Mark stood at the prow of the Dreadnought, filled with Purpose. Isoko floated on the top of the castle, also filled with Purpose. The desert winds flowed with a subtle platinum sheen and the space ahead was blue with sky, leading to a tumbling dreamland.

  If everything went as it should go, getting to Mark’s kaiju location would be a 5 minute journey into the unknown.

  Eliot spoke on the comms, “Systems charged at 100%. Mana banks are at 100%, and excess mana production is at 1% per minute; thanks, Tartu.”

  A few decks of the Dreadnought had plants growing in them, now.

  “I can get it up to 2% per minute, but it’ll take a few more days,” Tartu said.

  Mark said, “We’re okay. We’re going.”

  Eliot continued, “Secondary brightspeed mechanisms are secure. One final check, and then we go. Everyone sign off, please.”

  Lola began, “Ready,” followed by Derek, David, Tartu, Andria, Sally, and then Isoko, saying, “Ready.”

  Mark added, “Ready.”

  Eliot said, “Then we’re a-go. David. Take us out.”

  Mark felt as David focused, and then he pushed the throttle forward. The Dreadnought began to move, though it was hard to tell it was moving from standing on the forecastle. Inertial dampeners were active at 95%, just so that people could feel the movement of the ship, so they could know they were moving.

  The ship hit the edge of the empty layer, and the dreamlands swirled by, deserts turning into farmland, and then into city, but weird. The buildings were too tall. The land too cultivated. But then the cultivated land whipped by, and forests came into view. It was at that moment that Mark recognized that there were no visible kaiju, anywhere. Usually there were some out in the dreamlands, making the dreamlands more solid by their presence, but there were no kaiju out here at all.

  The forests got bigger and bigger, and trees the size of worlds passed by, followed by mountains the size of buildings, and then came the cosmos.

  For a moment, there was a gap in the dreamlands.

  It was outer space, open and awash with stars and nebulae, like floating dust in black heavens. Earth or Daihoon floated below, like a blue/green glass pearl, illuminated by a sourceless light. It was magnificent. It was not directly visible, either, since it was below the ship. Quark was rapidly shoving many images into Mark’s peripherals. Mark mostly saw platinum glows all around him, as Isoko tried to hold onto the wind. She was failing. The wind rushed away from the ship in ever-stronger gusts as Isoko’s containment failed.

  It was a vacuum out here.

  Eliot reported chaos in the control room, yelling, “Systems overload! That’s pure vacuum out there! We’re not in Endless Daihoon anymore!”

  “Yes we are,” Mark said, completely sure. “I still feel it. It’s right there. Right in front of us.”

  Isoko asked, “There’s no ‘world’ to Purpose out here, Mark! We have to— I have to—” The wind ripped away her words and Isoko was stuck in total vacuum, up there, hanging on to the edge of top of the castle, her vector solidly attached to the dome. And then she was inside the dome, for David had moved with speed and grabbed her to bring her inside. Isoko gasped into the comms, saying, “Fuck!” Then she asked, “Mark?!”

  A lot of meaning was distilled into that one desperate plea.

  “There’s nothing on the scanners!” Eliot said, “The hard vacuum is messing with the shield! They’re failing?” He sounded astounded. “Why are they failing! I planned for— We have to crash to Daihoon right now!”

  “That’s not Daihoon,” Mark said, “That’s a figment. One final hurdle. I can feel the destination, right ahead. Check the Storm Prism. It’s still there. I still feel it. Right there. I just don’t know how to… how to crack it open?”

  Andria reported, “The Storm Prism is pointing ahead! It’s there!”

  “The scanners are blank!” Eliot responded.

  “I can open it,” Tartu said. And then he was running down the length of the ship, underneath Mark, saying, “Hold onto the ship, Eliot. Do NOT crash us on that fake Daihoon! I’m going out there. Mark! Black box me!”

  Tartu was running down the main hallway, down the length of the ship, and then he suddenly sped up, some Domain active on his person. Suddenly, he was below Mark, in the stairwell of the forecastle. He tried something, but then he didn’t come out. “Open the door, Eliot!”

  “Fuck fuck,” Eliot said, “No one go down there. Systems are failing everywhere and I won’t be able to restore the seal, and when he opens it we’re fucked… Okay go!”

  The door opened and Tartu spat out of the door, tossed outside by a sudden burst of wind.

