Chapter 623: Rescue at Nemet
The second opening was far more unstable than the first.
The door’s silver surface broke apart into horizontal lines before reforming, revealing a narrow corridor made from fragments of different places. There was stone beneath some people, sand beneath others, and farther back, portions of a staircase that ended in the void. Dozens of men and women were packed into that space, some conscious, others collapsed, all trying to approach the opening before it disappeared.
Kael did not enter.
He kept one foot in front of the other and studied the corridor before allowing anyone to cross. There was too much movement among the people. Not only desperation. Two larger shapes moved behind the group, hidden beneath cloaks taken from victims. He could not see their entire bodies, but noticed that neither cast a shadow across the fragmented ground.
"Two problems in the back," he said. "Large. They are using people as cover."
The Cartographer narrowed her remaining eye.
"I cannot separate the route. They are all trapped inside the same interval."
"Then keep it open."
"For how long?"
"Until I tell you to close it."
She released a humorless laugh.
"You speak as though the network obeys orders."
Kael looked at her.
"You spent years doing exactly that."
The woman did not answer. Sylphie kept the silver compass suspended in front of the empty eye socket, using threads of natural energy to temporarily reconstruct the connection between the object and the Cartographer’s channels. The bond was painful, but functional. Each time the door fixed a route, the compass lines spun and carved invisible directions through the air.
Kael returned his attention to the people.
"Five at a time. Those who can walk leave first. Anyone carrying the injured waits for the next opening. Do not run."
No one obeyed immediately.
The fear was too great. As soon as Kael moved a few inches aside, nearly twenty people rushed forward together. The fragmented corridor shifted beneath the weight, and one section of the staircase began to disappear.
Kael used Celestial Step.
He did not cross the door. He appeared exactly at the threshold, half his body inside the network while his feet remained on Nemet’s ground. He extended his arms and caught the first two men before they fell. The momentum of the others came immediately afterward, but he planted himself and prevented the crowd from crossing all at once.
"I said five."
His voice crossed the corridor with enough mana to reach everyone without becoming an attack.
The people stopped.
Not because they were calm, but because they finally understood that someone outside was controlling the evacuation.
Kael chose quickly.
"You. The woman with short hair. The two carrying the injured man. And the child."
The five advanced. As soon as they crossed, witches from the unit pulled them away from the door and took them to the medical teams beginning to arrive through Yggdrasil’s roots. Kael selected five more, then another group. With each one, he watched the movements of the two creatures in the back.
They did not attack.
They waited for the number of people between them and the exit to decrease.
Kael understood their intention.
"Umbra."
"I noticed as well."
Her shadow rose from the ground behind him.
"When fifteen remain, they will move."
"Do you want me to enter?"
"No. Stay to the left of the door. When the first one tries to cross, trap its shadow. The other is mine."
The Cartographer heard him.
"You do not know what they are."
"If they were people, you would have said so."
"And if they are part of the network?"
"Then they should not be trying to leave."
More groups crossed. Some cried when they touched real ground. Others kept looking around as though expecting Nemet to vanish beneath their feet. One man refused to release his unconscious wife even when the healers tried to separate them. Kael allowed them to be taken together. There was no time for arguments that did not affect safety.
When eighteen people remained, the creatures moved.
Kael first felt the change in mana. The cloaks tore apart, revealing tall, narrow bodies covered in black plates similar to those of the earlier creature. These, however, possessed human faces trapped between the plates, all motionless, like masks attached to living armor.
The first charged directly through the people.
"Now."
Umbra spread a chain across the surface of the door. The creature’s shadow became trapped inside the corridor, but its body continued forward for two more steps, stretching its own darkness like fabric.
The second leaped over the victims.
Kael did not wait for it to cross.
He used Celestial Step toward its presence, not its position. The threshold tried to alter the destination, but he had already learned during his fight with the Cartographer. His technique no longer depended on a fixed coordinate. It depended on what he intended to reach.
Kael appeared in the air in front of the creature, still inside the frame.
He struck its chest with both feet.
The impact launched the monster backward without hitting the people below. Kael began to fall into the corridor, but grabbed the silver edge with his left hand and used the threshold itself as support. He rotated his body, returned to Nemet, and landed in front of the passage.
The creature rose quickly.
Several faces trapped between the plates opened their eyes.
"Exit," they said together.
Kael raised his sword.
"After them."
