Chapter 105: 105. The Nether rift

The warehouse stood three stories tall with most of its windows broken. damaged wood with itspeeling paint. The door hung crooked on rusted hinges.

The wrongness pressed harder here.

Owen’s scales itched beneath his robe. His mana sense registered a distortion near, reality stretched thin like fabric pulled too tight.

“There.” Vorthraxx pointed at the warehouse’s western wall.

Owen saw it immediately. A tear in space roughly the height of a man, edges crackling with energy that hurt to look at directly.

Purple-black corruption leaked from the rift like infected blood from a wound. The air around it trembled with heat.

“How long has it been open?” Celeste asked.

“Three days according to it’s mana readings.” Vorthraxx moved closer, his Dragon’s Eye scanning the rift’s structure. “Stable rifts are worse than unstable ones. Means something on the other side is actively maintaining the connection.”

Owen activated his own Dragon’s Eye. The rift’s edges showed complex geometric patterns—not natural formation but deliberate construction. Something intelligent had carved this hole between realms.

Then there was a Movement inside the tear. Shadows shifting.

“Back up!” Owen said.

They retreated ten meters as the first demon emerged.

It came through low, its body designed for quadrupedal movement. Black scales covered limbs too long for its torso. Red eyes tracked them with predatory focus. Teeth filled a mouth that opened wider than anatomy should allow.

Two more followed. Then four. Then a dozen.

“How many are in there?” Celeste drew her sword. The blade caught light from the rift.

“Doesn’t matter.” Vorthraxx pulled his robe off, revealing his half-dragon form completely. Wings spread. Tail lashing around.

“We kill everything that comes through, then close the rift.”

The demons charged.

Vorthraxx met the first three head-on. His claws tore through the corrupted flesh with surgical precision. One demon tried to bite his arm off but its teeth shattered against his Indestructible Scales. He grabbed it by the throat and threw it into two others, creating a pile of thrashing limbs.

Owen moved right, intercepting four demons attempting to flank. His injuries slowed him but didn’t stop him. Momentum Shift redirected his body weight with ease.

The first demon lunged for his throat. He caught it mid-leap and slammed it into the ground hard enough to crack the pavement.

The second came from his blind side but Celeste’s sword took it through the spine before it reached him.

Owen spun to look at her. She had moved without sound, her blade already repositioning for the next strike. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Pure technique developed through practice.

The third demon tried for her exposed back. Owen’s tail caught it across the ribs and launched it twenty feet into a wall.

“Thanks,” Celeste said.

“Likewise.”

They fell into rhythm. Owen drew aggression, using his scales to absorb hits that would kill her. Celeste struck weak points he created—joints, necks, eyes.

Vorthraxx carved through the center mass, his Dragon’s Breath turning demons to ash.

More kept coming. The rift pulsed with each new arrival. Ten demons became twenty. Twenty became thirty.

“This is wrong,” Vorthraxx shouted over the combat. “Rifts don’t spawn this many. Something’s forcing them through.”

Owen activated his Sovereignty of Space-time. The world slowed. Demons moved through slowly while he operated at normal speed. He used the advantage to examine the rift more carefully.

There. Behind the flow of demons, a larger shape. Humanoid. Horns curving from a skull covered. Robes that billowed despite the lack of wind.

A demon mage.

“There’s a Mage in the back!” Owen released his Sovereignty. Time snapped back to normal. “It’s maintaining the rift!”

Vorthraxx incinerated three demons with a concentrated blast of Dragon’s Breath, creating a clear path. “Can you close it from here?”

“Not while it’s being actively maintained. We need to kill the mage first.”

“Then we’ll go through.”

“Through the rift?” Celeste cut down another demon, her breathing hard now. “Into the demon realm?”

“For about thirty seconds. Kill the mage. Rift collapses.” Vorthraxx made it sound simple.

Owen’s mind ran scenarios.

Entering the demon realm portal meant fighting on their territory with unknown numbers of enemies. But if they didn’t, the demons would keep coming until something worse than a mage decided to step through.

“Let’s Do it,” Owen said.

