Chapter 3: Searching the Nexus

Jaeger had been busy. Whatever had called to him was a long way away, and so he had hurried towards his goal, seeking to reach it or risk being too late as he did not know if any time constraints rested on it.

Running across the torn landscape, he regularly leapt straight across the open arteries that covered it and ignored the numerous creatures watching him pass. They were too slow to bother him anyway, and he revelled in how quickly he could move and for how long he could keep it up. He had not been weakened by the years spent underground. This was fantastic news, and it put him in such an excellent frame of mind that he would not allow himself to stop.

Coming to the edge of the valley, he noted the black, rising cliff before him that sat on the side of a mountain barring his path. Of course, this did not particularly bother him either, as he just saw it as a new challenge. When he was about thirty feet from it, he jumped straight at the solid rock with enough force to smash his hands some way into it hence producing his own ledge from which to propel himself upwards. When he was done, the cliff itself bore several new scars.

From the top, he could see a long way into the distance, and it was a rather daunting sight. The landscape was broad and flat with nothing changing throughout it; the valley that he had just been in, the only change in terrain, must have been some ancient crater left after a terrific impact. Aside from it, there was nothing. The red light reflected off the dark ground giving it a beautiful sheen, and, given the time he had spent in getting to this point, he wondered if this world was embroiled within an eternal night. That thought was not something that he would let contain him for long as he spotted his destination, or rather the direction to go in order to reach his destination.

Sprinting straight down the other side of the mountain, he cared very little for the distances he ended up falling, always landing confidently, on his own two feet, seemingly unaffected when a normal man would have easily broken bone.

His effort was quickly rewarded by him arriving at an almost indistinguishable dip in the ground, so slight it was. However, what had taken his attention was what was above it. An image of another world through which the message had come. Striding around its circumference, the image changed to show him views of different directions into this new place. It was a spherical hole, a hole between worlds known only as a gate, although this was only what most people knew of it, and Jaeger knew a little more than just this.

Confidently walking through, he entered a meadow of flowing hills and luscious grass with purple flowers interspersed throughout. Here the sky was blue, and it was populated by white, fluffy clouds and had a broad yellow light moving across it. There were very few large plants visible, but the ones there were had no branches, reached to be roughly twice his height, and had leaves sprouting from their peaks that were singularly large enough to take cover under. His instincts told him that this was not where he was destined to go; so he continued towards where he imagined the next gate to be.

As he expected, it was there and through this one was a similar world with the only differences being that horse-like creatures, with a shorter snout than their regular counterparts, lived within and that there were now two lights, one yellow and one white, in the sky. Naturally, the fragments of reality that these worlds occupied did not extend far past the ground, and so any number of beacons could exist above them, or maybe none at all. He thought he could tell that this one was either very large or occupied an entirely flat plane that rotated. Alternatively, it could have the lights above it move to simulate days. Of course, these ideas were just guesses as any number of possibilities existed as to how the lands may be arranged.

The following fragment was uninteresting; so was the next and the next, and he could not feel as though he was getting any closer.

He then noticed that the nearest gate had several people surrounding it, along a road, and, wondering what this could mean, he ran past them ignoring their presence. It seemed that one of them was a manipulator who had put a field around it that was not easy to cross. Sensing this, Jaeger marched over to the man to demand his passage through. Intimidation seemed to work, and he soon was able to move on with no questions asked, only leaving several slightly more-unsteady-than-usual men behind him.

As it turned out, those people had been on guard duty to block anyone from entering the city that existed on the other side without permission. Naturally, it was then assumed that Jaeger had permission because he could exude enough confidence to appear as though he belonged within his surroundings.

The building that he had emerged into consisted of a single vast, open space with the walls being made of a yellow stone and sloping together to form a curved ceiling. The floor was a mosaic depicting a green snake-like monster with broad eyes and along either side ran long wooden desks. At even intervals, men sat behind them uniformed to wear a dark cloak with a bowtie tied around their necks, all working to exchange goods and currencies as people came and went through the gate from various realms.

There were plenty of different species on display here, lots of humans, demi-humans, and several others entirely covered in fur. Moving towards the exit, Jaeger found that he drew many of the spectator's eyes towards himself on account of his unusually coloured and long hair, piercing eyes and clothes that looked about ready to fall apart, even whilst he wore them. Leaving the building under an open archway that had no door to close across it, he stepped out into sunlight so blinding that to look outside from within was like looking at a white screen.

The reason for this was obvious as he had emerged into a desert climate. He was atop a hill that overlooked a small trading town with several marketplaces and similarly coloured houses to the construct that he had come through.

Its streets were buzzing with hundreds of vibrantly dressed people making their way steadily through daily business of all kinds whilst carts, pulled by upsized goats, tried to part the tide and push through them. These were laden with fruits and other goods, and, every so often, Jaeger observed how children might climb atop them, keeping out of sight of the driver, before snatching up something for themselves and running off using the crowd as cover. In fact, the street rats were everywhere, tracing mischievous patterns between stalls before being chased away by the owners.

In the centre was a clock tower whose hands denoted the time as being midday, or rather this was what Jaeger assumed it was showing based on their positions as he had never actually seen this way of keeping time before. Leaning against a stone bannister at the top of a particularly steep incline on the side of the hill he was on, he tried to get a better view to see if any other gates were present. None were, and the voices were as distant as ever.

