Now, we move on to the changes among Cultivators.

The recently inaugurated Ganun stands as our most formidable Cultivator, the pinnacle of physical strength. After mastering countless techniques and combining his peerless talent for battle, he brought Oswort to a draw. Congratulations, Ganun. Welcome to the Shattered Peak.

Few walk the path of a Cultivator of their own free will. It is oft only the untalented that must torture themselves unto power. However… I would rather have a Cultivator by my side than any other Designation in battle.

While brutish and violent, they are those with unbreakable wills forged from endless training and hardship. A Seer can see the unseen, a Psion touch the untouched, and yet… it is the Cultivators who can do the impossible.

Let us give praise to:

Praetor Oswen, for his survival in the Great Darkness. His blade shines brighter than it ever did before. Be wary of the light, lest you receive the shade.

* Yarnen, Anomaly 0, Year 3986, in her Century Report.

Time swung as eternally as it always had for Dante. No matter how much he wished he had, it was never given. The universe would never give him time to prepare to his liking, as he would never be satisfied. He spent days honing his Tide, accelerating the water, practicing with it as a rope, and slicing through bottles with increasing precision.

Every day, he grew more adept. It wasn’t just him—others grew, too.

On this day, September 1st of Year 3993, Dante embarked on the first adventure he and his little brother had always dreamed of. He stood atop the Baron’s residence, looking over the ruined planet stretched before him.

His eyes scanned the surroundings, spotting countless Dirge living their bestial lives. Amongst the rubble, a few had evolved from rare Anachronisms to powerful Anathema. Dante held little kindness toward the new mouths, however.

Neither did Astraeus, as the Dirge begged Thanaris not to send the ‘weak’ with them, but she wouldn’t acquiesce. Dante understood, of course. She wanted as many bodies on this retrieval mission of hers as possible.

Beside Astraeus at the rooftop’s edge, he steadied himself, waiting for Thanaris to arrive. A scoff escaped Dante’s lips as his gaze flicked toward the newcomers, “Can’t believe we’re going with them. They’re borderline sentient.”

The Dirge, who ripped Dante’s organs out at their first meeting, laughed strangely, shifting the dots on his face toward the strangers, “They aren’t that dumb. It’s not Saerer’s fault she can’t speak yet. Not all Dirge get working mouths. But yeah... I think they might just make things worse for us.”

Neither of them was thrilled. They spent weeks training together, refining their skills as a team, only for two more to be forced upon them now.

Dante understood why, but it didn’t matter. He felt irritated at not being informed ahead of time that new Anathemas would join, and Astraeus felt slighted, believing his master still found him too weak.

Proof of this perceived weakness sat nearby on a rusted radiator: Saerer and Hatle, their forms looming divergently against the crumbling cityscape.

Saerer, a female Dirge, rarely moved despite the shared words of derision before her. Her right hand gleamed with a sharp blade that caught the glint of the early moon’s brilliance. The other hand, grotesque and mechanical with bony flesh, was clamp-shaped, resting without purpose in her lap.

The Anathema’s head was deformed, akin to a grotesque sprouting flower, half-bloomed and unnatural. Her mouth was little more than a shriveled slit, narrowly capable of speech, and when she spoke, it sounded muffled and strangled, like the words struggled to escape.

Next to her, Hatle loomed, his frame massive even in his seated position. He resembled a creature Dante recalled from Judas’ coloring books.

A Minotaur—except Hatle was far worse than those childish renditions. His upper body was that of a rhino, with a thick, gray hide stretched over muscular, expansive shoulders and a hulking chest. One dangerous horn jutted from his forward, while underneath the weapon, dark eyes scanned the rooftop with quiet, unnerving intelligence.

Neither Hatle nor Saerer reacted to Astraeus’ words, for they respected him as their better. He, after all, was their master’s chosen warrior.

Their eyes, however, did glare at Dante with unknown promises.

Nevertheless, they quickly concealed their emotions as a pair of soft yet mighty footsteps approached them from the stairway. Dante and Astraeus, twisting away from the ledge, welcomed their Caesar.

Thanaris stepped through the doorway, her ruby hair trailing behind her with wispy blood. She nodded to her first ‘allies’ before eyeing the other two, “I know you aren’t happy about this, Talker, Simmer, but the other Caesars will bring extra firepower, too. So will the Empires and whatever rats scurry through for this dimension-rush. Part of diving this deep was for some extra strength.”

A moment after explaining her decision, and without waiting for an answer, the Caesar raised a pale arm toward the space before her.

Dante’s full attention was on her. He wanted to see precisely what she was about to do. However, as he watched, he realized he was still a million miles away from replicating even a fraction of her technique.

