Jun fretfully roused from a terrible nightmare. Desi and Danny had betrayed his trust and eloped. Such a nonsensical thing to dream about.

  He felt soft tufts under his hand and couldn't help caressing it. It was so comforting and familiar.

  “Not an old soul in a young body. There is harmony. Doesn't have the stink of those reincarnaters either. No fractal time ripples. No signs of a superior bloodline. Maybe a merging of fates?”

  Jun froze, eyes still closed, laying on his side, left arm under his head, right hand, very confused about what it was clutching. Grass? There was something disturbingly close, breathing along his body as it mumbled to no one.

  Suddenly, the feeling vanished. He couldn't sense its presence anymore.

  Jun slowly opened his eyes.

  Staring into his soul, from a mere foot from his own face, was the biggest pair of steel-gray eyes he had ever seen attached to the biggest and bushiest head, twice his own size, laying on the ground, mirroring his own posture.

  The shocked scream of terror came out as a single strangled sigh that sounded a little like, ‘wada wada wada.’

  The ancient face now looked confused.

  Jun felt like slapping it. How dare this old man monster thing make that face after scaring his soul out of his body? He quickly sat up and realized where he was sitting. An unnaturally white sky in an infinite field of purple clovers.

  Fucking shit rags

  It wasn't a dream.

  He really wished it had been a dream.

  Jun really wanted to be alone to throw a belated pity party, but he supposed he should address his uninvited guest.

  The old thing was watching him curiously. Jun looked at him just as curiously. His gray hair was long and tied at the top in a very neat bun, clenched by an ornate silver hairpin. His beard was actually really amazing now that he was looking at it. More so than even his uncle’s.

  The beard engulfed the man's entire lower face along with his sides. Intricate braids sculpted the enormous body of hair into three giant ends, bound by more ornate silver bands.

  His bushy bushy eyebrows almost rivaled his beard in impressiveness with how it covered nearly the rest of his face. They, too, ended in small braids with small silver bands.

  The little bits of his face that Jun could see was lined with so many lines that he almost thought he was made of wood.

  As opposed to his large head, his overall height seemed on the shorter side, barely reaching his own chin, while his broadness in chest, and the thickness of his flame tanned chiseled arms with blackened fists larger than Jun's head, made him the butt of no jokes. He was wearing an old beaten leather apron, stained and scorched by years of fire and burning steel, dirty blackened pants and nothing else.

  This was a straight up magical dwarf.

  Cause why not.

  “What are you?”

  Jun almost thought he had said the words, which he wouldn’t cause those fists, when it dawned on him that he was being asked a question.

  “What am I?” Jun asked the magical fairy tale creature.

  “You're soul is so small and weak and puny.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “But its purity is unlike anything I've seen,” the dwarf went on.

  “Is that a weird thing?”

  “Weird?” The old dwarf was looking at him like he was stupid. Granted, he had just woken up, and Desi always said he looked really stupid in the mornings.

  “Are you a human?”

  “Yes. Are you a magical dwarf?”

  “…..yes.” Good, he didn't look offended.

  “Well, now that we've gotten our species out of the way, my name is Jun Hopper. Nice to meet you. Now, who are you and where am I?”

  The dwarf stared hard without responding for a moment before he introduced himself.

  “I am Dogadon, the Don of the Eternal Forge, and a High Elder of the Nexus. I have been entrusted with your introduction by the Administrator. And this is your domain as the newest Elder of the Nexus.”

  “Ah!” Jun remembered. “Is she around? I owe her an apology, I think.”

  “The giggling wench comes and goes as she pleases. If she needs you, she'll appear whether you wish it or not so don't worry about her.” Dogadon waved his hand in annoyed dismissal before refocusing on Jun. “Before anything else, tell me what you are. I don't understand what I'm looking at and it's hurting my noggin.”

  “Well, um.” Jun wasn't sure what the old dwarf meant and was afraid that if he didn't answer satisfactorily, bad things would happen. Like those fists.

  “I suppose you could say that I'm a sculptor by trade. My last work apparently awakened my spirit fire, I saw some crazy tree, I had to run from home, then a purple glass haired girl brought me here, and then I think I just fell asleep on her while she was talking, which was crazy rude, then I woke up and now we're doing this.” Jun summarized the big points in a single breath. He didn't think his drama was relevant.

  Jun was sure he'd said the wrong thing and that his time had finally come when Dogadon the dwarf looked like he was having a medical emergency with how red his face was getting. His eyes were bulging a bit way too much and his mouth was tightened as if to contain his fleeing soul while his fists and arms clenched so hard his veins were like hundreds of snakes slithered just underneath the surface.

  That's when Jun noticed the floating jiggly metal hammer and the small ball of fire dancing above their heads.

  Jiggly?

