Day 48 Post-Impact - Morning
The rift dominated the horizon.
Even from two kilometers away, it hurt to look at. A wound in reality, three hundred meters across, bleeding colors that didn't exist into a sky that seemed to recoil from its presence. The dimensional energy pressed against Sarnav's senses like a physical weight.
"Everyone feeling that?" Ishani asked, her light flickering with nervous energy.
"Hard not to," Minji muttered. Her illusions were already struggling, the dimensional interference making her power unstable. "This thing is wrong on a fundamental level."
[DIMENSIONAL RIFT - PROXIMITY WARNING]
[REALITY STABILITY: 73% AND FALLING]
[HOSTILE SIGNATURES: 40+ DETECTED WITHIN]
[S+ ENTITY: DORMANT (FLUCTUATING)]
[ENTRY WINDOW: CALCULATING...]
The entity's energy signature follows a twelve-minute cycle, the system reported. Low points last approximately four seconds. I recommend timing entry to the next trough, which occurs in... seven minutes, thirty-two seconds.
"We have a window," Sarnav announced to the assault force. "Seven and a half minutes. Everyone prep. We go in fast and quiet."
The twenty-eight awakened spread into their assigned formations. Team Alpha at the front. Team Beta flanking right. Team Gamma providing rear support. Every face showed the same mixture of fear and determination.
Chen Wei moved to Sarnav's side. "Extraction protocols are set. If things go bad, I'll hold the exit point. Get the survivors out, then worry about the entity."
"If things go bad, you get everyone out. I'll handle the entity."
"Sarnav..."
"That's not a suggestion, Chen Wei." Sarnav's voice was flat. "Those are your orders."
The older man's jaw tightened, but he nodded.
Through the network, Sarnav felt his wives' reactions. Nisha's fear spiked. Ishani's determination hardened. Minji broadcast forced confidence. Jade sent cold calculation. Ananya prayed silently.
Six minutes, the system counted down.
They waited.
The entry window hit like a held breath releasing.
One moment, the rift pulsed with that oppressive wrongness. The next, the pressure eased, just slightly, just enough.
"Now!"
Twenty-eight awakened moved as one.
Sarnav hit the rift boundary first. The sensation was indescribable. Like falling sideways through water that was also fire that was also ice. Reality twisted, inverted, reassembled itself in configurations that hurt to perceive.
Then he was through.
The dimensional space beyond the rift was a nightmare made manifest.
The ground was wrong. Gray stone that seemed to breathe, surfaces that shifted when not directly observed. The sky was worse, a roiling mass of purple and black that occasionally showed glimpses of other places, other times, other realities bleeding through.
[DIMENSIONAL SPACE - ACTIVE]
[GRAVITY: 87% STANDARD]
[ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION: BREATHABLE (BARELY)]
[HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT: CONFIRMED]
[TIME DILATION: MINIMAL (1.03x STANDARD)]
The rest of the assault force emerged behind him. Some stumbled. A few retched. One D-rank awakened fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the sensory assault.
"Keep moving!" Sarnav ordered. "The longer we stay in one place, the more attention we draw."
Jade had her tablet out, sensors working overtime. "Survivor signatures are approximately three kilometers that direction." She pointed toward a twisted landscape of crystalline formations and organic-looking structures. "Forty-seven hostile signatures between us and them."
"Then we go through them."
They advanced in formation, Minji's struggling illusions providing what cover they could. The dimensional interference made her power flicker and warp, creating unsettling visual artifacts that might have been worse than no concealment at all.
The first contact came within minutes.
Void stalkers emerged from the crystalline formations like shadows gaining substance.
Six of them, all C-rank, moving with coordinated precision that suggested intelligence. Their empty eyes fixed on the assault force with hunger that transcended simple predation.
"Contact front!" Hafiz's lightning crackled to life. "Six hostiles!"
"Team Alpha, engage," Sarnav commanded. "Beta and Gamma, hold position. Conserve power."
He met the first stalker head-on.
The creature was fast, faster than its equivalents outside the rift. The dimensional energy seemed to enhance it, making its claws sharper, its movements more fluid. It slashed at his chest with enough force to carve through steel.
Sarnav caught the claw mid-swing and crushed it.
The stalker shrieked, a sound that existed partly outside normal hearing. He silenced it with a punch that shattered its skull, void energy dispersing into the alien atmosphere.
[VOID STALKER (C-RANK, ENHANCED) ELIMINATED]
[ESSENCE: +400]
Around him, Alpha team engaged. Ishani's light blazed, cutting through a stalker with surgical precision. Hafiz's lightning chained between two targets, dropping them in crackling bursts. Minji stayed back, her illusions creating false targets that drew attacks away from vulnerable teammates.
The sixth stalker broke formation, trying to flank toward the support teams.
Sarnav intercepted it before it covered five meters. His hand closed around its throat, lifting it off the ground.
"Where are the others?" he demanded, knowing it couldn't understand, couldn't answer.
The stalker's eyes flickered. Something like intelligence surfaced, briefly.
Then it dissolved in his grip, void energy scattering into nothing.
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
[HOSTILES ELIMINATED: 6]
[FRIENDLY CASUALTIES: 0]
[TOTAL ESSENCE: +2,400]
"Clear," Ishani reported, her light fading to a dim glow. "But that was too easy. They were testing us."
"Agreed." Sarnav scanned the alien landscape. Nothing moved, but the wrongness seemed to intensify, like the dimension itself was paying attention. "They're learning our capabilities. The next wave will be different."
The S+ entity's energy signature fluctuated during combat, the system observed. It's aware of our presence. Fully aware now. I recommend increased pace.
