The perimeter of Grid 12 was a chaotic masterpiece of crowds of people moving around in desperation.

Under normal circumstances, a Loop Gate was a highly controlled environment. The National Exterminator Agency would set up standard yellow barricades, deploy a basic monitoring van, and let rookie squads use the space for routine training.

However, the phenomenon that had just occurred—the violent merging of two separate spatial dimensions into a single, mutated Four-Star Gate, had completely shattered the standard operating procedures.

Dozens of heavily armored NEA transport vehicles now formed a steel ring around the intersection. Massive emergency floodlights bathed the street in harsh, artificial white light. At the center of it all, the gate hovered off the cracked asphalt.

Ever since the abnormal phenomenon occurred, it had been acting really weird, not giving out even a speck of Mana.

When a gate opens, no matter of what type, it usually pushes out the excessive mana from inside into the outer environment.

Claire stood at the very front of the exclusion zone, her piercing red eyes reflecting the chaotic blue light of the portal.

Behind her stood Rol and Garret.

Garret was an imposing wall of muscle, his arms crossed over his thick chest, his face set in a grim, unreadable mask. Rol, on the other hand, had one hand shoved deep into his pocket while the other lazily spun a combat knife between his fingers. Despite his relaxed posture, the sharp, calculating glint in his grey eyes betrayed his high alert.

"Major Claire, you cannot approach the threshold," a frantic young man yelled, running up behind them with a holographic tablet clutched to his chest. "The gate is violently rejecting any foreign mass trying to pass through the boundary. We sent a drone through, and it was instantly crushed into a cube of scrap metal!"

Claire didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge the man.

"Do I look like a drone to you?" Claire stated flatly.

She took a confident step forward, crossing the yellow federal boundary line.

As soon as she touched the gate.

A massive, terrifying surge of pure, raw energy erupted from the gate’s surface. Thick arcs of blue, crackling lightning lashed outward, seeking to electrocute and forcefully repel the intruder who dared to breach its domain.

Claire didn’t flinch, but she didn’t need to block it, either.

Rol moved in a blur.

He didn’t draw a weapon. He simply extended his left hand, his eyes flared with a deep grey glow.

Rol’s ability was deeply misunderstood by most lower-ranking Exterminators. They assumed he was merely a fast assassin. In reality, Rol’s talent manipulated the very concept of spatial connectivity. He could create points of reality around his body, where the physical and magical connections between two points were completely severed.

The violent arcs of blue lightning slammed into them, but the electrical discharge simply slid off the space, scattering across the asphalt in a shower of sparks.

The surrounding pavement instantly scorched black, the heat intense enough to melt the concrete.

"Well, it definitely doesn’t want visitors," Rol muttered, dropping his hand as the discharge faded. "And why the fuck are you acting so carelessly?"

"Because I knew you were here," Claire said with a smile.

Rol fell silent, then he turned around and stepped back. "Screw you."

Claire reached up and grabbed the lapels of her sharp grey blazer, shrugging it off her shoulders and tossing it onto the hood of a nearby ruined sedan.

Beneath the formal wear, Claire was already in her battle attire. She wore a pristine, white, skin-tight one-piece combat suit. The material was an incredibly rare, synthetic polymer designed to withstand extreme kinetic friction without restricting her movements.

Over the white suit, she pulled on a short, heavily tailored black leather jacket.

This jacket was no ordinary piece of clothing; it was a high-grade artifact. For an Exterminator of Claire’s caliber, ordinary armor was practically useless. It was too heavy and offered too little protection against higher-tier beasts.

The black leather jacket however was way superior than those, after all it was made up from the core of a lesser Calamity Lord.

Claire stretched her neck, her red eyes narrowing as she locked onto the swirling blue portal.

Claire was an A-Rank Exterminator, a powerhouse even among them. But what made her truly terrifying was the nature of her talent. She was a Warrior class who fought using advanced Telekinesis.

Most telekinetics were Mages, throwing rocks or bending metal. Claire’s application was entirely different. Her mind could calculate, control, and manipulate the exact kinetic trajectory of up to fifty separate objects simultaneously.

