The perimeter of Grid 12 was a chaotic masterpiece of crowds of people moving around in desperation.
Under normal circumstances, a Loop Gate was a highly controlled environment. The National Exterminator Agency would set up standard yellow barricades, deploy a basic monitoring van, and let rookie squads use the space for routine training.
However, the phenomenon that had just occurred—the violent merging of two separate spatial dimensions into a single, mutated Four-Star Gate, had completely shattered the standard operating procedures.
Dozens of heavily armored NEA transport vehicles now formed a steel ring around the intersection. Massive emergency floodlights bathed the street in harsh, artificial white light. At the center of it all, the gate hovered off the cracked asphalt.
Ever since the abnormal phenomenon occurred, it had been acting really weird, not giving out even a speck of Mana.
