Reality cracked.

    This was the only way Alex could describe it. The sound that erupted from the seal was like a scream, from the Primordial Expanse itself. It was a raw, wrenching sensation that tore through everything.

    Through air, through ground, through space. It made his bones vibrate, made his skin crawl, even made his thoughtspletely empty.

    Then the basin itself cracked.

    Lines of gleaming white light fractured through the air and filtered out of the slit like spiderwebs across ss, streaking through the air, the earth, everything.

    The horizon distorted, no longer even bing visible.

    The world was a broken mirror.

    Then—

    BOOM!

    An explosion without heat, without me – only pure force and energy – sted outward from the seal.

    A tidal wave of energy so vast and packed that Alex couldn''t even fathom rolled over the basin, ttening every jagged outcrop andva spike for miles.

    The distantva plumes were even snuffed out like candles in a gale.

    If the Sri owners of the fracture he had entered in didn''t take much care in Alex after he made quick work of their B tiers, then their full attention would be ced on him after they discovered this phenomenon.

    And yet, Alex stood amidst all this chaos unharmed.

    Not untouched, since there were various bits of dust and debris stuck to him, but his entire body didn''t even have a scratch.

    It was like the sealed realm recognised him as the one that opened it and excluded him from all the destructive forces that were released when its seal was broken.

    Virtue''s Edge was now fully embedded in the keyhole, shining brighter than ever before, but had finally stopped vibrating.

    Then, with a single blink, the slit opened.

    Well, opened would be the wrong word to use…

    It was more like it expanded and… engulfed Alex before he could rx.

    On the outside, the slit, the cracks, all of the spiderweb like streaks of light all disappeared at once.

    Like it was all an illusion.

    On the inside though, Alex fell.

    But it wasn''t falling in the traditional sense — with gravity pulling him down.

    He wasn''t dropping him through air or sky – just falling through space itself.

    He tried wrapping his mind around everything that was going on, but he felt like his brain would short circuit if he tried to dive too deep into how it all worked.

    There was no light. No darkness.

    Only the sensation of motion.

    Then…

    Stillness.

    Alex''s feet touched solid ground.

    Somehow, somewhere.

    He''d arrived.

    He opened his eyes, not realising they were closed the whole time, and stared.

    The realm before him was vast, endless.

    …Until it wasn''t.

    ''A floating ind…'' He observed, as the piece ofnd he had nded'' on came to a sudden stop, where there was nothing but endless space to fall into below.

    Alex had a feeling that if he jumped off that cliff edge, he''d just endlessly fall like he did a few seconds ago, but this time until his lifespan ran out…

    ''Jesus, I''ve only just arrived and this ce is scaring the shit out of me!''

    Brontes didn''t like what he was seeing either – gazing across the lonely, but ratherrge ind through Alex''s eyes.

    Even as a Divine beast, this ce gave him the chills, and Alex could feel those emotions very clearly through their connection.

    He wasn''t sure whether the chills he was feeling came from Brontes'', or his own emotions, though…

    Alex steadied his breath.

    He took his time to look around and study the ce he found himself in.

    He had absolutely no idea what to expect in this ce, but what he found… he wasn''t expecting.

    The entire ind surface waspletely t, scarily so. There was no foliage other than the extremely well maintained grass that coated it. Alex suspected that every single de of grass that covered the entire ind would be the exact same length.

    It was clear that someone, or something, was doing this to the ind.

    Unless some force of nature stopped anything from growing past a certain point, someone was maintaining the state of this ce.

    But there was one thing that disturbed this almost perfectly t ind, standing taller than anything else on there.

    A single anvil, regr sized that a normal human would use, standing next to a rather ordinary looking furnace.

    And sitting on a crude wooden stool next to the anvil sat an old, white haired man looking to be practically on thest clutches of life.

    ''Is that…''

    Alex felt great shock upon first seeing him.

    The fact that he had finally found the forge that he had set out to find so long ago didn''t even cross his mind.

    The old man sitting next to it took up his entire attention.

    ''...Mikhail?''

    The old man, Mikhail, slowly lifted his head upon seeing that Alex had finally noticed his presence.

    Like he knew the exact moment he entered Alex''s eyes.

    His eyes met Alex''s across the perfectly manicured field of grass.

    They were dull, weathered. If Alex didn''t have any sense, he would mistake them for the eyes of a blind man – but the idea that the best smith in history was blind was such a hrious joke that he didn''t even consider it.

    There was no dramatic aura, no dramatic entrance.

    No blinding light – like the unsealing of the realm seemed to like so much.

    Just… stillness.

    In a way, Mikhail was like the realm itself.

    "Yes," the man rasped, speaking barely louder than a whisper.

    But it reached Alex''s ears as clearly as if he were in his head.

    "I am Mikhail."

    ''Did he just read my mind!?''

    "No, I didn''t read your mind." Mikhail answered.

    His expression was still the same.

    Alex couldn''t tell if he was being serious, or if he was ying some sort of weird joke on him. Who knew what kind of personality someone as old as Mikhail would have…

    Alex didn''t know what he expected when meeting Mikhail, but it wasn''t this.

    For some reason, he had convinced himself that Mikhail must be some immortal figure, since strength usually corrted to higher lifespan, and someone as strong as Mikhail should be able to live forever, surely.

    But no.

    Apparently not.

    "You look like death is ready to take you at any moment." Alex blurted out, not even realising he said it out loud before it was toote.