  Was he not fully awake?

  Two hands like steel weighed down on Jun's shoulders and brought his line of sight down to match the dwarf's, their faces now almost touching.

  “What. Did. You. See?” the red faced Dogadon squeezed out with great effort. His breath smelt like aged garlic and cheap beer and came in compressed billows that blew Jun's hair back.

  Jun gave his second account of his visions and felt the hands holding him down, getting heavier as he went. It was as he finished that the grip tightened while trembling. Jun could no longer suppress a cry of pain.

  The old dwarf finally came back to his senses, releasing Jun's heavily bruised and fractured shoulders, looking both shocked and apologetic. Jun was in near tears of agony when he saw the dwarf summoning down the two anomalies he’d seen floating about.

  The dwarf tightly gripped the hammer as the ball of fire made itself home in the hammer's hollow. Once settled, a shimmer enveloped the tool that mesmerized dwarf and human alike.

  Jun was still in admiration of magical feats he couldn't understand when Dogadon gave a wide flourish with the hammer and a shroud of healing yellow flames washed over Jun's entire body.

  He felt freaking great.

  All his aches and pains were relieved, leaving only a sense of refreshment.

  “I apologize to you, Elder Jun. I showed you something shameful.” Dogadon gave a very polite bow of contrition.

  Jun was flustered by the sudden shift but saw his opportunity, so he spoke.

  “Elder, I don't really understand my current situation. Could I ask you for your help?” Jun gave the same bow that he had seen the dwarf perform. From what he'd seen, the Elder in front of him wasn't a bad-natured person/dwarf. Life was easier if he could make a friend rather than an enemy.

  “You're so young and accomplished, yet so humble. Much better than the brats at home.” Dogadon sighed in admiration before giving another in frustration. “Honestly lad, I would love to, but I'm still trying to understand you. I have a few more questions.”

  “Please go ahead.”

  Having gotten permission, the dwarf was about to begin when a set of comfy chairs materialized by their sides.

  “Oh, thank you.” The dwarf said before seating himself on the fluffy chair in interest.

  Jun just stared at him in shock. He had just been thinking about wanting the comfy chairs from his old place when they came into being.

  Dogadon saw this and chuckled.

  “Elder Jun, this is your domain. You have control of its form. Sit. We have much to discuss.”

  And they did.

  Elder Dogadon had many questions about the world Jun came from. He asked for its history, its relationship with the Gates, its path of development and the way they trained in strength.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The Old Dwarf was horrified to learn of the bloody conflict that predated the Gates arrival and impressed with humanity's warrior spirit that met the monsters the Gates unleashed as gifts rather than calamity, but as Jun summarized the development history of their Rune technology that built the Gate Cities and their Fortresses that protected them, the dwarf became increasingly flustered.

  “There is no life outside your cities?! Why are you still using the Demon Runes? What have your Crowns been doing for the last two centuries?!” The Old Dwarf asked. Seeing the boy's lost expression, he realized that the newest elder was really just an ignorant child. Taking a deep breath, he reached deep within himself and harnessed all his limited patience, and started from the beginning.

  “Let me see if I can explain it to you simply. The Nexus is a special Divine Plane that was created to bring together the strongest experts of every connected realm to interact and support one another in our shared war against the Enemy.” Jun’s eyes bugged out in wonder. Divine Planes and different worlds. How marvelous.

  “The Nexus was set to bestow special keys in the form of runes that could be used to access this central store of resources. But it isn’t feasible to allow just anyone in. Therefore, the rune itself was used as a test to deem the worthy, allowing only those warriors that could personally slay the enemy and contribute to the war effort.” Dogadon explained the reasoning behind the rune and merit system.

  “Once a final condition is met, the rune will become a complete Key and one becomes a Keyholder with spiritual access to the Nexus once you reach the 4th rank.” The dwarf revealed.

  “What is the final condition? And why the 4th rank Elder?” Jun asked, full of curiosity and excitement.

  “The final condition is slaying a Demon. And only those that have awakened their Spirit Fire have the level of existence strong enough to be dragged outside their own worlds.” The Old Dwarf explained with a weird expression. It felt strange explaining to an Elder what even the little newbs in the first tier markets knew.

  Jun’s expression hardened at the condition. He realized that he’d already been a Keyholder, his own strength being the final factor left unmet till recently.

  Dogadon, didn't judge Jun for his reaction. It meant he knew the truth of a Demon's nature.

  They weren’t talking about just any random beast or monster that haunted the Gates. Demons were special.

  “The strongest five of a world’s Keyholders, recognized by the Nexus as representatives of the world, are titled Crowns. These individuals are privileged with direct physical access to the Nexus and the Elder’s Avenue where they can consult with Elders such as ourselves.”

