The crash that followed Celine's appearance wasn't thunder or magic. It was the sound of old Brom's stable façade collapsing under the weight of three of those "light sentinels" she had summoned. Dust rose in a brown cloud, and the terrified braying of horses echoed across the square.
Brom, a man broader than he was tall and with a beard that looked like it could house small birds, appeared in the doorway of what remained of his business, his face red with fury.
"MY STABLE!" he roared, eyes locked on me, of course. "Takumi! That'll cost… fifty coins! At least!"
"I didn't knock down the stable, Brom! It was the light creatures!" I tried to argue, but my protest was lost in the chaos.
Celine floated a few inches above the ground, immaculate. "Insignificant collateral damage. Hand over Liriel, and the cleanup will be faster."
Liriel let out a bitter laugh. "Always so diplomatic, Celine. That's why no one invites you to the Divine Hall parties."
While they exchanged divine barbs, the situation worsened. The sentinels weren't attacking with blind rage. They were systematically dismantling Vaelor. One tore off the roof of Melina's house — which, I'll admit, had a silver lining since it silenced her new song about "the strippers and the cracked sky." Another began taking apart the fountain in the center of the square, piece by piece.
"They're not attacking us," Elara realized, panting and leaning on me. "They're… dismantling the city."
"Efficiency above all," Celine declared, having heard the comment. "Removing the anomaly with minimal energy expenditure. Dismantling the support environment is a logical byproduct."
"My shack isn't a 'support environment,' you boring machine!" shouted Torin from his tavern door, brandishing a bottle.
That's when Vespera, in a moment of rare (and accidental) precision, hit one of the sentinels in what looked like its eye. The creature froze, blinked, and instead of attacking, began removing the wall of Rylan's warehouse, brick by brick.
"Looks like I hit the 'renovate' button!" Vespera cheered.
"No, you hit the 'selective destruction' button!" I corrected, seeing Rylan furiously scribbling on a tablet. More debts.
Liriel looked at Celine with disdain. "Do you really think this will make me go back? Watching you destroy these people's world?"
"Your sentimental attachment to these ephemeral organisms is the root of the problem, Liriel. You've been contaminated."
The air behind Celine began to glow again, but this time differently. It wasn't a clean opening but a violent rupture, a bloody tear in the fabric of the air. From it emerged not a sentinel, but a larger form — a pulsating mass of eyes and tentacles made of pure distorted energy.
"What is that?" I asked, feeling my stomach twist.
Liriel turned pale. "A dimensional aberration. A parasite that feeds on ruptures like this. Celine… your portal is unstable. You're tearing reality apart!"
For the first time, a flicker of concern crossed Celine's perfect face. "That was not… accounted for in the calculations."
The aberration ignored all of us and went straight for the portal, starting to chew on the uneven edges, making the tear grow.
"Wonderful," I muttered. "Now we've got a hole in the sky and a cosmic slug eating the frame."
"Focus, Takumi!" Elara said, struggling to stand. "If that portal expands, it could suck half of Vaelor inside."
"So what?" I asked, unable to hold back my cynicism. "At least the debts would be canceled."
Liriel shot me a sharp look. "Humor in times of crisis is an adorably mortal trait. Now shut up and help me. We need to close this thing."
"How?" Vespera asked, firing another arrow that bounced off the aberration's tentacle and struck the guild bell, making it ring frantically.
"We need an opposite energy point to seal the rupture," Liriel explained, her wine glass now glowing with an intense, purifying light. "My divine energy could work, but… it's weak here. I need a catalyst. Something with a strong, chaotic life charge…"
All eyes turned to me.
"What? Why are you all looking at me?"
"You're the original anomaly, Takumi," Liriel said, as if explaining the obvious. "Your presence here is a walking paradox. Pure chaotic energy. If I channel my magic through you, I can invert the portal's polarity."
"That plan sounds incredibly painful," I protested.
"It probably will be," she agreed. "But the alternative is being devoured by an interdimensional slug or taken by Celine to a divine trial that, trust me, is much more bureaucratic and boring."
The aberration took another bite of the portal, which had grown enough to start sucking in the roofs of nearby houses. The wind pulled us and the debris toward the rift.
"Alright! Alright! What do I have to do?"
"Hold my hand and don't let go, no matter what happens," Liriel ordered, extending her free hand. The other held the glowing cup.
I grabbed her hand. It was warm—surprisingly human. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second, and something passed between us—not just magic, but… understanding.
"Elara, Vespera, distract the aberration and… Celine, if possible!" Liriel commanded.
"Finally, a direct order!" Vespera shouted happily, firing a volley of arrows toward the creature's eyes.
Elara, with visible effort, conjured a small wind barrier to deflect the tentacles reaching for us.
Celine, seeing her plan slipping out of control, tried to restrain the aberration with her own beams of light, but they seemed ineffective against the chaotic creature.
Liriel began humming words in a language that hurt my ears. The light from her cup flowed down her arm, through our joined hands, and into me. It was like being filled with lava and ice at the same time. Every cell in my body screamed. I saw stars—literally, entire constellations dancing before my eyes.
"Focus, Takumi!" Liriel's voice echoed in my mind. "Think of something that anchors you to this world! Something real!"
I thought of the smell of fresh bread from Vaelor's bakery. The sound of Vespera's annoying laugh. The weight of the old sword in my hand. Elara's worried look. And, strangely, Liriel's arrogant, perfect face complaining about wine.
The energy inside me peaked and then burst outward—not as lightning, but as a wave of silence and calm. White, pure light poured from us and struck the center of the portal.
The aberration screamed—a high, unnatural sound—and dissolved into stardust. The tear in the sky began to close, stitching itself like a healed wound.
When the light faded, the sky was blue again. A normal, dull, wonderful blue. The light sentinels were gone. The portal was sealed.
Celine stood there, unharmed, but her expression was pure frustration. She glared at us, her plan ruined.
"This isn't over, Liriel. You're a fugitive. And you…" She looked at me. "…are a problem to be solved."
And then, she simply dissolved into particles of light and vanished.
The silence that followed was broken by a single sound: Rylan's tablet scratching a number down.
Brom stepped forward, arms crossed. "Fifty coins for the stable. And twenty more for scaring the horses."
Gorrin, the ceramics vendor, appeared beside him. "Fifteen for the jar."
Kael, the blacksmith, came up behind them. "Ten for the plaster."
I sat on the ground, exhausted, my legs trembling. Liriel collapsed beside me, panting, but with a victorious smile on her lips.
"Look on the bright side," she whispered, picking up her cup that had fallen to the ground. "At least she didn't take us."
I looked at the pile of rubble that used to be Brom's stable, at the furious faces of the merchants, and at the debts piling up faster than I could count.
"Sometimes," I said with a deep sigh, "I'm not sure that's actually better."