Chapter 2 of Volume 2 — The Threshold

The storm hadn’t broken by morning.It lingered like a living thing, thick and heavy, pressing down on the Lightrover’s hull as though trying to convince them to stay. The rain struck the ship in erratic bursts, a percussion of warning taps and sudden hammer-blows.
Inside, the air was tense. Akarui had been awake for hours, running systems checks for the third time. Every flicker on the console, every surge in the power flow, drew his eyes. He trusted the ship — but not the place they were about to enter.
Mira stood near the forward viewport, her posture still but her gaze sharp, watching the roiling sky. She was dressed for movement: light armor beneath a weatherproof cloak, her hair tied back in a quick braid.
Yûna was the last to arrive, fastening the last buckle on her chest plate as she stepped into the cockpit. “Weapons are charged,” she said simply, then glanced toward Akarui. “If anything starts breaking reality again, I’m pulling us out. No arguments.”
“Noted,” Akarui said, his hands never leaving the controls.
Mira’s eyes stayed fixed ahead. “It won’t let us go easily this time.”
That was an understatement. The last time they’d been inside the Envers, the world had closed around them like a predator’s jaw. Every step had bent the rules of space and time. Every heartbeat had felt like it was being counted by something unseen.



They left the platform at half power, the Lightrover rising into the grey haze like a ghost ship. The clouds thickened as they climbed, churning in unnatural patterns — slow spirals and sudden convulsions, like a great unseen hand was kneading the sky.
“Gouffre in sight,” Akarui announced, voice clipped. The black void of Vyrkön stretched before them: a massive sinkhole miles wide, its edges crumbling into darkness. The rain did not touch it. It was as though the storm itself feared to enter.
Yûna adjusted her harness, scanning the swirling mass at the center. “And the breach?”
Mira stepped forward. “There.”
Even before she spoke, they could all see it — a shimmer in the air above the abyss, like heat haze but colder, bending the world in unnatural ripples. The dimensional wound.
“It’s unstable,” Akarui warned.
“It always is,” Mira replied, already moving toward the central interface. She placed her hands on the crystalline panel and began murmuring words that didn’t belong to any known language. The ship vibrated, lights stuttering in rhythm with her voice.
The shimmer grew, colors twisting within it — black, red, and a strange pale gold. Then the breach tore open, not with a sound but with a sudden absence of sound, a pocket where even the rain’s roar was swallowed.
“Brace,” Akarui said.
The Lightrover surged forward.



Crossing the threshold was never like falling, nor like flying. It was like being remembered by something ancient — and not kindly.
For an instant, the cockpit was gone. The crew floated in a black void, their bodies outlined by trembling white light. Echoes of voices — their own voices — whispered from all directions, repeating words they hadn’t spoken yet.
Mira’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. She could feel the Envers noticing them, like an animal pricking its ears at the sound of prey.
And then, gravity snapped back.
The Lightrover was flying low over an impossible landscape: oceans hanging in the air above them, vast forests rooted into the undersides of floating mountains, rivers flowing upward into a sky split by jagged fractures of light. The air shimmered with heat that wasn’t heat, with cold that wasn’t cold.
“Still hate this place,” Yûna muttered, but her voice was hushed, almost reverent.
Mira moved to the forward console, pointing ahead. “The wall I saw is that way. Past those inverted peaks.”
“Picking up multiple distortions,” Akarui said, scanning. “And something moving fast… closing on us.”
Before he could adjust course, a shadow swept across the Lightrover — a massive shape, all angles and spines, its body flickering between forms as if undecided what it wanted to be. It roared without sound, a vibration in their bones.
“Contact,” Yûna said sharply, drawing her weapon.
Mira didn’t move. Her eyes were locked on the creature, but her voice was calm. “It’s not attacking yet.”
“Yet?” Akarui snapped.
“It’s guarding something,” she said. “And I think we’re about to find out what.”
The shadow wheeled around for another pass.
The threshold had closed behind them.
There was no way back now.