The monastery in Tibet occupied a location on top of a mountain that seemed to exist partially in multiple dimensions simultaneously. The monks who had inhabited it for centuries had understood cultivation on a level that most other practitioners could never achieve. They had been preserving and protecting the barrier point through meditation, through the constant application of peaceful awareness that counteracted the aggressive nature of the ancient consciousness pushing against the seal.
Marcus arrived at the monastery to find the monks already beginning their final meditation. They knew that they were about to die. They knew that the barrier was about to break. And they were accepting this knowledge with a serenity that Marcus found both beautiful and heartbreaking.
The head monk, an
