The hum of the facility changed. It was no longer the mechanical buzz of ventilation and lights, but a heavy, vibrating frequency that set everyone's teeth on edge. Hyun-Jae stepped out into the central plaza, his boots thudding against the reinforced concrete.
The hierarchy was visible at a glance. Hundreds of E-Ranks and D-Ranks stood in disorganized clusters, their faces pale. Higher up on a raised platform stood the C-Ranks, looking grim. At the very front, standing alone with a terrifyingly calm posture, was Sena.
Seeing her sent a jolt of mixed emotions through Hyun-Jae. He was annoyed by her coldness, but as he felt the dull throb of the ring on his foot, he knew he wouldn't be standing here without her "trash."
A high-ranking military official stepped to the podium, his voice amplified by the stadium speakers. "Five minutes," he began, his voice surprisingly human despite the medals on his chest. "I won't lie to you. I don't know what's through that veil. I don't know if we are an army or a sacrifice. But I pray that, against all odds, you return to your families. The world is watching."
The crowd went silent. The only sound was the collective breathing of thousands. Then, the timer hit zero.
[00 : 00 : 00 : 00]
The sky didn't crack; it simply folded. A massive, swirling tear in reality, a Gate, erupted directly behind the official, swallowing the light. From the center of the void, a figure stepped out.
Aureon.
The Celestial was tall, draped in armor that seemed to be made of starlight and geometry. He looked upon the thousands of humans with an expressionless, chilling detachment. He didn't see people; he saw inventory.
"Is this everyone for this portion?" Aureon asked, his voice echoing not in the air, but directly inside their minds.
The official, trembling, managed a stiff nod.
Aureon pulled out a small, translucent cube. It pulsed with an Etherea signature so dense it made the air feel like thick syrup. With a casual flick of his fingers, he snapped.
The world vanished.
In a blinding flash of white, the facility, the rain-scented air, and the gravity of Earth were gone. Hyun-Jae felt a sickening wrench in his gut as he was pulled through a vacuum. When his feet hit solid ground again, he gasped for air, looking around in total shock.
They were in a vast, infinite white space. There was no sun, no horizon, only a glowing, pearlescent floor.
He wasn't alone. Thousands more humans appeared in waves, warriors from every nation, speaking a dozen different languages, all looking equally terrified. But it wasn't the humans that caused the panic.
Hyun-Jae's breath hitched. Scattered throughout the white void were others. Massive, chitinous insectoids with multiple limbs; lithe, grey-skinned humanoids with eyes like black glass; and hulking beasts covered in crystalline scales.
"What... what is this?" someone screamed nearby.
Panic rippled through the human ranks like a wildfire. People began to scramble backward, tripping over each other as they stared at the alien species surrounding them. Hyun-Jae gripped his fists, his heart hammering. He had spent ten years studying the Celestials, but he had never imagined this. It wasn't just Earth. The Celestials hadn't just come for them, they were gathering a collection from across the stars.
The scale of their power was beyond comprehension. To transport entire populations across dimensions with a snap of a finger... it made his ten years of training feel like an ant trying to fight a storm.
Aureon hovered high above the sea of confused faces, his presence radiating a cold, crushing pressure that made the air feel heavy. As the panic reached a fever pitch, a massive holographic screen flickered into existence, projecting his expressionless face across the white void.
"SILENCE."
The word wasn't heard through the ears; it was a physical blow to the mind. The screaming stopped instantly. The crying died in throats. Thousands of beings, humans and aliens alike, froze in place.
Aureon's voice resonated again, perfectly translated into every language and dialect present. "You have been gathered because you share the same realm. Despite your physical differences, you are now teammates. Conflict among yourselves is a waste of resources you do not have. Get used to the sight of one another."
He gestured vaguely to the space behind him. As if a curtain were being pulled back, a massive section of the white "wall" simply vanished. Behind it lay a gargantuan hall filled with hundreds of long counters. Standing behind them were anthropomorphic figures where some resemble humans while some resembled the other species with some looking like cats, others with skin like polished obsidian, wearing identical, high-collared uniforms. Their eyes were vacant, their expressions completely devoid of emotion.
