQ!"
Panic rippled through the Association officers. Radios crackled. Voices overlapped.
One of the senior officers stepped forward, face pale, and pulled up a holographic screen. His hands shook as he read the System notification aloud.
[Rift Status: Crystallized]
[Entry Denied]
[Condition for Reopening: Rift Completion or Death of All Participants]
Silence fell like a hammer.
"It's happened before," someone whispered. "But not in years..."
The senior officer turned toward the rest of the team. "Contact the Council. We need S-Rank Hunters. Now."
Lucien stood at the edge of the crowd, staring at the crystallized rift.
Six Hunters. Trapped.
He could feel it... the weight of the seal, the finality of it. They were on their own now.
And there was nothing he could do.
His hand drifted to the hilt of Orc Cleaver, fingers curling around the worn leather grip.
Nothing... unless...
He drew the blade slowly, the dark steel catching the fading light. He held it before him and whispered:
"Appraisal."
The familiar translucent window appeared.
[Item: Orc Cleaver]
Rarity: Unique (A-Class)
Durability: 98%
Passive Attribute: Armor Penetration +15%
Infused Active Skill: [Final Severance]
Skill Effect:
A single mana-concentrated strike that temporarily ignores 100% of the target's physical armor.
Constraint:
Using [Final Severance] will critically damage the infused Mana Memory, causing the blade to be destroyed immediately after the strike.
Lucien read the description twice.
A single strike. One chance. And the blade dies with it.
His gaze shifted back to the crystallized rift.
Its surface shimmered faintly, almost alive, like a membrane stretched too thin.
Can it be cut?
The thought burned in his mind, dangerous and tempting.
He stood there for a long moment, the weight of Orc Cleaver heavy in his hand, staring at the sealed gateway.
Around him, the Association scrambled to contain the situation, calling for reinforcements, preparing for the worst.
But Lucien didn't move.
He simply watched.
And waited.