On the surface, the battle came to a halt.
One moment, the Fallen creatures were pouring from the nest, built basically of chitin and claws. All of a sudden, the earth let out a loud groan, a deep, resonant sound that vibrated through the academy buildings. Students, confused and disoriented, stumbled around. The instructors barked orders, trying to do damage control. The Astral Wardens who had just arrived threw up barriers, expecting an attack.
But instead of an attack, the nest collapsed.
The tear in the earth buckled inward; the dark light of the rift on the crack on the earth burned wildly. The creatures that were still outside screeched. After a moment of surprise, they coordinated themselves and fled; for some reason, they didn't run toward the nest, but away from it, scattering into the woods. A few of them were cut down by the Wardens. But most of them just vanished into the trees.
The nest sealed itself with a very loud sound that could be affiliated with thunder.
Silence fell on the school grounds.
Rourke stood at the edge of the collapse, with a cigarette burning down to ash between his fingers. His face was grey. "What's the report?"
A female Warden ran up; her face was pale. "The nest is gone. The portal collapsed inward. We're trying to read residual Void energy, but the rift is closed."
"Any casualties?"
"There are three dead, seven injured, and…" She hesitated. Her face turned red as she looked into her tabloid.
"And what?"
"Students. Some of them are missing. It seems they went into the nest before it collapsed."
Rourke's face reddened. "How many?"
"We don't know yet. But there are at least five. Maybe more."
He turned away, staring at the scarred earth where the nest had just been until a few months ago. "Get me a full list. And contact the Citadel. Tell them we have people in the Void."
The Wardens mobilized within an hour.
A convoy of dark vehicles rolled out from the academy gates. Inside one of the vehicles, Rourke sat with a map of the Void on a tabloid with a screen of barely 16 inches. He marked the coordinates where the portal had been. Beside him, the communications officer spoke in low tones with the people from the Citadel.
"They're preparing a search team," the officer reported. "They'll have a rift anchor ready by the time we arrive."
Rourke nodded. "ETA?"
"Three hours, if the roads are clear."
He looked out the window. The landscape wavered past the fields, forests, and the distant view of Veridian. Somewhere in the Void, five students were alone, without supplies; they needed to get rescued.
He lit a fresh cigarette.
After three hours, the Citadel rose out of the grey expanse like a monument carved into the sky.
It was not beautiful. It was not welcoming. It was a fortress of black tall walls used to cover the official rift from the sky and only entrance to the Void. The walls were scarred by centuries of Void storms; towers were built on the thick walls and leaned at angles that defied logical reason. It was built under the supervision of the first Constellation Knights; they were built into reality with Soul Cores harvested from S rank Nests.
The convoy pulled through the outer gate, a placement of twisted metal that glowed faintly with containment wards. Inside, if the outside was a monument, the Citadel itself was magnificent. The courtyard was a hive of activity: Wardens in dark coats moving between barracks, supply crates being loaded onto transports, squads returning from patrol with weapons and grim faces.
Rourke stepped out of the vehicle. The air here was thin and cold. He had been here before. He had been here countless times, and he never wanted to come back.
A figure approached, a woman in a grey coat. Her hair was cropped short, and her face was lined with a series of scars. Commander Mara Voss. She had been a legend once. Now she just ran the Citadel's rescue operations.
"Rourke." Her voice was flat. "You lost students in a Nest collapse."
"They volunteered. They went in before we knew what we were dealing with."
"And the Nest?"
"S rank. The beast had probably abandoned it before we arrived, because there were no signs of it; at least, it was not leading the attack. The portal is gone. The kids are in the Void somewhere."
Voss's expression didn't change. "If they're here, we'll find them."
"You sound certain."
"I've pulled people out of worse situations." She turned, gesturing for him to follow. "Come. I'll show you where we're searching."
The Citadel's interior was a labyrinth of corridors and chambers, each one was marked with patterns that glared with a soft, steady light. The walls were thick, the ceilings a little bit low. Occasionally, Wardens passed them in silence. Their eyes were tired, and their hands were never too far from their weapons.
Mara led him to the Anchor Chamber, a circular room at the heart of the Citadel. In its center, there was a pedestal of black metal that held a crystal the size of a man's fist. Around it, technicians monitored screens, their voices nearly hushed.
"This is the primary rift anchor," Mara said. "It tracks every known portal between the human world and the Void. When your students fell through, the anchor would have registered the event. We have their coordinates."
She pointed to a screen. A map of the Void, a patchwork of fractured realities that bled together, and each region had a shard of some forgotten world. A red dot moved near the edge of a zone marked as "Unstable, Grade 3."
"They're in the Shattered Plains," Voss continued. "It's one of the more stable regions, but it's very vast. And there are creatures there that don't like visitors."
Rourke stared at the dot. "How long till we get a team there?"
"We're assembling one now. We'll send in our squad through a secondary rift in the morning. Until then…" She paused. "We will have to wait."
Rourke's hands formed into fists. He looked at the anchor, at the light glowing beneath its depths. Somewhere in that endless grey, Caelan was struggling to survive.
He lit another cigarette. "I'm going in with them."
Voss raised an eyebrow. "But you're retired."
"I unretire myself, right now."
She studied him for a moment. Then she nodded. "The squad leaves at dawn."
She walked away, leaving him alone in the chamber with the anchor and the light.
Sleep didn't cross the Citadel.
Through the long hours of the night, Rourke watched the preparations. Wardens checked their gear, tested their weapons, and reviewed the maps.
They were the best the Wardens had. They had walked the Void before, faced things that would drive ordinary people mad. They knew the risks.
They went anyway.
Rourke stood at the window of the Anchor Chamber, looking out at the Void. There was no sun here, no stars, no horizon. Just an endless expanse that stretched in all directions, empty.
Somewhere in that emptiness, five children were alone.
He pressed his hand against the cold glass. "Hold on," he said, though no one could hear. "We're coming."
The light shook. And somewhere in the Shattered Plains, two figures stumbled through the dark, looking for a way home.