  Mark caught him with adamantium, and then he caught some wind, too, putting Tartu into a black box that Quark was already making invisible with hand sigils. Within 4 moments, Mark saw as Tartu was struggling to breathe but Mark scooped up more and more air from the escaping forecastle door, bubbling it, and then shrinking the bubble till it was hard to shrink, meaning he had captured some air. Mark popped those bubbles of air into Tartu’s box. 5 quick bubbles later, and Tartu was breathing.

  Everything was strangely silent.

  There was still a thrum, though, as though heard from far away. From beyond an open door.

  Tartu got his breath back and he called through the comms, “Put me in the front of the ship!”

  Mark sent Tartu forward, easily holding on to him, but he had to reduce the length of his Purpose to get more forward direction with his Adamantiumkinesis.

  Parts of the back of the ship and port side began to disintegrate under the reality of the dreamlands, ripping at everything in the space.

  And then Tartu was in front of the ship and he pointed a hand forward, making a chopping, severing motion.

  The front of Mark’s adamantium bubble carved in half, destroying the atmosphere that Mark had captured in the bubble. Mark tried to reseal Tartu up into a bubble, but Tartu had broken something in the very world when he chopped his hand down—

  A crack appeared in the heavens straight ahead, like it was all some sort of television screen—

  Life, dreams, reality, and more exploded into the vacuum.

  The world ahead was still sealed, but it was cracked, like a mirror.

  Chips of the mirage began to fall into outer space, revealing sunshine and green and blue beyond, and so, so much wind. But then the crack in reality began to seal. Tartu didn’t break through completely. He had done enough. He was struggling to breathe and live right now, and he had done enough.

  Mark reached forward with Purpose, and then with adamantine edges, trying to find the gap in the space ahead, parts of the Dreadnought falling away as Mark ripped Tartu back to him, to the safety of the middle of the ship—

  He found it.

  Mark pulled open the sky, and it was like ripping open a waterfall of dreamlands. Rivers, sky, mountains, and life tumbled into being, the illusion vanishing behind them as the Dreadnought punched into the hidden layer, parts of the edges of the ship breaking apart as it touched the broken edges of reality, as it sailed into obviously elven lands.

  The land was a ripple of mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes. Glimmering white spires rose from the top of every mountain, and lines of light connected the top of every spire in Mark’s vision to every other spire, some spires far, far away. The lights in the sky formed a hexagonal grid pattern, Mark realized, and at the center of every grid lay a different thing. A city made of brass and white stone, or a tall tree with floating pillars around it, or a single orb of dark stone that was ribboned with white and about a kilometer across.

  It looked almost idyllic, but there were obvious problems.

  Bright red craters dotted the land here and there, the first craters about 50 kilometers away. As the scanners got up and running, they saw even more problems. More signs of utter destruction. Red craters dotted everywhere; sometimes big, sometimes small.

  Nothing that was a problem right now —there was no war happening at this moment— but there had obviously been a problem in the past. How far in the past? No idea.

  Mark looked upward again.

  Pulses of light traveled on the hexagonal grid of light, and Quark recorded those pulses, marking them as prismatic mana. Everyone in the ship was working on something right now, with Eliot trying to fix the ship, and others working the scanners, checking the readouts. Tartu gasped in the fresh air of the elven lands, and Mark healed him a little, but he was already healing himself and doing very well at that. Tartu didn’t care about his own status, anyway. He looked out at the world with Mark, with everyone. Quark finally did some real readouts of those mana pulses on the sky-grid, saying that each pulse held enough prismatic mana to blow up an entire city the size of Memphi. But it was all contained. Flowing.

  No signs of people.

  “Atmosphere stabilizing. No anathema detected. Layer seems good for life. Immediate threat identification is at zero threat level,” Eliot announced, “Repairing the ship. Hole is closing behind us.”

  Mark glanced backward to where the peaceful, elven sky, filled with blue background and tall, white clouds, was interrupted by a star-filled crack in the heavens about a kilometer long and half that wide. The crack was sealing, fast, like a mirror breaking in reverse, little pieces of blue sky cracking back into place—

  “I see no people,” Tartu had on a pair of glasses from Eliot, and he was cycling through readouts of his own, rapidly seeing what Quark was seeing, and saying, “Where are the people? Is it empty? That is NOT good.”

  “I do not like those red craters,” Isoko said, “Some of them are still glowing.”

  “No kaiju spotted,” Andria said, “Mark’s pointer is straight ahead, at that crystal spire up there about 19 kilometers forward and to the left. 10 o’clock.”

