Chapter 395: Seventh Gate

The lights in the sky above Nexus didn’t fade. They multiplied, seven becoming dozens and then hundreds, and far below them, deep inside the waking city, Kai could feel the whole continent responding to what was happening beneath his feet.

Lily stared at her scanner. "The signal is spreading."

Gabriel looked at her. "How far?"

"Everywhere." Lily pulled up the Church network, and one by one the ancient sites lit up across the map, Aegis, the Silent Gate, and the ruins to the north, west, east, and south. All six were active at once, and a seventh point glowed beneath the center of Nexus, linking them together.

This time, the pattern wasn’t a circle. Lines ran from each of the six ruins straight to the seventh, like spokes on a wheel.

"The whole network was built around this place," Aren said slowly.

"Not just around it," Gabriel said, looking out over the underground city. "For it."

The ground trembled.

BOOM.

A second tremor followed, shaking dust from the distant towers, and Lily looked down at her scanner. "Something’s moving below us."

Sera drew her sword. "Of course."

Kai looked at her. "You were expecting a fight?"

"We’re standing in an ancient underground civilization on top of a giant sealed structure," Sera said, glancing around. "At some point, something usually tries to kill us."

"She’s not wrong," Aren said.

Lily sighed. "Not everything ancient is trying to kill us."

A massive grinding sound rolled through the city as the ground began to open, slowly, not violently. A section of the ancient road split apart, and an enormous circular platform rose from below. At first, Kai thought it was a tower, but it kept rising, higher and higher, until it broke through the ceiling of the district above them. Whole structures moved aside, and ancient mechanisms rearranged themselves as if the city were making room.

"What is that?" Lily asked.

"I don’t know," Aren said, staring up.

The structure climbed hundreds of meters, then thousands, and it wasn’t a tower at all. It was a colossal gate. Two enormous pillars rose first, each one wider than a skyscraper, and a massive arch formed between them, covered in ancient symbols. Some came from Aegis, and others were far older. At its center, there was nothing but a vast empty space.

Sera stared upward. "That’s a gate?"

"Yes," Lily said, her mouth slightly open.

"How big is it?"

Lily checked her scanner, then checked it again, looking more confused each time. "I don’t know."

Aren looked at her. "Your scanner can’t measure it?"

"It can. That’s the problem. It’s too big for the scan."

Sera blinked. "That’s not how scanners work."

"Apparently it is today."

Kai looked up. The top of the gate vanished into darkness beyond even his enhanced sight. Aegis had been enormous, its walls stretching across the horizon and its towers reaching into the sky, but next to this, Aegis looked like a fortress built beside a mountain.

"Aegis wasn’t the largest thing the ancients ever built," Lily whispered.

"No," Gabriel said, staring at the gate. "It was just the largest thing we had found."

Across the continent, the six ruins answered the gate at the same moment. Pillars of light erupted from each of them and shot into the sky, connecting the entire continent with beams of ancient energy. Up on the surface, the people of Nexus would be seeing them from the streets, the skyscrapers, the airships, the Hunter headquarters, and the Church, every one of them staring up at the sky.

Kai could only imagine the chaos above.

Gabriel’s communicator began vibrating nonstop, and she looked at it. Hundreds of messages were pouring in, reports and emergency calls asking whether the ruins were attacking, whether this was another Disaster, and what was happening beneath the Central District.

She looked at Kai. "We’re going to have a very difficult explanation when we get back."

Kai nodded. "We’ll deal with it later."

Lily looked at him. "You’re not worried?"

"I am. I’m just not showing it."

"Why not?"

"Would it help?"

"No."

"Then there’s no point."

Sera smiled. "That’s probably the most Kai answer possible."

The six beams of light bent toward the gate and struck it one after another, the first hitting the left pillar and the second the right, and the rest passing through the arch into its center. The entire gate lit up, and symbols spread across its surface as Lily translated them.

"Connection. Authorization. Preparation." She stopped at the last symbol. "Departure."

Nobody spoke.

Aren looked at the gate. "Departure from where?"

Kai already knew. "Here."

Sera looked at the empty center of the arch. "From Nexus?"

Kai shook his head. "From the world."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Lily slowly looked at Starbreaker. "The launch system."

