CHAPTER 84: WORLD TEAR: CONVERGENCE

One Day Later...

Finn had thought he understood scale.

He’d seen the Soul Sanctum’s descending pentagon, its chain bridges disappearing into depths that seemed endless. He’d witnessed Preceptor Elias’s display of power, the way reality itself seemed to bend around the old man’s will. He’d survived a pocket space where the laws of reality had unraveled before his eyes...

But nothing... nothing had prepared him for the World Tear.

They’d spotted it from miles away, a distortion on the horizon that grew larger with each passing hour of flight. At first, it had looked like a storm, a dark smudge in the clear sky from a distance.

But as they drew closer, the true nature of what they were seeing became apparent.

And every Ossuarist on every flying vessel fell silent.

It was the World Tear. And it looked nothing like a breach. Nothing like a tear. It didn’t even look like a portal in any conventional sense.

It was a wound

in reality itself.

The thing spanned an area that made Finn’s mind struggle to process the scope. More than five thousand square kilometers — roughly the size of a small nation. It was a massive three-dimensional veil that twisted and writhed like something alive, refracting light in impossible ways.

From this distance, Finn could see why they called it a prism.

The barrier — if it could even be called that — shifted constantly. One moment, he thought he glimpsed towering structures through its translucent surface. The next, dense forests. Then crystalline formations that couldn’t possibly be natural. And then vast and terrifying empty lands.

And as their position changed, so did the view. What appeared to be a mountain range from one angle resolved into something completely different when viewed from twenty meters to the left.

The view beyond shifted so easily, one second Finn thought he was looking at a canyon, but then the next second he questioned what he was looking at. Perhaps it was actually an inverted city, perhaps something his mind simply refused to properly categorize.

"What in the..." Tron murmured from his position on their shared aerial transport. His usual haughty confidence had been replaced by actual, genuine awe.

No wonder Priest said it’s like a prism, Finn thought, looking at the impossible geometry with his enhanced vision in more detail than the other Ossuarists.

It’s not showing us what’s there. It’s showing us fragments... Pieces. Different angles of the space that lies beyond. Finn mused.

Then his eyes looked down below.

While the Tear itself was an overwhelming sight to behold, it wasn’t the only thing that caught his breath.

It was everything around it.

The ground bordering the tear below had been transformed into something resembling a massive, chaotic festival crossed with a military encampment.

Thousands upon thousands of Arcanists filled the plains surrounding the World Tear’s perimeter. Their presence was a riot of color, sound, and barely-contained magical energy that made the air itself feel pressurized.

And unlike Ossuarists, who could store their soul masses in their shadows until it was needed, Arcanists had to have their live tamed beasts fully out in the open, creating the spectacle of magical creatures that filled the view below.

Finn’s Ferropteryx-enhanced vision picked out details that would have been invisible to normal sight:

A cluster of Feraxian beast tamers whose entire camp was built around a herd of massive Stag-like magical creatures with antlers that glowed like beacons of lightning and pure mana energy.

An encampment where Serpents with crystal scales coiled in a massive throng around their masters, refracting sunlight into rainbow patterns that danced across the ground.

Flying above certain sections, sky-creatures of all kinds, from massive birds to wyverns to griffins, and even a few large dragons, carried Arcanists in elaborate saddles, filling the sky above their camp with their diverse colors.

Finn even spotted what looked like an artifact-beast hybrid the size of a small building, with a body that looked like a fusion of machinery and living tissue that pulsed with blue energy.

This was Feraxia, the Beast Tamer continent, showing off everything that made it legendary.

But it wasn’t just Feraxian families.

As their transport descended in a slow spiral toward the designated Ossuarist landing zone, Finn’s gaze swept across the organized chaos below.

Sectioned encampments divided the massive gathering into distinct zones:

To the west, the Feraxian families had claimed territory marked by banners depicting various beast clans. Finn recognized some from his brief Ossuary education and his few days as a Vested — House Wyrnscale with their dragon-blood wyverns, Clan Thornmane with their legendary dire wolves, the Skyclaw Collective whose members rode giant eagles bred for speed and endurance.

To the north, Mechanus delegations had also set up camp. And considering they were allies to Feraxia, it wasn’t surprising.

Their camps were geometric and clean, with towering artifacts around the perimeter. It served as a demarcation, but Finn felt it was more for protecting their warded off camp section instead.

To the east, Aethelosian groups — smaller in number but no less prestigious — had established their own section. Even from this height, Finn could already make out the colors and banners of noble houses he vaguely recognized.

And scattered throughout, mixing with all three continental sections, were the merchant families.

Finn’s eyes locked onto a particularly large encampment flying familiar colors.

"The Feuguer Family," Althea said quietly, following his gaze.

The merchant family’s presence was impossible to miss. There were at least a thousand Master-rank Arcanists on their payroll, each equipped with gear that probably cost more than most small nobles’ annual income. Their beasts were exotic, clearly imported from across all three continents as status symbols as much as combat assets.

Other merchant families had similar displays, each trying to out-splendor the others in a competition of wealth and power that would have been comical if the scale wasn’t so staggering.

"This is..." Althea’s voice trailed off, apparently unable to find adequate words.

"Insane," Finn finished quietly. "This is completely insane."

Because it wasn’t just the variety or the numbers. It was the quality.

Everyone here was someone. A talent in their own right. Every family here had power, influence, resources. Every beast was high-grade, well-trained, and worth fortunes. Every Arcanist here was prominent enough to warrant their deployment to what might be an epoch changing event.

And more were still arriving.

Finn could see distant specks on the horizon — more flying transports, more beast-riders, more delegations racing to stake their claims and secure positions before the best opportunities were taken.

"Exciting, isn’t it?" Tron said, and despite his usual ’above-all’ air, Finn could hear genuine enthusiasm in his voice. "This is history. Real history. Whatever we find in there... and whatever we become because of it..."

He clenched his fist.

They all felt it. That giddy, electric anticipation that came from standing on the edge of something truly unknown.

Their transport began its final descent toward a section of cleared ground where Ossuarists were landing in steady waves. Every minute or two, another flying beast or levitation artifact touched down, unloading teams of black-uniformed figures who immediately fell into organized formations.

Their own landing was also smooth. And without dilly-dallying, Finn, Althea, and Tron dismounted, joining the flow of Ossuarists moving toward a central mustering point where a Caretaker with a gritty voice was barking orders.

"TEAMS ALPHA THROUGH DELTA, FORM UP ON THE EASTERN MARKER!"

"RECONNAISSANCE SPECIALISTS, REPORT TO CARETAKER VOSS IMMEDIATELY!"