Leo got out of his car, stepping onto the cracked asphalt of the university perimeter. The armored convoy, requisitioned—no doubt—by Harold's frantic calls to whatever remained of the National Magical Research Institute's intact infrastructure, halted with a jarring lurch just beyond a series of concrete barriers.
The tires screeched slightly against debris-strewn pavement as the lead vehicle came to a stop. Leo's boots hit the ground, and the familiar sensation of weight and balance in his prosthetic hand reminded him that he was here, now, fully present.
Beyond the reinforced fences, a restless sea of humanity surged. The crowd moved like a living organism, pressing and swaying, some craning for a better look, others shouting. News crews had sprouted everywhere, cameras flashing erratically, lights blinding, their operators pushing against one another to capture the best angle. Reporters shouted questions into microphones, their voices cracking with excitement, panic, or sheer disbelief. Legnus could see the famous Kara Miles, the city news anchor, pushing through the crowd. Her voice, even muffled through the armored glass, carried the cadence of controlled panic, an attempt to rationalize what no one could rationalize.
"This is Kara Miles reporting live—if you can hear me—at the National Magical Research Institute's university campus, where the unexpected has become the impossible. The pillars, massive, metallic, and black, remain in place despite all efforts to understand them. Officials say they are assessing safety—but the human reaction…"
A protestor nearby interrupted, waving a banner high over his head. "This is the end! The pillars are weapons sent to punish us! We must prepare!"
From atop an overturned crate, a wiry man shouted, gesturing wildly. "The cosmic authorities are watching us! They have chosen this moment, chosen this place! Open your eyes, people!" Legnus recognized him faintly as Liam Stroud, a conspiracy theorist whose videos had once been a strange diversion for students of the Institute.
Others knelt or bowed in a silent, almost ecstatic reverence, whispering prayers to the black-metallic spires, as if they were gods descending for judgment or enlightenment. Some placed hands on the concrete barriers, chanting in low tones, their voices trembling with a mix of fear and devotion.
Legnus felt the familiar curl of disdain in his gut. Humans, he thought, were endlessly predictable. The tendency to turn the unknown into either scapegoat or god, to polarize instantly, was as constant as the sun's rising. He was twenty-two, a former prodigy who had navigated the labyrinthine halls of academia and magical research institutions with remarkable speed, always noticing patterns others ignored. And this—this chaotic display of reverence, fear, and raw human emotion—was exactly the sort of phenomenon that should be analyzed, measured, understood, catalogued.
The door beside him hissed open. Security Captain Mason Lee, a stocky, hardened man in his mid-thirties, appeared. His eyes, sharp and calculating, measured Legnus from head to toe, suspicion tempered by grudging respect.
"Dr. Cross," Lee said, his tone clipped, professional. "Dr. Grant vouched for you. We don't need complications. Keep it simple."
"I always do," Legnus replied, voice calm, almost indifferent, though his gray-blue eyes swept the area like a radar.
Lee nodded once, then gestured for him to move past the checkpoint. His team, armed and alert, flanked the path, scanning every angle. Legnus passed through, noting the placement of emergency vehicles, the barriers, and the barricades, storing the tactical layout in his mind.
As they moved deeper into the campus, the devastation became clear. The quadrangle was flattened, rubble and twisted metal scattered where once pristine lawns had existed. Recovery teams moved with purposeful urgency. Their radios crackled with terse updates. A young officer called out, "Debris cleared from the west wing! Proceeding to sector three!" Another shouted, "Medical teams on the east perimeter! Injuries stable but numerous!"
And then he saw it.
The black-metallic pillar rose from the heart of the ruins, impossible in scale, impossibly smooth, piercing the bruised morning sky. Buildings nearby seemed miniature, dwarfed by its presence. The surface absorbed light, yet it pulsed faintly, a rhythm almost like a heartbeat. Legnus's breath caught. He had seen its distant silhouette from his penthouse, but proximity altered perception. This was no longer a silhouette or a rumor. This was the world asserting itself anew, demanding recalibration of every assumption, every rule, every law he had learned or discovered.
As they passed within a few hundred yards, his prosthetic hand began to hum. Not an audible hum, but a vibration deep in the servos, up through the neural interface. It was not a malfunction. It was a connection. The pillar—this impossible, alien, undeniable structure—was communicating, subtly, through the interface he had built himself, bypassing sound, bypassing sight, bypassing everything but direct sensory input.
From the laboratory tent, a familiar figure rushed toward him. Dr. Harold Grant, fifty-four, his former mentor, lab coat stained and hair frazzled, practically ran to meet him.
"Leo! You made it!" Harold's voice was rapid, frantic. He clapped Legnus on the shoulder, surprising him with the firmness of the gesture. "The last twenty-four hours—nightmare, absolute nightmare! Everything is chaos! Theories, hypotheses, experiments, and all of it—gone! Vanished! People are saying… I don't know what they are saying. Aliens, magic, apocalypse—I've heard it all, Leo!"
Legnus raised an eyebrow, still scanning the pillar. "So, same as usual, then. Just with more alien architecture," he said dryly.
Harold waved a hand, flustered. "No, no, this is… different! We tried everything! Scanners, magical instruments, Awakened talents—we have someone on-site trying to measure density, another checking thermal signatures, a dozen teams trying to scratch the surface—and nothing! Nothing! It is… impervious, incomprehensible, cold, yet pulsing. It… hums, Leo. You would understand, I think—you always understand!"
A young technician added from nearby, voice trembling, "Dr. Grant, sensors are reading anomalies in the subspace matrix! I don't understand it, sir, but it is—"
"Impossible!" Harold interjected, voice rising. "Exactly! Impossible, Leo! And if anyone can make sense of this… it is you! The theories you once presented—discredited, dismissed, ignored—now might be the only way forward!"
Legnus's lips curved into a faint smile. He let his gaze linger on the pillar, his mind calculating, hypothesizing, readying for analysis. The hum in his hand, the ripple in the air, the impossible scale of the structure—it all formed a puzzle he could not resist. His curiosity, sharper than fear, stronger than caution, flared. This was not a disaster. This was a summons. And he would answer it.