Three days after finding the Rimegorge, they arrived. He stayed up at the top of the gorge, so he had lots of options to run if he needed, and though the gorge was wide, he was pretty sure he could jump across if he had to.

He didn't have to. He simply walked along the edge of the gorge until a spherical shadow emerged in the haze ahead. It was difficult to tell how large it was from a distance, but it just kept getting larger as he approached.

It was a demon sphere, but it hadn't unfolded yet, if it would at all. It simply lodged itself into the gap of the canyon. A couple hundred feet of sandstone had been crushed beneath its mass, but the majority of it was above the surface.

There were no fiends in sight, but at night, the sphere's runes glowed yellow, and steam occasionally puffed out from the gaps in its flanks.

"This has to be it," Wulf said through the communications construct. "Irmond, keep watch high above. Warn me if there are any fiends approaching from behind, or if you think we've been seen."

"Got it," Irmond said. With a rush of power, he and his thrustwing launched off from Wraith's shoulder, racing high up into the sky.

"Won't they see us?" Seith asked. "I mean, an Oronith isn't exactly easy to hide."

"Do you see the size of that thing?" Kalee said. "I'd normally agree with you, but I think we can find a place or two to hide."

As Wulf approached, he wove through a maze of stone spikes. Most were made of the dried clay of the Scorchlands, and they weren't natural features. They were more like a crater, like an enormous wave of debris had been thrown out from the sphere's impact, but sharper.

"This almost looks like there was some sort of earth magic," Kalee said. "They manipulated the impact to keep their sphere from falling apart when it hit the ground. I can't exactly say what they did, though."

"They don't have the same kind of magic as us," he replied. "That I can say for certainty. They don't mesh with the Field the same."

But it worked in their favour. As they approached the impact site, Wulf kept himself hidden in the maze of spikes, only darting out of cover when he absolutely had to, but he ducked behind another set of spikes soon after, hiding from anyone else watching.

"Do you feel that?" Seith asked. "The tremors from the ground? It's not massive, but something's shaking up through Wraith's legs."

Wulf stopped for a moment to assess. She was right. Even if he stopped moving at all, something was rumbling up from below.

[I feel it too,] Wraith's spirit provided. [They come from below. Deep below.]

Wulf navigated through the spikes until he reached the edge of the gorge, keeping himself out of sight. At the bottom of the ancient gash, and just beneath the sphere, there was a deeper hole. A crack in the earth, leading down into a cavern. It reminded him of the dungeon beneath the Academy, but it was only bare stone.

"We know they tried digging a deep hole last time they invaded, too, right?" Kalee asked. "They could be using the same hole."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, they could be." He slowly laid down on his stomach, trying to get a better view. It was difficult to tell, but the hole was broad enough, and finally, when he brought himself low enough, he caught a glimpse.

The cavern below the Rimegorge was a deep expanse filled with walkways and chains, and not much else. Fires burned in braziers, lighting up a cave large enough to hold a mountain range. Colossal fiends swarmed the bottom of the cave, chiselling away at the walls and floor, but avoiding a central mound of black steel.

It was the same hue and material as the demon spheres, but it had no glowing runic markings, and it had to be a few miles wide.

"What is that?" Seith breathed.

"I have no idea," Wulf replied.

But the longer he stared, the less it looked like a sphere, and more like a massive, broad oval.

No. It was a ring. A ring mostly submerged in sediment and debris, but a ring nonetheless.

"Is that…" Kalee breathed.

"It's the portal," Wulf replied. "We found it."

"They haven't uncovered it yet," Seith observed. "They haven't activated it."

"No, they haven't," Wulf replied. "But the fiend attacks have slowed down, miraculously. Can you say why that is?"

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"They're concentrating on digging out the portal," Irmond suggested. "Like, they're trying to finish it so they can summon reinforcements?"

"Or so they can send our world's resources somewhere else," Wulf said. "They're preparing for the endgame."

"But last time, didn't it take them forty years to finish that portal?" Seith asked. "If that portal getting finished means we get defeated, then how are they going to defeat us so quickly this time?"

Wulf shook his head. "This time, we've scared them. Last time, they could afford to take it slow. But whatever Kalee and I have done, it's changed things. They're not clearing out a bunch of incompetent, self-serving nobles anymore. They're getting ready to…I dunno, harvest our resources, then run."

Kalee sighed, then pointed deeper into the gorge. "Look. They're filling the core of the world with more demon spheres, too."

