Chapter 407: Demon, Kaiju, or Phantom?

Judith lifted the mug to her lips again, the coffee now lukewarm as it slid down her throat. The familiar bitterness blended with the smell of damp earth, where the rest of the group sat drinking in the lazy silence of another early shift under the open sky.

Amit shattered the quiet.

“A kaiju would still be better,” he said, propping his elbow on the table. “And when one shows up here, all of you owe me that bet.”

George let out a short laugh.

“If some giant monster appears here, thinking about your bet is going to be the last thing on our minds, Amit. Pretty sure you watched too many movies when you went back to ‘civilization’ on leave.”

A few chuckles. A few tired head shakes. Same conversation as always, theories, exaggerations, jokes made to drag the boredom out of their bones.

Eventually, one by one, the group drifted off to start their routines.

Judith’s tasks were the usual: maintain the site, confirm the dimensional chest logs, sweep the dust that always returned no matter how sealed the windows were. On good days, she sharpened tools. Nothing major. Nothing new.

Later, standing on the second-floor balcony of her cabin, she rested her hands on the railing and gazed out toward the city beyond the treeline. That was where the natives lived, descendants of the society that had grown here over the last century. Most had never seen a cellphone, didn’t even know such a thing existed. They lived in a rhythm that felt similar to Earth’s medieval age, and seemed perfectly content.

She could have chosen to live there too. Become an adventurer, a mercenary, a traveling trader. There was something intoxicating in that kind of straightforward life.

Judith stepped off the porch and followed the narrow path into the woods. Routine patrol. No outsider was allowed near the site. That rule was one of the few taken seriously.

The air was quiet enough to make her drowsy. Judith yawned and leaned her back against the thick trunk of a tree.

“An hour nap should do,” she muttered, settling down.

Sometimes she slept during her shift. Nobody cared. In this corner of the New World, nothing ever happened. No threats. No changes.

“If I sleep for a few hours, who cares? It’s always dead out here,” she whispered, eyes drifting shut. “It’s not like anything important is going to happen right now.”

And then, the ground shuddered.

Not the soft tremor of wind or settling earth, but a deep quake that made every leaf tremble at once. The world seemed to hold its breath. Judith’s eyes snapped open. There were no earthquakes here. That was impossible.

She sprang to her feet, pulling her axe from her dimensional storage. Her grip tightened on the handle, instinct faster than thought. A roar tore through the air, like dozens of storms cracking open at once. For a heartbeat, gravity flickered, her body lifted half a foot, weight stolen away, and then reality slammed her back down.

A white flash erupted from the direction of the village. Sound vanished. It was as if the light itself swallowed everything, leaving only a blinding, suffocating white. Seconds later, a sharp crack tore through the air, followed by another tremor strong enough to knock her down. She hit her knees, steadied herself, axe still firm in her grasp, breath ragged.

And she ran.

Judith sprinted down the trail, heart battering against her ribs. The forest felt different now: the air heavier, thick with something she couldn’t name. Every step crushed leaves and twigs underfoot, but even that sound seemed muted, as if the world was still recovering from the flash.

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When she broke through the tree line, she saw the village. Or rather, the aftermath of whatever had happened there. A white radiance was fading over the village, dissolving like luminous mist. A shiver climbed her spine, it wasn’t just light. It was mana. Dense, living, pulsing, like a heat that resonated with the beat of her own blood.

Her body reacted before her thoughts caught up. She knew exactly what this meant. The seal. Something had happened to it. Years of speculation, theories, endless briefings that never led anywhere. All of it crashing into this moment.