Chapter 110: March to the Dark Gate, the Guild Swarm, and the Trace of Ozone

The eastern outskirts of Crossgard, typically dominated by the steady clatter of wooden carts and the shouts of peasants hauling sheaves of rye, had transformed within an hour into a churning cauldron of panic. Dust hung thick above the main thoroughfare. Instead of the familiar scent of dry hay and woodsmoke, the chilling wind carried a sharp, acrid stench resembling burning coal, rotting sulfur, and rancid grease.

People were fleeing westward. Merchant caravans turned around in chaos, teamsters whipped their oxen without mercy, and bottlenecks choked every crossroads. Anyone possessing even the faintest sensitivity to mana felt a violent nausea rising in their throats.

Dave walked directly against the retreating tide.

His hands remained buried deep in the pockets of his long black trench coat. Raiten rested securely in its diagonal harness across his back-the basalt scabbard featuring the geometric lynx pommel hugged his spine without the slightest shift. The optical camouflage over his retinas functioned passively: the dangerous sapphire blaze of his irises was dialed down to a flat, ordinary blue, and his face wore an expression of mild, careless boredom.

To his right strode Shnee. Her translucent Celestial Silver rapier clicked rhythmically against her leather vambrace with every step, while faint wisps of frosty mist rose from the soles of her boots. On her left pauldron rested Kaede. In her new form, roughly the size of a mature walnut, the little spider tapped her front limbs nervously, twitching her antennae in the thickening smog.

– Jesus Christ, it smells like brimstone and burnt engine oil out here, – Kaede squeaked in their private Polish operational code, transmitting directly from Shnee’s shoulder. – Boss, this doesn't smell like a regular dungeon. It smells like someone opened a sewer pipe under an old steel mill and set the tires on fire.

– Because it's not a regular dungeon, Kaede, – Dave replied under his breath in Polish, keeping his hands firmly in his pockets. – In a dungeon, space is stabilized by floor architecture. This rift is a pure gravitational pressure discharge. A puncture in the hull of spacetime. Just look at how the sunlight bends around the tear.

Karys, prowling on his left with her fingers lightly resting on the hilts of her dark hundredth-floor daggers, flared her nostrils and winced in disgust. Her combat-ready wolf tail cut the air like a supple steel cable.

– Dense, sticky mana, – she growled low from beneath her hood. – Almost like the seventy-ninth floor beneath the city, only even more rancid. The local guild cats are probably wetting their boots right about now.

– Not just the cats, – Shnee noted coolly, gesturing with the tip of her scabbard toward the open field ahead.

They reached the crest of a low forest ridge.

The view was staggering, though the air carrying it was foul. Exactly fifteen fathoms above the rutted trade road, right where the wooden garrison watchtowers had stood that morning, hung a colossal, black-and-blue elliptical fissure. It resembled an irregular, vertical tear in the fabric of the universe itself, spanning over twenty meters across. The edges of the breach pulsed with a dull, undulating rhythm, emitting an infrasonic hum that vibrated the ribs and teeth of every living being within a mile.

From the fissure poured a heavy, tar-like vapor-dark mana that did not settle on the soil but hung suspended in the air like a dense, brownish-violet fallout. Sunlight died as it entered the haze, fading like drowning wicks.

Around the anomaly's gravitational perimeter, over a hundred and fifty mercenaries from local Rank-B and Rank-C guilds milled about in disorder, held back by two double cordons of panicked Crossgard City Guards.

It looked like the aftermath of a massacre, though battle had not yet begun. Local mages in silk robes knelt near wagon wheels, clutching their temples and heaving violently. Their familiars whined in cages, and conventional mana circuits unraveled under the corrosive weight of the rift's aura.

– I tell you, Captain, this is no earthly calamity! – shrieked a stout alchemist in Guild robes, pressing a lavender-scented handkerchief frantically to his nose. – This mana... it tears formulas apart! Anyone stepping within twenty paces suffers severe conduit spasms! It's poison! If the beasts break through, the entire Lower City burns by sundown!

– Shut your trap and hold the palisade! – roared the burly guard captain in heavy brass plate, brandishing an iron-spiked halberd. – We await reinforcements from the Upper City! The council dispatched couriers to the foreign expeditions! 'White Fang' and 'Astra' are on their way! No one approaches the gate on pain of hanging!

Dave, Shnee, and Karys halted barely ten paces behind the perimeter guards, casually leaning against the timber rails of a makeshift fence.

– Look at that, – Dave murmured with insolent amusement. – Free amusement park attraction, no tickets required. Back home, an amusement park would charge fifty bucks a head for a rollercoaster like this, and these aces are weeping by the fence because their noses tickle.

