Day 27 Post-Impact - Dawn
The march was silent.
Sixty-two awakened moved through the ruined city, their footsteps the only sound in the pre-dawn darkness. No talking, no unnecessary noise. Every person knew their role, their position, their objective.
Sarnav led the core team at the center of the formation. Ishani walked beside him, her hands occasionally flickering with restrained light. Minji moved like a shadow, her illusions already blurring their group's outline. Chen Wei brought up the rear, his experience evident in every measured step.
Jade stayed close, her tablet clutched like a weapon, her pale face illuminated by its glow.
Through the network, Sarnav felt his wives' emotions. Ishani's controlled aggression. Minji's nervous excitement. Ananya's fear, dampened by distance as she remained with the reserve team. Nisha's steady calm from the support position.
We're approaching the perimeter, he sent to all of them. Stay sharp.
Copy, Ishani responded.
Got it, oppa, from Minji.
Be careful, Nisha added. All of you.
The convention center loomed ahead, its shattered facade visible against the lightening sky. The rift's energy pulsed from within, a sickly purple glow that made the air taste wrong.
And surrounding it, the creatures.
More than the recon had shown. Fifty at least, maybe sixty. They'd multiplied in the two days since the scouting mission.
"Numbers are higher," Chen Wei muttered.
"I can see that." Sarnav assessed the situation. The original plan assumed forty hostiles. Fifty percent more changed the calculus significantly.
"We should abort," Jade said. "Recalculate, return with more forces."
"If we wait, there'll be even more. The rift is still spawning." Sarnav made his decision. "We adapt. Signal the teams."
He raised his hand, giving the predetermined gesture.
The assault began.
Alpha team hit first.
Twenty awakened crashed into the creature perimeter from the north, powers blazing. Fire, lightning, earth, metal. The void beings screeched, their alien forms twisting to meet the attack.
Beta team struck from the east a moment later, catching the creatures in a crossfire.
"Now," Sarnav said.
The core team moved.
Minji's illusions wrapped around them like a cloak, bending light and perception. To the creatures, they were invisible, undetectable, ghosts moving through the chaos.
They reached the building entrance without engagement.
"Illusions holding," Minji reported, strain evident in her voice. "But I can't maintain this much longer. Too many eyes."
"You won't have to." Sarnav drew his weapon. "Ishani, light them up."
She smiled. "Finally."
Ishani stepped forward, her entire body erupting with radiant energy. The light was blinding, painful, a miniature sun that seared through the darkness.
The creatures guarding the entrance shrieked, recoiling from the brilliance. Their void-touched forms couldn't handle pure light. Smoke rose from their bodies as Ishani's power burned them from existence.
"Path's clear," she said, the glow fading to a sustainable level. "For now."
They entered the building.
The interior was worse than expected.
The convention center had been transformed by the rift's presence. Walls pulsed with alien growth. The floor was slick with something that wasn't quite liquid. And the darkness was oppressive, fighting against even Ishani's light.
"Spread formation," Sarnav ordered. "Chen Wei, watch our backs. Jade, what are you getting?"
"Energy readings are off the chart." Her fingers flew across her tablet. "The core is below us. Basement level, maybe sub-basement. The rift has restructured the building's layout."
"Can you guide us?"
"I can try."
They moved deeper, following Jade's directions through corridors that shouldn't exist. The architecture defied logic, stairs leading sideways, doors opening onto walls, rooms that were larger inside than out.
"This is wrong," Minji said. "None of this makes sense."
"Dimensional bleeding," Jade explained. "The rift is warping local space-time. We're partially in another dimension."
"That's comforting."
A screech echoed from somewhere ahead. Then another. Then a chorus.
"Contact," Chen Wei warned.
They came from everywhere.
Creatures poured from the walls, the ceiling, the floor itself. Smaller than the ones outside, but faster, more numerous. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds.
"Circle formation!" Sarnav commanded.
The team moved instinctively, backs together, facing outward. Ishani's light blazed, incinerating the closest creatures. Chen Wei's blade sang, cutting through void-flesh. Minji's illusions created false targets, splitting the swarm's attention.
Sarnav activated his first borrowed ability.
Nisha's nature magic surged through him. Vines erupted from the organic growth on the walls, turning the creatures' own environment against them. Thorned tendrils wrapped around void-forms, crushing, piercing, restraining.
"Holy shit," Minji breathed. "You can use her power?"
"System perk." He shifted to his second ability. Ishani's light manipulation joined his arsenal, beams of radiance cutting through the darkness alongside her own attacks.
The swarm broke against their combined defense.
But more kept coming.
