The portal shimmered like liquid silver framed in cracked obsidian, its surface rippling with images that shifted between the black marble of the shattered nexus chamber and the familiar dusty horizon of southern Punjab. Mango orchards in golden afternoon light. The slow, wide flow of the Indus under Taunsa Barrage. Minarets catching the call to prayer at dusk. A bicycle leaning against a brick wall beside a small courtyard where laundry fluttered on lines.
Aelar Thorne—Ahmed Khan once more in his own mind—stood at the threshold, one foot in Elandria, one hovering over the threshold of home. Behind him, his companions formed a loose semicircle: Vyrath coiled protectively, cobalt scales still warm from battle; Kira in her human-like form, silver hair tousled, claws retracted but ready; Vixen with tail gently swaying, amber eyes soft; Sylara perched on a broken pillar, frost-kissed wings half-spread; Lirael with bow slung across her back; Borin leaning on his axe like a staff; Ren and Mira watching quietly from the flanks.
The air in the citadel still smelled of scorched stone, ozone, and fading corruption, but a clean wind now blew through the broken roof, carrying the first hints of rain.
No one spoke for a long moment.
Finally Aelar turned to them.
"I'm going through," he said simply. "Not to stay. Not yet. I need to see them. Tell them I'm alive. Bring back proof that this world is real… and that I'll return."
Vixen stepped forward first, placing a soft hand on his forearm. "How long?"
"A week in your time, maybe two. The Veil Key should keep the portal stable. If time flows differently… I'll come back sooner."
Kira's blue eyes searched his face. "You'll carry our scents with you. Our howls. Our promises."
Aelar smiled, small and genuine. "And mangoes. I'm bringing mangoes back for all of you."
Sylara tilted her head, smoke curling from her nostrils in amusement. "Fruit from another world. The hatchlings will demand stories."
Lirael placed a slender hand over her heart in the elven gesture of parting. "The trees will remember you. When you return, they will bloom brighter."
Borin grunted, wiping an eye with the back of a gauntleted hand. "Don't forget the ale recipe, lad. The non-alcoholic one. Dwarves can adapt."
Ren smirked, tail flicking. "Bring some of those spicy flatbreads you described. I want to see if they burn as much as you claim."
Aelar laughed—the first real, unguarded laugh since the final battle. It echoed strangely in the ruined hall.
Then he stepped forward.
The portal swallowed him in cool light.
Kot Addu, June 15, 2025 (Elandrian calendar alignment uncertain)
The heat hit him first—dry, baking, familiar. The scent of sun-baked dust, diesel from passing trucks, ripe mangoes from a nearby cart, and the faint smoke of wood-fired tandoors.
He stood in the exact spot he had vanished from: the concrete ledge near Taunsa Barrage, bicycle still propped against the railing as though he had only stepped away for a minute. Except now the sun was lower, shadows longer. A family picnicked fifty meters away; children laughed as they splashed in shallow water. No one had noticed his sudden reappearance.
Ahmed Khan looked down at himself.
The dragon-rider harness was gone. The sword at his hip had become an ordinary-looking sheathed knife—still razor-sharp, but disguised by Veil magic. His shalwar kameez was clean, unbloodied, as though freshly laundered. Only the faint glow beneath his skin and the new height and breadth of his shoulders betrayed that he was no longer quite the same young man who had left.
He touched his face. A short beard had grown—perhaps a side effect of time differential or High Human physiology. He looked older. Not aged, but seasoned.
He walked.
The bicycle was still rideable. He mounted it, legs remembering the motion instantly, and pedaled toward home.
The streets of Kot Addu unfolded like a dream he had almost forgotten: narrow lanes lined with brick houses, children playing cricket in dusty lots, women in bright dupattas carrying shopping bags, men on motorbikes weaving through traffic with practiced ease. The call to Asr prayer drifted from a nearby mosque. Everything was painfully, beautifully ordinary.
His family's house appeared at the end of the lane—same mango trees, same iron gate slightly rusted, same jasmine climbing the wall.
He dismounted, heart hammering louder than any wyvern wingbeat.
The gate creaked as he pushed it open.
"Assalamu alaikum?" His voice cracked on the familiar greeting.
Silence for two heartbeats.
Then his mother's voice from inside: "Kaun hai?"
The door flew open.
His mother froze, hand to her mouth. His younger sisters appeared behind her, eyes wide. His father stepped out from the veranda, newspaper forgotten in his hand.
Ahmed stood there, taller, broader, eyes carrying storms and starlight.
"Beta…" his mother whispered.
Then she was running, dupatta slipping, arms wrapping around him so tightly he could barely breathe.
