Chapter 43 | Rift Gate

Chapter 43: Chapter 43 | Rift Gate

Not a Rift gate. Not the controlled, sanctioned kind that appeared in the Summit arena with referees and safety protocols and mana dampeners built into the frame.

This was a tear.

It opened in the sky above the north training field with a sound like a joint snapping — a flat, structural crack that carried across the entire campus. The light that came through was wrong. Greenish. The colour of something that had been sealed too long.

Then another. South wall.

Then three more in fast succession — east, the roof of the administrative tower, and directly above the gate road that led off-campus.

Six tears in twelve seconds.

The security officer behind Corbyn said something, but it was swallowed by the seventh tear opening directly above the dormitory courtyard they were standing in. Debris rained down. Dex pulled Lyra back by the collar. Roen’s shield came up — his summoned gauntlet, the Ironveil training tool he’d kept active since the ceremony.

Corbyn looked up.

Through the tear, something was coming through.

==============

He didn’t see Principal Vael move.

That was the thing he would remember later — not what Vael did, but that there was no before to it. One moment the Principal was standing at the top of the administrative steps where he’d been overseeing the security sweep. The next, the air pressure across the entire campus changed. Not dramatically. Just — shifted. Like the building had exhaled.

Corbyn’s ears popped.

The mana suppression that had blanketed the grounds since the ceremony — the one that had kept Sekhmet from manifesting fully, the one all the visiting schools had been operating under simply stopped.

Lyra grabbed his arm. "Where—"

Outside the campus walls, something hit the ground.

The sound arrived a half-second later. Not an explosion. More like a continent-scale door closing. Low, flat, total. The kind of sound that made Corbyn’s teeth ache.

Then silence from that direction. Complete.

—-------------------

Professor Cole appeared at the dormitory archway before any of them had processed what had happened. He wasn’t running. He moved like someone who had already done the math on every route in the building and was now simply walking the shortest one.

"Stay together," he said. Not loud. Not urgent. The tone of a man who had never needed volume to be obeyed. "Dex , where are the six?"

Dex blinked, resetting. "Three rooms, east corridor. Second floor. One near the stairwell."

"And the two near the annexe?"

"Still there. Not moving."

Cole nodded once and looked at Corbyn. It wasn’t the look of a man assessing a problem. It was the look of a man checking whether a specific piece of equipment was still functional.

"Bond status," Cole said quietly.

Corbyn didn’t insult him by pretending. "Low. Sekhmet’s holding but—" He stopped.

Because at that exact moment, the warmth in his chest flickered.

It didn’t go out. But it flickered the way a candle does when someone opens a door in another room. A distant, pressureless thing. Sekhmet’s presence pulled taut in the bond, steadying itself, and Corbyn felt her resistance to it , felt her refuse with a clarity that was almost physical.

Then the flicker again.

She was burning through the last of what he had just to maintain the connection.

Cole saw it on his face. "Can she hold?"

Corbyn didn’t answer. He looked at Sekhmet.

She had stopped walking. She stood in the centre of the courtyard with her back to them, looking up at the tear in the sky above. The fire in her hair was down to almost nothing now — thin ribbons of amber, the last coals. Her armour looked heavier than it had an hour ago.

She turned.

Just her head. Just enough to look at him over her shoulder.

Her amber eyes were completely steady.

"Go," she said.

Not a command. Not reassurance. A verdict, the same way she said everything as though she had already decided what was true and was simply informing him of it.

The bond heat dropped another degree.

—----------

Cole moved into the dormitory and the effect was immediate , not dramatic, not loud, but immediate. The first operative came out of the stairwell door with a disruption blade already active, the kind designed to sever summoner bonds at contact range. He had clearly been waiting for the mana suppression to lift so he could use it.

Cole was already inside his guard before the door finished opening.

He didn’t draw his sword. He redirected the blade arm at the wrist with just enough rotation to point it at the wall and put the operative into the doorframe with a flat, economical shoulder check. The sound the door made on impact was final.

Stellan Draves, who had appeared at the far end of the corridor with three other senior students in response to the gate tears, went still.

Corbyn had seen Stellan fight. He’d watched him during the Summit semifinals and understood, in the abstract way you understand something you can’t fully process, that Stellan was operating on a level above everyone else in their year.

Stellan was watching Cole the way Corbyn had watched Sekhmet materialize.

The second operative broke from the second-floor room and ran for the east window — the external wall, the drop to the service road. Not an escape route. A delay. They were hoping the gate chaos would pull Cole away.

Cole was at the window before them.

Corbyn didn’t see him cross the corridor. He was simply there , standing at the window with one hand braced against the frame, the operative having run directly into a wall that hadn’t been there two seconds ago. Cole caught them by the collar as they rebounded, turned them once, and sat them on the floor with a precision that looked almost gentle and was obviously the opposite.

The third operative, the one Dex had flagged near the stairwell, didn’t try to run. He looked at Cole and raised both hands.

"Smart," Cole said quietly, and it wasn’t a compliment.

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Author Note

Its Author here , thanks for reading SSS Ranked Awakening;My Summons are All Calamity Class Gods , what you should expect reading this , i will try my best to make it fast paced , you will expect more action going forward , there would be harem and some r18 scene in the future Chapters and many others , thanks for reading once more , hopefully you will enjoy the ride till the end .