"We can't stay here," Chen Wei shouted. "They'll overwhelm us eventually."
"Jade, how far to the core?"
"Fifty meters. Through that wall."
Sarnav looked at the indicated wall. Solid. Reinforced. Covered in pulsing alien growth.
"Everyone get behind me."
He activated his third ability. Minji's VR manipulation, layered over the other two. Not for illusions this time, but for something else.
He'd been practicing. Experimenting with the borrowed powers, finding combinations that shouldn't work but did.
Nature magic to understand organic structure. Light manipulation to generate focused energy. VR manipulation to target with perfect precision.
The wall exploded inward.
"Move!"
They charged through the gap, leaving the swarm scrambling to follow. The corridor beyond led downward, a spiraling descent into the building's transformed depths.
"That was incredible," Jade said, actually impressed. "The power interaction, the synergy. Your system allows ability combination?"
"Among other things."
"I need to study this more."
"After we survive."
The core chamber was vast.
The basement had expanded into something cathedral-sized, the ceiling lost in darkness above. At the center, the rift pulsed, a tear in reality that hurt to look at directly.
And guarding it, something massive.
The guardian was unlike the other creatures. Humanoid, almost, but wrong in every proportion. Three meters tall, armored in chitin and void-stuff, with too many limbs and no discernible face.
C-rank. Maybe higher.
"Well," Ishani said. "That's a problem."
"Jade, can you analyze the rift?"
"I need to get closer. Within ten meters."
"Chen Wei, Minji, keep the smaller creatures off us. Ishani, you're with me on the guardian."
"What about me?" Jade demanded.
"Stay behind us until we create an opening. Then do your job."
The guardian moved.
It was fast. Too fast for something that size. One moment it stood before the rift, the next it was among them, limbs sweeping in lethal arcs.
Chen Wei barely dodged, taking a glancing blow that sent him spinning. Minji's illusions scattered as the guardian passed through them like smoke.
Sarnav met it head-on.
His borrowed abilities blazed. Vines erupted to entangle its limbs. Light beams seared its armor. And beneath it all, his own B-rank power, his physical enhancement, his flight.
He rose above its initial strike, coming down with a strike that would have pulverized stone.
The guardian caught his blade.
Its grip was impossible, unbreakable. It yanked him forward, other limbs coming around to crush him.
Sarnav! Multiple mental voices, his wives screaming through the network.
He dropped the sword and flew backward, barely avoiding the killing embrace. The guardian pursued, relentless, its movements adapting to his tactics.
"It's learning," he realized. "Every attack, it's getting better."
"Then stop giving it time to learn!" Ishani launched herself at the creature, her entire body becoming a weapon of light. She struck its side, burning through chitin, drawing its attention.
It backhanded her across the chamber.
Ishani! Through the network, he felt her pain, her dazed consciousness. Not dead, but hurt. Badly.
Rage flooded through him.
He stopped thinking tactically. Stopped calculating odds. Stopped being careful.
He became violence.
Flight carried him faster than the guardian could track. His fists, enhanced by B-rank cultivation, struck with force that shattered its armor. Nature magic erupted from every surface, vines and roots and thorns tearing at its body from all directions. Light blazed from his hands, his eyes, his entire being.
The guardian tried to defend, to adapt, but there was nothing to adapt to. Just overwhelming force, relentless and furious.
He tore it apart.
When it finally fell, dissolving into void-stuff and dissipating, Sarnav stood over its remains, breathing hard, covered in ichor.
"The rift," he said. "Jade. Now."
She ran to the tear, tablet in hand, while he went to Ishani.
She was conscious, barely. Broken ribs, probably internal bleeding. But alive.
"That was stupid," he said, cradling her.
"Worked though." She coughed, blood on her lips. "Did we win?"
"Almost."
"Sarnav!" Jade's voice, sharp with alarm. "The rift is collapsing, but not naturally. Someone set a failsafe. It's going to implode!"
"How long?"
"Minutes. Maybe less."
He looked at his wounded, his team, the distance to the exit.
Not enough time. Not for everyone.
"Get them out," he ordered Chen Wei. "All of them. Now."
"What about you?"
"I'll handle the rift."
"That's suicide!"
"It's not." He hoped he was right. "Go. That's an order."
Chen Wei hesitated, then nodded. He gathered the wounded, Minji helping despite her exhaustion, and began the retreat.
Jade remained.
"I told you to go."
"You need someone to guide the implosion. Redirect the energy." She was already working on her tablet. "I can do that. Maybe."
"Maybe isn't good enough."
"It's better than definitely dead, which is what you are without me." She looked up, fear and determination warring in her expression. "I'm not leaving you, idiot. So stop arguing and let me work."