– Dave, those mages are genuinely suffering, – Shnee remarked, though her diamond eyes held no pity, only detached fencing calculation. – The molecular structure of that energy is too thick for their biological filters. Their spells rely on natural atmospheric flow. Here, the mana behaves like wood glue. It coats their circuits and chokes them from within.

– Which is why common sense dictates one thing: don't use lungs where simple physics does the job, – Dave concluded.

He pulled his right hand from his coat pocket and flicked his fingers in a careless gesture.

Pfff-shhh!

No runic circles or magical flashes erupted from his skin. Instead, expanding from Dave's core of sheer will, an entirely transparent, spherical bubble of compressed Telekinesis manifested, spanning exactly five meters across. The outer boundary acted like a mechanical vacuum piston-in a fraction of a millisecond, it forced all the sticky, tar-like mana outward, sealing Dave, Shnee, and Karys inside a sterile, refreshing microclimate smelling of alpine breeze and pine needles.

Kaede immediately uncurled her antennae, letting out a tiny, relieved breath.

– Oh, hell yes! Business-class air conditioning! – the spider squeaked. – That's what I call a proper engineering approach to occupational hazards.

NovelPhoenix has the chapter as published by its author, whereas this reproduction was made without the author's consent.

– Simple solutions always beat poetry, – Dave smiled, sliding his hands back into his pockets. – Alright, girls. Let's head inside before these gentlemen realize someone is stealing their show.

They strode forward. The three cloaked figures slipped past the dumbfounded city guards as casually as if stepping into their own front yard for afternoon tea.

– Hey! Halt! Who in the blazes... – one spearmen barked, attempting to bar their way with his ash polearm.

Dave didn't even glance his way. A subtle outward nudge from the telekinetic perimeter deflected the spearhead sideways with the immovable force of a hydraulic ram. Before the captain could draw his broadsword, all three-enveloped in their soundless, invisible sphere-stepped directly into the swirling, black-and-blue maw of the anomaly.

The outside world vanished.

The interior of the Dark Gate bore no resemblance to the stone vaults of a dungeon. It was an alien, desolate dimension-a vast wasteland of black volcanic basalt beneath a sky fractured by crimson tears. Gravity hovered slightly higher, around 1.3 g, and the atmosphere beyond Dave’s barrier was so laden with tar-like sediment that an ordinary man would have coughed his lungs out within three breaths.

– Optics clear, barrier stability one hundred percent, – Dave reported, pacing steadily across the volcanic scree.

They hadn't advanced a hundred yards before the greeting party arrived.

The roar that shattered the dead air was mechanical, guttural, and dripping with raw slaughter. From behind the basalt ridges erupted a pack of predators: Hell Hounds. Massive, three-meter-long beasts armored in jagged black carapaces, their backward-curving horns framing eye sockets burning with vivid purple malice. Scorching, liquid pitch dripped continuously from their muzzles. Exactly thirty of them.

– Right flank or left? – Karys asked, a predatory gleam in her emerald eyes as she sank into a low pounce stance.

– I'll take the fifteen on the left, – Shnee replied with arctic poise.

The elf bolted from the telekinetic sphere, holding her breath for the duration of her assault. Her Celestial Silver rapier became a streak of sapphire light. A single, surgical thrust driven into the volcanic stone sent a cascade of absolute frost surging forward-the ground beneath the fifteen charging hounds froze solid in a fraction of a second, locking their joints in brittle ice and shattering their forward momentum.

Karys capitalized instantly. Leaping airborne, her combat-hardened tail straightened to the density of a spring-steel bar while her dark hundredth-floor daggers whirled in her palms. She carved through the immobilized beasts like a black cyclone, severing tendons and crushing skulls with surgical ferocity before the hounds could even growl.

The remaining fifteen hounds charged directly at Dave.

The monsters registered only a solitary human standing unarmed, hands tucked into his trench coat pockets. The lead hound leaped, snapping open a massive maw meant to shear through flesh and bone.

THUD!

The hound slammed face-first into Dave's transparent telekinetic barrier, shattering its snout and fangs against the immovable surface. The stunned beast bounced backward through the air like a rubber ball.

Dave lifted his gaze, a lazy, insolent smirk curling his lips.

– What's with all the temper? – he murmured softly.

His right hand slid smoothly from his pocket. The movement held zero panic. His fingers clamped around Raiten’s hilt.

SCHWING-CLICK!

The dark damascus blade cleared the basalt scabbard with a dull, velvety hiss. Dave cast no spell. He channeled not a single spark of plasma. Into the crystalline lattice of the magnetic obsidian he injected pure, compressed Gōtai-an impenetrable mantle of sovereign will carrying the tonnage of a battering ram.