  Jun gulped at the thought of being sought after by powerful beings. What would they do to him when they realized he offered no value?

  “Hahaha! You don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to.” Dogadon saw right through him and laughed. “Remember, within your Domain, you make the rules.”

  Jun nodded in relief, but was still very insecure.

  “In exchange for these benefits,” Dogadon continued, “the Crowns have a sacred duty to safeguard their world from all threats. Leaving your world in its broken state for two hundred years is a big threat. They are not doing their duties!” he nearly shouted.

  “Um,” Jun hesitated, “Whhhhyyy is it bad? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for purifying the planet and regrowing life, but is there an expiration date that we were supposed to worry about?”

  “Lad,” the dwarf sighed in exasperation, “You saw your world growing from a tree in the shape of a fruit. What happens to a fruit that has a rotten core?”

  Jun was shocked by the implication but he countered, “From what we know of our history, there have been several extinction events that left the world near lifeless for millions of years at a stretch. It hasn’t even been three hundred years since The Fall. Aren’t you being a bit of an alarmist?

  “You mean when your people lost their minds when they discovered the limits of the spiritual field of your universe didn’t even reach your moon? That was an indication that your world’s spirit was already hanging on by a thread.” Dogadon derided. “A normal world’s spiritual field will expand with the growth of the universe. Those several extinction events you mentioned probably already weakened your world and were just starting to heal again when you all fucked it up. I swear, it’s always the worlds with humans. Gah!” he spat in disgust.

  Jun sat reeling from the discovery. Having someone from a higher perspective casually explaining the mysteries that almost wiped out all life on earth was a strange feeling.

  “The fact that your society is based purely on demon runes also means the spirit has weakened to the point of being unable to connect with you to give you a world rune.” Dogadon heartlessly went on.

  “Demon runes? These were the runes the Nexus gave us though,” Jun asked, feeling breathless, the image of a rotten fruit dropping from a tree with the screams of millions as BGM playing on repeat in the theater of his mind.

  “Runes are the physical manifestation of the laws that govern existence. Each world is unique and thus has different runes to express it. The personal rune is a gift from the Nexus based on the individual’s affinities. Every being has different affinities and thus different Paths where they can be successful. The Personal Rune identifies the direction.” Dogadon explained something shocking. “My own Personal Rune was the fire rune unique to my world that led me on the path of creation through fire.”

  So his own recommended path was spatial laws? He hadn’t really explored them beyond storage duties, though?

  “The Nexus should be able to read the runes of your world and assign the world rune most appropriate to you. However, in the rare instances when the spirit of the world is deeply repressed and the energies of the Gates are too strong, the assigned personal rune will be tuned to the invading Demon world. Such runes are commonly used in the battle with the enemy beyond the gates to take advantage of the abundant demonic mana, but one’s path should not be based on them.” The Dwarf explained.

  “But everyone in my world is using these runes.” Jun stated in confusion.

  “And that’s the problem lad.” Dogadon exclaimed in frustration, “As your people found out in its first attempt at leaving the core's spiritual field, life needs the core's spark to birth a soul. In essence, we are all extensions of our world’s spirituality, forever dependent on it to continue as a race. A healthy core can have a rich spiritual field that spans the entire universe. Greater civilizations that have successfully expanded into the stars will often restrict the core world as a protected territory to safeguard all life. Only a fragile, wounded universe at the brink of death would be restrained to its own physical core world and have so little mana that the world's runes would be this badly suppressed. Without new life, the natural cycles will be broken and there will be no healing, and if there is no healing, there can only be death, and the death of the core means the death of all life. The Crowns of your world should have been prioritizing the healing of your wounded world, not barricading themselves around the Gates they’re supposed to conquer!”

  Jun felt like the floor was falling while Dogadon ranted.

  So the spirit of his universe was dying and repressed from the energies of the Gate, unable to express its own unique energies. They were comfortably living in their bubbles, ignorant of their world’s spiritual suffocation.

  “How much time does my world have?”

  The dwarf just shook his head.

  “You might not have till then to worry about extinction. The purification of the demonic energies also serves to weaken the enemy's hold of your world to the minimum while you try to conquer all the Gates. Only then can you slow the coming of the next Wave of invasion,” he said like he wasn’t dropping an anvil on Jun’s head.

  “Were we supposed to conquer them? The Gates? The separate worlds filled with uncountable numbers of monsters that power our entire civilization?”

  “Yup.”

  “….”

  “….”

  “What are the Gates, the Enemy and the Waves?” Jun finally asked, needing answers to questions that had burdened mankind for over two centuries, that seemed more urgent than he realized.

  After a thoughtful pause, the Grandpa Dwarf got into story time.