The creature charged again. This time, it opened its chest and launched black threads toward the remaining people. Kael cut through the first ones, but others passed around the sides. Sylphie reacted, making roots cross the threshold and wrap around the survivors. The plants pulled six people out of the corridor at once.
"This is affecting the stability," the Cartographer said.
"Then stabilize it."
"It is not that simple."
"I did not ask for an explanation."
The woman gave him an irritated look, but placed both hands around the compass. The door’s surface stopped flickering for several seconds.
Kael crossed the threshold up to his waist, grabbed one of the unconscious people, and carefully threw them into a witch’s arms. Then he pulled another. The creature tried to reach him from above, but Umbra momentarily released the first shadow and formed a dark blade that struck the monster’s arm.
The first creature regained movement.
Now both were advancing.
Nine people remained.
Kael looked at the door, the monsters, and the available space.
He would not be able to remove everyone before they were reached using the normal method.
He closed his eyes for less than a second.
Celestial Step allowed him to find a presence instead of a place. Until then, he had used that to reach enemies. There was no reason he needed to move alone.
He grabbed the wrist of the nearest man.
"Do not let go."
The man widened his eyes.
"What?"
Kael used the technique.
Both disappeared from the corridor and reappeared in Nemet.
The man fell to his knees, disoriented, but intact.
Sylphie immediately understood what he intended.
"Kael, you have never transported anyone."
"Now I have."
"The weight alters the movement."
"I noticed."
His shoulder and hip hurt from the irregular way the technique had distributed the additional mass. Kael ignored it. He returned to the threshold and extended one hand toward two people.
"Hold on."
The Cartographer watched him.
"The body map cannot support that."
"Your body map could not."
Kael pulled the two people close and used another step.
The displacement was heavier. He reappeared several meters beyond his intended point, nearly struck one of the black stones, and had to rotate his body to absorb the fall. The two victims emerged off balance, but uninjured.
Six remained.
The creatures were too close.
Umbra kept the first restrained, but the second creature’s shadow split into three and advanced from different directions. Kael realized it intended to cross part of its body even if the rest was blocked.
"Cartographer, reduce the opening."
"If I reduce it now, it could cut people in half."
"Not the entire door. Only the space above them."
She became still.
Kael looked at the woman.
"You can do it."
"It does not work that way."
"You moved the ground, altered distances, and changed directions. You can reduce the height of a route without touching the floor."
The Cartographer stared at the surface.
For several seconds, she seemed to consider refusing simply to prove Kael could not force her. Then the first creature broke part of Umbra’s restraint and advanced toward the door.
Fear overcame pride.
The Cartographer rotated the compass.
The upper section of the opening descended like an invisible ceiling. The leaping creature was struck in the chest by a spatial line and thrown back into the corridor. Kael did not waste the opportunity. He crossed to the survivors, grabbed three at once, and used Celestial Step.
The movement almost failed.
The corridor’s directions fought against the technique. Kael felt the pressure split his body between the interior and exterior, as though each part recognized a different destination. Instead of forcing only his legs, he distributed mana through everyone. Arms, spine, hips, mana center, and even the people he held. Not to strengthen them, but to include them in the same intention.
Leave.
All four disappeared.
Kael reappeared outside and fell to one knee. Blood ran from his nose, and the channels in his chest burned where the fragment had been removed only a short time earlier.
Sylphie reached him.
"It is over."
"Three remain."
"I will take them."
"You do not know how to use the route."
"I can pull them with the roots."
"The creatures will follow."
Kael stood before she could stop him.
The door showed the final three survivors trapped against a broken section of staircase. One creature held Sylphie’s roots between its plates. The other advanced along the wall, searching for enough space to cross beneath the lowered threshold.
Kael handed his sword to Sylphie.
"Hold this."
"What are you going to do?"
"Bring all three."
"Kael."
"When I come out, close it."
Eleonor approached.
"You will have no support point if the door begins to collapse."
"Then do not let it collapse."
Before they could argue, Kael crossed.
This time, he entered the Dead Paths completely.
The change was immediate.
There was no wind, temperature, or true direction. The corridor was only a temporary fragment maintained by the memories of the people trapped inside. The staircase existed because someone remembered it. The stone floor came from another place. The sand belonged to a third route. Everything remained connected only because the Cartographer forced a link.
Kael felt Nemet’s presence behind him.
That was enough.
The first creature attacked.
He had no sword. He used a short Celestial Step, appeared beneath the monster’s arm, and struck the center of one plate with his healthy hand. The structure cracked. Human faces opened their eyes beneath the black material.
