277 THE WELL OF UNKNOWN
[The Well of Fracture]
The Priest was dragged through the entrance of the GenSyn building, his head wrapped, eyes blindfolded, and hands bound behind his back.
Liorea was already waiting.
"Finally," she said flatly. "You brought the bastard back."
"Where are you taking me?" the Priest asked, curiosity bleeding through his forced calm.
"We're sending you home," Liorea replied.
The world vanished.
Reality folded inward, and the floor dropped out from under them as they crossed the threshold into another realm. When the space stabilized, they stood within the domain of the Well.
Vast walls curved around them, rising endlessly into the sky. There was no visible ceiling—only depth upon depth, an abyss turned inside out. It felt less like standing in a structure and more like standing inside something that should never have been hollowed.
Damen lifted the Priest into the air and tore the blindfold away.
The Priest scoffed, brushing at his jacket and hair out of habit—
Then he saw it.
The Well.
And above them, still intact, sacred commandments rotated in slow, luminous arcs, their symbols grinding softly against reality itself.
"Where the hell is this?" he whispered.
Liorea stepped forward. "This is your temple," she said. "Don't you recognize it?"
The Priest shook his head violently. "No. My temple isn't—this place isn't—"
He froze. Then understanding hit him all at once.
The Temple of Fracture had never been real. It had a skin. A projection. An illusion layered over something far older and far more dangerous.
What remained now was the truth….
… this was the Well.
"You tore my temple open!" he screamed. "How dare you—do you know how much effort we spent building that illusion?"
Damen crouched in front of him, his eyes cold. "Start talking. What the hell is this place?"
The Priest spat blood onto the fractured floor and laughed. "Kill me if you want. I won't tell you a thing."
A presence appeared behind him.
She was Fearose.
"There are a thousand ways I can make you talk," she said softly. "Where should I start?"
The Priest's breath caught. "You—traitor…"
"You should've let us leave your damn cult when we asked," Fearose replied. "Then none of this would've happened."
Damen released him.
The Priest hit the ground hard—and kept sinking, his body slammed flat as invisible weight crushed him downward.
"What's happening?" he screamed.
Liorea looked up at the rotating commandments. "Have you forgotten what you wrote into this realm?" she said calmly.
"Unleash gravity."
"Why—why aren't you affected?" the Priest shrieked.
Liorea smirked. "Because we came prepared."
Damen stood unmoved, he was long accustomed to the oppressive gravity. Liorea and Fearose remained upright, their exoskeletons humming softly as they countered the crushing force.
Only the Priest lay face-down, pinned helplessly to the ground.
"Now talk," Fearose said.
"I hate you people!" the Priest screamed.
"Go on," Fearose said again, her voice darker this time.
"…This place wasn't always a temple," he rasped at last.
Damen straightened. "Continue."
The Priest's gaze drifted upward into the endless well. "It was an Unknown Well. Found on an alien world during a breach-expedition. It once contained immense energy… but by the time it was discovered, the source was gone."
Liorea frowned. "Gone how?"
"Drained," the Priest said. "Consumed. By what—or who—I don't know."
Damen's jaw tightened.
He remembered Planet Anu. There was another Well there. But there, he had stood at the top, looking down into the abyss….
….Now, he was trapped inside one, staring upward.
"How did the Well end up here?" Liorea asked.
"The adventurers who found it brought it back," the Priest said. "Condensed it into a space artifact—a containment shell holding nothing but space."
The Well shuddered, as if the memory offended it.
"The Syndic acquired the artifact later," the Priest continued. "We turned it into the Temple of Fracture."
"You can just reshape a space realm," Liorea said. "How?"
"We couldn't," the Priest admitted. "The meta-scientists from the higher realms did. They created a key—something that allowed us to redesign the Well."
Damen's eyes narrowed. "The Death Note."
"Yes."
"But you used it to control Syndic members," Fearose said.
"At first, it was just like architectural software, changing the appearance of the well," the Priest said bitterly. "Then we realized we could rewrite the environment itself… and eventually, even the people inside it would be affected."
"Where is the Death Note now?" Damen asked.
Liorea shook her head. "It's gone. The moment I stored it in my space, it vanished."
The Priest laughed weakly. "Without the Death Note, this realm is useless."
Fearose crossed her arms, irritation bleeding through her restraint. "I don't get it. What exactly are we trying to uncover about this place?"
Liorea's expression hardened. "It's not because we're interested in it."
She pointed upward, toward the glowing commandments still circling overhead. "Those words—those rules—are no longer contained here. They're affecting all of Silver City."
The Priest stiffened. "What do you mean?" His voice wavered. "You're saying the Blackout is caused by the Well of Fracture?"
"Yes," Damen said. "For some reason, this realm is corrupted—and that corruption is leaking outward, bleeding into the world beyond it."
Fearose's eyes widened. "So, the Blackout…" She turned sharply. "How do we stop it?"
"That's exactly why we brought him back here," Liorea said coldly. "Otherwise, why would we drag this creep into his own nightmare?"
Fearose stepped closer to the Priest, looming over him as gravity pressed him deeper into the fractured floor.
"Now," she said, voice edged with fury, "tell us everything about this place. Again. And don't skip a single detail."
------
[Silver City Train Station]
The mysterious Blackout, and the sudden collapse of the city's defenses, sent panic ripping through Silver City.People fled in every direction, driven by the same instinct: escape. The only viable route left was the train station.
Earlier, Lander and Dorin had been coordinating the evacuation, gathering refugees and ushering them onto the departing trains.
Those trains were long gone now—but thousands were still trapped inside the city.
With no other choice, they redirected the crowds onto the tracks themselves.
"Follow the rails," Lander shouted. "They'll lead you to the next city. Don't stop moving."
Even without trains, the tracks were their last remaining hope.
Then the ground roared.
Several skyscrapers in the heart of the city collapsed inward, swallowed by the earth in a violent cascade of steel and dust.
"What was that?" Dorin shouted over the screams.
Lander was already moving.
He pulled a compact drone from his belt and launched it skyward. Though meta abilities were dead under the Blackout, stored power still worked.
The drone's feed flickered onto his datapad.
Lander inhaled sharply. "There's… a massive crater in the middle of the city."
"What?" Dorin stared at the screen. "What could've caused that?"
"I don't know," Lander said grimly. "But it's tied to the Blackout—and the alien invasion. It has to be."
The drone drifted lower.
From the rim of the crater, figures began to emerge.
Alien hounds.
Their ethereal bodies phased in and out of visibility, half-present, half-elsewhere. One by one, they gathered, encircling the crater like sentries awaiting a command.
…and there were millions of them.
Then something else appeared.
At the very center of the crater, reality folded inward—
—and a well manifested.