Chapter 20 Above the Gate
1010 Words
4:00 AM.
There was no lightning in the sky.
No alarms.
Only an indescribable sense of compression.
As if the density of the air had been quietly altered.
Every sensory-type within the academy looked up at the same time.
Toward the Night Domain.
The rift was no longer a line.
It had become—
A true Gate.
Massive. Arched. Frameless.
As if a portion of space had been carved away.
Inside the Gate was not darkness.
But flowing structural grids.
Purple-black lines interwove into visible laws.
Across the entire city, electronic devices distorted simultaneously.
Lights in the Council Tower flickered.
All monitoring screens turned red.
“Spatial stability imbalance!”
“This isn’t invasion-level—”
“It’s structural-level unfolding!”
For the first time, the gray-haired man remained silent for more than ten seconds.
“This is not an attack.”
“This is… an opening.”
—
Academy rooftop.
The wind had stopped.
Leon stood at the very front.
Black patterns fully covered half his body.
Failure Catalyst remained stable at 75%.
Yet a new notification appeared.
[Node Confirmed]
[Gate Establishing Secondary Connection]
Ava asked quietly,
“It’s looking for you?”
Leon shook his head.
“Not looking.”
“Confirming whether I can bear it.”
Lucas clenched his teeth.
“Then refuse.”
Leon did not answer.
Because he could already feel—
That gaze.
No longer distant.
—
Inside the Gate.
The flowing structures began to condense.
A “form” slowly emerged.
Not human.
Not monstrous.
More like a compressed outline of laws themselves.
It had no legs.
No face.
Only symmetrical geometric halos like a skeletal crown.
Damian instinctively expanded his domain.
It was pierced instantly.
That was not a gap in energy level.
It was a gap in dimension.
—
The Council issued emergency orders.
All A-Class sensory types deployed.
Dozens of domains blanketed the sky.
The city entered maximum war readiness.
The gray-haired man personally rose into the air.
“We cannot allow full materialization.”
Energy cannon arrays activated.
First barrage—
Struck the structure within the Gate.
No explosion.
Only data collapse.
The next second—
The attack trajectories were rewritten.
Reflected backward.
Three high towers collapsed instantly.
A monitoring officer screamed,
“It’s calculating us.”
—
Academy rooftop.
Leon closed his eyes.
His consciousness was pulled once more into that structural space.
This time—
He was no longer an observer.
He stood directly before the Gate.
The higher-tier existence manifested clearly.
[Phase Complete]
[Node Stabilized]
[Connect to Higher-Tier Model?]
Leon asked calmly,
“After connection?”
A brief pause.
[You will detach from current definition]
[Become part of the structure]
[Consciousness retained]
[Human tier will no longer fully align]
This was a choice.
Not temptation.
Leon fell silent for the first time.
He saw the outcome.
If he refused—
The Gate would continue selection.
The city could not withstand it.
Many awakened individuals would collapse.
If he accepted—
He would become an anchor.
The Gate’s expansion would be restricted within what he could bear.
The cost—
He would no longer be entirely human.
“Why me?”
[Failure frequency matches structural resonance]
[You are the optimal solution]
No emotion.
Only logic.
—
Reality.
The Gate began expanding again.
A second ring tore open in the sky.
All A-Class were suppressed.
Ava stared at Leon’s back.
And suddenly understood.
“He’s making a choice.”
Lucas’s fists turned white.
“He better not do something stupid…”
—
Within the structural space.
Leon slowly lifted his head.
“If I connect—”
“You stop selecting?”
Three seconds of silence.
[Current region selection suspended]
[Condition: Node remains stable]
Not a promise.
An exchange of conditions.
Leon suddenly smiled.
“You call yourselves law.”
“Then follow law.”
“I accept.”
—
Reality.
Failure Catalyst began rising.
76%.
77%.
78%.
No loss of control.
No frenzy.
The black patterns fully covered his body.
The crimson skeletal frame emerged again—
But no longer violent.
It fused with the black patterns.
Forming an entirely new exo-structure.
The Gate in the sky abruptly contracted.
Expansion stopped.
The higher-tier existence stabilized its form.
Then—
It slowly descended.
A direct line of connection formed between it and Leon.
The entire city witnessed—
A pillar of purple-black light descending from the sky.
Piercing through the academy.
But there was no destruction.
Only resonance.
All Council sensory devices reset to zero.
Then rebooted.
Readings stabilized.
The rift ceased expanding.
The gray-haired man’s voice was hoarse.
“He… suppressed the Gate.”
—
The pillar of light dissipated.
The Gate shrank to a controllable state.
No longer devouring space.
The higher-tier existence gradually faded.
[Node Established]
[Regional Selection Suspended]
[Phase One Complete]
The structural space collapsed.
Leon opened his eyes.
Failure Catalyst—
Stabilized at 80%.
But a new designation appeared:
[Structural Node · Human Unit 001]
He did not collapse.
Did not go mad.
His breathing simply became slower.
Ava rushed forward and held him tightly.
“Are you still here?”
Leon was silent for two seconds.
“I’m here.”
His voice was deeper.
But clearer.
Lucas stared at him.
“So what are you now?”
Leon looked toward the Gate, not yet fully closed.
“Human.”
“But not only.”
—
High above the Council Tower.
The gray-haired man descended slowly.
He understood one thing.
The structure of power in this world—
Had changed.
The one who truly held the future’s direction—
Was no longer the Council alone.
But the boy standing beneath the Gate.
—
Deep within the Night Domain.
Higher-tier structures began moving.
Leon could sense them.
This was only the first Gate.
Farther away—
There were greater models.
And he—
Had already become one of the entrances.
—
Academy rooftop.
The wind rose again.
The city had not been destroyed.
But the world had changed.
Failure Catalyst hovered quietly.
80%.
Not the end.
Only the beginning
Of a higher evolution.
- Writer
