Leaving the Cradle was a reverse wound. The journey back through the calming Glimmer and the newly-stable path in the Shatterzone felt like walking through a healing scar. The land itself seemed to recognize them, the air less hostile, the chaotic energies parting with a semblance of respect. They reached the unstable rift—a shimmering, vertical tear of bruised reality that had been Echo's homecoming gate.
It looked different now. Their Law-Senses and enhanced perceptions saw it for what it was: not a natural phenomenon, but a lingering injury in spacetime, kept open by the resonant pull between Echo and the Chaos Crystal. With the Crystal dormant, the wound was trying to close. But their passage had left a permanent imprint, a back-channel between dimensions.
"It's unstable, but it's our instability," Mira observed, her Spatial Archivist senses tracing the unique vibrational signature of their Bond woven into the rift's edges. "I can firm it up. Make it a true gate. Anchored to us."
She set to work, her hands weaving patterns of profound spatial logic. Silver-grey threads of stabilized reality, similar to the lattice around the Spire but finer, spun from her fingertips, stitching the frayed edges of the rift. She didn't close it; she reinforced it, turning a weeping cut into a defined archway. Through it, they could see the familiar, alien hues of the Beast World's sky.
"Two-way?" Leyla asked, claws idly tracing the new, solid-feeling edge of the portal.
"Yes," Mira said, finishing her work with a final, sealing knot of energy. "But it's keyed. It will only open for someone carrying the resonant signature of our Bond, or for something possessing truly monumental, reality-warping power. It's a back door to Earth. To be used carefully."
They stepped through. The sensation was smooth, like passing through a cold, silent waterfall. One moment, the dead air of the Cradle; the next, the rich, teeming, and wildly alive atmosphere of the Beast World filled their lungs. They stood in the same isolated mountain clearing where Echo had first focused on the Crystal's call.
It felt like a lifetime ago. They were not the same people who had left.
Before they could even orient themselves, the air in front of them rippled. Not with Mira's precise weaving, but with a kind of official, administrative finality. A rectangle of golden light, edges perfectly sharp, appeared. It looked like a bureaucratic form made manifest.
Script in a flowing, universal language scrolled across it.
NOTICE OF CROSS-DIMENSIONAL TRANSIT & ANOMALOUS ENERGY SIGNATURE
To: Designated Entity "Sovereign's Circle" (Primary: Echo, Designation: Synthesizer)
From: The Confluence Authority of the Multiversal Nexus
You have been detected executing unsanctioned trans-reality travel and emitting stabilized, high-tier anomalous energy signatures (Category: Primal Bloodline, Stage 4+). Your activities have been logged (Ref: Cradle-787 Stabilization Event, Ref: Conceptual Collision Nullification).
Per Nexus Accord 7.12b (Regarding Unaffiliated Potentates), you are hereby summoned for Mandatory Registration, Threat Assessment, and Aptitude Placement.
Non-compliance will result in classification as a Rogue Reality Variable and subject to enforced containment.
A Gate-Voucher is attached. Use it to report to the Admissions Spire within 72 standard cycles.
Welcome to the Big Leagues.
Beneath the text, a complex, glowing sigil pulsed—a one-time-use portal key.
The rectangle folded itself into a neat, origami-like dart of light and dropped into Echo's hand. It was warm and hummed with immense, impersonal power.
"Well," Kiera said, her tails twitching. "They don't waste time."
"The Loremasters mentioned the Grand Design," Ryn analyzed, her eye scanning the voucher. "This 'Confluence Authority' appears to be the... administrative body that manages its practical expression. They've been watching. The Reset event was too big to ignore."
"Mandatory Registration," Leyla scoffed, phasing a hand through the voucher. It didn't budge. "Sounds like a fancy prison."
"Or a university for monsters," Mira mused. "Aptitude Placement. They want to categorize us, see what we can do. See if we're useful or a threat."
Echo held the voucher, feeling the weight of systems far vaster than any kingdom or clan they'd yet encountered. This wasn't an enemy attack or a plea for help. It was a summons from the multiverse's central bureaucracy. Ignoring it wasn't an option. "Rogue Reality Variable" sounded a lot like "enemy of all existence."
"This is our in," he said, conviction firming his voice. "The Nexus. The crossroads. If the answers to healing the Fracture are anywhere, the knowledge will be there. The allies, the tools, the history of the war that created the Scourge—it'll be in their archives. We go. We register. We learn. And we find what we need."
He looked at his Circle. They were warriors, healers, spies, and scholars. Now, they would have to become students. In a school where the other pupils might be demigods, ancient horrors, and scions of cosmic empires.
"Seventy-two cycles," Ryn noted. "Approximately three Beast World days. We should inform Chief Boran and the clan of our... extended leave of absence."
Their return to the Panther Claw clan was a subdued, surreal event. They had left as powerful allies. They returned as something else. Chief Boran, his senses sharp, took one look at them and ordered a feast, not in celebration, but in solemn recognition. They had the bearing of elders who had walked in lands beyond understanding.
Echo explained only what was necessary: they had secured the threat to his homeworld, but in doing so, had attracted the attention of wider powers. They had been summoned to a place called the Nexus, a gathering of realities. They would go, to learn and to secure the clan's future safety.
Boran, pragmatic as ever, simply grunted. "You fight bigger battles now. Just remember which den you sharpen your claws in." It was his blessing.
Seventy-two cycles later, in the same clearing, the Sovereign's Circle stood together. They had shed their Beast World traveling gear for simpler, durable tunics and pants, unadorned. Their power needed no decoration.
Echo activated the Gate-Voucher.
It unfolded in his hand, expanding into a circular portal of swirling, opalescent light. The edges were etched with rotating, geometric runes that spoke of law, order, and immense latent power. Through it, they didn't see a destination, but a corridor of shifting, impossible architecture—floating libraries connected by bridges of light, spires that twisted in non-Euclidean grace, parks containing miniature galaxies.
A neutral, androgynous voice emanated from the portal. "Proceed for processing. Welcome to the Multiversal Nexus."
Taking a collective breath, Stewards no longer, but now Applicants, they stepped forward into the gleaming, bureaucratic heart of all existence.