A single horizontal slash. No windup, driven purely by hip rotation and skeletal leverage.

BOOM!

A fluid shockwave sheared the atmosphere before him. Compressed air backed by the density of Gōtai tore through the remaining fourteen hounds like a hot razor through butter. The beasts' carapaces split along their ribs, disintegrating mid-air and showering the basalt floor in drifting black dust.

From each vanquished demon, a glowing, dark-ruby dimensional core clattered onto the stone-dense, crystalline nodes of pure energy, entirely distinct from surface trophies.

Karys landed lightly beside Dave, grinning proudly as she swept the crystals into her spatial pouch. Shnee slipped back under the protective sphere, brushing a fleck of frost from her sleeve.

– Clear, – the elf reported.

– Beautiful coordination, girls, – Dave commended, sheathing Raiten with a quiet click. – Zero wasted movement. Now let's gather the loot and see what's lurking at the end of the hall, because I think the brass delegation just pulled up outside.

At that very moment, outside the Dark Gate on Crossgard's eastern boundary, the commotion peaked.

The heavy thunder of shod warhorses and the rumbling clatter of armored carriages signaled the arrival the entire garrison had awaited. Rounding the road’s bend came two massive convoys flying the banners of the most formidable foreign guilds on the continent-outfits commanded by veteran Earth re-castors.

From the lead carriage, bearing the black-and-white sigil of "White Fang", leaped a burly, broad-shouldered man in a tailored leather greatcoat. It was Viktor -a pragmatic Czech brawler whose predatory yellow eyes appraised the terrain with cold, military precision. A colossal two-handed bastard sword hung across his back.

From the second carriage, bearing the azure-and-gold crest of "Astra", stepped a tall, refined gentleman in alchemical spectacles and a tailored coat-Adrian , the Viennese master of calculated plasma magic.

And stepping noiselessly behind them like a ghost walked a slender swordswoman.

Clara wore fitted, silver-gray armor beneath a hooded cloak. The lower half of her face was shielded by a layered silk filtration mask, guarding her hyper-acute sense of smell from the stench of corrupted mana.

Local mercenaries and city guards parted instantly with deep reverence.

– The leaders are here! 'White Fang' and 'Astra'! They've come to lock down the Gate! – murmurs rippled through the ranks.

– What is the status? – Viktor barked, striding up to the drenched guard captain while staring up at the pulsating rift.

– Disaster, Lord Viktor! – the officer stammered, mopping his neck. – The mana paralyzes our wizards, none can maintain a ward! But that's not all... About five minutes ago, three complete lunatics walked right inside! A young fellow in a black coat with a massive black slab of steel on his back, and two women!

Viktor knitted his brows, while Adrian adjusted his spectacles in open disbelief.

– Three people entered a Rank I Rift without battalion support? – Adrian asked coolly. – The atmospheric mana density at the threshold should have liquefied their alveoli in thirty seconds.

At that moment, Clara froze.

The swordswoman took two paces toward the anomaly's perimeter. Slowly, deliberately, she lowered the silk mask from her nose, drawing a breath.

Instead of acrid brimstone, rotting sludge, or caustic vapor, her senses met something utterly impossible.

Cutting straight through the foul, contaminated tunnel of the Gate lay a perfectly straight, pristine trail of air. It smelled of untouched purity-a cool alpine wind and the crispest ozone lingering after a spring thunderstorm.

– Clara? What is it? – Viktor asked, noticing her rigid stance.

She turned slowly toward both leaders. Her pale eyes burned with intense, unyielding fascination.

– Someone entered before us... – she spoke softly, yet her voice sliced through the din like steel. – And it's no local mage. This trace in the air... is sterile. It smells like the freshest ozone after a storm. Cut the formalities, gentlemen. We are going in. Right now.

In that exact fraction of a second, at the deepest point of the Dark Gate, Dave, Shnee, and Karys halted before the monumental basalt-clad double doors leading to the rift's master chamber.

The bedrock beneath them groaned with a titanic bass resonance. The doors shattered inward with a deafening roar, and from the smoking crimson haze emerged the colossal, five-meter silhouette of the Hell Champion. The titan, encased in armor of cracked volcanic magma, hoisted a massive blackened cleaver as broad as an ancient oak trunk, preparing to crush the intruders with a single stroke.

Dave didn't give ground by a millimeter. His hand rested effortlessly against Raiten’s hilt, a brazen, Dante-esque smirk blooming across his face.

– Alright, ladies and gentlemen, – he chuckled, winking at the girls. – Time for a quick warranty teardown before the folks outside ruin our fresh air.