Chapter 305: The First Barrier

The ground was still shaking.

Arthur stood in the center of the ancient cavern, staring at the enormous crack that had split its floor.

Above the array, the five Mirrors still floated, fire, water, earth, light, and darkness, their surfaces pulsing together, and every pulse sent another vibration through the stone.

THOOM.

Arthur’s clothes shifted with the force of the tremor, and another crack spread across the wall.

Sun looked up. "Is this place about to collapse?"

"No," Athena said.

Sun looked at her. "You sound very confident."

"I’m not."

"That doesn’t help."

Athena ignored him and kept staring at the Mirrors, her expression growing more serious. "The chamber isn’t collapsing. It’s reacting."

Arthur looked down at the array. "To the Mirrors?"

"I think so."

Another tremor rolled through the cavern, stronger than the last, and loose stones came raining down.

Melo smashed the apart before it could hit Luna. "Whatever’s happening, I’d rather not be standing underneath it."

Arthur nodded. "Agreed." He looked toward the only passage leading out. "Let’s get outside."

Nobody argued. The group moved quickly, with Arthur near the center of the formation and Vedas at his side, while Athena and Luna kept glancing back at the Mirrors.

They had barely reached the passage when another explosion shook the chamber.

BOOM!

Arthur looked back. The five Mirrors were rising, higher and higher, until they disappeared into the darkness above the cavern.

His eyes widened. "Wait."

The ceiling cracked, and a beam of red light shot through it, then another, until the entire chamber was flooded with light.

Mithra grabbed his shoulder. "Move!"

They ran as stone collapsed behind them and the passage shook violently. Arthur could hear Sun yelling at Kong not to run ahead, and Kong ignoring him completely.

Athy flew above them, calling out the falling debris. "Left!"

Arthur moved.

"Right!"

Vedas pulled him clear of another collapsing section.

"Up!"

Arthur jumped as the ground split open beneath them, and for a few seconds, the whole group was running almost blind through the ancient passage.

Then light appeared ahead. Arthur pushed through the final opening, and he stopped.

The others stumbled out behind him, and nobody spoke. The Everglades had changed completely.

Arthur slowly looked up. The sky wasn’t the same sky they had entered. Huge red cracks stretched across the clouds, and the forest below them trembled as ancient trees bent under the pressure. Far in the distance, an enormous pillar of fire rose into the sky, so large that Arthur could see it from miles away.

Mithra stared. "What..."

Another explosion followed, and the pillar grew brighter.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. "The Fire Mirror."

Athena looked at him. "How can you tell?"

"Its light is the same," Arthur said, pointing. The Fire Mirror was somewhere inside that pillar, and it wasn’t just glowing. It was activating something.

The ground began to vibrate again, and a line appeared across the horizon. At first, Arthur thought it was another earthquake, but then the line widened, and he realized it wasn’t the land that was breaking. It was the air itself.

A gigantic translucent wall became visible along the horizon, stretching from one side of the Everglades to the other, so large Arthur couldn’t see where it ended.

"That’s..." Melo began.

CRACK!

A fracture spread across the barrier, then another, and then hundreds of cracks raced across its surface.

Athena’s eyes went wide. "The Fire barrier."

Arthur turned to her. "You knew it was there?"

"We knew there were barriers." Athena stared at the enormous structure. "I didn’t know they were this large."

The barrier didn’t just disappear. It shattered.

BOOOOOOM!

A tremendous wave of energy swept across the land, bending trees and splitting the ground, and ancient stones buried for centuries rose into the air. The barrier broke apart into fragments that dissolved into glowing particles, and behind it, mountains appeared.

Arthur’s eyes widened. A massive mountain range stretched across the horizon, its jagged peaks rising into the clouds, many of them covered in black volcanic stone.

Several were glowing red beneath the surface, lava running down their sides and smoke pouring from enormous craters. The entire region looked like it belonged to another world.

"That mountain wasn’t there yesterday," Mithra said slowly.

Athena didn’t answer, and Mithra looked at her. "Athena."

"It was," Athena said, still staring. "We just couldn’t see it."

Sun frowned. "What?"

"The barrier wasn’t just blocking the path," Arthur said, his expression sharpening.

"Exactly," Athena said. "It was changing what we could perceive."

Luna’s eyes widened. "Then the Fire Region..."

"Was always here," Athena finished.

Melo stared at the mountains. "We’ve been walking around it this whole time."

"Yes."

That explained so much, Arthur thought, the maps, the ancient records, the five locations, and the strange distances between them.

They had always assumed the ancient Everglades had been destroyed or reshaped over time, but maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Some of it had simply been hidden.

Arthur smiled faintly. "So the Everglades we’ve been exploring was only part of it."

"Exactly," Athena said.

Sun looked across the forest. "Then how big is this place?"

