Gauge fell momentarily and landed on the hard ground within seconds. He stood up, tidied himself, and cleared his eyes to take a look at where the mist had brought him. Looking up at the sky, he saw not one but four suns in each direction—yet the sky was dark. The suns glowed faintly, as if they were lanterns lit in the distance on a dark night.
Gauge was confused. He had only expected a small enclosed area inside the hemisphere, but this was a whole new world. As he tried to convince himself to believe what he was seeing, he was suddenly pulled off the ground in a flash. The place where he had stood was now empty.
He realized a creature he had never seen before had abducted him. The creature stared into Gauge's eyes and asked,
"Who are you? How did you walk through such a powerful gate without a single scratch? What do you s—"
Swwoosshhh! Its head was suddenly cut off, and both fell. The body dropped dead, but the head, still alive, responded,
"Hey!! I was talking—that was rude."
Gauge, confused as to why it wasn't dead, looked at it with curious eyes and asked,
"What are you? Why aren't you dead?"
The head grew frustrated that some random guy had cut it off mid-sentence and then started questioning it.
"Those were my exact questions to you! But you were rude enough to cut off my head, and now you demand answers?"
Gauge's expression shifted from curiosity to a look of realization. He continued,
"Yes… and if you give me answers, at least your head will live."
The head looked up at the sky, sighed, and then returned its gaze to Gauge.
"I am a vampire of a higher order. I was banished from my planet and pushed into a powerful gate—from my world to the one we are standing in."
Gauge was genuinely confused. He raised the vampire's head and asked,
"A gate? What is a gate? Like the one back in my palace? Where is my palace—does it still exist?"
"Woah, woahhh kid," interrupted the vampire. As his neck began regenerating, his voice grew clearer.
"Seems like you're new to gatewalking. If you let me heal for a while, I'll show you around this planet. While we're at it, I'll answer your questions. In return for sparing me, I'll tell you everything I know about the gates."
The vampire proposed. Gauge agreed and gave him some time to heal. Once fully restored, the vampire stood on his feet and returned to a humanoid form. He looked like a lean old man with long silver hair and a French beard.
"I am Var'zek from the planet Nytherra. I was banished because I committed an act my people deemed immoral."
Nytherra—a planet of vampires and werewolves. It was constantly flooded with blood and lay as the farthest planet from the star of the Umbra system. Var'zek had grown tired of the endless wars and bloodshed. A smart young vampire, he aspired to study the cosmos, but the chaos of war made his planet unsafe to even walk on—let alone pursue knowledge.
On Nytherra, everyone was forced to fight in the war, and so was Var'zek.
The Dracula, king of the vampire kingdom, ordered:
"Every living vampire must shed blood. Anyone unwilling to fight for the kingdom will be banished."
Var had no choice but to fight. While others eagerly rushed through the rivers of blood, Var was uninterested in even running. One day, in the midst of battle, he found an injured werewolf—a female searching desperately for her missing pup. She was caught in the crossfire.
"Please spare me, I mean no harm!" she cried.
Var approached anyway, and her panic grew. "No, no!! Please—I just want to find my pup, she's gone missing!"
Noticing her leg bleeding profusely, Var tore a piece of his own fabric and tied a tourniquet around it, allowing her to escape.
This act of kindness was seen by other vampires. Disgusted, they reported him to their king.
In the courtroom of Nytherra, Var was shackled. The Dracula roared furiously:
"Your hands drip with betrayal, Var, and no shadow in the world will hide it."
He snapped his fingers to summon his elite vampires. In a cold tone, he commanded:
"This one is to be banished from Nytherra. Betrayal is the one thing we cannot accept."
Var begged desperately, falling to his knees.
"My lord, the werewolf I saved was only a civilian mother searching for her pup! I did not save one of their warriors…"
It changed nothing. He was dragged across the palace floors, through the blood-soaked battlefield, and thrown into a gate—similar to the one Gauge had walked through, though significantly smaller.
Present
Var and Gauge walked through a bazaar of some kind.
"And that's how I ended up in Xenith—a planet four systems away from my own. I had cosmic levels of luck because the gate I was thrown into led here, to Vel Kartha—the marketplace of Xenith. This place is a waypoint for many gatewalkers journeying across planets in search of resources," Var explained.
He was much older now than when he was cast into the gate. Thanks to Vel Kartha's advanced civilization, he had become a scholar of astrology.
"This planet had everything I needed—an open sky, skilled tutors, everything. So I learned all I could about the gates."
Gauge, intrigued, asked with genuine interest,
"Why gates?"
Var smiled like a teacher pleased with a curious student. A potential bond seemed to form between them.
"Well, that's the only thing worth learning about in Vel Kartha. You see, this place makes its living off the gates, giving it the name City of Gateways. The trade currency here is gate energy—the power surging within a gate. Everything here revolves around gates: studying them, researching them, harvesting their energy."
Gauge leaned in, listening intently. Noticing his interest, Var continued,
"Gates are like portals between worlds, except they're not natural phenomena. They were created when two celestial beings of equal power fought, distorting reality itself. This distortion linked distant parts of the universe. How far a gate sends you depends on the severity of the reality tear. In other words, the power of the gates is directly proportional to the strength of the beings who fought."
He smirked. "For example, the gate I was sent through was created when Dracula and Fenrisulvar—the King of Werewolves—clashed. Their battle created a warp spanning four systems. Pretty impressive, isn't it?"
Glancing at Gauge, who was lost in thought imagining the battle, Var nudged,
"Where are you from, kid?"
Gauge snapped back to reality and answered,
"Oh, me? I'm from Earth."
Var froze, shocked. He shook his head in disbelief and asked again,
"You're from Iyearth? The way books here in Vel Kartha describe it?"
Unsure why he repeated the question, Gauge thought for a moment and replied,
"Yes… I'm from Earth."
Var gripped Gauge's shoulders firmly and shouted,
"Kid!!! That's the Solar System! THAT'S 43 SYSTEMS AWAY FROM HERE!"
If two kings clashing could open a gate spanning four systems…
Then what kind of battle could have created a gate stretching across forty-three?
Next Chapter – The Gatekeeper