Since his expression wasn't subtle, the others around him imdiately noticed.
"What is it?" one of them asked, his tone tightening.
The man hesitated for a brief mont, eyes still fixed on the formation. "I'm not sure yet," he said slowly.
That answer did not reassure anyone. A few of them exchanged glances.
"Then why are you looking like that?" another pressed.
He did not reply imdiately. Instead he raised his hand slightly and pointed in a specific direction. "So of you should head there."
Confusion appeared on their faces almost instantly. "That direction? Why?"
"I said I'm not sure," he replied, this ti with a sharper edge. "But sothing there is off."
There was a brief pause. Then three of them stepped forward without further argunt. If there was even a chance sothing was wrong with the barrier, ignoring it would prove foolish. It was better to confirm a mistake than to make one.
The three left while the rest stayed behind.
Michael knew none of this. He commanded his undead to strike harder at the points he had designated and watched the ripples grow larger with each impact. He increased his own output alongside them, trying to focus, though the sounds behind him made that difficult.
Even before his advancent, his senses had already been sharp. The screams reached him clearly without needing to turn around. He did not need to look to know that the cracks below had erupted and the city had fallen into chaos.
For a brief mont Michael felt a pull of guilt. People were dying behind him and he was leaving. He clenched his jaw slightly and forced the thought down.
On the surface layer of the void, where reality could still be interfered with, the three demonic supernaturals finally arrived at Michael's location following the guidance of the one maintaining the barrier. Now they understood the expression on his face.
None of them moved imdiately.
Their eyes were locked on the scene in front of them. A hundred Rank 3 undead, their collective presence making the air feel noticeably heavier.
One of them swallowed without aning to. "How?"
The question slipped out before he could stop it. He could tell imdiately that these undead had not co through the cracks. All three shifted their gaze from the undead to Michael, or rather to his back, since they could not see his face. But they could feel the power radiating from him.
"He's the one controlling them," one of them said quietly.
"What is a Necromancer doing here? He's definitely not one of ours. He must be from the Federation."
The third frowned slightly. "Very possible."
It was not that they had no desire to stop what was happening. They did. But they did not want to die. A hundred Rank 3 undead under the command of soone capable of reading and interfering with the barrier itself was not a fight they could confidently win. They were dangerous, not stupid.
The three exchanged glances. "Let's just report this," one of them said quietly.
The others nodded. That was the safest choice.
Slowly and carefully they began to withdraw. They still believed
Michael hadn't noticed them, which was a reasonable assumption. There were not many powerful demonic supernaturals who could not conceal their presence effectively.
But Michael had already been aware of them from the mont their attention settled fully on him.
Just as the three prepared to teleport, they froze. A fine line appeared around each of their necks and they were forced out of the void
simultaneously.
The last thing they saw was a figure hovering in the air, watching their falling bodies with an unreadable expression.
It was Fade.
Michael's most capable undead assassin.
After killing the three, Fade did not linger. The mont the bodies began to fall his figure blurred and reappeared beside the barrier at his assigned position. Without waiting for an order he raised his arm and struck the exact point Michael had designated.
Boom.
The impact blended seamlessly into the rhythm of the others.
Michael did not look back. He had registered everything the mont
it happened and set it aside just as quickly.
"Keep hitting."
His voice remained calm. The pressure on the barrier surged again,
the instability reaching its peak.
Then it opened.
A gap.
Michael moved instantly. In the sa mont all his undead vanished, pulled back into the Damaged Coffin of the Forgotten at the limit of his speed. The coffin shrank and disappeared into his soul space imdiately after. Michael moved forward and crossed.
The mont his body passed through, the gap collapsed behind him, sealing shut as if it had never existed. The barrier stabilized again. Michael let out a slow breath the mont he cleared it.
Relief ca first. A brief sharp sense of release. He was outside. The barrier was behind him. His family was safe within the coffin. Everything he had pushed toward through the past stretch of chaos had been achieved.
And yet the happiness he expected never ca. Nothing settled in his chest the way he thought it would.
Michael frowned slightly and rose higher into the air until the city spread out more clearly beneath him.
From up here, Brightgate looked worse. Much worse. The cracks on
the ground had already fully erupted in several districts. Dark fissures ran like infected wounds through streets and intersections, and from them creatures continued to pour out. So were already dead, their bodies scattered across broken roads and collapsed storefronts, but many more were still moving. Fires had started in several places. Screams rose constantly, sotis in bursts, sotis all at once, blending into a single sound that reached him even at this height.
Michael stared at all of it.
He had made it out. His family was safe. But he could not pretend nothing was happening, could not turn away and act as though the city below ant nothing. To abandon all those people and behave as
if it were soone else's problem entirely.
That was not him.
At least, not yet.
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