Kael saw transparent light between them.
The creatures were not natural.
They were made from people who had failed to escape.
"Of course."
The second attacked from behind. Kael turned, seized one of the plates on its chest, and tore it free. A memory came with it, taking the form of a woman for less than a second before disappearing toward the door.
"You are not guards."
The creature tried to bite him.
Kael grabbed the two plates forming its jaw and forced them apart.
"You are stacked prisoners."
He could not simply destroy them.
Once again, victims had been placed in the way.
Kael retreated toward the three survivors.
"Can you stand?"
A woman nodded. The man beside her was conscious but had an injured leg. The third, a young man barely over twenty, remained unconscious.
Kael placed the young man over his shoulder.
"Hold my arm."
The woman supported the injured man and grabbed Kael.
Behind them, the creatures advanced together.
The door’s surface began to fail.
The Cartographer’s voice crossed the interval.
"The route is coming apart!"
Kael felt Nemet disappear for an instant.
Celestial Step did not respond.
There was no stable destination.
He looked through the opening and saw only fragments of the grove. A black stone. Part of Sylphie’s face. Umbra’s shadow. Eleonor’s hand. No image lasted long enough.
Kael closed his eyes.
He did not search for the grove.
He searched for Sylphie.
The natural connection still existed, faint but real. He felt her concern, the green energy pressing against the door, and the hand holding his sword.
She was a presence.
A destination.
Kael allowed mana to circulate through every body touching his own.
"Hold tight."
The creatures reached them.
Celestial Step activated.
For an instant, Kael felt the directions of the Dead Paths trying to tear the movement apart and send each person to a different route. He kept the intention united and crossed the distortion before the map could react.
All four reappeared inside Nemet Grove.
Kael struck the ground on his back, protecting the young man over his chest. The woman and injured man rolled aside and were immediately reached by the healers.
"Close it!" Kael shouted.
The Cartographer tried to rotate the Direction Eye.
The creatures reached the surface.
A hand covered in black plates crossed the door.
Umbra trapped its shadow. Eleonor immobilized the space. Yggdrasil made roots wrap around every stone in the circle.
The Cartographer found Nemet on the map and reversed the direction.
The door tried to close.
The hand remained trapped at the threshold, preventing both sides from meeting.
Kael rose with difficulty.
Sylphie tried to hold him.
"No."
"If it remains open, they will pull another route."
"You can barely use the technique."
"I do not need to."
Kael took the sword from her hands and walked toward the door. The black hand opened its fingers, trying to grab him. The faces trapped between the plates looked directly at him.
They were not hostile.
They were terrified.
Kael did not cut the hand.
He drove his sword into the ground and seized the plates with both arms.
"What are you doing?" Eleonor asked.
"Separating them."
He pulled.
The plates resisted, connected to the rest of the creature by black threads. Sylphie understood and sent natural energy between the openings. The trapped memories began to separate one by one, crossing the door as small human lights.
Umbra cut the dark threads.
Kael tore away the final plate.
The creature’s hand collapsed into empty black matter.
"Now."
The Cartographer closed the route.
The silver surface shrank into a vertical line, then disappeared. The black stones lost their glow. The mist around the circle resumed its natural movement.
The silence did not last.
The first rescued person began to cry.
Then another.
The healers spread through the groups, counting survivors, identifying injuries, and separating those carrying residue from the creatures. Amelia arrived through the main root with a new containment team and found Kael standing in front of the closed door, covered in blood and struggling to put weight on his right leg.
She looked around.
"How many?"
Irelia, who had followed her, began counting the groups.
"Seventy-eight from this route. One from the first. The final three..."
"Four," Sylphie corrected. "Kael also had to be extracted."
"I came out on my own."
Sylphie looked at him.
"You landed on your back."
"But I came out."
Amelia closed her eyes for an instant.
"Are there other routes?"
The Cartographer knelt between two witches, the compass still temporarily connected to her eye socket. She looked exhausted. Blood ran down her face, and her remaining eye could barely stay open.
"Hundreds."
Kael looked at her.
"With people?"
"Some."
"Open the next."
Sylphie grabbed his shirt.
"No."
Kael turned his face.
She was not merely worried.
She was furious.
"You entered an unstable network, transported four people at once, and almost had your channels split between different routes."
"Three people."
"You count as one."
"That seems debatable."
"Kael."
He realized he would not win that argument.
Amelia approached the Cartographer.