"These are the Attendants," Aureon announced. "They are the staff of this facility. They do not feel, they do not tire, and they do not deviate from protocol. You will now form lines. The initiation process begins now."
The crowd moved with a stiff, wary energy. Humans found themselves standing next to towering insectoids that smelled of sulfur; lithe aliens stood behind scarred human criminals. No one spoke. The suspicion was thick enough to choke on.
Hyun-Jae ended up in a line roughly twenty people deep. He kept his head down, but his eyes were constantly darting around. He noticed that even the "alien" species seemed just as terrified as the humans. They weren't monsters invading; they were prisoners, just like him.
He looked ahead at the Attendant at the front of his line. It was a tall, four-armed figure with blue skin, processing a group of panicked humans with the mechanical speed of a grocery store scanner.
Teammates, Hyun-Jae thought bitterly, his hand subconsciously moving toward the family photo in his pocket. He calls us teammates, but we're just being processed like cattle. He shifted his weight, and the ring on his foot gave a dull, warning throb. He had to keep his cool. If these "Attendants" were as thorough as Aureon claimed, his fake mark and his damaged artifact were about to face the ultimate test.
As the line moved forward, the sounds of the white room were replaced by the rhythmic click-clack of the Attendants' devices and the low, frightened murmurs of a hundred different worlds. The wait for the "Initiation" had begun.
The wait felt eternal. In the vastness of the white void, time seemed to lose its meaning. Standing in line, Hyun-Jae had nothing to do but observe, and the more he saw, the more the weight of learned helplessness began to crush him.
He watched a species of towering, four-armed behemoths a few lines over, creatures whose skin looked like natural plate armor. Then, he saw a group of small, translucent beings that vibrated with a soft hum. The disparity was staggering. He wondered what the Celestials looked for. Was it raw physical power? Etherea capacity? Or were they all just different breeds of dogs being brought to the same kennel?
The scale of it all, the transport, the infinite space, the subjugation of entire worlds, made his ten years of solo training feel like a grain of sand against an incoming tide.
Finally, he reached the front.
The Attendant looked like a man, but his eyes were as vacant as a doll's. He didn't look up from his terminal. His voice was a flat, tonal drone.
"Name. Rank. Species."
"Kang Hyun-Jae," he replied, his voice sounding small in the massive hall. "E-Rank. Human."
The Attendant's fingers moved with robotic precision. "Processing."
A small, crystalline card slid across the counter. It was translucent, etched with glowing geometric patterns that pulsed in time with the room's frequency.
"Take your ID," the Attendant commanded.
As soon as Hyun-Jae's fingers brushed the cool surface of the card, he didn't feel the weight of plastic or metal. Instead, the card dissolved. It turned into a flurry of white sparks that raced up his arm and vanished into his skin.
Hyun-Jae gasped, stumbling back and frantically checking his hand, but there was no wound, no mark, nothing.
"The ID card is now a part of your Etherea," the Attendant said, already looking past him to the next person in line. "It will serve as your anchor and your record. It will assist in your integration."
Hyun-Jae opened his mouth to ask what "integration" meant, but his ears suddenly popped. The cacophony of the room changed.
The guttural clicks of the insectoids, the melodic humming of the translucent beings, and the sharp barks of the grey-skinned aliens, it all shifted. He wasn't hearing noise anymore. He was hearing words.
"...how long must we stay in this white hell?" a creature nearby grumbled in a voice that sounded like grinding stones, yet Hyun-Jae understood it perfectly.
"Quiet," another hissed.
Hyun-Jae's eyes widened. The ID hadn't just registered him; it had rewritten his senses. It was a universal translator, woven directly into his soul. He looked back at the Attendant, then at his own hands.
As he moved away from the counter, his mind racing. He could understand everyone now. The fear, the anger, the whispered plans of a hundred different worlds, it was all flooding into his head at once. He was no longer just a human in a room full of monsters; he was a participant in a game that spanned multiple galaxies.