❖ Chapter 15: Echoes in the Hilllight
The fortress trembled—not from any physical tremor, but from fear.
Dozens of guards rushed to the threshold that led to the next realm. Breathless. Confused. Angry. There had been no battle, no trap, not even resistance. The intruders simply vanished—slipped through a crack none of them even felt.
"Gone… They're gone…" one muttered, almost shamefully.
"…how?" another spat, kicking the glowing rim of the threshold. "How the hell did they get past?!"
The lead guard dropped to one knee and pressed his gauntleted hand into the air.
A soft hum.
Magic expanded—a crystalline ring of shimmering glyphs appeared in the air, spinning like a wheel. Then a pulse of pressure burst out as a face materialized at its center—no, a presence.
It was the Government of the North.
Her name?
Veltheris Umbra.
Only her silhouette could be seen—elegant, upright, and in full command of the space she inhabited. Her face was cloaked in shadow, but even in shadow it demanded reverence. The ambient air bent around her like it was being judged.
She didn't speak.
Not at first.
Her silence alone made the guards sweat.
Then, finally, her voice sliced through the channel like a sharpened knife wrapped in velvet.
> "Two intruders… one known, one unknown."
"Explain. Now."
The lead guard stammered, bowed deeper.
"They—no sound, my Lady. They bypassed us without resistance, no alarms. We suspect stolen magic or high-layer sorcery."
> "And yet, they stepped past our core defenses and into Realm Two under your watch."
"Y-yes, my Lady. I accept full responsibility."
> "No. You accept nothing. Your failure is ours now."
The screen flickered.
> "I will prepare the North Rift Inquisition. We will retrieve what is ours... and erase what isn't."
She leaned slightly forward, and though her face remained cloaked, her mouth became visible:
A single, slight smile.
> "Let them run. All things fold to the North in time."
The image shattered into a mist of pixelated frost.
---
Meanwhile…
Jio stepped atop the hill first. The light in his palm flickered more intensely now, flickering like a compass needle pulled toward something unseen.
At the top—
—a crack in space. Barely visible, almost invisible, but undeniably wrong.
It shimmered like broken glass in moonlight. A vertical fracture in the very air. There was no portal. No glowing ring. Just a split. A fault.
Jio extended his hand.
The light gathered, brighter than ever before.
Then—
A pull.
Not inward.
Upward.
The crack twisted, widened—and something on the other side began pulling reality itself. Wind screamed. Grass bent toward the fault line. Havella cursed and slammed a barrier around herself and Jio.
"Jump point…" she breathed. "That's it. That's a real one!"
"Are they always this loud?" Jio asked plainly.
"No! This one's alive!"
The rift burst open with a soundless rip—a vacuum scream with no air. And through it, they saw…
Another world.
But not another realm.
Not yet.
What they saw was a vast network—a tunnel of floating pathways, mirrors and impossible angles stretching into layered infinity. A place between places. A realm between realms.
"The In-Lay," Havella whispered. "It's the web that lets you walk between."
"Do we walk it?"
She looked at him, slightly pale.
"…We run it."
Together, they leapt.
The rift closed behind them just as the first scout reached the hill—and found nothing but silent grass and the soft crackle of a light, fading.
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End of Chapter 15
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