Chapter 23 — The Shattering Threshold
Red emergency lights strobed across Nexus Station's metal corridors, painting every surface in violent flashes. The air shuddered with low-frequency vibrations as the generator ring deep beneath the station powered up—uncommanded, unstable, and drawing energy not from Earth's grid… but from the rift itself.
Alex Grams raced through the upper levels with Cheng Mu and the remaining Thunder Division soldiers close behind. Sparks rained from ruptured conduits in the ceiling, and the floor trembled as if the building were breathing.
Sana's voice crackled through Alex's wrist-comm.
"Alex, the primary rift's pulse frequency is rising—fast. This isn't natural. Something is forcing it open."
Alex didn't slow."That beast is acting like a key. Whatever it absorbed from the stabilizer conduit is letting it interface with the generator ring."
Cheng Mu cursed as a chunk of ceiling crashed behind them."So it can control our tech and qi structures? Great. Perfect. Why not give it a doctorate too?"
Alex ignored him. His eyes burned with focus.
The beast wasn't acting instinctively.It had intent.
And if it succeeded in overriding the generator ring, the primary rift could widen enough to swallow several miles of territory… or collapse entirely and implode the surrounding region.
Neither option was survivable.
They reached the elevator shaft. The doors were jammed open, sparks flickering across the rails.
"Down?" Cheng Mu asked.
"No time." Alex stepped to the edge. "We jump."
Cheng blinked. "We what—?"
Alex jumped.
His exo-boots absorbed most of the fall, metal clanging as he landed on a lower catwalk. He rolled, came up running. Above, Cheng Mu's shout echoed as he followed, landing hard enough to dent the grating.
A soldier landed less gracefully, groaning but alive.
Alex pointed forward."Sector D-01. Generator control hub."
He sprinted.
Generator Ring Level
Heat washed over them the moment they stepped into the generator chamber. Blue-white arcs of spatial energy crawled across the curved metal ribs that formed the massive ring suspended in the center of the cavernous space.
The ring was built to strengthen the primary rift's stability.
But now it was doing the opposite.
Each arc of energy snapped violently, distorting the air.The ring wasn't stabilizing the rift.
It was amplifying it.
And at the center—standing atop the diagnostic platform—was the spirit beast.
It had grown.
Its body seemed larger now, runes brighter, as if feeding on the generator's output. Its eyes glowed with silver fire, and each breath warped the space around it like ripples on a pond.
Cheng Mu whispered, "Oh hell… it's using the generator as a cultivation furnace."
The beast turned toward them slowly.
Alex felt the pressure instantly.
This wasn't a Level Two beast anymore.
It was crossing into Level Three.
A monster capable of tearing through armored battalions… or destabilizing a planet's dimensional boundaries with a single roar.
Alex raised his disruptor device."Spread out. Keep its attention off the ring!"
The beast leaped.
Faster than before.Faster than any creature that size should move.
Cheng Mu dove aside as a claw swipe sliced through the air, leaving a vapor trail of distorted space. A soldier fired his plasma rifle—only for the beast to flicker out of sight and reappear behind him.
Alex fired the disruptor.
A blue pulse slammed into the beast's flank.
The runes flickered.
The beast staggered, snarling as smoke rose from its glowing cracks. For a moment, Alex saw hope.
Then the beast roared.
A shockwave blasted outward.Alex slammed into a railing.Cheng Mu hit the wall with a grunt.Two soldiers went flying off the catwalk entirely.
Alex forced himself up despite the ringing in his head.
The disruptor worked… but only briefly.As the beast absorbed more spatial energy, its resistance grew.
"Alex!" Cheng Mu shouted, pointing at the ring.
The beast's claws plunged into the generator's central column.Spatial energy flared around it like a storm.
The generator hummed dangerously—
VRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMM—
Alex's eyes widened.
"They're syncing frequencies. At this rate—"
"The rift will rip open on its own," Cheng finished grimly.
Alex clenched his teeth. He only had one option left.
He climbed onto the main walkway and sprinted toward the beast.
Cheng shouted, "Alex! What the hell are you doing?"
Alex didn't answer.
He reached into his coat, pulling out a compact cylinder—a raw, unstable fragment of the Adaptive Resonance Core. He had kept it for emergency calibration tests.
It wasn't meant to be detonated.
But it could disrupt the generator ring's overload cycle.
Or vaporize everything in fifty meters.
He ran.
The beast sensed him.
It twisted sharply, runes blazing with killing intent, and lunged.
Alex ducked—but not fast enough. Claws raked across his arm, ripping through the exo-sleeve and sending him flying across the platform.
Pain exploded through him.
The cylinder rolled from his hand, clattering toward the edge.
"Alex!" Cheng Mu charged forward, slamming into the beast with his entire exo-suit's force. Metal groaned as man and monster collided.
The beast snapped at him, jaws closing inches from Cheng's throat.Cheng roared and drove his armored fist into its eye, forcing it back a step.
Alex crawled toward the cylinder, vision blurring.
Sana's voice crackled through the comm.
"Alex! The rift is widening! If you don't shut the generator down now—"
He grabbed the cylinder.
He staggered to his feet.
He aimed it at the generator's energy conduit.
"Cheng! Get clear!"
Cheng heard him—barely—and rolled away as the beast lunged.
Alex activated the fragment.
The device screamed, a rising metallic whine as dangerous as it was exhilarating.
The beast looked toward Alex.It sensed the danger.
It charged.
Alex hurled the resonance fragment at the conduit.
The world exploded in light.
BOOOOOOOOM—
The blast wasn't fire, or heat, or raw projectile force.
It was resonance.
A wave of destabilizing energy rippled across the generator ring. The blue arcs sputtered, flickered, and finally—
DIED.
The hum of the machine collapsed into silence.
The beast shrieked, its runes fracturing like broken glass as the energy sustaining it was abruptly cut.
Cheng Mu dragged Alex behind a support column just as the beast thrashed violently, its body cracking, leaking silver light.
It roared one last time—
—and imploded into a storm of sparks and fracturing qi, dissolving into fine dust that fluttered across the chamber.
Silence followed.
Then a deep, low groan echoed through the station.
The metal walls trembled.
Sana's voice came through the comm—shaking.
"Alex… you stopped the generator. But the rift—"
Alex could barely breathe."What about it…?"
Sana exhaled.
"The rift didn't close."
Alex froze.
"It's stabilizing… on its own."
The air chilled.
Cheng Mu helped Alex stand.
"What does that mean?" Cheng asked.
Alex stared at the dust left behind by the beast.
"It means… something on the other side is forcing it stable."
Cheng's face paled."A cultivator army?"
Alex shook his head slowly.
"No. Something stronger."
A wave of dread washed over the room.
The rift wasn't opening because Earth was unstable.It wasn't opening because the beast damaged the generators.
It was opening because Blue Star wanted it open.
And now?
Now they could come through at any moment.
Alex whispered the truth aloud, the one no one wanted to say:
"They're ready for invasion."