In the beautiful and vibrant metropolis of Megar, a dull rumor coursed through its foundations like an invisible current. Among its skyscrapers of glass and steel, the majestic Porcelux building stood out—a symbol of opulence and power, a colossus that seemed to defy the very sky.
Inside, behind armored doors and corridors carpeted with foreign silk, a group of men and women gathered in the main hall. The walls, covered in carved crystal panels, reflected distorted images of those present, as if every spoken word were mirrored in an unsettling echo.
"Mr. Ronald," said one of the researchers, nervously adjusting his glasses, "after reviewing the metrics provided by the government, we've reached a conclusion with 97% confidence."
Ronald, seated at the far end of the table, barely inclined his head. His gray, piercing eyes seemed to weigh every word before granting it meaning.
"Keep going."
An uncomfortable silence spread before another man, his voice deep and restrained, continued: "It's true. The Fissures are… mutating."
The air seemed to grow heavier. The word echoed like an omen in the hermetically sealed room.
"Mutating?" Ronald repeated, irritation edging his voice.
"Some of them show flaws in their algorithms," the scientist explained. "Which causes the interior of the Fissure… to collapse. They don't vanish outright, as we expected. The phenomenon is different."
"Speak clearly. I need a report fit for those fat cats." Ronald rapped the table lightly with his knuckles, the hollow sound reverberating against the walls.
It was then that a woman in a white lab coat, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, stepped forward. Her face was pale, but her tired eyes gleamed with a strange fascination.
"Mr. Ronald… Fissures with these flaws don't erase. They relocate. They exchange matter and resources with others. In the less significant cases, they merge with others of the same level. But we also observed a smaller percentage—8.5%—that merged with lower-ranked Fissures. And…" She hesitated, as if weighing the gravity of her words against the flicker of excitement, "in exceptional cases, 0.5%, with higher-ranked Fissures."
A muffled murmur rippled through the hall. Ronald leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
"And the stability of these fusions?"
"According to data from the Nightingale Family, they don't last beyond an hour. After that… they collapse."
"I see." Ronald narrowed his eyes like a predator sizing up prey. "Since I'm not hearing any convincing theories, I'll assume you have no idea why this is happening. Am I correct?"
The woman lowered her gaze.
"Yes, sir. We're sorry. The data isn't consistent enough to form a hypothesis."
"However," a bespectacled man who had been fidgeting with a stress ball finally spoke, "with the data we've gathered, we can predict to some extent which Fissure is about to collapse and merge with another. What we can't determine is whether it will combine with a higher or lower rank."
"And? Any permanent Fissures that could be affected by this strange phenomenon?"
"At the moment, no, Mr. Ronald. We only detected the flaw in a small, insignificant Fissure near the forest."
"Perfect. Use it as a test. I want clear results. I need to know whether the union will be upward or downward."
"At once, sir!"
The group rose almost in unison, bowing their heads before leaving with hurried steps. The doors closed behind them, leaving the powerful Ronald alone.
The silence weighed heavier than any word spoken. The opulent hall, once filled with murmurs and tension, now felt like a glittering coffin.
Ronald leaned back into his chair, rubbing his temples slowly. The scientist's stress ball still spun in his memory like a bad omen.
"Ah… damn it… what the hell is happening?"
The mutter slipped from his throat like a broken prayer. He closed his eyes, but his mind found no calm—only a storm of images. Fissures fusing like ravenous mouths. And above all, a dark certainty that refused to leave him: the certainty that the world was about to enter a new era. Once again.
His grandfather had been one of the pioneers in the exploration, study, and exploitation of the Fissures. Those phenomena that, even a century later, still mocked human comprehension.
They had been born without warning. The sky hadn't thundered, the earth hadn't quaked—they had simply appeared. Impossible spaces that overlapped with the tangible reality of man, tearing apart the boundary between what was meant to exist… and what should never have been revealed.
At first, nothing happened. But it was obvious that couldn't last.
Chaos came swiftly. Infernal creatures, so grotesque they seemed like warped caricatures of known animals, began to pour out of those dimensional wounds. They vaguely resembled wolves, deer, birds; but their flesh writhed as if someone had painted their bodies with strokes of nightmare. And they danced—yes, obscenely danced—among the dead and the living, as if celebrating an eternal feast.
A shiver ran down his spine. He could still feel the frozen tremor of those accounts. He remembered his father showing him old recordings on static-filled screens: footage of armed men shouting and firing to no avail, while something faceless devoured them slowly. His father's voice would always drop at the end of each tale, as if trying to bury the fear that had never left him.
Two whole decades of senseless wars. Cities reduced to dust, seas stained with blood, mountain ranges turned into graveyards of rusted steel. Humanity had been cornered, exhausted, its hope shattered.
And then… they appeared.
The Hunters. No one knows who was the first or where the revelation took place. Some say it was a young man in the ruins of Moscow, others a woman on the shores of Japan. It hardly matters now. The only truth is that, when humanity stood on the brink of extinction, a group of men and women emerged wielding an impossible, almost divine power. They repelled the Ethereals again and again, driving them back into the Fissures.
The old man sighed. Memory weighed on him like lead. His fingers, hardened by years, slid across his whitish beard streaked with darker strands. A mixture of pride and bitterness stirred in his chest.
Now, decades after that salvation, he faced a new problem. One that neither the strength of the Hunters nor the experience of his lineage could resolve with ease.
His weary gaze lifted toward the horizon. The city lights gleamed cold and indifferent, as if unaware of the fragility of their existence.
A memory came to him—of someone with radical ideas. That person had told him, so many decades ago, that the time for the world to change was drawing near.
"I don't have a good feeling about all of this."
The hall's clock marked another minute, and the metallic tick of the second hand sounded gloomier than ever.