  Mark looked that way, at a crystal spire that looked the same as all the rest, but it was different down below. All of the crystal spires were at the tops of tall mountains, each spire rising 5-to-7-times as tall as every mountain. The goal-spire had a white city below it, ringing the entire spire. A prismatic glow ringed that white city, looking something like a soap bubble, but it was only viewable because of its iridescence. That iridescence faded after only a few hundred meters of height.

  It was a city shield, and it probably went all the way up and over that spire, blocking Mark’s goal, which was not a kaiju at all, but…

  Well… Maybe the spires were kaiju?

  “They look like power poles,” Mark said, “Not like kaiju—”

  “GUYS!” Derek spoke up, his vector suddenly turning frantic. “The hole is closing! And I’m being divided! Make a choice, right now! Should I stay, or go! I can’t be split in half!”

  The hole in the world was about half-closed. Atmosphere poured through the opening, whistling on the edges, warbling the sky, and Derek’s vector shifted, moving in and out, some of his bodies popping and some doubling in number. Whatever was going on with this space was obviously different from the other layers, and in a major way.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Mark made a rapid decision, saying, “Anyone who wants out, say so right now, and you can leave. This is an unknown danger, and I won’t fault you for wanting to go.”

  “Staying,” Sally said, with absolutely no hesitation in her voice, followed by Isoko instantly saying, “Here!”

  Eliot said, “Staying! Fuck!”

  “Staying,” Lola said, never more sure of anything in her entire life.

  David sighed, “Staying.”

  Andria said, “Fuck— I’m— I’m staying.”

  “I might be able to stabilize the portal,” Tartu said, rapidly reorienting to the new problem. “If it closes, if it’s capable of closing on Derek, then it might not open again. We need to keep it open.”

  “No,” Mark said, “We’re not disturbing this space more than necessary, and we’ll get back. That won’t be an issue.”

  Tartu said, “How the hell are we gonna get back if the way back is closed!”

  “We will, Tartu. We will. Now are you staying, or not.” Mark added, “And you, too, Derek.”

  “Fuck! Staying!” Derek said, and then his vector began rapidly moving around, as he added, “I’m… I’m staying!”

  Mark told Derek, “Send out some final messages to Walaria and Aurora and the HVP.”

  “Getting it done!” Derek replied.

  Tartu gazed at the hole closing in the atmosphere, behind the Dreadnought, and said, “I want to—”

  And then something passed by the opening out there. Something big.

  Something Big, and Silver.

  An eyeball-world appeared in the far, far distance, way out there, just beyond the crack in the sky and also so far that it was hard to see, unless it was looking right at you. It was looking at Mark. Like a thousand eyeballs, or a swarm of worlds in the distance, Big Silver gazed into the elven lands, right at Mark.

  Mark said, “Door’s closed, buddy.”

  Big Silver rushed the door, and the door slammed shut.

  Something vibrated just outside of the atmosphere, rumbling the entire sky with distant, unseen thunder. The hexagonal power grid vibrated in response, effervescing prismatic glows into the world. Everyone on the boat, except Mark, vibrated with a primal fear. Mark wanted to kill something. And then the vibrations settled down—

  “Look,” Isoko said, from way up there on the top of the castle. “Down in the valleys, in the red craters.”

  Quark pulled up what Isoko was seeing, but Mark rushed to the side of the Dreadnought to look for himself.

  The effervescing prismatic mist fell down into the land a lot faster than it seemed like it should have been able to fall. It collected into the red craters, and the red vanished. Or at least it lessened. Some of the smaller craters stopped glowing completely, like someone had put out an eternal fire with prismatic mist.

  Moments turned to minutes as everyone collected themselves and Eliot repaired the ship and scanners went on high alert. After 10 minutes, as Eliot directed wood from internal stores on the ship to repair the breaks left by the disintegration of the dreamlands, there were still no signs of any living things out there; nothing but animals of all kinds, trees and plants of all kinds, and empty cities, villages, and rural farmlands.

  Eliot sent out drones, the tiny meter-wide things zipping off in every direction, super fast—

  Derek said, “I need ships to spread out, Eliot. Mark. Like... I’m trying to hold it in, but it REALLY freaks me out to be in one location. A lot. I need to—”

  “Ships for Derek, Eliot,” Mark said.

  “On it,” Eliot said, “Take the ships in storage. I can make some new ones. Can you look for materials and stuff while you’re out there, Derek?”