Thanaris closed the Lightsea between her slim fingers, collapsing it in a motion similar to collapsing a Domain. But instead of releasing the energy outward, she inverted it. Dante did not know how she did it; he could only feel something shift, something profound.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Tide Reversal: Haunting Dreamscape.“

The ground trembled subtly beneath his feet, and without a word, a rift in the atmosphere rent open before the Caesar’s palm, its jagged edges crackling with bloody tears. The incision into space shimmered with colors that didn’t belong—hues that danced beyond the visible spectrum, shifting in ways that made Dante’s stomach turn. In the eyes of a mortal, the sight was so nightmarish their insides lurched.

“It’s time,” Thanaris murmured, her voice layered with a low, haunting hum radiating from the gash in the air, akin to the distant prayers of a choir half-forgotten by time.

Dante’s heartbeat quickened. Even Astraeus glanced nervously at him. The human’s hands sweated, but he was filled with not just fear. There was boundless excitement embedded in his soul, too.

No matter who he was with. No matter where he was to go. No matter the depths, he would have to dive.

He was alive, and he was living his brother’s dream. He might have missed his crew, but he would get them back. Then...

So much more.

The air thickened with roiling Tides from the Lightsea as Thanaris motioned them forward. Water flooded onto the floor while the ice blocks swept snowflakes within. The scarlet haze emanating from the dimensional hole told Dante that he had to hurry, and with a single step, Dante crossed into the rift.

Then, the world collapsed around him.

There was no sensation of falling, no transition he could capture with his eyes, ears, or even his nose. One moment, he was in the familiar world—wet, solid, grounded—and the next, the laws of reality dissolved around him. He floated, weightless, his body sinking into a vast expanse of sensory overload.

The first thing to hit was the smell. It was overwhelming and carried the stench of an old hag’s bloated corpse. The scent delved profoundly into Dante’s nose, staining it eternally.

Sound came next if it could be called a sound. Against his skull came a low, ceaseless drone, like the grinding of colossal, invisible currents revolving endlessly in the dark sea. Faint whispers brushed the edges of his consciousness—voices speaking dead languages or tongues never known to exist, murmuring secrets just out of reach.

And finally, the Lightsea revealed itself.

Dante stood, or rather, floated on an impossible boat of solidified blood in an infinite ocean of glowing mint-green water. The sea stretched out in every direction, flat and calm yet disturbingly alive. The waves below pulsed faintly, their glow flickering periodically with some unseen force, as if it were a heartbeat.

His head swiftly raised upward to see the eternal stars above, but...

There was no sky above.

Not in the traditional sense, at least. A void existed above the dimension Dante found himself in, and it told him something simple. He wasn’t where he belonged. As he stared up, however, he saw flickers of something beyond the void, possessed by an eerie green. He shook his head without hesitance as he forced the image from his mind. This was...

Those of the primary dimensions should not be here. Dante knew it. And yet... He knelt beside the water, inspecting the bizarre color and nature.

The water wasn’t water. Not really. Dante knew it in his bones. Liquid, yes, but moving unnaturally, defying all reason. He broached out a hand, calling for his own Tide to gather some, but was told off by a stern voice, “Stop. We are on the surface of the Lightsea. It’s the safest and easiest to travel. Don’t provoke a Leviathan.”

Dante nodded to the Caesar, and he rose to his feet, finding all four of his companions with him. Astraeus, Saerer, and Hatle bowed their heads toward Thanaris as her feet linked to the boat beneath them.

Suddenly, the threads connected in Dante’s mind, and it all made sense.

In order to travel here safely, you need to do whatever Thanaris just did. A Tide Reversal. Interesting. I wonder, though, what is down there? Where do starships fly when they jump? Is it down below or up above? So many questions.

A deafening roar echoed overhead as if mocking his curiosity, and Dante glimpsed a starship leaping through the sky. It was only visible for the briefest instant before vanishing through a shattering rift.

The collapsing rift was far more deafening than the entry, causing waves to balloon across the nearby sea and shake the vessel. Astraeus saw Dante’s awe and pointed upward with his left hand while the other gripped the boat tensely, “Your ships have special shields that last long enough to leap through. Without them, though, just one ‘jump’ could destroy a ship if the crew was unlucky. You and yours... lucky bastards surviving two.”

Dante nodded, gripping the railing tightly. The unsettling sensation of being in this realm gnawed at him.

But it wasn’t the sight, smell, or unnatural sounds that disturbed him the most—it was that feeling. The Lightsea pressed against his mind. It was aware of him, of all of them. He could feel its presence brushing against his thoughts like a thousand unseen hands. And these hands were more than just there. They were poking, prodding, rifling through his mind and body.

It was as though the Lightsea itself was curious, assessing whether he was worthy to survive its waves or perhaps just something to be consumed.

These... people come from this place? How?

