Chapter 203: The Bridge is Gone

The digital timer on Evren’s wrist-pad beeped in a fast, frantic rhythm.

[POCKET DIMENSION INITIATING SINGULARITY COLLAPSE: 00:02:24 REMAINING]

Behind them, the stone floor where the Calamity Beast had stood broke completely in two. A pitch-black void opened in the middle of the cavern, pulling boulders, loose dust, and shattered scales into its center like a whirlpool.

"Move!" Evren barked, turning toward the exit portal. "Keep your spacing and run!"

Forty hunters rushed forward in a dead sprint, their boots slamming against the trembling rock. Several shield-bearers were limping from the earlier gravity blast, their dented armor clattering with every step.

Silas Drake grabbed the shoulder of a stumbling tank, throwing the man’s arm over his neck to drag him forward. "Pick up your feet, Wilson!" Drake shouted over the grinding stone. "You’re not dying in this pit today!"

Evren ran right beside Amber and Zephyra at the front of the pack. A sharp, burning ache flared in his left ribs with every hard impact of his boots, but he kept his pace.

Amber held her single dragon-bone saber close to her chest, her crimson wings tucked tight against her back to avoid clipping the narrow tunnel walls. Zephyra moved like a blur of dark shadow at Evren’s left flank, her sharp eyes scanning the ceiling for falling debris.

The tunnel shook violently as deep fissures tore through the stone walls. They burst out of the tunnel mouth and emerged onto the wide expanse of the floating islands.

[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL COMPLETE IMPLOSION: 00:01:28]

The sight ahead was terrifying.

The dark purple sky of the pocket dimension was tearing apart into jagged black tears, and entire floating islands in the distance were crumbling like stale bread before plunging into the abyss.

A mile ahead, the swirling blue oval of the exit portal pulsed brightly on the final floating platform.

The forty hunters sprinted across the stone pathways, jumping across narrow cracks in the rock. But right as they reached the halfway mark, a massive tremor ripped through the bedrock beneath their boots.

CRACK!

A hundred-foot section of the main stone bridge snapped clean off. The massive slab of rock tilted downward and slid into the dark void, leaving a sixty-foot gap of empty air between the hunters and the path to the portal.

The lead hunters skidded to a sudden halt at the edge of the drop.

"The bridge is gone!" one of the archers screamed in panic, waving his arms as pebbles tumbled into the bottomless pit. "We can’t jump sixty feet!"

"Quiet!" Evren’s voice cut through the panic like a whip. He pushed to the front of the line, his eyes quickly measuring the distance across the empty air.

The gap was sixty feet wide, and his Gravity Domain had a fifty-foot range. That left a ten-foot dead zone right before the far ledge where anyone floating across would stall and drop into the abyss.

"Zephyra, cross over right now!" Evren instructed through their mental link. "Anchor the far ledge and catch them across the last ten feet!"

"On it, Master!" Zephyra melted into the darkness with Umbral Blink, reappearing on the far platform a split second later. She drove her daggers into the bedrock and unleashed thick shadow tendrils, weaving them across the ten-foot gap like steel safety nets.

"Form a single line and sprint with everything you have!" Evren ordered the terrified men behind him. "The updraft will carry you fifty feet, and Zephyra will reel you in! Jump on my mark!"

He planted his boots at the broken cliff and thrust both hands forward, projecting his SS-Rank Gravity Domain to its maximum fifty-foot limit.

Instead of crushing downward pressure, Evren reversed the polarity completely, creating a shimmering purple updraft that pushed upward like a weightless cushion across the first fifty feet.

"Go! Now!" Evren roared, holding the mana steady against the howling wind. The first three hunters gritted their teeth and leaped into the open air with full momentum.

The fifty-foot updraft caught them like feathers, carrying them smoothly through the empty air above the dark void.

As their forward momentum slowed at the edge of the gravity field, Zephyra’s shadow tendrils snapped onto their breastplates and yanked them safely onto the far stone.

"It works!" Drake yelled, shoving the next group forward. "Keep moving! Don’t hesitate!"

Hunters sprinted and leaped across in rapid succession, riding the purple updraft before Zephyra pulled them onto solid ground. Amber spread her crimson wings and grabbed two heavily armored tanks by their breastplates, flying them across the gap in a quick red blur.

[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL COMPLETE IMPLOSION: 00:00:28]

Less than thirty seconds left. The floating island beneath Evren’s boots began tilting dangerously to the left, shedding tons of rock into the void.

"Chairman, get across!" Drake yelled from the far ledge, waving his arm frantically. "The portal is breaking!"

With every hunter safely across, Evren dismissed the gravity field and triggered Umbral Blink, vanishing in a ripple of dark shadows, and reappearing instantly on the far stone beside Drake.

Amber and Zephyra fell into formation at his side, and the three of them sprinted toward the final platform where the blue exit portal hummed.

Drake shoved the last two hunters through the swirling blue vortex, their bodies vanishing in bright flashes of light.

[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL COMPLETE IMPLOSION: 00:00:09]

Nine seconds. The ground beneath the exit portal cracked down the center, the platform beginning to spin out of control.

Directly overhead, a massive slab of stone the size of a two-story building broke free from the ceiling, plummeting straight toward the portal. If that slab hit the gate, the spatial coordinates would shatter, trapping them forever.

"Evren, look out!" Amber shouted.

Evren drew the Frost-Bane Cleaver with his right arm, and channeled every drop of Heavenly Lightning into the steel.

Blinding golden electricity danced violently along the blade as he swung upward with all his strength.

BOOM!

A massive arc of golden lightning shot forty feet into the air, striking the falling rock dead center. The electrical blast shattered the giant slab into harmless gravel, scattering debris across the platform.

Evren grabbed Amber’s hand with his right fingers and caught Zephyra’s arm with his left. "Through the gate!" he yelled.

With three seconds left on the clock, the three of them dove headfirst into the swirling blue light.

Behind them, the pocket dimension collapsed into a single, blinding point of black space, folding in on itself with a silent snap that sealed the dimensional tear forever.

FLASH!

A wave of blinding, natural daylight hit Evren’s eyes. The cold, ozone-choked air of the void vanished, replaced by the fresh smell of city breeze, warm asphalt, and diesel fumes.

The spatial breach spat all forty-one hunters out into open air, sixty feet above the Citadel courtyard. Gravity seized them instantly, sending the battered strike team tumbling into a terrifying freefall.

Amber reacted on pure instinct, snapping her radiant wings wide. She caught Evren around his chest with one arm and gripped Zephyra with the other, banking hard to kill their downward momentum and gliding them down to skid safely onto the cool tarmac.

Down on the launch ramp, Commander Walter had already anticipated the mid-air exit.

"Catch-barrier, full power!" he ordered as eighty shield-bearers locked their tower shields together, projecting a massive golden kinetic dampening field that caught Drake and the falling hunters like a soft safety net before easing them onto the asphalt.

Around them, forty hunters lay sprawled across the tarmac. Some were groaning from bruised ribs, others were holding their heads, but every single man was breathing.

Silence hung over the massive plaza for two seconds. Then, one of the young shield-bearers pushed his helmet off, stared up at the sky, and started laughing in pure relief.

"We’re out... We’re actually out!" he yelled.