The dining hall erupted in chaos.
Mokai caught a brief glimpse of the scene - plates shattering, tables overturned, and his father's figure silhouetted against the searing light.
The walls seemed to ripple like water, their solid forms dissolving into flashes of alien landscapes - jagged mountains under a crimson sky, a vast ocean with no horizon.
The air was thick with the scent of ozone and the crushing force pressing down on Mokai's chest was making it hard to breathe or to think. He tried to call out, but his voice was swallowed by the chaos.
Then, after the initial blast, the chaos calmed slightly, though the air still hummed. The floor trembled - no, the whole world trembled.
Mokai pushed himself to his feet, his legs unsteady beneath him. His breath came in shallow, painful gasps, his chest still tight from the crushing force from before. He turned toward the wide window of the dining hall and froze. His stomach churned as he stared at the impossible sight.
There, above the familiar range of the Azure Peakes, he saw the same jagged, crimson mountains from the visions. They overlapped the familiar landscape like a ghostly echo, their sharp edges cutting through the sky.
The two worlds - Pantax and the alien realm - were bleeding into each other, their boundaries blurred.
Lord Ryosei, stood near the window, his expression grim. Master Lira approached the window, her eyes now widened with a mix of awe and terror. She stopped beside Lord Ryosei.
"I never thought I would see it with my own eyes," she whispered.
Her hands, usually steady and sure, now clutched the edge of the window as if to anchor herself.
"This… this is a cosmic collision. Two worlds colliding."
Lord Ryosei's voice cut sharp and disbelieving. "A cosmic collision? Isn't that a fantasy? A myth told to scare children into obedience?"
"It is no myth," she said sharp, turning to him. "It is real, and it is happening. Just as the Temple foresaw. You just did not believe."
Lord Ryosei's jaw tightened, his gaze flicking between Master Lira and the distorted sky outside. The jagged, crimson mountains still loomed over the Azure Peaks, their presence an undeniable testament to the truth of her words.
"What does this mean for Pantax?" Lord Ryosei asked, his voice low.
"The truth is," she said, "we don't know exactly what will happen. There are no clear answers. The worlds could merge completely, blending into one. Or they could rebound, tearing apart as they are flung in different directions."
"What is better?" Fengyu showed up next to Mokai, clutching his head and blinking rapidly as if this would force the visions away. Seline stood behind clutched to Kaelyn's arm, both their faces drained of colour.
Master Lira's expression was grave as she continued.
"If the worlds merge completely, everything that existed in both will be erased - unmade and then reshaped into something new."
She turned her gaze back to the window, to the jagged crimson peaks hanging over Pantax like a phantom omen.
"It would not be survival, not truly. It would be annihilation and rebirth into an existence."
A cold silence fell over the room. No one spoke. No one dared to move.
Lord Ryosei's fists clenched at his sides. "And the alternative?"
"If they tear apart, the damage will be severe but partial. There will be fractures, wounds in the fabric of the world, but we will endure. At least some of us."
Mokai swallowed, his throat dry. "So we have to make sure they don't merge."
Fengyu looked at him, incredulously. "How do you influence the movement of the worlds?"
"It is possible. The collision is a clash of forces, of energies. If we can change the flow just a little bit, we can force the worlds apart."
"And what exactly do we need to do? A ritual? A sacrifice? Obtain some ancient device hidden in a forgotten ruin?" Lord Ryosei grew impatient.
"The Temple has long found out that the gates are part of the mechanism holding the worlds together. They are not just portals, they are anchors, binding the fabric of our universe. We can manipulate them to create a force to push the alien world away."
"You mean shut them down?"
Lira shook her head. "Not just shut them down. Redirect their energy - essentially turning the gates 'inside out'. This," she held a device that seemed both ancient and futuristic, "is the Inverter."
The device was small, no larger than a clenched fist, but its design was impossibly complex. Its outer shell was made of a material that shifted and shimmered, tiny arcs of energy crackled across its surface, and at its core, a swirling vortex of light pulsed rhythmically.
"Once activated, the Inverter will emit a pulse of energy that scrambles the gate's internal mechanisms. The gate will become unstable. The worlds will push against each other, and the gate itself will begin to collapse."
Lord Ryosei frowned. "Ok, what is the catch?"
"Reversing the gates causes them to collapse, creating a catastrophic rupture between the worlds – a black hole that will suck everything around it. Before that happens we will have to destroy them. Otherwise both worlds will get sucked into the hole."
Lord Ryosei was not impressed. "If we make a mistake we will destroy our world. If we do not do anything we still gamble on whether the worlds merge or bounce."
"That is correct."
"How and when can we tell if the worlds merge?"
Master Lira looked at him. "I do not know. All this is only theoretic. None of us, and nobody in the Temple, actually lived through it to tell."
Mokai stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he studied the device. "Then we need to make it work."
A deep tremor ran through the ground, rattling the very foundations of the Citadel. The dining hall groaned - the stone itself was protesting.
Master Lira's head snapped up. "It's happening faster than I thought. Something is accelerating the process. We need to hurry up. Also," she hesitated, looking at Lord Ryosei "we need a Gatebreaker bomb."
Lord Ryosei's looked appalled for a moment, his jaw tightening as if he were about to argue. But then he deflated, his shoulders slumping slightly as he exhaled.
