Kael reached the outskirts of the basin just as the land shifted again.
This time, it wasn't violent.
It was… deliberate.
The air ahead of him thickened, not collapsing or folding, but settling—as if something unstable had found a shape it could hold. The faint shimmer he'd felt earlier sharpened into a defined distortion, anchored to the ground rather than tearing through it.
Kael stopped.
So it had begun.
A stabilized gate didn't announce itself with destruction. It announced itself with persistence. The world adjusted around it, reluctantly accepting the rupture instead of fighting it.
Stone cracked outward in a slow ring. The ground smoothed unnaturally, forming a shallow platform around the distortion. The air hummed—not loudly, but consistently.
Kael felt it immediately.
This one was open.
Not bleeding.
Not expanding.
Held in place.
Someone had done this.
He crouched at the edge of the platform and studied the distortion. The space beyond it wasn't visible—not darkness, not light. Just depth, like looking into a corridor that refused to be mapped.
A gate that allowed entry.
And exit.
Kael straightened.
This wasn't meant to spawn blindly. It was meant to be used.
He felt movement then—approaching from behind.
Not hurried.
Not cautious.
Confident.
Kael turned slowly.
Three figures crested the ridge above the basin. Their gear was reinforced, functional, marked with insignia Kael recognized immediately—not house crests, but guild seals. Independent operators sanctioned to interact with gates under controlled conditions.
Hunters.
They stopped when they saw him.
Their eyes flicked to the fractured ground. To the residual distortion. To Kael himself—standing alone, unarmed, with damage written into the space around him.
One of them whistled softly. "Someone got here early."
Another crouched, inspecting the stone. "No corpse."
The third—older, sharper-eyed—studied Kael directly.
"You came out of that alone?" he asked.
Kael didn't answer immediately.
The hum inside him shifted, uneasy. Not reacting to them—but to the gate behind him.
"Yes," Kael said finally.
The hunter's gaze sharpened.
"That thing didn't finish forming," he said slowly. "You interrupted a mid-tier manifestation."
Kael nodded once.
The hunter let out a breath. "Unarmed?"
"Yes."
Silence followed.
Not Kael's silence.
The hunters exchanged looks—not disbelief, not fear.
Calculation.
"Then you should leave," the older man said. "Now."
Kael glanced back at the gate.
"Too late for that," he replied.
The hunter followed his gaze and grimaced. "Stabilization's already locked. This one's not closing on its own."
"Then more will come," Kael said.
"Eventually," the man agreed. "Lower-tier first. Scouts. Then—"
He stopped.
The gate pulsed.
Once.
Kael felt it like a tug behind his sternum—not pulling him in, but acknowledging him. The silence within him reacted sharply, compressing without command.
The hunter noticed his expression change.
"…it reacted to you," he said quietly.
Kael didn't deny it.
The man swore under his breath. "Of course it did."
He straightened and gestured to his team. "Set perimeter. This isn't a clean one."
Then he looked back at Kael.
"You didn't cause this," he said. "But you're involved now."
Kael met his gaze evenly.
"I figured."
The hunter gave a tight smile. "Welcome to gates."
Behind them, the stabilized rupture hummed steadily.
Patient.
Waiting.