Chapter 48: Friend or Foe
Somewhere in the rift stood professor Leo and some students
Professor Leo raised his hand, signaling his students to freeze as the massive centipede-like creature slithered through the rubble ahead of them. Its segmented body stretched nearly twenty meters, each section armored with chitinous plates that gleamed wetly in the dim light. Dozens of legs tapped against stone with a sound like rain on metal, while compound eyes the size of dinner plates swept the battlefield for prey.
"Nobody move," Leo whispered, his voice barely audible even to the students pressed close behind him. He could feel their awakened abilities humming with barely contained power, their fear mixing with desperate readiness to fight if discovered.
The centipede’s head swiveled in their direction, mandibles clicking with predatory interest. Leo counted silently thirty-two students still with him from his original group. Seven lost to this nightmare realm’s endless hunger over the past three days.
’How did we end up here?’ Leo thought grimly, watching the creature’s slow approach. ’How did any of this happen?’
The memory hit him unbidden that first moment of arrival in this dimensional nightmare, when confusion and terror had given way to something far worse: realization.
***Three days ago...***
’The dimensional tear had deposited them like debris from a storm. Students and professors scattered across a battlefield that stretched beyond the horizon. Leo’s first instinct had been to gather whoever he could find, to take inventory who was injured, who was missing, what resources they had.’
"Professor," came a whispered voice tight with confusion. "Look behind us."
Leo had turned, expecting to see the familiar void of the dimensional.
But this... this was different.
The rift hanging in the air behind them glowed with pure, brilliant white light. Clean illumination that seemed to push back the oppressive darkness of this realm like a beacon of hope. The edges weren’t the ragged, unstable tears he’d seen in every dimensional incident report. They were smooth, controlled, deliberately crafted.
Leo’s academic mind reeled with the implications. White rifts were theoretical constructs, mathematical possibilities that existed only in the most advanced dimensional theory research.
"That’s impossible," he’d whispered, watching the portal pulse with controlled energy.
Then it began to close.
The white light contracted inward with mechanical precision, edges drawing together like a wound being stitched shut by invisible hands. In moments, it was gone, leaving them stranded in this hellscape with no way home.
"Professor," one of his students had asked, voice cracking with barely controlled panic, "how do we get back?"
Leo had stared at the empty air where their salvation had been, his mind struggling to process what he’d witnessed. White rifts weren’t just theoretical they were supposedly impossible.
Yet here they were.
"We survive," he’d answered, because it was the only response that mattered. "We survive until someone comes for us"
But even as he’d spoken the words, Leo’s mind was calculating terrible possibilities. If someone had the power to create controlled white rifts, they had capabilities that dwarfed anything the kingdom understood about dimensional manipulation. This wasn’t an accident or an awakening gone wrong.
This was an attack.******
Back in the present, the centipede had decided they were worth investigating. Its massive head lowered toward their hiding spot, mandibles spreading wide enough to reveal rows of serrated teeth that could shear through steel.
"Professor," one of his remaining students whispered urgently. "It’s not hunting normally. Something’s driving it toward us. Like it’s running from something worse."
Leo’s blood ran cold. If A-Class predators were fleeing from something in this realm, what did that say about whatever was approaching?
"On my mark, we move for those collapsed structures," he ordered quietly. "Stay together, no matter what happens."
The white rift haunted his thoughts even as death approached on dozens of chitinous legs. Something had brought them here deliberately. Something with power that dwarfed anything Leo understood about dimensional manipulation.
They ran as the centipede struck, its massive form crashing through the rubble where they’d been hiding just seconds before.
"Professor Harold! Behind you!"
Leo spun to see another threat emerging from the rubble a pack of razor-backed wolves, their metallic spines gleaming as they bounded toward the fleeing group. These weren’t running from anything. They were coordinating their attack with the centipede.
’They’re herding us,’ Leo realized with dawning horror. ’This isn’t random predation. These creatures are working together.’
"Lyanna, ice barriers on our left flank!" he shouted to one of his students. "Everyone else, defensive formations now!"
She responded with trained precision despite their exhaustion. Three days of constant survival had burned away their academic hesitation, leaving only the desperate competence of people who’d learned that mistakes meant death.
Lyanna’s ice crystallized in the air, creating jagged walls that forced the wolves to redirect their approach. Other students layered their abilities wind barriers to deflect projectiles, stone spikes to control movement, enhanced speed for the group’s weaker members.
But Leo could see the mathematical inevitability approaching. They were thirty-two exhausted people facing creatures designed to hunt in coordinated packs. Their essence reserves were running low, their bodies pushed beyond normal limits, their equipment damaged from three days of constant fighting.
The centipede’s tail whipped around, trying to cut off their escape route to the collapsed structures.
"We’re not going to make it," he admitted to himself, even as he shouted encouragement to his students.
That’s when the sound reached them a low, harmonic vibration that seemed to resonate through the very air. The attacking creatures froze mid-charge, their predatory focus suddenly scattered as if something had disrupted their coordination.
Leo felt it too a presence approaching from deeper in the battlefield. Something that made the hair on his arms stand up and filled his mouth with the taste of copper and ozone.
The centipede began backing away, its previous aggression replaced by obvious wariness. The wolves scattered entirely, disappearing into the rubble with whimpers that sounded almost grateful to escape.
"What’s happening?" Lyanna asked, her ice barriers still glowing with defensive energy.
Leo stared into the darkness beyond their position, his enhanced senses picking up movement that felt both familiar and utterly alien. "Something’s coming. Something that even A-Class predators fear."
The harmonic vibration grew stronger, and with it came the unmistakable sensation of awakened power but not like anything Leo had ever encountered. This felt ancient, refined, controlled in ways that made Academy training seem like children playing with toys.
"Stay close," he ordered his students, uncertainty replacing his earlier confidence. "Whatever’s approaching, it might be our salvation or our doom."
In the distance, a figure began to emerge from the perpetual gloom. Tall, moving with fluid grace despite the treacherous terrain, radiating power that made the air itself seem to bend in response.
*Another human. But who ? And how are they still alive after three days in this hell?*
The figure raised one hand in what might have been greeting or warning, and Leo felt his students tense behind him, ready to fight or flee at his command.
But something in that gesture, in the careful way the stranger approached, suggested neither threat nor simple rescue. This felt like an encounter that would change everything again.