Vorthraxx grinned. “Stay here, Celeste. Guard our exit.”

“Like hell.” She moved to stand between them, sword raised. “You’re not leaving me behind.”

“This is—”

“Not negotiable.” Her blue eyes held steel. “I go or you don’t go. Choose.”

Vorthraxx looked at Owen like he expected support. Owen shrugged. “She held her own so far.”

“I hate you both.” But Vorthraxx’s tone carried reluctant acceptance. “Fine. Stay close. If something grabs you, I’m burning everything in a hundred-meter radius.”

They charged the rift together.

The transition was immediate and disorienting. Reality twisted. Gravity shifted. Owen’s inner ear screamed contradictory information about which direction was down.

Then they landed on solid ground that felt wrong beneath their feet.

The demon realm looked nothing like Owen expected. No fire. No brimstone. Just endless gray wasteland beneath a sky that held no sun. The mage stood fifty meters away, its hands raised toward the rift it was maintaining.

Demons surrounded them. Hundreds. All turning to face the intruders who had stepped into their territory.

“Thirty seconds,” Vorthraxx reminded them.

Owen didn’t waste time talking. He activated his Sovereignty of Space-time and accelerated straight toward the mage. Demons tried to intercept but moved too slowly in the distorted timestream.

He covered thirty meters in what felt like ten seconds to him, minutes to everyone else.

The mage saw him coming. Its hands shifted from maintaining the rift to casting offense.

Purple energy gathered in its palms.

Owen released his Sovereignty and dodged right. The spell blasted past him and cratered the ground where he’d been standing. He came around for another approach.

Vorthraxx’s Dragon’s Breath hit the mage from the side. The demon mage erected a barrier that absorbed most of the flames but not all. Its robes caught fire. It screamed.

Celeste appeared from nowhere. Her sword took the mage through the throat. The blade punched clean through and emerged red on the other side.

The mage collapsed.

The rift began to destabilize immediately. Its edges flickered. The connection weakening.

“Let’s get back! Now!” Vorthraxx grabbed Celeste and launched skyward. Owen followed on his own wings.

They dove through the rift seconds before it collapsed completely. The transition back to normal reality felt like being born—violent, disorienting, but ultimately successful.

They hit the warehouse floor hard. The rift behind them sealed with a sound like thunder. Demons on the other side screamed as their connection to the mortal realm severed.

Silence.

Owen pushed himself to his feet. His injuries had reopened. Blood seeped through his clothing. But he was alive.

Vorthraxx checked Celeste immediately.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” But her hands were shaking. Adrenaline crash hitting now that the immediate danger had passed.

Then Owen’s mana sense registered something.

He turned.

A figure stood in the warehouse doorway.

A Human. Male. Wearing clerical robes marked with religious symbols Owen didn’t recognize. The man’s eyes were locked on Celeste.

Specifically, on her sternum.

Where her sigil was glowing. Bright enough to see through her clothing. Responding to the combat. To the dimensional crossing. To whatever the hell it was designed to respond to.

“Oh,” the cleric said quietly. “Oh no.”

He turned and ran.

Vorthraxx started after him but Celeste grabbed his arm. “Let him go.”

“He saw—”

“I know what he saw.” Her voice was steady despite her shaking hands. “It doesn’t matter. The sigil exists whether people know about it or not.”

“It matters if they have their own thoughts of what it is.” Vorthraxx’s tail lashed in frustration. “The church will—”

“The church will do what it always does. Investigate. Question. Judge.” She looked down at her sternum where the glow was already fading. “I’ve lived with this mark for years. I’ll survive whatever comes next.”

Owen wasn’t so sure. The way that cleric had looked at her—that wasn’t curiosity.

That was recognition. And fear.

The kind of fear that got people burned at stakes.

“We should leave,” Owen said. “Before more witnesses arrive.”

They left the warehouse through a side exit. The streets were darker now. Evening had fallen while they fought. Lanterns lit windows. People moved through shadows on evening errands.

Nobody noticed three blood-covered figures slipping through alleys toward Celeste’s workshop.

But Owen couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

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