Athena didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.

ROOOOOOOAR!

A roar echoed across the newly revealed mountains, shaking the forest, and everyone went on alert at once.

Vedas raised King Maker. "Something’s coming."

Arthur watched the forest. At first, nothing moved, and then the trees began to shake one after another as something drew closer.

Mithra extended her sword, Sun raised his staff, and Athy climbed higher into the air. Eden drifted closer to Arthur, and Star flattened itself against his leg. Melo tail tensed up while Luna gripped her fur harder.

The first Beast burst out of the trees. It was an enormous Firehorn Boar covered in dark-red scales, its tusks glowing and smoke pouring from its nostrils, powerful enough to tear through the entire group.

But it didn’t attack. It ran right past them.

Arthur blinked. Another Beast appeared, then another, a pack of Fire Wolves, a six-legged lizard covered in burning scales, and several enormous birds with flaming wings, all of them running in the same direction, away from the mountains.

Arthur slowly lowered Phanetium. "They’re not attacking."

"They’re running," Mithra said, watching them go.

"Yeah." Arthur turned toward the mountains, and his expression grew serious. "They’re scared."

Vedas looked at the peaks. "Of what?"

ROOOOOOOOOAR!

The mountain itself seemed to shake. A massive shadow moved behind one of the peaks, and Arthur’s eyes narrowed. Something was moving beneath the mountain.

The ground cracked, lava burst from the crater, and an enormous claw broke through the mountainside.

Mithra’s expression changed. "That’s a Beast?"

"I don’t know," Athena said, staring.

A second claw appeared, then a massive head pushed its way out of the volcanic rock, and two burning eyes opened. The pressure alone brought several of the fleeing Beasts crashing to the ground.

Vedas tightened his grip on King Maker, and Arthur stepped forward on instinct as the Beast opened its mouth and heat began gathering inside it.

Arthur raised Phanetium. "Everyone..."

The Fire Mirror flashed, and a pillar of red light came down from the sky and struck the enormous Beast.

Arthur braced himself, but there was no explosion. The Beast simply froze. Its huge head lowered, the heat in its mouth faded away, and slowly, it lowered itself to the ground, its front legs bending until its head rested on the earth.

The whole group went silent.

"...It surrendered?" Mithra said.

Sun looked at Arthur. "Did the Mirror just control it?"

"No," Arthur said.

Athena stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the Fire Mirror, and she sounded almost fascinated. "It isn’t controlling the Beast."

Arthur looked at her. "Then what is it doing?"

Athena watched the enormous creature kneeling beneath the red light, and her expression changed. "It recognizes it."

Luna looked at the Fire Mirror. "Recognizes it as what?"

Athena didn’t answer right away. The Mirror pulsed again, and the enormous Beast lowered its head even further. Around them, the fleeing Fire Beasts had stopped, and one by one, they turned around. They weren’t attacking. They were watching.

Arthur looked across the entire region. Hundreds of Beasts stood among the trees, and every one of them was looking at the Fire Mirror, the way a Beast might look at something it had known for generations.

His eyes widened. "The Mirror isn’t commanding them."

"No," Athena said, looking at the ancient artifact. "It’s calling them."

Silence settled over the group as Arthur stared at the Fire Mirror. For the first time, he understood something about the five artifacts that none of their earlier discoveries had shown them. The Mirrors weren’t weapons, keys, or ordinary relics. They belonged to something much older, something tied to the Beasts that lived in the Everglades.

Mithra looked around at the gathered creatures. "So these Beasts recognize the Mirror?"

Athena nodded slowly. "Maybe not the Mirror itself." She looked toward the ancient mountains. "But what it represents."

Arthur’s King Mark began to glow faintly beneath his sleeve, and he covered it immediately, his eyes still on the Fire Mirror. Something about the scene felt familiar. The ancient carvings, the guardians, the five Mirrors, the World Tree murals, and the Beasts had never been separate pieces. They were all parts of the same ancient system.

Arthur’s smile slowly returned. "We’ve been looking at the Mirrors the wrong way."

Vedas glanced at him. "What do you mean?"

Arthur looked at the enormous Beast kneeling beneath the Fire Mirror. "We thought they were things the ancient people used." He paused, looking toward the mountains. "But maybe they were part of the world itself."

Athena’s expression sharpened as she understood. "The Mirrors may have been connected to the ancient ecosystem."

"And the barriers cut them off from it," Arthur said.

CRACK!

Everyone looked up. The sky had split, and a gigantic fracture stretched across the clouds, far larger than the cracks around the Fire Region. Blue light poured through the opening, and far away, another enormous structure was beginning to break apart.

Luna went pale.

Arthur looked from the Fire Mirror to the distant crack, and his expression turned serious. "That’s the second barrier."

The Water Mirror had begun to awaken.