Shin stood quietly at the center of the tower's exit platform, lightning still humming faintly along his gauntlet. The wind didn't move here. Time barely did either.
A pulse ran through the floor—the tower, or rather Lightning, awaiting his decision. Shin exhaled softly, half to himself: "Where do I return to?"
His instinct said home. His body, tired and strained, longed for a bed.
But before the words could even reach his lips, he thought of a problem. He had arrived in Venezuela with a legal passport. There were customs, records, and entry stamps.
If he suddenly appeared in his apartment again without crossing back through the airport, it would raise questions—dangerous ones. At best, it would be an immigration violation; at worst, it would result in international surveillance.
He ran a hand through his hair.
Damn. I didn't think that far ahead.
His eyes swept over the vault—the scattered fragments, the humming cores, the fizzled shards that still bled faint sparks. Some looked worthless, others impossibly rare. All of them, potentially valuable. Irreplaceable, even.
Should I just leave it all? They're broken anyway… probably not worth the risk. Yet the thought left a bitter taste. Walking away felt wrong.
Then the voice returned—not loud, but steady, like a circuit finally answering a delayed signal. "You do not need to leave them behind."
Shin turned, startled more by the timing than the message. Lightning's presence remained intangible, just a resonance vibrating faintly in the static. "That ring on your finger is not jewelry. It is a gate. A pocket of space. A container shaped from the folds between dimensions."
Shin glanced at the silver-blue band. It looked inert… yet now he felt it: the emptiness within. "A dimensional ring," he murmured. "That's what you meant."
"You can call it as such. It can store what you deem necessary—limited by your control, not its design."
So it's not just for show. This was made to carry divine tools.
He moved quickly, storing the most stable fragments—rods, cores, crystalline parts that might someday prove useful. He didn't know what any of it did, but his instincts told him some were worth keeping. When he finished, he paused again, a single question lingering in his thoughts.
"Lightning," he said slowly. "This teleportation… what is it, really? Is it truly teleportation? Or is it just raw speed? Like compressing movement across space?"
The answer came after a brief, thoughtful silence.
"It is not motion. It is alignment."
"You don't cross distance. You pass through the space between forms—the seam where shape and presence blur."
Shin narrowed his eyes. "Another dimension?"
"Yes. One that underlies all others. The breath beneath creation and the structure that holds all power together."
Shin realized it instantly—the space of divine energy.
"In that case," he exhaled, "take me the long way."
"Explain."
"Don't just drop me back where I came from. Take me to the same location—but circle around the world first. The opposite path."
A pause. "…Why?"
"Curiosity," Shin said. "Just curiosity."
Another pause. Then the gauntlet pulsed.
"Very well."
The platform lit beneath his feet—not violently, but with a soft, eerie glow. Divine current climbed his legs, wound through his spine, reached into his eyes. The world flickered—
And stopped.
It wasn't silence, nor was it light. It was something flatter, stranger, as though reality had been pressed into a single plane. For the briefest instant, Shin stood in a realm not made of space, air, or structure—but of concept. The world folded into outlines. Depth vanished. Everything pulsed with a hue the eye could see but the mind couldn't name. His vision collapsed and expanded at once.
He couldn't move. He didn't breathe.
He simply was.
And in that instant, something inside him—something deeper than thought, deeper than logic—opened like a door.
He didn't understand what he saw. But his soul did.
And then it was gone.
He fell back into gravity. Back into noise. Into time. Into the world.
Shin stepped from the seam of reality, not far from where the tower had first appeared. His boots landed gently on dry soil. He didn't speak. He only adjusted his coat, looked once at the sky, and walked.
—
Two days later, Shin sat quietly near the rear of the boarding gate lounge, resting his elbow on a bolted armrest. The ring on his finger was silent, but the gauntlet around his right arm pulsed faintly—not with heat, but presence. Like a device still running in standby.
He flexed his fingers.
The clawed black metal, now in its dormant form, wrapped around his forearm like a tight synthetic sleeve—matte, ridged, and strangely elegant. Mostly unnoticeable… if not for its subtle ridges and faint shimmer. It looked custom. Stylish even. But to those with sharp eyes, it might raise questions.
What surprised him most was how airport security didn't even flinch. He'd completely forgotten to unsummon it before the metal detector. He'd braced for an explanation—maybe even a scene. But nothing happened.
He blinked. The gauntlet was cold, dense, and tougher than steel, yet the machine hadn't reacted. What was this thing even made of?
Shin could tell the gauntlet wasn't made from a standard metal. It was way too light for that. It felt closer to divine fabric than any earthly alloy—a material designed to exist beyond human systems. Whatever material it used, it bypassed conventional interference. That, in itself, was useful intel.
He leaned back slightly, letting his shoulders sink.
His flight home would've landed him straight into customs. But even before stepping into the Lightning Tower, Shin had prepared a stopover. It wasn't paranoia. Just a safety precaution.
Shin always planned with caution.
His ticket had been split deliberately—first to Portugal for a brief "vacation," then home. He didn't want to arrive straight from Venezuela in case someone would ever flag him for tower-related activity.
It also gave him time. Time to test.
Time to breathe.
And, for once, time to relax.
The flight was uneventful. As the plane cruised above clouds, Shin closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift. The gauntlet rested peacefully under his sleeve. He didn't dare test its active function. Not here. But something had already shifted.
He could feel machines now. Not see or hear—feel.
Electrical signatures, current flow, everything from the underseat power ports and oxygen system above him to the magnetic field of the engines themselves—he could sense it all.
Not like static. But like a pulse—a hum in the bones.
So this is what resonance with Lightning feels like.
He didn't try to push further. He wasn't ready.
Not yet.