Two days of high-speed aerial travel followed immediately after Finn learned of the development at Velanthir.

The moment Finn arrived with the Astoria team at the military encampment, he felt the palpable tension in the air.

The military camp was about three miles from the tear in reality, but yet, the feeling Finn got from it even from that distance made other breaches he'd cleared feel more… contained.

Unlike normal breaches that, despite their unnatural look and radiating wrongness, still remained fundamentally separate from their world, this one felt open. Like a doorway left ajar rather than a wound trying to close.

"Eighteen Transcendents," Casmir muttered, surveying the encampment as their transport beast descended. "From seven kingdoms. This is unprecedented."

Finn silently agreed. In the three months he'd been active as a Transcendent, the largest coordinated response he'd seen involved six Transcendents from two kingdoms. Eighteen suggested either extreme paranoia or justified terror. Given what he'd heard about the survivors' conditions, he suspected the latter.

Lyris leaned against Casmir with her red hair whipping in the wind. "Think it's enough?"

"Depends on what killed three of ours."

They landed in a cleared section of the camp. Soldiers and Agents moved about with discipline and purpose, but Finn caught the fear in their eyes. These were men who'd seen things that shattered their understanding of reality.

"Transcendents of Astoria," a stern-faced officer approached, saluting Thalia specifically. "Her Highness Princess Thalia. The war council convenes in one hour. Your quarters have been prepared."

"The survivors?" Thalia asked immediately.

"In the medical ward. Arcane-Transcendent Rin is stable. Warrior-Transcendent Senna is..." The officer hesitated. "Responsive, but not coherent."

Deacon's eyes flickered gold briefly. "She's traumatized."

The officer nodded grimly. "Our attempts at reaching out to her haven't succeeded till now..."

The officer's voice trailed as he led the team to their designated area.

.

.

.

After they settled in, Finn took a short walk out and ended up staring at the breach, deep in thought.

He stood at the perimeter — a line of stakes driven into the ground with warning flags — and activated his partially-transmuted Error Vision. The faint green glow in his eyes intensified as he focused.

The breach was wrong, but not in the way he'd come to expect after a few months of breach-clears.

In his Error Vision, normal breaches usually had jagged edges as reality frayed at the seams. But this one was smooth. Deliberate. Like someone had cut a hole in the world with extreme precision rather than tearing through it.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

Finn turned as a woman approached. She looked to be in her late twenties, with frankly forgettable features save for her jet black hair and gray eyes. She moved quietly, and Finn realized he hadn't sensed her till she got close at all.

"Ailin," she introduced herself, stopping beside him. "Memory bearer. Kingdom of Dramore."

"Arros," Finn replied, studying her. "Error bearer. Astoria."

Her eyes lingered on him for a moment and something flickered in them that made Finn's instincts prickle. Then she looked back at the breach.

"I've been reviewing the memories of the soldiers who were here when it opened," she nodded at the breach. "Three weeks ago. It suddenly appeared without any warning or buildup of mana..."

"And the Transcendents who entered?"

"Five went in." Her voice was carefully neutral. "Team leader Davos, Endurance bearer. Rin, Fervour bearer. Senna, Wrath bearer. Brothers Poul and Simon, Transcendent twins with the shared concept of Resonance."

"The twins didn't make it out."

"No." Ailin's jaw tightened. "Davos didn't either. Senna barely remembers what happened. Rin won't talk about it."

Finn filed that away. "You've tried to read their memories."

It wasn't a question. She nodded.

"Rin has locked his down tight, trauma response, probably. Senna's memories, on the other hand, are..." She paused, searching for words. "Fragmented. Broken. I see flashes of golden light, crowds screaming, something that looked human but wasn't, then nothing. Like pages torn from a book."

"Could someone else have tampered with her memories?"

"Possibly." Ailin glanced at him. "Your Error… can it find flaws in memory constructs?"

"I've never tried." Finn considered it. "But yes. Probably."

Finn's Error found flaws in systems, patterns, structures. If memories could be tampered with, then the tampering itself would be a flaw he could detect. Though whether he could fix it was another question entirely.

"The war council might request your assistance, then."

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the impossibly stable breach.

"What do you see?" Ailin asked. "With your Error Eyes."

Finn debated how much to reveal, then eventually sighed and shook his head, deeming it inconsequential.

"The breach is too perfect. Structured and reinforced like it was created deliberately..."

"Like someone wanted us to find it?"

"Yes."

Or someone wanted an invasion route...

The thought chilled him. If beings on the other side could open stable breaches at will, they could open more. Anywhere. Anytime. This might be a test to see how the Transcendents of this world respond before committing to a full assault.

A lull of silence followed as the two Transcendents observed the breach and those milling around its perimeter in the distance.

Eventually, a soldier came by to alert them of the start of the council meeting, directing them to a reinforced command tent, large enough to hold thirty people comfortably.

Finn saw the Astoria delegation — Thalia, Casmir, Lyris, Deacon, and Keeva, then entered the tent with them.

It was still mostly empty, with three Transcendents standing clustered on the far side — two men, one woman, all wearing the armor of Kingdom of Solvane, if Finn remembered the insignia correctly. The woman met his eyes briefly, nodded, then looked away.

Finn continued to observe as more people filed in. More teams. Veteran Transcendents of other kingdoms.

A man with bronze skin and wild black hair entered, and the ambient noise in the tent shifted, becoming more chaotic. As if probability itself had become slightly unstable in his presence.

"Ferox's delegation," Casmir muttered under his breath with clear exasperation.

The bronze-skinned man grinned at no one in particular, then roared. "HIMOTHY THUNDERCOCK HAS ARRIVED!"

Thalia's eye twitched.

Four more Transcendents followed him in — three men and one woman, all carrying themselves with barely controlled violence.

The woman had scars across her knuckles and a manic glint in her eyes. One of the men, on the other hand, repeatedly flicked a blade open and close like a nervous tic, scanning the people already inside the tent with crazy eyes.

And behind him, looking seemingly calm, was a smaller figure.

A man. Young-looking, with sharp features and eyes that held depths of wily amusement. His presence rubbed Finn the wrong way right from the start, and he immediately classified him as a threat, recognizing who the suave young man was.

Chaos.

In other words, the leader supreme, the head, the progenitor and creator of the Harvester Cult of the future himself. The one whose fragment would eventually shatter and distribute among cult leaders across continents. The one whose very existence stood in opposition to everything the Ossuary would represent.

The Chaos bearer met Finn's eyes across the tent, and his uncanny smile widened.

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