"Rise."
At Xeron’s command, I straightened up.
He then gestured toward the empty space right beside his obsidian throne, signaling for the three of us to take our places next to him.
A collective wave of silent shock rippled through the hall, and dozens of sharp, surprised gazes locked onto us. To be allowed to stand at the absolute apex of the court beside the Sovereign himself was an unprecedented honor.
Yet despite the obvious tension, the oppressive atmosphere remained entirely in check; not a single soul in the room dared to open their mouth or protest Xeron’s implicit will.
Because they understood: Xeron was officially acknowledging Cathiel’s rightful status as the true Sovereign of Nemure. Her bloodline and prophecy carried a weight that transcended court etiquette, and by placing us at his side, he was solidifying her position before the entire realm.
After bowing in gratitude, we moved up the dais to take our spots beside the throne.
Once the unspoken hierarchy was established, Xeron wasted no time and officially started the meeting. He quickly delivered his final instructions, laying out what needed to be done to manage the realm in his absence. One by one, the powerful vassals stepped forward, offering their final salutations and wishing him absolute success in his upcoming conquest.
I listened silently, absorbing every detail like a sponge to deepen my understanding of Nemure’s internal structure and military might. Every name and title dropped by the lords was a mental note for the future. Strangely, the ones we saw at the Black Spire didn’t appear at all. Even the Matriarch Queen guy. I guess they were punished by Xeron as he promised.
Anyway, soon, the meeting concluded, and Xeron casually opened a pitch-black portal. Stepping through it, we instantly teleported outside onto a sweeping, elevated overlook.
Spread across the vast plains below us was the invasion army. An endless, terrifying sea of Nemurian warriors, beasts, and war machines waited in breathless silence.
Xeron stepped toward the edge of the stone overlook, his gaze sweeping over his legions. He gave a short speech that echoed across the plains, instantly igniting the fierce battle spirit of the army.
The moment his words faded, a colossal teleportation circle flared to life beneath the entire plain. In a flash of light, the entire army disappeared entirely.
"Let us go as well." Xeron then turned back to us, wrapping the four of us in a shroud of spatial energy.
I tightened my grip on Cathiel as the world blurred.
The spatial transit ended with a sharp, violent jolt, a sudden wave of turbulence rattling my senses before our feet finally touched solid ground.
Immediately, my instincts flared. The atmosphere here was entirely different: dense, suffocating, and charged with an unstable, violent friction. The environment’s natural pressure pressed heavily against my skin, and I could instantly sense how fractured and erratic the local space was, as if the very rules of reality were actively unraveling.
Seeking the source of this chaotic mess, my eyes tracked upward.
’...So this is the dimensional tear.’
It was a colossal, jagged laceration across the sky, looking less like a portal and more like an open, bleeding wound torn directly through the fabric of existence. Swirling, foreign energies spilled out from the edges of the fissure, casting eerie, shifting colors over the barren landscape below.
Even from several hundred meters away, the sheer scale of the phenomenon was staggering. The spatial laws around the epicenter were completely twisted; the air warped into violent, unpredictable vortices that bent the light like a shattered mirror. Nearby rocks and debris drifted upward in a slow-motion, weightless dance, only to be instantly pulverized into fine dust the moment they hit a localized gravitational anomaly.
The raw, radiating force from the rift pushed hard against my chest, threatening to constrict my lungs and tear me apart.
Without breaking my calm expression, I circulated my loci and smoothly enveloped both myself and Cathiel in a thin layer of void aura. The invisible energy served as a buffer, completely nullifying the chaotic pressure bleeding from the sky.
Honestly, looking down at the little girl, she didn’t even seem to notice the oppressive gravity; her native bloodline probably made her inherently resistant to it. Still, when it came to her safety, it was always better to play it safe.
As the air stabilized around us, I looked up at the raging vortex, a faint frown threatening to break my poker face.
’Hmm...’
Seeing how volatile and destructive the ambient energy was, a flicker of doubt crossed my mind. Was my escape plan actually going to work in an environment this profoundly broken? Bypassing a standard dimensional checkpoint was one thing, but navigating a zone where spatial laws were actively grinding solid rock into dust was a completely different beast. I was going to need near-perfect timing.
However, before I could ponder the logistics any further, a massive shift in the energy around us drew my attention.
From the shadows of the surrounding ridges, dozens of figures stepped forward. These were the high-ranking elites and powerhouses of Nemure who had teleported ahead of the main vanguard. Moving in perfect, practiced unison, they unleashed their latent powers. Massive pillars of dark, condensed energy erupted into the sky, anchoring themselves around the perimeter of the fissure.
’I see.’
They were forcefully stabilizing the tear.
Under their combined, monumental effort, the violent vortices began to slow, and the erratic gravitational anomalies hovering over the ground came to a halt. They were actively beating the chaotic laws of the rift into submission, carving out a temporary, structured pathway wide enough for a massive deployment.
The moment the path was secured, the roaring vanguard of the Nemurian legion began to march forward, pouring into the bleeding scar of the rift in a flawless, terrifying procession.
Honestly, it looked incredibly cool.
It was exactly like one of those epic, large-scale cinematic scenes described in fantasy stories—a grand spectacle of absolute power, ancient elites bending reality to their whim, and a legendary army marching into the unknown.
For a brief second, the fantasy fan in me wanted nothing more than to just stand here and appreciate the raw aesthetics of it all.
However, the fleeting awe vanished as a cold dose of reality hit me.