  “From the beginning of all times, there was the World Tree, birthing countless world fruits, each containing its own universe, each having the potential of birthing a god. Some would meet their potential with the guidance of Divinities, while others withered and were reborn in an endless cycle, waiting for its chance to become divine.

  “Then the Enemy appeared, discovered too late by the armies of the Celestial World, the Divinities that oversaw creation and maintainers of the World Tree, as countless minor and greater worlds had already been silently consumed in the darkness.”

  The Old Dwarf spoke wistfully of a glorious age past.

  “A great host was assembled. An invincible army of gods and demigods, donned for glorious combat, set out to exterminate the Darkness. Many of the newest demigods wielded my greatest masterpieces with pride, cheering an early victory and promising centuries of feasting upon their return.”

  Jun was sensitive enough to remain silent as the grandpa dwarf was lost in his memories. A being that spoke about events from the beginning of time, as wistful memories could take as much time as he wanted.

  “So few returned,” Dogadon finally continued. “The Enemy was something from beyond our realms, coming to consume us all. Our forces, fewer and untested for divine combat, could only beat the enemy back at a heavy price, but they couldn’t extinguish it nor stop its continued pollution of the World Tree.”

  Jun didn't like hearing about reality consuming enemies that gods couldn't kill.

  “The Divine Family, the first Celestials birthed by the World Tree, along with all the remaining Divinities, made a final assault and sacrificed their eternal souls and the Celestial Court to forge the Nexus, a divine plane that acts as a seal that traps the enemy into a singular plane of existence, halting their unconstrained expansion.”

  Dogadon held back the moisture in his eyes at the painful past and focused on his anger.

  “The Enemy once invaded new realms with unchecked abandon. Armies of demons could appear from the skies at any time. Terror, chaos and anarchy reigned supreme in the infected regions. The Nexus cast the Enemy into the physical dimension and constrains their ability to reach new worlds to spatial tunnels.” Dogadon took a deep breath, feeling winded for the first time in centuries.

  “Now, the Enemy can only send small trickles of their vast forces, in fear of rupturing their Gates, with the aim of solidifying their hold on the planet and fortifying the connection to withstand larger invasion forces and act as a beacon for more invasion points.”

  “Alright, hold up. Let’s slow down for a second.” Jun finally interjected, hand on his forehead, feeling a migraine knocking. “What do you mean by ‘more invasion points?’”

  “If the current Gates aren’t destroyed, new, stronger Gates will invade your world with a new Wave of demonic fiends. Unfortunately, once a world has been marked, even if you destroy all the Gates, within a few thousand years, a new round of invasions will still come.”

  Jun was stunned speechless. Their entire way of life revolved around treating the Gates as resource farms that supplied and powered their entire civilization. Now he was learning that the Gates were ticking time bombs, and defeating them only delayed the explosion.

  “They key to surviving this eternal war is to never stop growing. You and your people must grow together. With coordinated efforts, Waves can be slowed to thousands of years for greater preparation. In reverse, the greater the infection of demonic energy, the stronger the connection to the World Fruit and the faster the Gate strengthens and hastens the next Wave, which some fools believe, with enough preparation, can bring great profits.”

  Jun wasn't stupid. He understood what the Old Dwarf was implying.

  “But you don't believe my people's ability to conquer the second Wave?”

  Dogadon scoffed.

  “For a warrior’s growth, the difference between the Keyholders connected to the Nexus and those that are not is the difference between heaven and earth. Fortunately or unfortunately, there are only a limited number of Demons that can exist within a period, which limits the number of potential Keyholders that can properly awaken their Spirit Fire. This means there is an actual ceiling in the number of warriors connected to the Nexus that can only be raised with time. Even if your world has hunted every demon and raised every Keyholder into awakened status with access to the Nexus Market, the numbers are simply not enough to face the next Wave.”

  Jun was grim from the prospect, but looked at Dogadon with hope.

  “So as a new Elder, what authority do I have to remedy this?”

  Dogadon looked up at the newest ascended Elder who looked down with pleading eyes and shook his head.

  “The only authority you currently have is within your own Domain where you can bar anyone from entering. Other than that, you can try to convince the other Elders to not support your current Crowns until they rectify their actions. As your merits as an Elder increase, you’ll have more options. My advice is for you to raise new ones under your influence. That would be the simplest path, I think. That way they can take care of the work of world maintenance in your stead. It's how most Elders manage their worlds.”

  Jun couldn't decide how to respond to the Old Dwarf that spoke as if it were something simple for him to accomplish.

  The Old Dwarf gave a bark of laughter at Jun's varied expressions of helpless reproach as he got to standing.

  The new Elder didn't understand his position because he didn't understand the Nexus.

  “Let us do a little tour as I answer your questions. You can only understand something once you've experienced it, yes?”

  Dogadon grabbed the newest Elder by the arm, and they were gone.