"Can we keep the routes open without Kael?"
The woman drew a deep breath.
"Yes."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"You did not mention that."
"You did not ask."
He fell silent.
Umbra began laughing.
Sylphie narrowed her eyes.
Eleonor turned her face to hide a brief smile.
Kael pointed at the Cartographer.
"Prisoners should not behave like that."
"You tore out my eye."
"It was a compass."
"It was inside my head."
Amelia interrupted before they could continue.
"What do we need?"
"A living anchor on the outside. A natural reference strong enough to maintain Nemet as the destination. The elf can do it."
Sylphie looked toward the closed door.
"And the extraction?"
"Small groups. No alterations to the route. No Witch King crossing the opening."
Kael crossed his arms.
"That last part does not sound like a technical requirement."
"It is a preference."
Amelia wrote it down.
"Preference accepted."
Kael looked at her.
"Whose side are you on?"
"The side that reduces near-death reports."
He released a breath, but did not insist. Something more important remained.
"How many people are there in total?"
The Cartographer looked away.
"I do not know."
"Estimate."
"Perhaps three hundred."
Yggdrasil touched one of the stones.
"The Dead Paths cross places that no longer exist. Some presences may be echoes, not living people."
"Then we check them one at a time," Kael said.
Amelia nodded.
"We will turn Nemet into a permanent rescue point. Teams will rotate, the Cartographer will fix the routes, and Sylphie will maintain the reference. Kael is removed from active operations."
"I did not agree."
"You nearly became trapped between places."
"But I did not."
Amelia stared at him.
Kael waited several seconds.
"Can I supervise?"
"Seated."
"This is becoming humiliating."
"Seated."
A chair was brought.
Kael looked at the object, then at everyone around him. No one seemed willing to support him.
He sat.
The second phase of the rescue began several minutes later. Sylphie placed her hands on two stones in the circle and spread natural energy throughout the grove, transforming Nemet into a living reference. The Cartographer remained under restraint, but received the Direction Eye only during each opening. Amelia established a clear protocol: five people at a time, creatures prevented from crossing, organization agents separated from the survivors, and no team member entering the intervals.
Kael watched every route.
Even while seated, he remained the first to notice irregularities. During the third opening, he noticed that one supposed survivor wore boots far too clean for someone trapped for weeks. Violet isolated him and found three blades hidden beneath his clothes. During the fifth, Kael stopped them from closing the door after noticing a child hidden beneath the remains of a wagon. During the seventh, he identified that the dark shape in the back was not a creature, but six people fused together by the route’s instability.
Hours passed.
One hundred forty-nine people were removed.
Twenty-three were agents or collaborators of the organization.
Forty-two were seriously injured.
Seventeen could not remember their own names.
Others were only echoes that disappeared upon touching real ground, leaving brief memories behind.
When the final accessible route was closed, the Cartographer lost consciousness. Sylphie dissolved the connection, and the silver compass fell into her hand.
Yggdrasil examined the stones.
"The network has lost Nemet."
"Permanently?" Kael asked.
"I will destroy the door and every related root."
"Not before we map the remaining entrances."
Yggdrasil looked at him.
"You want to preserve the Dead Paths?"
"I want to know where they emerge."
Amelia understood.
"Invasion routes."
"And possible locations of other projects."
The Cartographer had been sent to open one door, but had ended up giving them an entire transportation structure used by the organization. Even if the paths were destroyed, the entry points would continue to exist in ruins, forests, and forgotten territories.
Kael slowly stood.
Sylphie did not stop him this time, but supported his arm.
"We take everyone to the Witch Realm," he said. "The survivors remain under protection. The agents will be interrogated separately. No one accesses the Direction Eye unless Eleonor, Yggdrasil, and Amelia are present."
Amelia wrote it down.
"And the Cartographer?"
Kael looked toward the unconscious woman.
"She stays alive."
"Because of the maps?"
"Because of the doors."
The Cartographer had said that some were already open. Now they possessed someone capable of finding them.
Kael stared at the black stones while Yggdrasil began dismantling the first connections.
The Well had been destroyed.
Nemet was under control.
Hundreds of people had been removed from places where they should have remained forgotten.
And the organization had just lost two operations in succession.
Kael smiled faintly.
"Now they will need to react."
Amelia closed her notebook.
"That was the plan."
"I know."
"Are you satisfied?"
Kael looked toward the Cartographer, the captured agents, and the survivors being carried away through the roots.
"I am beginning to be."