Outside the gate, the situation had been deteriorating for hours.

A standard false gate — one tier above its displayed rank — carried a survival rate of roughly one percent.

What Key City’s First Entry students had walked into was two tiers above its falsified classification.

The math that followed that fact was not something anyone wanted to say out loud, but everyone present had already done it privately.

The survival expectation for this year’s First Entry had collapsed to something that barely registered as a number.

That reality had pulled three very specific people to the gate’s exterior.

Markus Lumus, the head of the Association branch in Key City, and one of only three demigods in the city, stood with his arms crossed and his expression controlled in the way that powerful people controlled things when they were close to not controlling them.

Beside him stood Celeste Kingsley, guild master of the Lunar Wolves, the only A-rank guild in Key City, and the third demigod.

And to their right, radiating something that made every class holder in the surrounding area unconsciously create distance, stood Richard Valeria.

Patriarch of the Valerian family.

A demigod and Freya’s father.

The pressure coming off Richard wasn’t aggressive in any directed sense. It didn’t need to be. It simply existed, and everything near it adjusted accordingly. The class holders assigned to the perimeter had drifted back several meters without making a decision to do so.

"I’ve never seen the god of battle this unsettled," someone murmured near the back of the gathered holders.

"His youngest daughter is trapped in a false gate two tiers above classification," someone else replied, quieter.

"I’m surprised he isn’t already inside."

Markus’s gaze moved to the source of the voices without his head turning. The murmuring stopped immediately before he turned back to Richard.

"Your daughter will be safe. Our teams are already moving through the Astral Heaven, it’s only a matter of time before they locate the region."

Richard said nothing. His eyes stayed on the gate.

Celeste turned to Markus with a look that didn’t carry the same diplomatic restraint.

"You are aware there are others trapped inside as well. Not just one person."

Markus didn’t respond immediately.

"We three are demigods." Her voice stayed level but the temperature behind it didn’t.

"The way you’re conducting yourself makes me question that."

Markus’s energy flared and Celeste’s answered it. The class holders nearby felt the combined pressure land on them like something physical, this was not even a fraction of what either demigod was actually carrying, but it was enough to make several of them step back involuntarily.

The air between the two felt dense and charged, two immovable forces leaning toward each other without touching.

"Do not forget," Celeste said, her gaze flat and direct, "that every life inside that gate matters. Not just one."

Markus held her stare for a long moment. Then he pulled his energy back in a single controlled motion.

"I am aware of that."

Richard had said nothing throughout the entire exchange. He hadn’t moved. His eyes had stayed on the gate with the fixed attention of someone waiting for a specific thing to happen.

Then his eyes narrowed.

Markus noticed. Celeste noticed. Every class holder on the perimeter turned toward the gate at the same moment, following something they felt before they saw it.

The blue gate was changing color.

The swirling surface shifted — slowly at first, then all at once — burning from deep blue into a blazing, unmistakable gold.

The gate was cleared.

That single thought moved through every person on the perimeter at the same moment and the implication of a blazing gold gate was too obvious to require explanation.

Markus was already working through the logistics before the color had fully settled. The only rational explanation was that his team had located the region.

A false gate still operated under the rank restriction of what it claimed to be. If it was Tier One on the surface that meant only Rank One initiates could cross it directly.

To get higher-ranked support inside, you needed a separate route. The plan had been to use an already-stabilized Tier Three golden gate, send Rank Three class holders through into that adjacent region, and have them navigate from there toward wherever the initiates had been dropped.

The Astral Heaven was vast enough that proximity between regions still meant significant travel, but Tier Three territory was measurably closer to initiate regions than anything the demigods themselves could access.

If Markus had sent his people through a Tier Three gate, they might eventually find the right region and clear the beacon from inside.

But it shouldn’t have happened this fast.

Not even close to this fast.

His team had been deployed hours ago and locating a specific region within the Astral Heaven wasn’t a precise process, it was an extended search across a space that made the surface world look small.

They should still be looking. He hadn’t received a single piece of communication indicating they had even found the region, let alone cleared it.

’So how is this gate gold already?’

Celeste and Richard had landed on the same question from different directions. The three demigods stood in front of the blazing gate and had no answer between them.

Then people started stepping through.

‎‎‎❖❖❖❖

A few minutes earlier, the throne room had gone completely silent the moment Winston stood up from the throne.

Every eye in the room was on him, not on the golden gate swirling behind him, not on the destroyed ceiling or the headless corpse on the floor.

They were all on him. The gate’s existence meant someone had cleared the beacon. The only person who had gone toward the beacon was Winston.

"Isn’t that Winston?" The voice came from one of the Nightwing students.

"He’s the one who cleared the gate?"

"What class did he even awaken? This can’t be possible."

"Zelda awakening a Sacred class was already shocking enough, now Winston too? What is happening?"

The Nightwing students had the context to be confused in a specific way. The students from other academies, Josh’s group, and the others who had arrived at the mountain range didn’t have that context.

They had only known Winston for the duration of this gate. What they saw was straightforward: a powerful class holder who had done something no one else here could have done.

Freya caught fragments of both conversations as they moved around her. Her eyes narrowed slightly. She filed it away with everything else she had been collecting since the moment she’d watched him take down the Grey Tusk.

When they got out, she was going to find out exactly who Winston and Zelda were before this gate.

Winston walked through the gathered crowd without addressing any of it. He reached Zelda and stopped.

"Told you I had it."

Zelda exhaled.

"I’m just glad you’re safe."

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. He turned back toward the gate and raised his voice just enough to carry across the room.

"You can all start moving through. I’ll be right behind you."

Zelda’s head turned sharply. "You’re not leaving with us?"