"They weren’t building just one way to leave," Kai said, thinking of the six distant ruins. "They were building a network."

"A network that could open a path beyond the planet," Gabriel said, her expression changing.

The gate began to hum, so deep that Kai felt it in his chest, but the center of the arch stayed dark. No monster appeared, and no army or guardian stepped through. There was nothing.

Lily frowned. "That’s strange."

Sera glanced at her. "What were you expecting?"

"Something."

"That’s not very scientific."

Lily ignored her. "It activated the entire network and synchronized all six ruins, and now..." She checked her scanner again. "Nothing."

"Maybe it’s broken," Aren said.

"No," Lily said. "It’s waiting."

Kai looked at her. "For what?"

"I don’t know."

Kai stepped closer. The darkness in the arch didn’t feel empty. It felt deep, too deep. Distortion bent the air around him as he reached toward the center, and nothing happened. Then Starbreaker floated forward, and when its blue light touched the darkness, a wave of energy swept through the entire gate.

The darkness didn’t open. It turned transparent, and beyond it were stars.

Sera went completely still. Lily’s scanner slipped from her hand, Aren stared, and Gabriel slowly stepped forward. Nobody said a word.

There were no ancient buildings beyond the arch, no ceiling, and no illusion. There were only stars, millions of them, some bright and some faint, some clustered together and others separated by unimaginable distances. A massive planet floated in the distance, then another, and another, and a nebula glowed across part of the dark.

Lily’s eyes went wide. "That’s not a projection."

"No," Gabriel said.

"We’re actually seeing space," Sera said.

Kai nodded. The gate wasn’t showing them a map or a simulation. It was looking through something, a window, a path.

Lily stepped closer, her recovered scanner shaking in her hand. "I can’t detect the distance."

Aren looked at her. "Because it’s too far?"

"No." She swallowed. "Because there isn’t any distance. The instruments aren’t reading the stars as objects. They’re reading the whole field as one connected layer of space."

Kai understood. The gate wasn’t just showing another place. It was connecting two points separated by something far greater than distance.

"Can we go through?" Sera asked.

"I don’t know," Kai said.

"Wait," Lily said, pointing. One star grew brighter, then another, and lines formed between them, one constellation and then another, until the whole field was shifting into a vast pattern.

"That’s a map," Aren whispered.

"No," Lily said, staring at it. "That’s not a map."

The pattern moved past planets, past stars, and past entire systems before settling on a single distant point, a small blue-white light. The stars around it faded away, and the gate locked onto it.

Distortion reacted, and Kai could feel the distance to that light. It couldn’t be measured in meters or kilometers. It was something far greater, a path that led somewhere.

Lily looked at him. "Then what is it?"

Kai stepped forward, the blue light reflected in his eyes. "A direction."

The gate answered him. The entire underground city shook as the six ruins across the continent sent out another pulse, and the distant point grew brighter. A message appeared above the arch.

DESTINATION IDENTIFIED.

Lily’s eyes widened. "What destination?"

For the first time, the ancient system gave something a name. It wasn’t a city, a continent, or a world. It was just two words.

OUTER REACH.

The gate began to open, and Sera tightened her grip on her sword. Kai stared into the darkness beyond. Something was waiting there, and it wasn’t an enemy, a Disaster, or a judgment. It was a place, a destination an ancient civilization had once tried to reach.

Another message appeared.

LAST CONTACT: 7,842 YEARS AGO.

Gabriel’s expression changed. "Last contact?"

"They weren’t the only ones out there," Lily said, looking at the stars.

Kai’s eyes narrowed. The ancients hadn’t only built a way to leave the world. They had been talking to something beyond it, and something had answered.

The gate displayed its final message.

ROUTE REMAINS OPEN.

After a pause, one more line appeared.

RETURN PATH: UNAVAILABLE.

The chamber went silent.

Sera slowly turned to Kai, then looked back at the impossible stars. "So if we go through..."

Kai nodded. "We may not be able to come back."

Lily stared at the distant light, and for once, she didn’t look excited. She looked afraid.

"Then this is what they were preparing for," Gabriel said quietly.

Kai looked at Starbreaker, then at the stars and the path beyond the gate. "No. They were preparing to leave."

The gate opened wider, and for the first time in thousands of years, a path beyond their world stood open again.