But she didn’t just move them, that was just an application. She could forcibly dismantle objects at their structural seams and violently piece them back together in mid-air, using the sheer kinetic force of the reassembly as a devastating weapon.

The air around her began to shimmer with blood red mana and her eyes glowed as well.

Claire extended her right hand into the empty air.

A massive greatsword materialized out of thin air. The weapon was absurdly large—the blade was easily taller than Claire herself, forged from a dark, pitch-black metal with a jagged, silver edge. It looked like a slab of iron that belonged on the front of a battleship, easily weighing over two hundred kilograms.

Yet, Claire’s fingers wrapped around the hilt, and she lifted it with a single hand as casually as if it were made of paper. Her telekinesis enveloped the blade, completely negating its physical weight while perfectly retaining its devastating mass.

"Garret. Rol. On my mark," Claire ordered.

She didn’t wait for a response.

Claire tightened her grip and swung the massive greatsword forward.

She didn’t just hit the gate; she unleashed a concentrated wave of telekinetic force directly into the edge of the blade, multiplying its impact by a hundredfold.

BOOOOOOM!

The heavy blade smashed directly into the center of the gate. The sheer concussive force of the strike shattered the sound barrier, sending a visible shockwave rippling through the city block. The floodlights flickered violently.

With a deafening sound, the sword forcibly ripped a jagged, vertical gap through the swirling portal.

"Now!" Claire shouted.

They didn’t hesitate. The three of them launched themselves forward, diving directly into the unstable, violently tearing spatial rift just before the gate could forcibly knit itself back together.

The transition was sickening.

Passing through a properly stabilized gate felt like walking through a cool waterfall. Passing through a forced rift felt like being squeezed through the barrel of a cannon.

Their boots hit solid ground.

The world around them was instantly, suffocatingly different.

The moment they materialized inside the gate, an overwhelming wave of wild, untamed mana crashed down on them.

The mana density was so incredibly thick that it literally affected the physical laws of the space. The air felt heavy, almost gelatinous, and the atmospheric pressure was enough to rupture the lungs of an unawakened human in seconds.

Claire gasped, besides her, Rol grimaced, his eyes glowing slightly as his internal core rapidly accelerated to match the environmental density.

But Garret, despite his massive size, did not adapt as smoothly.

The giant Warrior took three stumbling, heavy steps forward, swaying wildly like a man who had just downed a bottle of cheap whiskey. He grunted, dropping heavily to one knee and pressing his thick hand against the dirt to stop the world from spinning.

This was a known physiological phenomenon. Pure physical classes, like standard Warriors or Brawlers, relied entirely on their physical attributes. They didn’t manipulate external mana like Mages or other classes. Therefore, when subjected to sudden, extreme spikes in external mana density, their nervous system suffered temporary vertigo—a severe magical intoxication.

"Garret," Claire called out sharply, keeping her voice low.

"I’m... I’m good," Garret rumbled, shaking his massive head and slowly forcing himself to stand. "Just hit me faster than I expected."

With the team stabilized, Claire finally took a look at their surroundings.

She saw absolutely nothing.

The world was pitch black.

The sky above them was completely black with no moon.

None of the three possessed a talent designed for night vision. Claire’s telekinesis required a line of sight or physical proximity, and Garret’s strength was useless if he couldn’t see his target.

But Rol was different.

Rol closed his eyes, took a slow breath, and reopened them.

The faint, ghostly grey glow in his irises brightened significantly. Rol didn’t need light to see. His talent allowed him to perceive the world through the flow of mana.

To him, the pitch-black landscape was suddenly illuminated by thousands of glowing, shifting veins—the mana passageways of the earth and the biological mana flowing through living creatures.

He scanned the immediate area and saw something that didn’t mean any good.

"Claire," Rol whispered, his voice tighter than she had ever heard it. "Move."

"What is it?" Claire asked, her grip tightening on the hilt of her greatsword.

Rol slowly tilted his head upward, staring into the pitch-black void of the sky above them.

He saw a colossal, suffocating mass of violently swirling, dark mana... completely blocking out the sky directly overhead.

It was utterly silent, but it was falling fast.

"Above us," Rol breathed, his eyes wide with absolute terror. "Something giant is coming down."