The ravine widened abruptly.
Not into open land—but into a scar.
Stone walls gave way to a basin where the ground had collapsed inward, forming a jagged bowl nearly two hundred meters across. The air inside it felt heavier, dense with unregulated Resonance that clung to the skin like static.
Darian Holt stopped the column immediately.
"No further," he said. "Everyone hold."
Maren's construct reacted before she spoke. Its filaments snapped taut, sigils distorting as if pulled toward something below.
"This isn't a nest," she said flatly. "This is contamination."
A third-year shield bearer swallowed. "Sir… how bad?"
Maren rotated the projection.
What appeared wasn't a single trail, but dozens—overlapping, spiraling, intersecting. Resonance stains layered so thick they obscured the stone beneath.
"Beast cores ruptured here," she said. "Multiple times. Different sizes. Different ages."
Mark's jaw tightened. "Something's killing them."
Liria crouched, pressing her hand to the ground. "No. Something's changing them."
A low sound rolled through the basin.
Not a roar.
A vibration.
Then movement.
The first beast emerged from the far slope—larger than the one they'd fought, its mineral plating warped, asymmetrical. One forelimb dragged uselessly behind it, yet it moved faster than it should have been able to.
Then another.
Then three more.
"Count," Darian ordered.
"Five," someone said.
"No," Maren corrected sharply. "Seven. Two are under the surface."
The ground broke open.
Creatures hauled themselves free, cores visible through fractured chests—glowing not blue, but sickly white, the Resonance inside them unstable, boiling.
"Formation!" Darian shouted.
Too late.
One beast surged forward—not charging the shield line, but leaping.
It cleared twenty meters.
A striker screamed as it landed among them, sweeping an arm through three students like dolls.
"Medic down!" someone yelled.
"Maren!" Darian barked.
"I see them!"
She ran.
Resonance flared from her machines, splitting into multiple streams as she slid to her knees beside a crushed student. His leg was mangled, bone exposed, Resonance flickering weakly through his body.
"I need pressure!" she snapped. "Shield—NOW!"
A tank slammed his barrier down as another beast struck it from the side, cracking the projection.
Mark intercepted, his greatblade coated thick with Resonance, cleaving into the beast's neck. The impact should have killed it.
It didn't.
The creature convulsed, core flaring violently—and then it split.
Two smaller beasts tore free from its mass, shrieking.
"What the hell is that?" a student shouted.
"That's not natural division," Liria said, backing away as she impaled one through the skull. "That's forced replication."
Darian fired a Resonance pulse into the air. "All units, fall back to perimeter! Do not cluster!"
Another scream.
A third-year tank went down, his shield shattering as a beast's core detonated on contact, throwing corrupted Resonance outward like shrapnel.
Maren flinched as the wave hit.
Her construct flickered.
"No—stay with me," she hissed, slamming her palm down, forcing stabilization through brute focus.
The wounded student gasped as the Resonance steadied—but only barely.
"I can't hold them all," she said, voice tight. "Their bodies are rejecting the environment. It's interfering with healing."
"Then prioritize," Darian said grimly.
She looked up at him, eyes sharp. "I am."
A shadow passed overhead.
Everyone looked up.
The air above the basin rippled—folded.
Not tearing like fractured-plane rifts.
This was cleaner.
Structured.
The light bent inward, forming a circular distortion suspended three meters above the ground.
Silence fell for half a second.
Then something stepped out.
Humanoid.
Tall.
Encased in angular armor threaded with unfamiliar Resonance patterns. Its presence didn't distort the flow—it overrode it.
Mark froze.
"That's not a beast."
The figure raised one hand.
Every beast in the basin stopped.
Then they knelt.
A third-year whispered, terrified, "They're responding to it."
Maren's sensors went wild.
"That Resonance signature—" she said, breath hitching. "It's not local. It's not fractured-plane either."
The figure spoke.
Its voice carried without effort, translated cleanly by the Resonance itself.
"This world is collapsing inefficiently."
Darian stepped forward, weapon raised. "Identify yourself."
The figure tilted its head.
"We are survival."
Then it gestured downward.
The basin pulsed.
The ground cracked open further, revealing something embedded beneath the stone—an ancient conduit, larger than any Maren had ever seen, its surface etched with symbols that matched none of the Academy's records.
The conduit flared.
A beacon.
Maren went pale. "It's marking the site. Broadcasting."
"To where?" Liria demanded.
Maren didn't answer immediately.
Her machines finally resolved the signal path.
"…Another world."
The figure turned its gaze toward the students.
"Your Empire delayed integration," it said calmly. "Now you will be absorbed."
Mark moved instantly.
His blade struck the figure dead center.
The impact rang like steel on void.
The blade bounced back—shattered.
Mark staggered, shock ripping through his arms.
The figure didn't move.
Behind it, the distortion widened.
More shapes pressed against the threshold.
Darian didn't hesitate.
"All units," he roared, "full retreat! Emergency extraction—NOW!"
Maren hauled the wounded student onto her back, blood slicking her uniform as she forced her construct into overload.
"I can't shut the beacon down!" she shouted. "It's not powered from here!"
The figure watched them go.
Unhurried.
Certain.
As the skimmer tore skyward, the basin below burned with white Resonance light, the beacon piercing the sky like a spear.
Far away—beyond the capital, beyond the Academy—
Something answered.
And the first incursion was no longer theoretical.