Chapter 93: Dimensional Lock: Trapped
The Umbral Plane was running out of time.
The Eclipse Convergence was not a permanent state of reality. It was a temporary alignment of dimensions.
That celestial timer was rapidly approaching zero. The physical laws of the dark realm began to scream.
Lucifer walked at the center of the thirteen-million-strong Crusade. The invisible spatial highway beneath his boots shuddered violently.
The sky above them was no longer a static, bruised purple. It was fracturing. Massive streaks of blinding white static tore through the atmosphere, revealing the absolute, empty void beyond the dimension.
The thick gray Fog of Deceit did not dissipate; it boiled.
[System Warning: Planar Event Concluding.]
[The Eclipse Convergence is ending. Structural integrity of the Umbral Plane rapidly destabilizing.]
[Time until Dimensional Collapse: 14 Minutes.]
"The gravity is failing," Elara warned. The Valkyrie marched on Lucifer’s left flank. She looked out over the vast, open expanse of the Umbra.
A mile away, a large floating island of black rock suddenly lurched. The ancient anti-gravity magic holding it aloft simply switched off.
The massive landmass, carrying the ruins of a Precursor temple, plummeted straight down into the lightless abyss, vanishing into the fog without a sound.
"Keep moving," Lucifer commanded. His voice carried effortlessly over the comms rune to every commanding officer in the column. "Do not break the marching cadence. The highway will hold."
He continuously channeled his Archmage-level Void Arcanist mana into the invisible path beneath their feet.
He was physically fighting the collapsing dimension, forcing the spatial fabric to remain solid enough to support the weight of thirteen million mortals.
Up ahead, the Vanguard was closing in on the exit portal.
Lady Scarlett rode her armored dire wolf at the very front of the column. The scarred mercenary captain gripped her twin curved swords.
The massive swirling purple rift was less than five hundred yards away. Through the portal, she could see the crisp, clear daylight of the mortal plane and the black-stone walls of the Citadel of Obsidian.
"We are almost through, boys!" Scarlett roared to her Phantom Rangers. "Keep the pace!"
The mercenaries cheered. They were exhausted, battered, and carrying massive packs overflowing with looted Umbral Ore and Void Crystals.
They were minutes away from salvation and unimaginable wealth.
Scarlett spurred her dire wolf, closing the distance to three hundred yards.
Then, the portal flashed.
It was not a fluctuation of Void magic. It was a blinding, unnatural burst of pure, golden Royal evocation magic.
The stable swirling purple vortex abruptly froze. A massive, geometric grid of glowing yellow runes slammed over the surface of the rift.
The chaotic dimensional energy was instantly flattened, compressed behind a solid, impenetrable wall of magical glass.
The view of the Citadel of Obsidian vanished, replaced by a flat, glowing golden mirror.
Scarlett pulled hard on her reins. Her dire wolf skidded across the invisible highway, its claws sparking against the compressed spatial magic.
"Halt!" Scarlett screamed, raising her swords.
The front ranks of the Vanguard crashed into each other, stumbling to a stop just fifty yards away from the sealed portal.
Scarlett dismounted. She sprinted to the edge of the golden barrier. She raised her sword and struck the glowing runic glass with all her Level 38 physical strength.
CLANG.
The heavy steel blade rebounded violently. A shockwave of repelling force shot up Scarlett’s arm, dislocating her shoulder.
She cried out, dropping the sword and staggering backward. The barrier did not even sustain a scratch.
"Commander!" Scarlett yelled, tapping her comms rune frantically with her good hand. Panic bled into her rough voice. "Commander, the gate is blocked! They have sealed the exit! We are trapped!"
A mile back in the column, Lucifer heard the transmission.
He didn’t break his stride, but his void-swirling eyes narrowed sharply.
"Elara. Lyra. Hold the center," Lucifer ordered.
He activated the Zephyr’s Grace Emblem.
Lucifer became a blur of dark motion. He vanished from the center of the army, sprinting across the invisible spatial highway at supersonic speeds.
He bypassed the millions of marching soldiers, the heavy supply wagons.
He materialized flawlessly at the front of the Vanguard, standing directly beside Lady Scarlett.
The Warlord looked at the massive, glowing golden wall blocking the portal.
"What is that?" Scarlett gasped, clutching her dislocated shoulder. She looked around at the collapsing dimension.
Another floating island plummeted into the abyss behind them. "The dimension is falling apart, Lucifer! If we don’t cross, we are dead!"
Lucifer didn’t answer her. He stepped up to the barrier.
