The "Exclusion Zone 7" was a jagged scar on the earth's surface, located three hundred miles from the city. Here, the laws of gravity were merely suggestions, and the air tasted like copper and old memories. Arthur and Seraphina stood at the edge of a floating plateau, surrounded by twisted, obsidian-like trees that grew toward the ground.
"The Qi here is... wrong," Seraphina whispered, her silver eyes scanning the horizon. "It doesn't flow; it vibrates. Like a string about to snap."
Arthur walked to the very edge of the abyss, his white hair fluttering in the chaotic wind. "That's because the dimension is thin here, Seraphina. This isn't a forest. It's a wound that never healed after the Great Awakening."
He turned to her, his crimson eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity. "You want to see the 'Leak'? You want to know what I feel? Then you must stop breathing with your lungs and start breathing with your soul."
Arthur didn't use his fake lightning. He reached out and grasped the empty air. His D-Sensing flared, and for the first time in the open world, he tapped into D-4 (The Breach).
The space between his fingers began to tear. It didn't make a sound; it was a visual scream. A hairline fracture appeared in the sky, and from it, a grey, oily substance began to drip. The obsidian trees nearby instantly turned to ash, not from heat, but from the sheer impossibility of the energy.
"This is the truth of the Sixth Plane," Arthur said, his voice echoing from everywhere at once. "It is the 'Void' that erases the 'All'. Now, Seraphina, reach out. Touch it. If your soul survives the contact, you will never be a mere Rank 3 again. You will be my Oracle."
Seraphina looked at the grey tear in reality. Her Astro-Divination was screaming of her death, but her hand, trembling and cold, began to move toward the rift. She knew that if she touched it, she would either become a god or a memory.