The emergency alert that pierced through the Eternal Citadel's dimensional barriers carried a frequency that Reed had never heard before—a harmonic resonance that seemed to exist in the spaces between consciousness and void, impossible yet undeniably real. As he materialized in the crisis command center, the Wounded Sage immediately sensed that whatever had triggered this alarm represented something entirely outside their accumulated experience.
Captain Vex stood before the primary tactical display, his expression carrying the weight of someone who had just witnessed the impossible. The holographic projection showed the outer rim territories, where the careful balance zones maintained by the Balance Keepers created safe passages between different dimensional phases.
Or rather, where they had maintained those passages. Now, entire sectors showed void readings that defied every principle of cosmic stability that had governed their civilization for two decades.