  “Oh yeah yeah!” Derek said, already hopping on to some of the ships in the cargo holds. One ship rapidly shot out of the side of the Dreadnought, filled with Dereks, followed by another one and then another. The Derek at the comms said, “Tell me what you want me to find and I’ll find it. I’m going everywhere in here.”

  “Are there really no people?” Isoko asked.

  “None on the scanners yet,” Sally responded.

  Eliot listed off, “Metal stores. Cities with possible information. I need historical documents if they exist. I have that time estimator that I whipped up to measure the age of Kabberjaw, so take that and go out and measure everything. I’ll make a few more, too.”

  “Find people, if you can,” Mark said, “And approach that shield by the target spire, but don’t touch it. Seems dangerous. Don’t touch anything truly dangerous. Be respectful, even if we can’t see anyone right now.”

  Derek’s nervousness abated as he said, “Sir yes sir!”

  Mark said, “Slow speed ahead, David. To the center of the hex in front of the target spire, and no closer. Right there in the low forests and what looks like a bunch of villages. If nothing else, we can all stretch our legs down there. Secure that area, Derek.”

  “On it, bossman!”

  A hovership full of Dereks rapidly turned mid-air to aim at the new destination of the village down there. A dew Dereks went flying off of the edge of that hovership, to tumble through the sky. They had to get to ground faster, and jumping was a good way to get to the ground.

  “… You okay, Derek?” Mark asked.

  “I will be! I just need to spread faster, uh… Don’t worry about me… at least not too much, ya know?”

  “Sure,” Mark said, choosing to accept that answer. And then he looked at the other truly nervous person here, saying, “Tartu. How about you work on a realm breaker device, or whatever we might need to break out of here.”

  Tartu shuddered, saying, “If we broke out then Big Silver would be right there. I think… we might have to find a different way home. Entirely different. Might need to pop a hole in this realm itself and then escape to actual outer space instead of that very convincing facsimile out there.”

  “Work on that, then, please.”

  “Yeah! I mean… yeah. Of course.”

  Eliot spoke up, “In other concerning news, and in first-impressions of the land… Tartu? I need you to do a System Call on someone. Anyone. Right now, please.”

  Mark felt something like his stomach drop. “Ah, fuck. Are we cut off from the System? That means we’re cut off from the Pantheon.”

  “I shall pray,” Lola said, deeply serious. She sat down right where she was, maybe turning to a wall, and then she went quiet, internal.

  Tartu was already splashing a Domain over himself, pausing in the stairwell under the forecastle to do so, saying, “Gods, I hope… Well that’s different. Eliot?”

  A tense moment passed.

  “Okay,” Eliot said, “Something is interfering with the System here. Pushing it away, or to a lower level, or something. I’m not sure. That System Call still happened, but the information I’m getting is… wrong. Here’s what Tartu’s readout said before, and then here’s what I’m getting now.”

  Quark put up some numbers for Tartu in Mark’s vision.

  Body, Healthy Body: 065

  Shaper: 57

  Mind: 83

  Natural, Farmer: 097

  Soul: 90

  Arch, Domain Manipulation: 097

  Estimated astral body strength: 97%

  And then Mark looked at the other set of information. He tried to make sense of it, but… it was just a bunch of letters, numbers, and various symbols, contained into a blue box.

  “Well… whatever the fuck that means?” Mark asked. And then he looked down at Tartu. “Hit me with a System Call.”

  Tartu looked up at Mark, and then he flicked a wash of power at Mark that soaked into him and then evaporated away, just as it had for himself. He asked into the comms, “Got that one, Eliot?”

  “Sorting it… now,” Eliot said.

  Eliot said, “They have similar spacings and a few repeated areas, but… I’ll work on it.”

  Andria said, “Different language translation errors?”

  “I think it’s a handshake error,” Eliot said, “And different languages, and a whole bunch of shit I’ve never encountered, ever before.”

  Tartu said, “I can do the normal ritual, but I need a goat or suitable living sacrifice and for us willing to commune with a System demon.”

  Pretty much everyone on the ship called out ‘no!’ in one way or another.

  Mark said, “Probably won’t be necessary.”

  “ ‘Probably’?” Sally exclaimed, like it shouldn’t even be an option at all.

  Tartu said, “Just laying all the options out there.”

  Lola came back to herself, saying, “I’m still able to commune with Freyala, but she’s distant, and we’re not summoning demons at all.”

  David pulled the ship into park about 100 meters above the outskirts of the village, above the farmlands, and that was more than enough to quiet all talk about System Calls and demons.