The silence in the "High Observatory" was heavy, like the stillness of an operating room after a heart stops. There was no air, only a sterile light flooding a hall with no walls. The floor beneath the Sixth Overseer's feet was not marble, but glass, revealing the entire world revolving below.
He looked down. He did not see cities or nations. He saw data. Thin blue lines stretched across continents like swollen veins. Mana currents. Numbers pulsed in gold beside every human settlement: "Extraction Rate: 98%."
"Sector 4," the System whispered in his mind. A voice void of tone, a mere echo of equations. "Disturbance detected."
The Overseer moved a hand encased in polished white metal, zooming the image. The view plummeted through the cloud layer, punching through the roof of Duke Ferran's palace in the Kingdom of Light, down into a cramped stone cellar reeking of burnt copper.
Below, five men in stained robes surrounded a circle drawn in bone dust. In the center lay the mutilated corpse of a boy no older than ten. His chest was open, his heart still beating by forced magic, pumping blood to feed the glyphs on the floor. The Elder Mage raised a hand. His skin flaked away like cigarette ash, revealing the black bone beneath. This is the price of touching the boundary.
"Analysis," the Overseer ordered.
"Unauthorized breach," the System replied. "Ritual aims to puncture the outer dimension. Probability: Summoning of unregistered entity. Recommendation: Immediate extermination of Residential Block 7."
A virtual red button materialized in the air before the Overseer. One press. A beam from the orbital Arbiters would descend. The palace, the mages, and the surrounding city would vaporize in less than a second. The farm would remain clean. The harvest would remain safe.
The Overseer extended a finger. He stopped.
He noticed something behind the wall of reality. In the blackness surrounding the world's bubble, there was a shadow. Not a shadow cast by light, but an abrasion on existence itself. A hungry, ancient, broken thing, feeling the glass exterior of the world for an entry. He knew this thing. He remembered the ancient wars. He remembered the "Time Lord" they had torn apart a thousand years ago.
"Cancel extermination," the Overseer said.
The System paused for a second that felt like eternity. "Decision conflicts with safety protocol. Risk to crop: Critical."
"I am safety," the Overseer said coldly. "Blind the sensors for Sector 4. Seven seconds. Log it as transmission error."
"Executing..."
The screens died. The cellar below became a black spot in the Eye of the Lords. In that digital darkness, the breach occurred.
The Overseer watched with naked eyes what the machines could not see. Reality split in the cellar. No hero entered. No savior. The black shadow slipped through the crack, smooth and toxic as mercury. It coiled around the soul arriving from the other dimension—the soul of a dead youth from a distant world—and fused with it. It was not a merger. It was an invasion.
The gate closed. The System rebooted. "Connection restored. Readings normal. Ritual failed to summon physical entity."
The Sixth Overseer smiled behind his solid gold mask. The System is stupid. The System sees only flesh.
In the cellar, the dead youth stood up. He looked at his blood-stained hands, then raised his head to the ceiling. He looked directly at the Overseer in his heights, as if seeing through the layers of the sky.
It was not a human gaze. It was the gaze of a virus that had just entered the bloodstream.
"Welcome inside," the Overseer whispered, turning his back on the screens. "Let us see how long it takes for this beautiful world to rot."
Below, the mage's neck snapped. And the countdown began.