He placed his right hand against the glowing golden glass. The Gauntlet of the Void King crackled with black lightning, reacting aggressively to the foreign magic.
Lucifer activated his Void Arcanist sight. His eyes spun, piercing the dense magical matrix of the barrier. He didn’t just see the runes. He saw the tethers powering them.
The magic was not originating from the Umbral Plane. It was coming from the other side.
Through the barrier, Lucifer’s True Sight perceived the courtyard of the Citadel of Obsidian.
It was surrounded.
The five-mile ring of Cryo-Pylons he had built was holding strong, but just outside the perimeter of the absolute zero ice, a massive army had gathered. Hundreds of Royal Archmages, wearing the distinct blue and gold robes of the King’s high council, stood in perfect geometric circles.
They were pouring their entire, combined mana reserves into a large ritual array pointed directly at the Citadel’s portal receiver.
The Coalition of Kings had not entirely entered the Umbra.
Lord Kaelar and his vanguard had marched into the dark and died. But the surviving high nobles, the cowardly generals who had fled the War Room, and the Crown’s elite magical corps had regrouped on the mortal plane.
They knew they could not defeat Lucifer’s thirteen-million-strong army in a pitched battle. They knew they could not breach the Cryo-Pylon defense grid.
So, they chose cowardice.
They waited until the Eclipse Convergence was in its final minutes. They waited until the Umbral Plane began to violently collapse. And then, they cast a massive, multi-tiered Dimensional Lock over the only exit.
They intended to trap Lucifer, his angels, and thirteen million of their own kingdom’s citizens inside a dying dimension.
They were going to let the shifting planes crush the Warlord to death.
"It’s a Royal Ward," Lucifer stated coldly, dropping his hand from the glass.
"The Crown sealed us in?" Scarlett asked, her eyes widening in absolute horror. She turned to look at the massive, restless army behind them. "They locked their own Royal Guards in hell just to kill you?"
"They are politicians," Lucifer replied smoothly. "Collateral damage is just a line item on a ledger to them."
The ground shook violently.
It wasn’t the steady vibration of marching boots. It was a massive, structural fracture in the dimension itself.
A loud CRACK tore through the air. A mile back down the spatial highway, a massive section of the invisible floor shattered.
Thousands of mortal soldiers screamed as the ground simply ceased to exist beneath their feet. They plummeted into the gray abyss.
"Hold the lines!" Lyra’s voice roared over the comms rune. The Dawn Saintess flared her holy aura, casting desperate barriers of hard light to catch the falling men, but her magic could not cover the entire breach.
"The highway is failing!" Elara shouted through the static. "Lucifer, the planar compression is overriding your spatial anchor! We have less than five minutes before the entire dimension collapses into a singularity!"
Panic erupted in the Vanguard.
The hardened mercenaries and elite Royal Guards saw the golden barrier blocking their salvation. They saw the sky tearing open in lines of white static. They heard the screams of the rearguard falling into the abyss.
"We are dead!" a knight shrieked, dropping his halberd. He ran to the edge of the invisible highway, staring down into the endless dark. "The King abandoned us! The gate is closed!"
"Quiet!" Lucifer roared.
Lucifer turned his back on the golden barrier. He faced his massive, trembling army.
"The gate is not closed," Lucifer declared coldly.
He didn’t draw his sword. He raised his right arm.
The Gauntlet of the Void King flared to life. The black metal plates shifted and locked. Thick, violent arcs of pitch-black lightning erupted from the knuckles, arcing up his forearm and wrapping around his bicep.
The sheer density of the Mythic artifact pushed back the collapsing pressure of the Umbral Plane.
[Item Active: Gauntlet of the Void King]
[Skill Triggered: Spatial Rend.]
"They cast a lock on a door," Lucifer stated, his void eyes locking onto the terrified soldiers. A cold, absolute, and terrifying smirk touched his lips.
He turned around and faced the massive, glowing golden wall of the Dimensional Lock.
Lucifer didn’t search for a magical weak point. He didn’t analyze the runic array to cast a counter-spell. The Warlord did not respect the defensive magic of cowardly politicians.
He clenched his iron-clad fist.
"I am going to take the door off its hinges," Lucifer promised.
He drew his right arm back, pulling the raw, unadulterated power of the Void into his knuckles. The black lightning condensed into a blinding singularity perfectly molded to the shape of his fist.
Lucifer stepped forward. He drove a brutal, catastrophic punch directly into the center of the indestructible Royal Ward.