Chapter 44: Entry Into The Exotic Plane Promptly, the young Ossuarist team, along with Althea, were led by Riley towards the black vertical slit of the Chaos Breach. Head Guard Greg followed right behind, not minding the current state of his arms. He hadn’t received any order that relieved him of his duties, so he naturally followed. As they got closer to the Chaos Breach, Finn took note of the immediate surroundings of the black slit. It was surrounded by a makeshift base of operations. Arcanists moved about with purpose, carrying supplies, tending to equipment, or simply standing guard. They barely paid Finn and the others any mind besides respectfully greeting Riley Amadeus as they passed by. There were intermittent checkpoints at various intervals, but they weren’t stopped at any of them. Riley led them directly to the very edge of the breach without pause. And as they neared the chaos breach, the previous feeling of discomfort Finn felt became even more oppressive. Just looking at the three-dimensional tear in reality caused throbbing aches right behind his eyes the more he stared at it. This was an anomaly that was never meant to exist. It warped the space around it weirdly, reminding Finn of those visual representations of black holes he’d seen in his alternate life on earth. The only difference was that this didn’t draw in matter, or anything at all. In fact it had no pull whatsoever. It only looked like a slit in which reality itself didn’t seem to exist any longer. "Just step through," Riley instructed with a smile, noticing the frowns of discomfort on the Ossuarist’s faces. "The breach has already been stabilized by none other than you Ossuarists, so it is safe to enter," Riley chuckled and stepped in first, as if to prove his point. Finn watched as one moment, Riley was there, and the next, he wasn’t. The chaos breach had swallowed him whole without any fluctuations. Finn had expected something to happen — at least a flash of light, or maybe even energy waves billowing. But anticlimactically, there had been nothing at all. Althea stepped in right after Riley, followed by Brock, Sian, the freckled-faced girl — Neda, Jie, and lastly, Finn. Finn gritted his teeth, fighting against his body that almost refused to take the steps through the breach. But when he stepped through, the transition was so instantaneous he barely realized it had happened. The exotic plane lay before him. A world that looked and felt totally different from theirs, yet, paradoxically, still bore some similarities in terms of terrain. He walked forward to meet the others, staring at the landscape stretching in all directions. They stood atop what appeared to be a cliff at the edge of a vast, marshy moorland. Most of the world was a bleak, lifeless gray, like a dull painting. The sky was a single colored slate, shining down an evenly dispersed bleak light onto the world that made everyone and everything look ghostly and desaturated. The ground was the only thing that served as a contrast in the bleak lands. It was a black and spongy surface that squished with every step Finn took. Finn glanced backwards at the chaos breach, which was also guarded on this side by Arcanists. An outpost had been built around the breach to guard the entrance to their world, but Finn knew this wasn’t the main outpost. In the distance, he could already make out more prominent structures, designed and built in the style of humans. Those were very likely the main outposts. "Welcome to the Boundary," Riley announced with a voice that sounded somewhat muffled, likely because of the make-up of the alien air. "This is, quite literally, the boundary of this plane," he gestured at the breach and its immediate surroundings. "It’s a small world, as far as exotic planes go." "So, why haven’t you conquered it yet, if it’s small?" Surprisingly, Sian was the one who asked. Her voice was solemn and without the usual sultriness it usually had. Riley paused for a second, giving her a brief look as if deciding whether she merited an answer. Eventually though, he replied, "Because the inhabitants are decently strong. They have the home advantage, and most importantly... they are very wily." He stepped forward and pointed to the distance where human structures could be seen. "We have been here for months now, but have only conquered a few miles from the breach, just because of how wily the creatures are. The..." Riley continued to explain the current situation, talking about how they had at least cleared and secured the areas surrounding the chaos breach, preventing a break into their world. He went on to talk about the creatures themselves, mentioning some annoying features they had and why they were difficult and slippery to kill. As they talked, Arcanists came and left through the breach in carriages, following a path from the cliff, all the way to the distant structures. Eventually, the discussion became one between Althea and Riley, as she asked questions, which he seemed glad to answer, from the smile on his face. But all through the talks, Finn’s attention had long been lost. While Riley pointed and talked, Finn had barely heard anything. Instead, right from the moment he had entered the chaos breach — or to be specific, right after he had glanced back at the chaos breach earlier, something had changed within him. His mind lost focus. He could register that Riley was still talking, that Althea and the others were still listening intently, and that the gray, bleak world still stretched out before them... but the meaning of all of it seemed to be lost to him. He was present in his body, standing on the spongy, dark earth, but the "Finn" that processed information and maintained a cohesive stream of consciousness felt miles away, watching the scene from behind a haze. He saw Althea glance at him with a subtle, peculiar look in her eyes, which should have been easy to decipher as concern, but the meaning flew right over his head, as a dread now began to fill his body. While he couldn’t form coherent thoughts, his mind still felt the familiarity of this state... It was the exact same phenomenon he had felt back on earth, right before he died and came into this world... 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮 And just as the dread began to spread through his body, a chilling, amused chuckle from nowhere suddenly cut through the fog in his mind: "Kekeke... Who would’ve thought this was where this fellow has been hiding!"