Along the wall, a bubbly growth of giant spheres had emerged. Lesser, tiny demons writhed over them, hammering together sheets of metal and etching runes. They were tearing apart the planet to fill it with more little fiends.

"They're a parasite," Wulf said. "Tearing apart our world, so when it implodes, they'll just release another horde, and when another unsuspecting planet passes through, they'll spread." He shook his head. "Kalee, Seith?" Wulf asked. "Do the runes on the portals mean anything to you? Can you make them out?"

Kalee squinted, and Wulf could hear Seith muttering to herself through the communications construct.

Finally, Seith said, "I can't make out all of them. Looks like some kind of spatial warping device, like a storage construct."

"There are lots of lines whose purpose seems to be to collapse the world in on itself," Kalee added. "Massive runes. They draw matter through the portal, sending it wherever the demons want, and doing whatever they do with it."

[They are eradicating it,] said Wraith.

"Hm?" Wulf tilted his head, and the entire Oronith shifted. "You can tell me what the runes mean?"

[No,] Wraith said. [But I can feel the portal's purpose. I can sense it in the cords, whether through you or something else. It has been used before, and they will attempt to use it again. It sends material from our world, and annihilates it. Its purpose is to make less exist.]

"Why not annihilate it here?" Kalee asked. "If they can destroy matter…"

[It takes more strength than they are capable of. The same dark cords that link them to this place, giving them their fuel, also link them to wherever that portal leads.]

Wulf swallowed. "So if we destroy whatever's on the other side of that portal, we destroy the demons for good?"

[It would seem so.]

"Then that's what we have to do," Wulf said. "That portal is why the world imploded last time. The portal activated, drawing the world's materials through it. But they're just going to activate it forty years early. Probably before they've built as much of a horde as they'd like."

"What do you mean?" Irmond asked.

"Last time, my guess is that they took their time, drawing things out, simply because they wanted to build more demon spheres, so that when the world broke apart, they'd have grown the horde. But that's obviously not as big of a priority to them as sending resources through that portal."

"What about the sun?" Kalee asked. "Last time, the sun became…swollen. Massive."

"I have no idea what they did to the sun last time," Wulf said. "And I don't think they're terribly worried about it this time, though. It took time, which they don't have. "They're rushing. They've diverted fiends from other attacks so they can keep digging out the old portal from Panne's time."

"I hope you have a plan," Seith said. "Because I don't know how we're going to destroy that."

"I…actually, I have a few ideas," Wulf said. "Which is weird to say, but we might not have to make it all up as we go along."

"I hate to spoil the fun," Irmond said, "but it looks like they've gotten wise of us. We have three Rubies closing in from behind us. Fiends, that is. They're entering the maze."

"We can't fight that," Kalee said.

"Not if we want to make it out of here alive," Wulf replied. "Or get back to the academy with enough mana to spare."

"Well then pick up the pace!" Irmond said. "They're speeding up. They've smelled you, or sensed you, or something like that."

"Drink your potions," Wulf instructed. He'd given everyone a few potions before they arrived here, mostly speed and strength potions, without any sort of negative effect, and he needed the help [Bastion] would give him. He couldn't really use [Slither], because his golem was poisonous, and using [Arm of the Alchemist] to form and operate the golem meant that it was a Splatter potion—he could get poisoned by touching it. Removing all his resistance would be a bad idea—

Wait.

His new Mark. If he targeted himself…

He shoved as much mana as he could into [Poison Binder], and focused on himself. It said he could grant an ally complete poison immunity, but he had to count in that list, too. He was on his own team, and sometimes the wording of these things was slightly inaccurate.

The Mark activated, and a tingle of power erupted over him, like it was shielding him from something. He inhaled sharply. It had worked.

Meanwhile, Irmond, Seith, and Kalee all drank a potion of their own, and [Bastion] activated. He jumped up to his feet, triggering [Slither] as well, and the poisonous effects of his own golem didn't touch him.

Strength and speed roared through his limbs, and it translated into Wraith as well.

[Run, little pilot,] Wraith said. [They are coming.]

Wulf weaved out through the maze of stone spires, but it wasn't fast enough. Halfway out, he clambered up to the top, then leapt from spire to spire until he reached the flat ground again.

He didn't stop sprinting. The Ruby fiends turned to face him, but he was already gone. They chased, but in a half-hour, he couldn't even see the columns of smoke they created behind them.

"And there we go," he said. "We found it. We know where we have to take the fight to. Now we actually have to figure out how to beat them."

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