Dante’s eyes lingered on the endless mint-green waters with bewilderment and amazement. He shook away the fear before turning to face Thanaris.

Her face was dispatched toward the horizon or what passed for one in this place. Her expression sat serene, but there was an edge to it, something dark and unreadable. She didn’t seem bothered by the bizarro oceanscape, as though the Lightsea was her home.

Though Dante supposed it was.

Without turning, the Caesar spoke to her subordinates, “The Lightsea knows you’re here. And because you’re not of these waters, it will desire you. You’ll see things, feel things—try not to let it drive you mad.”

As if on cue, the water rippled beneath the waves, subtle at first, but soon it became more pronounced. Shapes swam narrowly beneath the surface, scarcely visible through the radiant water. They glided lazily, with serpentine bodies, but their faces...

Dante squinted, leaning closer to the edge to get a better look at the familiar figments.

With a sharp step backward, he realized that they were reflections—warped and distorted versions of four of them. Dante’s own reflection stared back from the water, its eyes hollow and empty. The mouth twisted into a grotesque mockery of a grin, mocking him.

The reflection spoke, though its lips did not move, “Now, if you would die, that’d be great.” the voice that spoke was Dante; it was Judas. The sound of it sent a chill down his spine, reminding him of the curse that lingered over his life.

However, the other reflections were similarly wrong, telling Dante it wasn’t just Judas’ typical curses. Astraeus’ was covered in cracks, his dots leaking dark liquid into the sea. Saerer’s and Hatle’s reflections were melting, their bodies dissolving into the water like wax figures left too long in the heat.

There was one exception. Thanaris had no mirror reflecting her countenance. The Lightsea dared not scorn her.

Everyone gathered within the boat’s center, as near to the Caesar as they could. Even Dante’s back was pressed against her shoulder. He couldn’t find an ounce of calm here, not a second to regain his focus.

As if to threaten him further, the boat rocked as a sudden gust of wind, cold and harsh as broken glass, swept over the surface. Dante shivered despite Surewinter’s aid. He couldn’t imagine what it’d be like without the technique, though it felt less cold and more like the sensation of being watched from a thousand unseen angles.

“Keep your mind sharp,” Thanaris warned Dante, her voice unnervingly calm. “Train while you can. You’ll be fine if you don’t go over the edge. If another Caesar floats by... then I’ll make you help.”

Her words were both reassuring and ominous. Under them, the boat glided forward, propelled by a current of blood-red water that emerged from the rear, cutting through the glowing sea. Beneath them, the figures followed, swirling in chaotic patterns, their eyes never leaving the five aboard.

Astraeus’s voice broke through the eerie stillness, “How far do we have to go?”

Thanaris didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes became fixated on the horizon, though there was nothing there—only an endless sea and infinite darkness.

“Space works differently here,” she said at last, with a low, sheering hum. “With enough knowledge, you can navigate it. A few weeks to a month, as I’m still searching. It depends on how tumultuous the sea is when approaching the Lost Reaches.”

The thought of spending weeks in this strange, mind-bending realm made Dante’s skin crawl. He suppressed a shudder and seized the moment to learn more about this place. He might never get another chance like this.

“Were you born here? Originally, I mean,” Dante solicited an answer while staring at the Caesar.

Thanaris nodded, offering a brief explanation before waving him off, “Yes. Deep in the depths. As we all are. Caesars can break through space for themselves and others, which is how most young ones enter the Primary nowadays.”

She waved him off before he could ask more, “Now, no more questions. I need to focus.”

Hearing that she had to give her all to something, Dante’s eyes widened, and Astraeus’ shifting face suffered a similar fate. Both clamped their mouths with quickness and decided on silence.

Under no circumstances would they be the reason the boat beneath them was destroyed, and they ensured Saerer and Hatle would do the same. Their glares and threatening eyes shared the deaths they would deliver if both were not quiet.

Saerer bowed her head subserviently while Hatle sat down beside Thanaris with a huff.

Dante and Astraeus then felt another rumble in the sky as another starship pierced the Lightsea, leaving behind a swift frame of that distant, eerie green in the void. Once more, it made Dante sick as Astraeus leaned in close, whispering, “That’s another reason so many of us kill your kind. You’re really fucking annoying. Not you, though.”

The human wanted to laugh at the serious words that came off as a joke. But he didn’t. Instead, he sat down, too, ensuring to lower his head to rest beneath the vessel’s railing.

Then, he started laboring through Surewinter, hoping to get enough mastery over the first cycle to attempt the second before their arrival. All the while, those unseen eyes burrowed into his being.

They were watching. Waiting. Patient. Dante wasn’t sure if they were there for him, Thanaris, or Judas. But they were there for one of the three, and that made his mind race for power.

Power that he believed he would one day grasp between his fingers.