Reverse Cradlepoint, The Third Eresnae.

We stepped off the yacht and onto the aqueduct dock, our boots making soft thuds against the polished stone walkway. It was weirdly warm beneath my feet, like the material itself was pulsing with some low, internal heat.

Above us, beyond the lip of the stone walls, the upside-down city still glowed like a dream caught in a mirror, its lights refracting through the misty rain that somehow still didn't touch us.

The streets of the port weren't what I expected at all.

I thought it would be full of quiet murmurs and careful steps, like a place where everyone whispered secrets and feared being overheard.

But no. It was alive. Lanterns floated on invisible strings, casting long, colorful shadows that danced on the wet floor. Strange-looking vehicles zoomed past on levitating rails above us, whirring softly, and people in coats, robes, Flux-woven bodysuits, and even armor moved in every direction.

A market stretched along the curve of the lower tier. Stalls glowed in neon blue and violet, selling things I couldn't even name, fish that floated in midair without water, glowing fruits that rearranged themselves on the shelves when someone looked away, weapons humming with Flux energy, and scrolls that whispered to themselves in a dozen different voices.

I blinked at the scene, then stared up at the city once more.

"Wait… are we upside down? Because I don't feel upside down. But that—" I pointed at the skyscrapers hanging above us, "—definitely looks like down is up."

Shannon turned to me with that too-calm look on her face and said;

"Don't question the mechanics of one of the five Eresnae. You'll get answers that'll literally ruin your mind. Like, no metaphor. Your brain will fold in on itself and implode."

"Oh." I swallowed. "Cool."

"Not cool," Phaser muttered with a smirk, hands in his pockets. "Funny, though."

"Okay, back up—what the hell is an Eresnae?"

Shannon slowed her pace as we crossed an arched bridge with translucent panels glowing under our feet. She glanced over at Phaser, letting him take the question. He looked over his shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised.

"We're not on Earth anymore."

My stomach did a backflip. I stopped walking.

"Sorry, what?"

"You heard him," Shannon chimed in without stopping. "This is another world. We call it Erae."

My jaw just… stayed open. "Another world? As in, not our dimension?"

"Yup," Phaser said casually, like we were discussing the weather. "You're walking through one of its Five Eresnae. They're... hard to explain. Think of them as the Seven Wonders of Erae but alive and worse."

Shannon chimed in. "Each Eresnae defies logic. Gravity, time, spatial awareness, even sensory comprehension. You've seen Cradlepoint,the one we're in now and the third of the five. It's upside down but doesn't make you feel like it. You'll meet people who've lived their whole lives never knowing they're hanging above the ocean. And if you try to study how it works? You'll either disappear, go mad, or get recruited by something older than a god."

"…I feel like none of those are good options," I mumbled.

"They're not."

"Great."

We moved down a street lined with luminous pillars, each one covered in glowing etchings I couldn't understand. A group of robed figures passed us on the left, each with glass masks on their faces. I didn't dare ask.

Phaser kept talking. "No one knows who built the Eresnae. Some say it was a god. Others say gods. There are conspiracy theories claiming it was the ancients, or beings that live in what they call the 'Veil Beyond.' But we don't ask. Because anyone who asks too much usually ends up becoming one of the anomalies here."

I rubbed my temple. "So what—like, there's five of these places? Five impossible locations in this world?"

"Exactly," Shannon nodded. "Each of the Five Eresnae houses different Rogue Flux communities. We're scattered, nomadic, mostly. But we report to specific places when needed. This one is called Reversal Cradlepoint. And our destination?"

She gestured ahead. A massive castle stood at the end of the wide street. It glowed a soft ivory, pulsing with slow waves like it was breathing.

"That's the Lyers Mand," she said. "It's the central command base for Rogue Flux Elites in this quadrant of Erae. We don't take orders the way factions do but missions, contracts, and larger-scale operations go through there."

"And that's where I'm getting introduced?"

Phaser nodded, slowing down to walk beside me.

"Yeah. You're technically one of us now."

"Wait, wait. I haven't signed anything. What if I don't want to be—"

"Too late," Shannon interrupted. "You survived the Second Thauma. You're connected to a Rogue Elite. You traveled through a transdimensional Flux Gate. And you saw this—" she motioned to the upside-down city "—without losing your mind. Hate to break it to you, baby girl, but you're already one of us."