There were so many sounds and so much happiness to go around, but for Jaeger, enough was enough. The burning light from above that made the scene resemble an oven was a little too much to willingly subject himself to.

Making a change in course, he turned around and determinedly strode back towards the gateway. There was a way he knew, a way of passing through dozens of worlds very, very quickly; however, it was extremely hazardous. Oh well, he thought, there was only him at risk, and so he didn't mind that part so much.

When he arrived at the hole between fragmented worlds, he paused at it again, drawing suspicious looks as people wondered what he was up to. Instead of then walking through it, he pushed his aura into it and extended it. This took a lot of effort but no longer was it an immediate meeting point between lands, but it became a long tunnel between them. He knew that it was still leading to the same place, but he still jumped into it as worried cries went up from everyone around him that didn't understand what he was doing - the gates were meant to be unchanging.

Inside the passage, there was no friction and its sides were a pearly-black abyss that he slid by waiting for the perfect moment. Occasionally, sharp flashes of colour would appear before him and, when a blue one did, he mentally grabbed at it to hold in place. From there, he pulled the flash apart to widen it into something that he could fit straight through and he did just that, propelling himself forwards by grasping at its intersections with the rest of the tunnel.

The concern that he had caused the people behind him was not worrying him as he knew the gate would return to normal once he was finished with it, and now he was between worlds. Quite literally, this was called the abyss. It was where certain peoples' aura went, that stayed together after their body's death, on account of an unknown phenomenon, and now he was floating through it. After some time, an attraction took hold of him, and his feet landed upon a translucent surface sending spirals out as though he had lightly tapped a body of still water. Then a whole new environment appeared around him, its ground chequered like a chess board.

All around him were strange objects, some floating and others just sat on the floor, often fazing in and out of existence with dark; hard to identify creatures moving around them, wisps of aura they could have been, that acted like monsters.

Things worked differently here, time and space being stretched and proportioned in a way not seen in normal realms, for this was not a realm. Instead, it was the space, or rather the lack of space, between them. Following his senses, he continued towards where he thought he was meant to be heading, aware of how he was now moving thousands of times faster across the real land than he otherwise could have.

He had to be very careful to avoid, and not give in to, the whispers that he heard trying to lay chains upon him trapping him in this underworld and to dodge the appearing masses, lest one materialise within him. This was easier said than done and it took all of his concentration as he watched for the brief flashes of aura acting as signals for their arrival. This meant that he did not notice the distorted mansion he was rapidly approaching and, as soon as he did, he altered his direction so that he would travel around it, giving it a wide berth. He could not afford to alert its occupants to his presence, as the Overseers of the abyss would say: the living should not be among those classified as dead.

Finding where he wanted to be, he repeated the same action as before, opening a gate within another gate and arrived within a new world. Yes, he internally cried, happy with his progress; I'm far closer now.

Inside was a landscape covered in great spires of rock which soared several nodes high and seemed to be placed randomly throughout the plane. Curious about how they could stand so tall, Jaeger approached one and felt himself getting lighter on his feet, so that was it, he thought, gravity isn't working properly here. That was no issue for him, and he continued onwards, circling the jagged spears and over steep rises in the terrain, noticing that he often passed many caves large enough to hide entire armies.

The ground was littered with strange creatures, and he already again knew that this place was not where he was meant to be but rather a route towards it. He did not recognise the animals by his feet; he only knew that they were alive on account of their faint auras because they otherwise resembled a brown stone.

Up ahead was a group of roughly twelve people. Six were wearing blue robes, and the others were moving along beside them in a manner that betrayed how they probably did not belong together. It was clear why because those in robes were human, but the others were all yokai. Among the yokai was one that looked to be relatively young, the height of a pre-teen boy with brown hair both on his head and tail. Jaeger wondered if he had better go and free him from his captives, however, he eventually decided against this. This was because the messages to him had stopped for the time being and so, momentarily lost as for where to go, he was going to follow these people to the next world. It would be better if they did not see him as an enemy.

This did not mean that he had to stay close to them and, making use of the fluctuations in the force keeping him bound to the surface at his feet, he moved high above them, between the spires. Noticing that one of the humans was moving away from the rest, he got into a better position, lying down on a rocky outcrop to see where they were going. Apparently, they had no particular destination in mind and instead had been drawn in by the sight of one of the brown stones moving.

These miniature boulders had turned out to be crab-like creatures with spindly legs that unfolded from beneath them, making them several feet high. When the person got close to one of them, it suddenly rushed back towards them causing the man to run back before realising that he was surrounded.

Unsure what to do, he was caught in the middle as they clambered atop him and tightened their legs around him whilst he tried to shake them off. Unfortunately for him, there were just too many, and he soon became lost below a seething mess of the monsters that secreted a sticky liquid which soon hardened, forming a solid surface around the human; that was the end of him. He had been fully engulfed in a custom-fitted tomb, made just for him.

Amused, Jaeger turned back to the group to see if they had noticed what had happened to their comrade. They had not, but they went looking for him regardless, and this served to dampen Jaeger's mood as it slowed both his and their own progress because they couldn't seem to realise that the uneven stone they kept passing, and one of them actually sat on, was the covered body they were looking for. How silly they were being.