"I see," he said quietly.
Mokai stared at his father. "Do we have such a thing?"
"Yes." Lord Ryosei's tone was matter-of-fact, as though possessing a weapon of mass destruction was the most normal thing in the universe.
The Gatebreaker bomb.
The very idea of it sent a chill down Mokai's spine. It was a weapon of last resort, a tool of absolute destruction.
"Where is it?" asked Master Lira.
"Here in the Citadel, in the inner vault of the armoury."
"Fetch it. I will handle the Inverter. We move now, or we lose everything."
Lord Ryosei paused. "How do we make sure that the explosion is limited to the gates and it does not destroy our world?"
"Timing is important," Master Lira answered. "The formation of the hole will contain the explosion. Now, move!"
Mokai followed his father through the crumbling corridors of the Citadel as they made their way to the armoury.
The inner vault was a heavily fortified chamber deep within, its entrance guarded by massive steel doors etched with runes of protection.
Lord Ryosei placed his hand on the central panel, and the runes flared to life, glowing a faint blue before the doors groaned open.
There it stood.
A small, cylindrical device resting on a pedestal. The Gatebreaker bomb. It was sleek and ominous.
Lord Ryosei handed it to his son.
"Take it and run. Do not fear, it will not activate outside of the gates. Once in there it will explode."
Meanwhile, Fengyu, Seline, and Kaelyn kept close to Master Lira as she run through the higher levels of the city.
The streets were in chaos, with panicked citizens fleeing in all directions and the ground shaking underfoot. The sky was a swirling maelstrom of crimson and black, the alien, jagged mountains looming larger with every passing moment.
But as they neared the top, the chaos seemed to fade behind them, as though they were stepping into a place untouched by the madness unravelling below. The wind died down, leaving behind an eerie, almost sacred silence. No tremors shook the ground here, no unnatural rifts marred the sky. Instead, the mountaintop stretched out in serene stillness, bathed in the soft glow of the gates.
The gates stood before them, pulsing gently, the familiar crystal oval hovering above the stone platform. It looked delicate in the night light, its surface shimmering like liquid glass. Unlike the world below, it remained pristine - untouched by the crimson aura seeping from the other realm. It was as if this place existed outside of time, an island of stillness amidst the chaos.
Fengyu let out a slow breath. "It's… peaceful."
The flickering flames below seemed so distant now, a world away from this strange, untouched stillness.
Master Lira walked ahead of them, stopping just before the shimmering surface of the gate. She studied it for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
"To which world do we set the gates?" asked Kaelyn.
"To none," came Master Lira's crisp answer. "We do not want to send the Inverter or the bomb to somewhere else. It needs to stay here, just in the gates. Activate at zero."
Kaelyn looked unsure, but the guard at duty only nodded, and soon sent a enveloped missile towards the shimmering surface. As the missile entered it the light of the gates intensified and the glass surface changed into rippling water, just as Fengyu remembered from before.
He glanced back down toward the city.
"There is Mokai", he shouted.
There he was indeed - running up the mountain steps, weaving between panicked citizens.
"We can start," said Master Lira.
They watched as she took out the Inverter once again. Without hesitation, she hurled it into the gate.
At the beginning nothing happened. They stood there watching the shimmering surface of the gates.
As Mokai reached the platform, they started to have doubts if all this complicated theory would actually work. They glanced at each other with doubts. What was that that they were waiting for? What was the sign that the Inverter did work?
Master Lira noticed Mokai and stepped to the edge of the platform.
"Mokai, the bomb," she reached out to him.
At this moment, with a deafening crack the air folded inward toward the gates. The gust of air struck like a physical blow.
Seline gasped as the force dragged her, her feet slipping over the smooth stone. Mokai instinctively took a few steps forward, but stopped abruptly, looking back at Master Lira.
"Mokai, throw it now!"
Just as he raised his arm to hurl the bomb, the pull surged violently, and the sheer force yanked his body off balance. All four of them were dragged into the shimmering surface of the gates.
The moment his fingers released the bomb, he registered the way the shimmering border of the gate warped and cracked, swallowing them whole.
The explosion sent a shockwave. The normal flow of streaking lights, that he remembered from his countless gate travels, dissolved into emptiness, colours bleeding away into an infinite black void.
For an instant, they were weightless, untethered, drifting.
Then came the pull – the last of the colourful streaks of light hugged them and yanked them forward, dragging them violently through the collapsing space. Everything became a chaotic stream of blurred colours. The rushing sensation of motion was faster and faster. Until it stopped.
They were expelled into blistering heat.
Mokai barely registered the shift before his body slammed against rough terrain, tumbling down a jagged slope. Rocks scraped his arms and legs as he rolled, finally skidding to a painful stop.
His skin burned where it scraped against the jagged terrain, and the air in his lungs was thick and searing. He gasped, coughing, pushing himself up onto his hands.
Around him, the others were stirring. Seline clutched her shoulder, blinking dazedly. Kaelyn exhaled sharply, pushing herself upright. Fengyu, panting, looked around and let out a low, disbelieving curse.
The landscape was unmistakable.
The same alien peaks that had loomed over Pantax now surrounded them entirely, towering in jagged, unnatural formations. The sky above was an endless expanse of crimson, churning like molten glass.
The gates had collapsed, but not before flinging them into the other world.