The Blood Seed pulsed faster as Vyx blood seeped into its jagged surface.
Red tendrils slithered from the half-buried shard and spread across the camp, crawling over stone, dirt, and ash like veins searching for a heart. After several tense breaths, a beam of crimson energy erupted from the seed into the air a few feet above it.
Space began to split vertically.
A rift formed.
Marek stared at the opening gate and let out a long, trembling breath.
"He's not going to like this…"
Far from the camp, on the inner edge of Dome One, the Ark's main world-sized barrier, a massive broken monument loomed against a horizon of endless space.
Half of it had been sheared away by time, or by whatever ancient violence the Ark had endured long ago. What remained was a hollowed shell that jutted out over the infinite drop below, its ruined edge exposed to the void. The surviving structure leaned into the absurdly massive curve of the barrier like a dying giant resting its weight against the wall of an unfathomable mountain.
Inside one of its many chambers, two Blood Guards felt a sudden change in the air.
They turned toward the source and saw one of the dormant Blood Seeds awaken. Its surface pulsed heavily, each beat stronger than the last.
"You see that?" one guard asked.
"Yeah," the other said. "Tell Dezcrin one of the seeds is opening."
The first guard nodded and hurried away, his boots echoing against the cold floor.
Behind him, the seed's pulse intensified. Old tendrils unfurled from its base, feeding on the sudden rush of nourishment and spreading across the chamber like a red web.
The guard skidded to a halt in the center of the throne hall.
The room was breathtaking in its desolation.
Directly behind the throne of bone, there was no wall. Only the massive reinforced transparency of Dome One's skin. Beyond it lay the jagged, uneven line where the rest of the monument had been violently severed ages ago—a clean, impossible cut that bisected columns, split archways mid-span, and sheared through what must have once been a far grander hall.
The throne room itself was only a fragment. Half-pillars jutted from the floor where their twins had been sliced away, cleaved vertically down their centers at the exact point where the barrier stood. Ornate carvings ended abruptly at the barrier's edge, their patterns split down the middle as if some unimaginable force had simply drawn a blade from ceiling to floor, carving through stone, metal, and history alike. The barrier itself cut through everything—the monument had been severed precisely where Dome One's transparent wall now stood, with half of the structure remaining here and the other half missing somewhere in the void or someplace else.
Beyond the transparent barrier stretched the infinite black of the cosmos—the cold fire of distant stars scattered like frozen embers, and the colossal planet they orbited, its curve swallowing half the view like the shoulder of a sleeping god. Dozens of other arks drifted across the void, most roughly their own size, glinting like distant cities of metal and light. But three loomed so massive they seemed to mock comprehension itself—vast enough to eclipse a hundred arks without effort.
To sit on that throne would be to perch on the edge of eternity itself, presiding over a kingdom carved in half by forces beyond comprehension.
A heavy door thudded open along the left wall.
Dezcrin emerged from the side corridor, his massive Vyx frame cutting across the starlight. His exoskeleton clicked against the cold floor as he strode toward the center of the hall, trailed by his silent multi-species guard and the ethereal Krax drifting in his wake.
The violet crystal embedded in his skull whirred.
His gaze locked onto the trembling guard.
"Why are you here, Blood Guard?" Dezcrin's voice ground out like stone scraping bone. "Don't tell me someone actually used one of my Blood Seeds."
The guard dropped to one knee, head bowed.
"My Lord. One of the Blood Seeds has awakened. It is reforming into a gate. Stabilization imminent—minutes at most."
Dezcrin stopped mid-stride. The violet crystal clicked and whirred as it processed.
"Someone has found something of value." His tone carried the weight of inevitability. "Let us see whether this treasure justifies the interruption."
"One more thing, my Lord…"
The guard's voice dropped to barely a whisper.
The violet eye snapped back to him with a sharp whine.
"Speak."
"The gate's signature... it's local. The source is only a handful of miles from the Ark's edge."
Dezcrin went utterly still.
The kind of stillness that precedes violence.
"What?"
The word didn't merely leave his throat—it reverberated through his chitinous armor, through the floor itself, a subsonic tremor of disbelief and rage.
Minutes later, Dezcrin stood before the awakened seed.
The Blood Seed chamber was built for use, not display. Jagged alcoves lined the walls, each one holding dormant Blood Seeds reserved for later use, buried into the stone like hearts waiting for blood to wake them. The active seeds rested in shallow channels across the floor, and every crimson vein running through the old grooves converged on the one that had begun to stir.
Its pulse filled the chamber with red light.
For a moment, no one moved.
Even the Krax drifting behind Dezcrin went unnaturally still, its faint glow dimming as if the air itself had tightened around his anger.
The Blood Guard kept his head lowered.
"How close?" Dezcrin asked.
The guard swallowed. "A handful of miles from our current location near the Ark's edge, my Lord. Still within Dome One."
Dezcrin's violet crystal eye narrowed into a thin, burning slit.
"Impossible."
No one answered.
The Ark was vast beyond comprehension, and Dome One alone was large enough to swallow nations beneath its curve. Crossing from one edge to the other was possible, but only for those prepared enough, strong enough, or desperate enough to survive the journey crossing the literal length of a world. Yet the territory near this part of the Ark's edge belonged to Dezcrin. His crews patrolled it, his Blood Seeds marked it, and most creatures with sense knew better than to wander too close.
No one opened one of his Blood Seeds so close to his territory unless they were desperate, dying, or stupid enough to become both.
His claws flexed once, scraping against the stone floor.
"Who carried that seed?"
The kneeling guard hesitated.
Dezcrin's voice dropped lower. "Do not make me ask twice."
"One of the outer batch crews, my Lord. The group sent to inspect the uncharted cave near the lower wilds."
A slow silence followed.
Then Dezcrin turned his head toward the awakened Blood Seed. Its red pulse beat through the chamber like a second heart.
"They found something," he said.
The guard remained silent.
Dezcrin's skull plates shifted, the faintest sign of curiosity slipping through his anger.
"Or something found them."