[https://i.imgur.com/HNtkLMT.jpg]

Qin Li Eema was quietly meditating, focusing on her cycling, when something changed.

For a brief moment, she let herself believe she stumbled upon some insight, some hidden technique or shortcut that allowed her to rank up early.

But her skin remained clear of the black, stinking waste which that process expelled from one’s body.

It was the world around her that had been altered.

She had been sitting on the top of a small overlook one moment, surrounded by a quiet forest, and the next she found herself, while still on the same overlook, in an entirely different place, with a completely alien view.

The overlook was now flanked by buildings with impossibly large clocks set into them, and the forest had been replaced by a city with strange structures, their construction methods unknown to her, their heights implausible even for buildings enhanced by cultivation techniques. They stretched far overhead, yet were rectangular, not pyramidal.

Stranger still were the creatures of metal which roared through the city’s streets, emitting terrible wails.

Somehow, she’d been transported to another world, along with parts of her own. It seemed even parts of the sky had been brought along, and now merged chaotically above her.

She needed to find her team. They had a lull in their current mission, so she’d left them behind in town and sought solitude in the wilds to cultivate.

She spent the next several minutes leaping from one strange rooftop to another in the direction town had been in—and hoped still was. There were bits and pieces of her world merged into this one, so it was possible.

Though so far, only bits and pieces. She’d yet to see a complete building. Or a person. The ones she spotted were clearly not of her world.

There were legends describing events like this, but never in the verified histories, and never to this extent.

She stopped when she spotted the two men.

They were far from the first people she’d seen in this new world, but there was something about one of them that halted her. It wasn’t his size—which was massive—but his power. It was… unique. He was Unranked, and yet, he did have power, unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was a deep, seemingly endless well, though to her Dragon-sight what he drew from it looked to have barely skimmed the surface.

The man he was chasing had blood staining his ears and shoulders, and appeared to be talking to himself.

Though Eema could hear him with her Wolf-senses, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was speaking a language she was unfamiliar with.

Perhaps he was a mage, recanting spells-of-old.

Or something else altogether.

This world was not hers, not entirely, and she did not know what kind of power its inhabitants possessed that she might be unable to detect.

Had it been one of them that had caused this? Or was it someone from her world? Dom Wu Sento, perhaps?

Even for the Obsidian Phoenix, this seemed extreme.

Had he found out her team’s plan and targeted her? It had been her idea, after all.

It was possible, though she still did not know if whatever had transported her had affected anyone else from her world, as she’d been in the wilds, far from the nearest town. The overlook she had been cycling on had been partially transported, and she had caught glimpses of other familiar landmarks made foreign by being merged with buildings and objects she didn’t recognize, but she did not yet know if she was the only living being affected.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She at once both hoped no one else had been so unlucky, and hoped at least someone else had.

As much as she enjoyed solitary meditation, she did not want to be alone.

As she watched the two men, the one talking to himself entered into one of the buildings, and the second, the giant with the untapped power, quickly followed.

The first appeared soon after on the building’s roof.

Then, proving he was likely mad, he ran off the roof and leapt into the air.

He too was Unranked: though he had a core, it was empty.

Given this, she doubted he could survive the fall from such an unnaturally tall building.

But then he halted in the middle of the air, as though using a technique.

She focused her attention more fully on him, and noticed a source of power… not coming from him, but from something he was in contact with. She couldn’t see it directly, only the connection it had with him.

Then he suddenly disappeared as the giant man chasing him broke through a doorway onto the roof.

Both she and the giant stared at the spot the madman had disappeared from. Whatever power had been there was now gone.

Then the giant lifted his gaze and focused on her.

Her pulse sped. How had he sensed her? Her Tiger’s-grace should have made her invisible to him.

Another assumption, she scolded herself. She would have to be more careful. This world was clearly not her own, even if parts of it had been brought along.

While from all appearances she should be able to defeat the Unranked giant in a fight, she would need to gather more information before she made any rash decisions. He appeared unable to draw from the well of power she sensed within him, but appearances were often deceiving.

Turning, she ran in the opposite direction, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, leaving the strange giant man with the untapped potential far behind, staring after her.

She felt his gaze burning into her soul.

∎ ∎ ∎

Sebastian groaned from where he’d fallen.

It hadn’t been five stories, but it had been at least five feet, and straight onto his back.

“This is becoming a habit,” he grumbled as he sat up.

He was staring up this time at Central Station. Except, something was wrong with it. Where the central part of the building with the lion crest should have been was instead a hill overgrown with plants of a type he’d never seen before, merged directly into the building, though the clocktowers on either side were still attached and functioning.

“This fusion of worlds… it doesn’t look very clean.”

“It could have been far worse,” Anubis said through his earbuds.

Sebastian got to his feet. “Hurray for small miracles.”

His phone buzzed.

“The message is not from me. It appears to be automated.”

He frowned and pulled it out. It was an emergency alert.

All it said, effectively, was to stay inside and lock your doors.

“A little late for that.”

“Better late than never,” Anubis said. “One of your sayings.”

“Will it do any good? Hiding inside?”

“What is your definition of good?”

That was answer enough for Sebastian.

He wondered what the government’s response would be. He wondered what it would be back home. They had to have been prepared at least somewhat. The shapes had appeared a full year ago. They must have a plan if not for exactly this, at least something like it.

He considered going on the internet to see how his home country and the rest of the world were reacting, but as he began to do just that, Anubis spoke.

“Our time is growing short. You do not have time to read the news. I can summarize it succinctly: no one knows anything.”

“Great,” Sebastian said sarcastically.

“I’ve done nearly all I can to aid you. There’s one last thing. I’ve sent you a map of how to get to the anomaly shrine from your current location. Act quickly, as you only have until the beginning of the phase to reach it.”

Sebastian looked down at his phone, which now instead of an internet browser displayed a map of his area, a red dot with a pulsing red ring circling around it indicating his destination: the Royal Palace.

Sebastian groaned. “That’s the way I just came from. It better not be on a roof again. And what’s an anomaly shrine?”

“Prepare yourself.”

Sebastian began to ask for what, but then the other voice, Osiris, the Apocalypse System, returned.

Phase 1 initiation complete.

…

Unauthorized fusion has stalled the beginning of Phase 1.

Adjusting parameters…

New Phase 1 start time in 603 seconds.

This new countdown replaced the old one in the corner of his vision.

“The fusion of the other world has slowed down the transfiguration,” Anubis told him. “But it hasn’t stopped it. If you want to make it in time, you should run.”

Sebastian swore, then took off in the direction of the Palace, and whatever treasures this anomaly shrine held.