"Double time. Stay tight."
They moved deeper into the nightmare.
The second engagement was worse.
Twelve hostiles this time. A mix of stalkers and something new, something larger. Void beasts that walked on four legs, their bodies covered in plates of crystallized darkness that deflected conventional attacks.
[NEW HOSTILE DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: VOID BEHEMOTH]
[RANK: B]
[DEFENSIVE RATING: HIGH]
[WEAKNESS: JOINTS, EYES, INTERNAL ENERGY CORE]
"B-rank behemoths!" Jade called out, her tablet analyzing in real-time. "Standard attacks won't penetrate their armor. Target the joints!"
Team Beta surged forward to support Alpha. Chen Wei's earth manipulation raised barriers, channeling the creatures into kill zones. Six C-rank awakened unleashed their abilities in coordinated bursts.
The stalkers fell quickly. The behemoths didn't.
Sarnav engaged the first one directly. His fist connected with its flank, a blow that would have shattered concrete. The creature's armor absorbed the impact, barely cracking.
It turned, massive jaws snapping toward his head.
He dodged, rolled, came up behind it. The joints. The system said the joints.
His hand found the gap between two armor plates at its rear leg. He gripped, twisted, and tore.
The behemoth screamed. Its leg buckled. Before it could recover, Sarnav was on its back, driving his fist into the base of its skull where the armor was thinnest.
The creature collapsed.
[VOID BEHEMOTH (B-RANK) ELIMINATED]
[ESSENCE: +2,000]
Two behemoths remained. Ishani faced one, her light condensing into a blade that sought the gaps in its armor. Chen Wei had the other, earth rising to immobilize its legs while his team attacked the exposed joints.
"I need an opening!" Ishani shouted. Her light blade scored the armor but couldn't penetrate.
Sarnav crossed the distance in a blur. He hit the behemoth from the side, staggering it, creating a moment of imbalance.
Ishani's blade found the neck joint.
The creature fell, dissolving before it hit the ground.
Chen Wei's team brought down the last one seconds later, a combined assault overwhelming its defenses through sheer attrition.
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
[HOSTILES ELIMINATED: 12]
[FRIENDLY CASUALTIES: 0]
[INJURIES: 4 MINOR]
"Casualties?" Sarnav demanded.
"Minor wounds," Nisha reported, already moving among the injured with healing energy. Her nature magic worked differently here, the dimensional interference making each healing take more effort. "Nothing serious. I can patch them up."
"Do it fast. We keep moving."
Through the network, he felt his wives' exhaustion building. They'd been at high alert for hours. The dimensional space drained energy faster than normal reality. Every awakened in the force was operating at less than peak efficiency.
One point seven kilometers to survivor camp, the system updated. However, the hostile concentration increases dramatically ahead. I'm detecting a defensive perimeter around the survivors' position.
"Defensive perimeter?"
Twenty-six hostile signatures arranged in a containment pattern. They're not attacking the survivors. They're keeping them contained.
"Like a trap."
Precisely. The survivors are bait. The real threat is the entity using them to draw in rescuers.
Sarnav looked at the twisted landscape ahead. Crystalline formations gave way to organic structures that pulsed with dark energy. Somewhere in that nightmare, fourteen people waited for salvation.
And something ancient waited for him.
"It knows we're coming."
It's counting on it.
The perimeter was visible now.
A ring of void creatures surrounding a pocket of stable space where the survivors had made their camp. From this distance, Sarnav could see the faint golden glow that marked the healer's power, a beacon of hope in the dimensional darkness.
But between them and that light stood twenty-six hostiles. Stalkers. Behemoths. And something else.
[NEW HOSTILE DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: VOID COMMANDER]
[RANK: A]
[ABILITY: VOID MANIPULATION, UNIT COORDINATION]
[THREAT LEVEL: SEVERE]
[NOTE: ENTITY APPEARS TO BE DIRECTING PERIMETER FORCES]
An A-rank. The same level as Sarnav himself.
It stood at the center of the perimeter, a vaguely humanoid figure composed of concentrated void energy. Where the stalkers were animalistic and the behemoths were brutal, this creature radiated intelligence. Malevolence. Purpose.
It turned toward them.
Across the dimensional space, Sarnav felt its attention like a physical blow. Not the overwhelming pressure of the S+ entity, but something more focused. More personal.
"It sees us," Ishani breathed.
"Good." Sarnav stepped forward. "Then it knows what's coming."
Tactical analysis suggests dividing forces, the system recommended. Teams Beta and Gamma engage perimeter hostiles while you and Alpha confront the Commander. Success probability increases to sixty-two percent.
"Chen Wei," Sarnav called. "Take Beta and Gamma. Clear the perimeter. Get to the survivors."
"And you?"
"I'll keep the Commander busy."
Through the network, his wives' fear spiked. But so did their determination.
"Not alone," Ishani said, moving to his side. "I'm coming with you."
"Me too," Minji added. "My illusions might not work perfectly here, but I can still be annoying as hell."
"And I," Hafiz finished. "You'll need lightning to keep it off-balance."
Alpha team. His team.
"Then let's go introduce ourselves."
They advanced.
The Commander watched them come.
And somewhere beyond the perimeter, deep in the dimensional space, something far more ancient stirred in its slumber.
[COMBAT IMMINENT]
[A-RANK VOID COMMANDER: ENGAGING]
[S+ ENTITY: AWAKENING (12% ACTIVITY)]
[SURVIVOR EXTRACTION: PENDING]
[TIME REMAINING: UNKNOWN]