Yoo sat on the bed and immediately began thinking.
Thirty-six hours until the rift opens.
Which is roughly when Kwan’s ritual happens.
He’s deliberately removing me from the whole picture.
But he’s also giving me a potential lead on Dad.
And a trial world might be the only place I can grow strong enough to actually challenge what’s coming. Dıscover more novels at NoveIꜰire.net
His communicator buzzed—the one Captain Lee had given him, which shouldn’t work in a secured facility unless someone wanted it to.
Message: We know where you are. Assault on facility planned for dawn tomorrow. Can you delay your departure?
Yoo stared at the message.
Lee’s resistance is coming here.
Right when I’m supposed to leave for the rift.
He replied: Can’t delay. Crucible is sending me through dimensional rift to trial world. Need to go—might find intel on father’s location.
The response came quickly: Understood. We’ll focus on other objectives. Survive the trial world. We’ll handle things here.
Things here meaning the Serpent manifestation, the ritual, the fate of seven billion people.
Yoo spent the next sixteen hours in careful preparation—meditation to settle his mind, exercises to test his repaired leg, running simulations with Akasha Archive about what to expect in a reality with different physics.
[TRIAL WORLD PROBABILITY ANALYSIS]
[KNOWN FACTORS: MINIMAL]
[UNKNOWN FACTORS: EXTREME]
[SURVIVAL STRATEGY: ADAPTIVE RESPONSE, INFORMATION GATHERING, ALLIANCE BUILDING]
[PROBABILITY OF RETURN: INDETERMINATE]
At 0530 the next morning, guards came to escort him to the transport.
Instructor Han was already in the vehicle, looking tired but alert, wearing practical combat gear and carrying a pack of supplies.
"Yoo," she acknowledged with a nod.
"Ready for interdimensional travel?"
"As ready as anyone can be for something completely unprecedented." He climbed in beside her. "You got volunteered for this too?"
"Voluntold, more accurately." Her expression was wry. "Apparently giving you that data chip marked me as either trustworthy or expendable. Kwan decided trustworthy."
The transport drove through pre-dawn darkness toward Incheon Harbor, and neither of them spoke much, both lost in thoughts about what was coming.
They arrived at the harbor as the sun began touching the horizon, painting everything in shades of orange and gold that seemed inappropriately beautiful given the circumstances.
Their vessel was mid-sized, designed for offshore operations, equipped with technology that hummed with contained power.
"This is the Horizon," the pilot introduced himself as Chen, a quiet man who immediately went about prep work. "We’ll reach the rift coordinates in about ninety minutes. Weather’s calm, seas are smooth, should be an easy run."
They boarded and the Horizon departed at 0617, engine cutting through calm water as Seoul receded behind them.
Twenty kilometers out.
At forty-six kilometers, Chen slowed the engines. "Getting spatial distortion readings. The rift is forming."
Yoo moved to the bow where he could see better, and his enhanced perception immediately caught it—reality beginning to thin, like fabric wearing down until you could see through to what lay beneath.
The water’s surface started rippling in geometric patterns that had nothing to do with waves or wind.
The sky above them darkened despite the sun being fully risen, clouds gathering in spiral formations that rotated around a central point directly overhead.
"There," Han pointed.
Not violently—almost gently—space deciding it wanted to connect two places that shouldn’t touch.
Through the tear in reality, Yoo saw another sky. Purple instead of blue. Three moons visible despite apparent daylight. And something massive moving in the distance.
"That’s not natural," Chen said unnecessarily.
The rift’s pull became tangible, a gentle but insistent force tugging at the Horizon, and Chen tried to compensate with the engines but the dimensional current was stronger.
"We’re being drawn in," he announced, voice professionally calm despite obvious fear.
"Cut the engines," Han decided. "Fighting it might damage the boat. Let it pull us through."
"It doesn’t make any sense."
"So is everything about this situation." She moved to stand beside Yoo at the bow. "If we’re going in, we go in prepared."
Chen cut the engines.
The Horizon accelerated toward the rift, caught in dimensional current, and Yoo felt his stomach drop as they approached the boundary between realities.
"Hold on to something!" Han grabbed the railing.
They crossed the threshold.
Sound inverted—not loud, not quiet, just wrong, part of space couldn’t decide what noise should be and chose all options simultaneously.
The Horizon lurched as different physics tried to apply, wood and metal groaning under stress they weren’t designed to handle.
Not in space, through layers, reality peeling back like an onion with each membrane offering brief resistance before tearing away.
Yoo’s Gi sense expanded involuntarily, picking up information that shouldn’t exist:
Layer 1: Normal space. Earth. Familiar physics.
Layer 2: Transition membrane. Neither here nor there.
Layer 5: —ERROR— UNKNOWN DIMENSIONAL CLASSIFICATION —ERROR—
Akasha Archive’s processing stuttered, hitting parameters it couldn’t comprehend.
[WARNING: SPATIAL COORDINATES DO NOT MATCH KNOWN UNIVERSE]
[DETECTING FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS VIOLATIONS]
[GRAVITY VARIANCE: 340%]
[TEMPORAL FLOW IRREGULARITY: INDETERMINATE]
[RECOMMENDATION: —ERROR— INSUFFICIENT DATA]
Yoo’s stomach lurched as actual falling replaced dimensional transition, and he grabbed for the railing but his hands passed through it—the Horizon was coming apart, dissolving under physics that didn’t support its existence.
The boat shattered into fragments that hung suspended for a moment before dispersing like smoke.
Yoo and Han tumbled through alien sky, separated by twenty meters of empty air, and below them—
Land. Massive continents floating without visible support. Oceans the color of mercury. Sky with three moons despite daylight.
This isn’t a dungeon, Yoo realized with absolute certainty. This is another world entirely.
He looked for Han, spotted her fifty meters away, falling parallel, and she’d deployed some kind of Platinum-rank spatial technique that was slowing her descent.
He tried to shout but wind tore his words away.
Thunder without clouds. The sky tore, and something massive looked through—an eye the size of a city, composed of fractal geometric patterns that hurt to perceive.
[WARNING: CONCEPTUAL HAZARD DETECTED]
[COGNITIVE PROTECTION PROTOCOLS INSUFFICIENT]
[HOST SANITY AT RISK]
Akasha Archive forced Yoo’s eyes closed, but the afterimage remained, burning through his eyelids.
[UNKNOWN. CLASSIFICATION IMPOSSIBLE. ENTITY OPERATES OUTSIDE KNOWN PHYSICAL LAWS.]
[RECOMMEND: —ERROR— —ERROR— —SYSTEM REBOOT REQUIRED—]
Akasha Archive crashed.