Tears came then—for all of them.
The next hours passed in a blur of questions, embraces, food pressed into his hands, endless cups of chai.
He told them everything.
Not as a fantasy story, but as truth.
The portal. The transformation into a High Human. The Sign-In System. The myriad races. The battles. Vorath. The bonds—carefully described as deep friendships and alliances, though his mother's knowing eyes caught the deeper layers when he spoke of Kira, Vixen, Sylara.
He showed them proof: a small mango-sized crystal from the Aerie Sanctum that glowed softly when he willed it. A single dragon scale from Vyrath—iridescent cobalt, warm to the touch. The faint shimmer on his skin when he let the High Human aura surface just enough.
His father listened in silence for a long time.
Finally: "You're different now. Not just taller."
Ahmed nodded. "I'm still your son. Still Ahmed Khan. But I'm also Aelar Thorne. I carry two worlds."
His youngest sister, barely twelve, tugged his sleeve. "Do they have mangoes there?"
He laughed. "Not like ours. I'm bringing some back for them."
His mother wiped her eyes. "Then take the best ones from the tree. The ones your father guards like gold."
That night, after Isha prayer, he sat on the roof with his father under a sky full of stars.
"You could stay," his father said quietly.
"I could," Ahmed admitted. "But people—good people—depend on me there. They're building something new. A place where different kinds of people don't just tolerate each other… they become family."
His father looked at the stars for a long time.
"Then go back. But come back often. Bring your… friends. Let us meet them."
Ahmed's throat tightened. "InshaAllah."
Seven days in Kot Addu passed like breathing.
He helped in the fields. Fixed the old water pump with engineering knowledge now laced with dwarven rune intuition. Taught his sisters self-defense moves that blended elven grace and Beastkin ferocity. Ate his mother's biryani until he thought he would burst. Listened to Pathanay Khan cassettes with his grandmother, who patted his hand and said, "Your voice has changed, beta. It carries mountains now."
On the eighth morning he gathered a crate of the ripest mangoes, a stack of parathas wrapped in cloth, several packets of spices, a small prayer rug his mother insisted he take, and a letter from his family to "the people who kept our son alive."
He returned to the barrage at the same hour he had left.
The portal waited, patient silver light.
He stepped through.
The citadel chamber was transformed.
Sunlight poured through the broken roof. Vines—elven-grown—had already begun climbing the black marble, softening edges. Flowers bloomed in cracks where corruption once festered. The nexus pedestal now held a stable, two-way portal frame carved by dwarven masons and inlaid with dragonkin scales.
His companions waited.
Vyrath lifted his head first. You smell of sun-warmed earth and strange sweet fruit.
Kira grinned, showing sharp teeth. "You grew a beard."
Vixen's tail swished eagerly. "And you brought gifts."
Aelar—A Ahmed—set the crate down.
"Mangoes from Kot Addu," he announced. "Spices. Parathas. And a letter from my mother inviting you all to visit when the portal is ready for safe travel."
Borin sniffed the crate suspiciously, then took a mango and bit into it. Juice ran into his beard.
"By the forge…" he mumbled around a mouthful. "This is worth fighting another war for."
Laughter echoed—bright, healing.
Later, as the sun set over the Black Spires (already less black, lightening toward gray), Aelar sat with his closest bonds on the citadel roof.
Vixen leaned against his shoulder. "You chose to come back."
"I did."
Kira rested her head on his other shoulder. "Will you live between worlds now?"
"Yes. A bridge. That's what High Humans were always meant to be."
Sylara spread a wing over them like a blanket. "Then we will fly between them with you."
Aelar looked at the twin horizons—one showing Elandria's moons rising, the other (through the open portal) Kot Addu's familiar stars.
He signed in one final time—not for power, but for memory:
Sign-In Location: Bridge of Worlds (Personal – Eternal).
Reward: Dual-World Anchor (Instant travel between stabilized portals), Title Upgrade: Eternal Unifier – "He Who Carries Two Suns", Personal Trait: Cultural Conduit (Automatically translates customs, foods, stories, songs between worlds without loss of meaning).
The system prompt shimmered one last time:
Quest Complete: Sign-In Saga – From Kot Addu to Elandria
Final Level: 18
Legacy Unlocked: The Bridge Realms
He closed the interface.
No more levels needed.
Only life.
He stood, took Vixen's hand in one, Kira's in the other, and walked toward the portal.
"Ready to taste real mangoes?" he asked the others.
Borin was already carrying the crate like treasure.
"Lead on, lad."
And so the unifier stepped between worlds—not leaving one for the other, but carrying both forward into a shared tomorrow.