He could have forced her. Carried her out. But she was right. He needed her expertise.
"Then work fast."
The rift screamed.
The implosion had begun, reality folding in on itself around the tear. The chamber shook, debris falling from above, the walls cracking as dimensional forces tore at them.
"I need you to absorb the excess energy," Jade shouted over the chaos. "Your cultivation, can it take external essence?"
"I don't know. I've never tried."
"Then try now!" She made adjustments on her tablet, her power reaching out to interface with the rift's patterns. "I'm redirecting the implosion energy toward you. If you can absorb it, the collapse should stabilize."
"And if I can't?"
"Then we both die. No pressure."
Energy slammed into him.
It was like nothing he'd experienced. Raw dimensional power, unfiltered, overwhelming. His cultivation core screamed in protest, trying to process what couldn't be processed.
[WARNING: EXTERNAL ENERGY INFLUX EXCEEDS SAFE PARAMETERS]
[CORE DESTABILIZATION IMMINENT]
[EMERGENCY ABSORPTION PROTOCOL INITIATED]
The system took over.
He felt it working, restructuring his internal pathways, creating new channels for the dimensional energy. It hurt, god it hurt, like every cell in his body was being rewritten simultaneously.
But it worked.
The energy flowed into him, converted to essence, stored in reserves he didn't know he had. The rift's implosion slowed, stabilized, then stopped entirely.
And then it collapsed.
The tear sealed itself with a sound like reality sighing in relief. The chamber stopped shaking. The alien growth on the walls began to wither and die.
Sarnav fell to his knees, overwhelmed.
[EMERGENCY ABSORPTION COMPLETE]
[ESSENCE GAINED: +85,000]
[WARNING: HOST HAS EXCEEDED DAILY CAP]
[EXCESS ESSENCE: STORED IN OVERFLOW RESERVES]
[TOTAL ESSENCE: 247,000 / 500,000 TO SOUL TRANSFORMATION]
[NOTE: THAT WAS INCREDIBLY STUPID AND YOU'RE LUCKY TO BE ALIVE]
[BUT ALSO IMPRESSIVE. DON'T DO IT AGAIN.]
"Sarnav?" Jade was beside him, her hands on his shoulders. "Are you okay? Say something!"
"I'm alive." He looked up at her. "We both are."
"You absorbed a dimensional rift's energy." She was staring at him with something between awe and terror. "That shouldn't be possible."
"My system is full of things that shouldn't be possible."
"Clearly." She helped him to his feet. "Can you walk?"
"I think so."
They made their way out of the chamber, through the dying building, into the light of day.
The aftermath was chaos.
The assault force had taken casualties. Four dead, twelve wounded, including Ishani. But they'd won. The rift was closed, the creatures were dead or dissipating, and the northern territory was safe.
Sarnav found Ishani in the medical tent, Chen Wei standing guard.
"She'll live," the older man reported. "Broken ribs, internal bruising. Nothing that won't heal."
"Good." Sarnav sat beside her cot, taking her hand.
She stirred, eyes opening. "We won?"
"We won."
"Told you." She smiled weakly. "Stupid plan though."
"It worked."
"Only because you're insane." Her eyes found his. "I felt you. Through the network. When you absorbed that energy. It hurt."
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be more careful." She squeezed his hand. "I can't lose you. None of us can."
Through the network, he felt the others. Nisha's relief. Ananya's fading fear. Minji's exhausted satisfaction.
And outside the tent, watching from a distance, Jade.
Their eyes met.
Something had changed between them. The rift, the danger, working together to survive. She'd stayed when she could have run. Risked her life to save his.
She looked away first, but not before he saw the decision in her expression.
Her trial period was over.
[DAILY CULTIVATION SUMMARY]
[COMBAT ACTIVITIES: +5,000]
[DIMENSIONAL ENERGY ABSORPTION: +85,000]
[TOTAL ESSENCE: 247,000 / 500,000 TO SOUL TRANSFORMATION]
[NOTE: DAILY CAP EXCEEDED - EXCESS IN OVERFLOW]
[BOND STATUS - ISHANI SUPPIAH]
[CONDITION: INJURED, RECOVERING]
[EMOTIONAL STATE: RELIEVED, GRATEFUL]
[RIFT STATUS: DESTROYED]
[TERRITORY: SECURED]
[CASUALTIES: 4 DEAD, 12 WOUNDED]
[JADE WONG - STATUS CHANGE]
[TRIAL PERIOD: CONCLUDED]
[DECISION: PENDING FORMAL DECLARATION]