"…Awesome." I muttered. "Is there at least, like… a badge? Or a cool jacket?"

"Hell yeah," Phaser grinned. "We'll get you both, if she agrees."

I was still processing it all, still trying to understand how I'd gone from giving boring tours to international fugitives, secret memory-extracting heists, interdimensional portals, and living in a place that shouldn't exist.

But the weirdest thing? I wasn't scared.

For the first time in years, I felt like maybe—just maybe—I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

-------

The castle that towered before us was grand. Gothic spires curled into the clouds, each one carved from stone that shimmered with veins of moving flux. It looked like it belonged in a fantasy novel, except it had holograms. Actual floating screens hovered midair outside its gates, tracking movement, projecting blueprints, streaming flux field analytics like we were at some tech base instead of a literal castle.

We crossed the polished bridge that led to its gates. The moment my foot hit the castle's marble floor, I felt something shift in the air, like the building itself knew we had entered.

Inside, the place was like if you took a medieval palace and let it evolve with alien tech. Vaulted ceilings and stone pillars lined the halls, but in between were machines I couldn't recognize—floating lanterns made of blue plasma and panels of energy scrolling intel in a language I didn't even know.

We walked toward the reception desk, where a woman sat in an open circle of curved glass. Her suit was form-fitting and pearlescent, her fingers moving at inhuman speeds over a keyboard that wasn't physical—it was light. She barely looked up as Shannon and Phaser pulled out black cards and slid them across her interface.

The second the cards hit the scanner, her eyes lit up. Literally. Glowed faint white.

"Ennéa Shannon. Ennéa Phaser," she said, voice smooth and toneless. "Welcome back to Lyers Mand."

I blinked. "Ennéa?"

Shannon gave me a look over her shoulder. "Yeah. Our rank."

"Greek?" I asked, following them as we passed the scanner gates. "That's Greek, right?"

Phaser nodded. "All Rogue Flux Elite ranks are labeled with Greek numbers. From Ena to Déka."

He started listing them off as we walked, and honestly, it was kinda badass:

"Ena" – The First. Just awakened. Barely able to contain their flux.

"Dio" – The Second. Stable enough to not combust. Still a baby in the game.

"Tria" – The Third. Low-grade offensive and defensive capabilities.

"Tessera" – The Fourth. Recognized fighters. Able to survive combat.

"Pente" – The Fifth. Tactical operatives.

Mission-worthy.

"Exi" – The Sixth. Battle elites. Deadly in the field.

"Epta" – The Seventh. Flux masters. Highly specialized.

"Októ" – The Eighth. Territory-changers. Entire squads bend around them.

"Ennéa" – The Ninth. Top of the scale. World-altering.

"Déka" – The Tenth… Theoretical. A myth. No one's reached it."

I stared at them. "You're both Ennéa?"

Shannon winked. "Damn right."

"Déka?" I asked. "So there's another level?"

Phaser's mouth twitched in a half-smile.

"It's a ghost rank. Not officially acknowledged. Some say it's a death sentence, others say it means you've become something beyond Flux entirely."

"Have any of you ever seen a Déka?"

"Nope," Shannon said. "And if one shows up, run."

I swallowed hard.

At the reception, the woman scanned me briefly, paused, then raised her eyebrows.

"No registration. Unaligned."

"She's Unranked. Unbound," Phaser told her before I could say anything.

The woman gave a slow nod and typed something into her display. "She'll remain under Ennéa probation until her flux stabilizes."

"What does Unbound mean?" I asked.

"It means you haven't settled into your Rank yet," Shannon said. "You could fall into Októ… or you could climb to Déka. Your flux rating's a 9.3, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then you're probably dangerous," she grinned. "Congrats."

We walked past the gates, the flux field scanning our identities. I watched the barrier shimmer and vanish for us only. And as we entered deeper into Lyers Mand, I knew something for sure.

This wasn't just some underground resistance. This was a world of its own. A realm beyond Earth, beyond normal physics, beyond factions.

This was where the Rogue Flux Elites thrived.

And I had just walked into their throne room.