Chapter 64: The Sector 3 Breached Gate

Inside the subterranean command vault of The Iron Spire, the air hummed with the quiet, high-frequency whir of liquid-cooled quantum servers intermingling with the deep, rhythmic pulse of spatial mana.

Raphael stood in the center of the vast chamber, rigid and broad against the light cast by the central holographic matrix. He wore a baggy black T-Shirt with a wide neck, which was tight around his biceps, a pair of white baggy trousers, and boots. Across his back, the dual scabbard harness held the Vanguard of the Eclipse set: the four-foot matte-black longsword and curved parrying dagger.

On his hands, the obsidian knuckles of the Sovereign’s Shadow-Grip Gauntlets rested quietly against his sides.

Beside him, Vanessa held her dark relic-staff anchored against the polished marble floorboards. Her cold violet eyes reflected columns of encrypted data scrolling rapidly across the translucent air, casting long, shifting shadows across the vaulted stone pillars.

Suddenly, the blue diagnostic interfaces floating before them flared a harsh, warning amber.

[REALM ANOMALY DETECTED!]

- Location: Sector 3, Jiston (Industrial Transit & Rail District)

- Event: Uncontrolled B-Rank Rift Rupture (Class-2 Arboreal Mutation)

- Mana Saturation: 42,000 / 100,000 (Moderate-High Hazard)

- Entity Classification: Abyssal Ironwood Construct Swarm (B-Tier Scaling)

- Bureau Status: Sector Quarantine Active / Forward Strike Mobilization

---

Raphael raised his gauntleted right hand, his long fingers making a brief, sweeping gesture to expand the Sector 3 tactical map.

The holographic projection zoomed in past the high-rise perimeter of Jiston, settling over the sprawling industrial rail yards and transit warehouses of Sector 3. Steel shipping containers, iron rail tracks, and concrete loading docks were being actively torn apart on screen by thick, petrified root networks erupting from a hundred-foot rift near the central rail hub.

Massive, black-barked tendrils thicker than ancient oaks whipped through the concrete foundations, crushing freight cars like tin cans. Live video feeds intercepted from municipal traffic cameras and Bureau drone arrays streamed directly onto the vault’s wall.

Panicked civilian rail workers and private security contractors fled down rain-slicked access roads while thick, dark-green spore clouds rolled through the alleyways. Out of the overgrown breach emerged swarms of dark fantasy flora, hulking, seven-foot-tall Ironwood Treants made of petrified, stone-like bark, their limbs ending in jagged, spear-like branches, their chest cavities glowing with sickly green vegetative mana.

"A B-Rank arboreal rupture," Vanessa noted smoothly, her silk-like voice cutting through the server hum. "The spatial tear in Sector 3 has merged with a primordial plant domain. The petrified root system is expanding at thirty feet per minute, draining the localized electrical grid to feed its growth."

Raphael swiped his hand to pull up the Bureau’s tactical communications channel. Captain Vale’s calm, authoritative voice echoed through the server speakers, overlaid with the chaotic background noise of heavy automatic gunfire, screeching sirens, and shattering timber.

"All forward response units, this is Director Vale!" Vale ordered over the comms channel. "Sector 3 industrial perimeter is locked down! The local security guards from Vanguard Coalition have lost the outer rail yards! Officer Elena, take Recon Team 4 and establish a containment perimeter at the primary freight bridge! Do not engage the larger ironwood structures until the heavy artillery team arrives!"

Officer Elena’s voice cut through the channel, crisp and disciplined over the static. "Understood, Director. Recon Team 4 moving into position. The spore density is thick, but our respirators are holding. We have visual on multiple B-Tier bark constructs pushing toward the main transit gate."

Raphael watched the tactical feeds with a cold, unyielding expression. His eyes traced the energy readings radiating from the petrified root nodes in the rail yard.

To the Bureau and the corporate guilds, an overgrown B-Rank rift was a messy, high-maintenance hazard that required expensive containment teams and heavy chemical ordnance to burn out. But to Raphael, who held the core of an ancient castle and understood domain architecture, the rupture was an exceptional harvest site.

The petrified bark of an Ironwood Treant was denser than tempered steel, immune to standard kinetic impact, and saturated with hyper-compressed vegetative mana. Deep within their core structures lay petrified heartwood cores and ancient sap alloys, materials capable of reinforcing the physical defenses of The Iron Spire and fueling advanced alchemy matrices.

"The Vanguard mercenaries are trying to burn the roots with standard incendiary rounds," Raphael said quietly, his deep voice carrying absolute, icy composure. "They don’t realize petrified ironwood absorbs thermal energy to harden its grain. They’re just making the constructs thicker."

This information was gotten from the system. Mind you, he had become one with the system, so he instantly knew what he was going to be dealing with.

"Will you deploy, Lord Raphael?" Vanessa asked, turning her violet eyes toward him. "While it is only a B-Rank threat, entering Sector 3 still carries the risk of Bureau sensors registering an anomaly if you release your full presence."

"I won’t need to release my full presence for B-Tier firewood," Raphael replied, a faint, dangerous smile touching the corner of his dark lips. "And I have no intention of letting Vanguard Guild haul away three tons of ironwood heartwood before I get there."

He turned away from the holographic matrix and walked toward the center of the vault floor.

"Vanessa, you and the Warmaster will hold the stronghold," Raphael commanded, his voice echoing through the vast stone chamber. "Keep the quantum servers running continuous diagnostic sweeps on Sector 3’s root expansion. If the rupture escalates past Class-2, alert me through our bond."

"As you command, Sovereign," Vanessa bowed deeply, resting her left hand over her heart while her relic-staff hummed with dark gravitational light. "The castle will remain pristine in your absence."

Raphael raised his right hand, flexing his fingers inside his Sovereign’s Shadow-Grip Gauntlets. Driven by his intent, his passive skill activated fully.

A shimmering, icy-blue wave of spatial mana washed over his broad frame before sinking deep beneath his skin. Instantly, his suffocating, godlike aura vanished into complete nothingness. His imposing presence was compressed down to zero, registering on any external sensor or mana-scanner as nothing more than an unawakened, low-tier civilian carrying decorative steel.

He grabbed his coat and pulled the deep hood of it lower over his dark, messy hair, shading his sharp, carved features and glowing silver eyes in deep shadow.

He walked past the whirring server racks toward the ancient stone archway of the Waypoint Gate. Using his master command over the Dungeon Core, he recalibrated the portal’s secondary exit coordinates, linking the spatial doorway directly to an abandoned, flooded maintenance tunnel running underneath Sector 3’s freight yards.

Raphael stopped at the threshold of the shimmering, dark-violet spatial mirror. He reached back with both hands, settling his fingers comfortably against the grips of his dual adamantine blades.

"Let’s go harvest some ironwood," Raphael muttered quietly.

He stepped across the threshold, vanishing into the violet light as he crossed the boundary into the overgrown, spore-choked rail yards of Sector 3.

****

NOTE: Raphael and the System are beyond 100% compatibility. I have to rectify this. Information about monsters, and almost anything apart from the Female Knights he summons, will possibly not be displayed on a system screen.

The System mostly deals with stuff relating to his summoned knights and his skills as the Chosen Sovereign. If he gains a reward or an ability, that will also be displayed because it’s from the system.

But if it’s a suggestion or something else outside of the system’s main work, it will appear as Raphael thought of it or he has knowledge of it. But just understand that his mind is basically the System in actuality.

Hope I’ve clarified it well. If you have any question or find something confusing in the Chapters, feel free to point it out. It’s easy to miss something when writing.

Thank you for reading!