The light at the center kept growing, thin like it could cut through space itself.

Everyone held their position.

No one dared to breathe too hard.

Then Arken stopped.

His eyes shifted away from the core for a fraction of a second.

"...Something’s wrong," he said.

Ash didn’t look at him. "Don’t lose focus. We’re at the critical phase."

"I’m not talking about us."

That was enough.

A few of the others hesitated, their energy wavering for a brief moment. The floor lights flickered in response, as if reacting to doubt.

Arken slowly raised his head.

His gaze moved past the chamber walls, past the fortress, past the visible edge of the moon.

Far on the dark side.

There was a pressure in space.

Not like their own work. Not like the controlled tear they were building.

Before anyone could react, space itself bend. A ripple passed through the void above the moon.

Then a tear opened.

Darkness did not look like empty space anymore. It looked layered. Deep. As if something on the other side was pushing back.

A massive structure pushed through the breach.

At first, only part of it appeared—sharp edges, glowing lines, and moving segments like living metal. It didn’t fall or drift.

It emerged.

The fortress kept coming until its full shape blocked the sun.

It was too large to make sense at first glance. Sections of it rotated around a hidden core. Entire layers shifted like continents locked inside a machine.

It could have been mistaken for a planet if it wasn’t moving.

They did not stop.

The energy in the circle kept flowing, even as doubt started to creep in.

The light at the center pulsed faster, reacting to the unstable space outside. Thin cracks of distortion spread across the floor pattern.

"HURRY UP! WE NEED TO GET FATHER RIGHT AWAY!" Ash shouted.

Arken turned his head slightly, anger and alarm mixing in his face. "If we rush this, we lose everything!"

"I don’t care!" Ash snapped back. "That thing is not here by accident. If it locks onto us first, Father will never get his body back and we will all die."

That line hit harder than the warning about failure.

For a moment, the others hesitated. Then their focus returned with more force.

No one wanted to be responsible for stopping now.

The energy flow increased.

The central light expanded again, brighter than before, but unstable at the edges. It looked like it was trying to become a doorway but struggling to stay shaped.

Outside the fortress, the massive structure moved closer.

(Where is the one responsible for my son’s and husband’s death!)

The Vedant Queen’s roar tore through the silence of space. Her body drifted forward, then began to change.

Soon her form expanded, stretching beyond what any normal shape could hold. Limbs and structure shifted as if space itself was being used as material.

She floated, but "floating" no longer felt like the right word.

It looked more like she was becoming part of space.

Her outline widened . The distance between her and the moon seemed to vanish, even though she had not moved in a normal way.

Wooden roots followed the expansion, branching outward in all directions. They thickened as they spread, turning into vast living lines that stitched themselves.

The moon sat beneath her presence now.

Small in comparison.

Almost swallowed by the scale of what she was becoming.

Inside the hidden fortress on the moon, alarms failed to sound properly. The systems struggled just to keep running.

Arken’s voice broke through the chamber. "Damn it... what did Father do to get the wrath of such a being?"

The words carried anger, and also disbelief.

"Father killed her son before when it tried to devour our world to grow," Ashley answered. "And when her husband came looking for revenge, Father also killed him too."

Arken couldn’t argue, nor did he want to. His reason was justifiable self-defense.

"Let’s just focus on getting Father back. He’s the only one powerful enough to deal with that monster."

They all nodded in unison and closed their eyes.

The energy in the circle steadied.

The thin point of light at the center stopped expanding outward and instead folded inward. Space twisted like fabric being pulled through a needle.

A small opening formed.

Not a full gate.

Just a door.

Barely stable.

Through it, a figure appeared.

Asher.

Faint.

Broken at the edges like his projection was barely holding shape.

His eyes moved slowly, adjusting as if he had been pulled through distance that shouldn’t exist.

Relief flashed across everyone’s faces. With him around, there was nothing to fear.

Asher raised his hand slightly, trying to step forward.

But something outside reacted faster.

Roots.

Thin at first, like threads slipping through a seam.

Then they thickened.

They pierced through the unstable space around the chamber, tearing into the portal’s boundary.

The light at the center screamed in distortion.

Arken’s eyes widened.

"No—!"

The roots spread fast.

Too fast.

They wrapped around the edges of the small gate, choking it, squeezing the connection between worlds until it vanished.

"NO!!!!!" Arken roared.

His control broke instantly.

He lifted his hands and unleashed spells toward the invading roots.

Ash reacted a second later, reinforcing the collapsing circle with a surge of stabilized energy, trying to hold the gate open even for a breath longer.

The others followed without hesitation.

Spells and power erupted across the room.

Blasts of force struck the roots, burning through sections of wood, but more kept coming. Every time one root was destroyed, two more replaced it.

They were forced out of the chamber.

The very place they had spent years building was destroyed before their eyes.

What greeted them outside was a giant face of a woman made of wood.

It hovered beyond the shattered fortress, large enough to dwarf the moon itself.

Layers of bark formed her skin, shifting slightly like living flesh. Cracks of green light moved beneath the surface, flowing through her body like veins.

Her glowing green eyes narrowed in anger as they locked onto them.