The colossal ring tore open the fabric of space itself. The void around it rippled like water disturbed by a stone, and from within that distortion, the impossible emerged—a gate vast enough to swallow worlds. The Tartarusios, proud and mighty as it was, looked no larger than a drifting feather before it. Every soul aboard the control center could only stare, breathless and wide-eyed. The Baraka ring—the fabled "corridor gate"—had awakened. There was no turning back now.
Oscar's hand tightened on the command rail as he glanced toward Zoma. Her silver-lit form stood calm amid the trembling lights and vibrating hull."It's time," he said, his voice firm yet tinged with awe. "Now we go inside the gate."
Zoma's eyes flickered with ancient light, the glow of an intelligence far beyond human comprehension. She studied each of them for a brief, silent moment before offering a slow, graceful bow."Well then, brave wanderers," she said softly, almost like a farewell. "It's time to take the most important journey of your lives. May you all make it out."
The engines roared to life, and the Tartarusios began its slow, deliberate descent into the gaping abyss.For an instant, every atom in existence seemed to scream. The ship shuddered violently—metal groaned, lights flickered, and the stars outside were ripped away. Then, silence.
And when sight returned…
The corridors unfolded before them.
They were unlike anything that could exist within the known universe—an endless expanse of drifting fog and fractured light. Reality had lost its shape. The stars were gone, replaced by rolling clouds of pink, blue, and gray, swirling together like celestial smoke. Lightning flared through the haze, silent and majestic, painting the ship's hull in flashes of ghostly brilliance. The fog moved as if it were alive, breathing, its colors shifting in slow, hypnotic rhythm.
Fragments of shattered worlds floated in the distance—silhouettes of mountains, ruined ships, and strange metallic spires fading in and out of existence. Each lightning strike revealed more of the impossible, only for the mist to swallow it again.
Time itself seemed broken there. Seconds stretched and folded, the past and future bleeding together. The fog pulsed in rhythm with the Tartarusios' engines, as though the corridors recognized the ship and echoed its heartbeat.
It was a place both divine and cursed—a dreamscape of creation and ruin, where gods might have walked and died.In that place, the Tartarusios drifted like a fragile spark, sailing through the arteries of existence itself.
Zoma stood at the helm, her holographic hands gliding effortlessly over the controls.She had done this before—many times before.The others, however, watched in disbelief.
Bjorn leaned closer, his voice trembling with both awe and confusion."How can you possibly know where we're going without any navigation? All our systems are blind—there's nothing out there!"
Zoma turned to him with a faint smile. "I don't need your ship's navigation to cross the corridors," she said, tapping her temple. "It's all in here. My system contains the complete map of the corridors. It's impossible to get lost."
Bjorn blinked, taken aback. "Impossible? Then what is dangerous here?"
"Eruptions," she said simply.
"Eruptions?"
Zoma turned back toward the view, her expression darkening. "The corridors exist outside time. There is no present, no future, no past. Every passage through the gate happens simultaneously. When you entered, you joined every other ship that has ever entered—and every ship that will. The fog divides those temporal layers, keeping each moment apart."
Her eyes flickered with distant memories as she continued, "But sometimes… the division fails. Two temporal layers collide. When that happens, worlds intertwine—paths cross—and ships can slip into realities they were never meant to enter. That's what we call eruptions."
The room fell silent. The weight of her words pressed down on everyone. They were traveling through something no mortal mind was built to comprehend.
Oscar leaned forward, voice low and steady. "And how do you know all this, Zoma?"
She smiled faintly—a haunting, almost human expression. "Because my ancestors lived through it. There were two recorded instances where ships met each other in the corridors—each from a different time. The first was a Baraken vessel that entered ten years apart from its counterpart. The older ship was caught in an eruption and collided with its future self. They bore the same crest, but one was a more advanced design. When they emerged, the newer ship had gone ten years back in time."
Bjorn's eyes widened. "So they used the corridors to travel through time?"
"In a sense," Zoma said. "They used that anomaly to accelerate progress. The older ship brought knowledge from the future—the design of the next generation. Each loop pushed the empire forward. That is how the Baraken Empire advanced faster than any civilization before it."
The realization hit the crew like a thunderclap. The secret behind the Empire's impossible rise wasn't just technology—it was temporal theft.
Bjorn's heart raced. "And the second instance?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Zoma turned slowly, her eyes dimming with something that resembled reverence—or sorrow."The second instance," she said, "was the arrival of my creator. The one I was named after… Zoma."
Her words hung in the air like a prophecy.And for the first time, the crew understood—they were not just travelers anymore. They were witnesses to the machinery of gods.