A small islet cluster sat unnoticed at the south of mainland Kriemreich where the land was much abused by the sea. A playful Arentz whipped, lashed and tapped the cliffs with flying streams of water as it had done for years with little respite. Its limitless energy drawn from the wind sent wave after wave crashing on the land formations, taming the land to its will. Loud splashes and blasts of earth that cracked like gunfire were common in the area; what loose soil that was dislodged led to a more resistant body of rock that endured the ocean's power.

The isles were collectively called the Schweiglands, for the empire that owned them did not deem the costs to civilize the place worth all the trouble. It was left untouched for years - wildlife has taken over the island group and grew unchecked and unaffected by human interests that centered at the northern mainland.

A perfect rectangular void stood at the near-center of the Schweiglands; a vast space that created a dissolved rainbow when sunlight hits its surface. Ocean waves whipped on the space but were repelled by an unseen wall. One could see beyond the illusion when looking at it from above; a vast darkness hid beyond the spectral phenomenon.

Unnatural as it looked, one would not be able to realize that behind the mirage-like field was a fortress compound that housed a district's worth of people. The spectral shielding was maintained by eight ten-foot crystals that received a flow of the aurora wall from a large orb that sat on the tower at the center of the facility. A high cone glowing in neon blue oversaw a complex of four other buildings that were built around it. Also behind the shielding was a network of guns; the largest of them being housed in domes at the vertexes of the compound. Whoever built the compound seemed to have predicted the next recourse should the aura fail to keep the place hidden.

††

A man wearing a heavy laboratory coat tapped his feet while watching the dial's needlepoint from "4" to "1". A heavy hiss signaled the door to open up to him, revealing a narrow, mirror-lined interior. It closed with a low snap and began a slow upward journey. He pulled out a watch from his pocket, noticing that the clock arms were aligned in a smile; the shorter arm pointed to the number two.

The elevator clanked to a halt; a hiss split the door in two until the gap was large enough for the occupant to alight from the gondola. He was saluted by a pair of rifle-wielding men who were alerted of his presence. The door to an inner chamber opened with a heavy metallic bang. What unfolded before his eyes was a wide ovoid-ceilinged chamber illuminated by six egg-shaped lamps.

A small group of people worked from one point to another; bees who were tending to the many machines found on the sides of the chamber. The newly-arrived man traced a small web of translucent cables laid out on the floor; these were traced to the backs of large, bulky rectangular machines that had arrays of buttons, levers, dials and gauges on their faces.

"The power is not yet connected. What is taking the generator personnel so long?"

He understood that the installation of the expanded power cables from the third building on the eighth floor of the tower was not an easy task. The tower had to be rewired to accommodate the energy requirements needed to run the pending experiment without compromising the power needed to efficiently run the facility's defensive systems. He stared at the compound outside of the tower.

The guards were at their normal routines. They were not standard uniformed men but were rugged brigands who seemed to have gotten hands on rifles and other high-powered small arms. Most of them were at the battlements, catching the breeze blown from the sea into their hair or caps. Some were content at the facility grounds sitting on crates and on the stairways to the walls.

He pulled out a watch from his laboratory coat pocket; ten minutes passed since the power was supposed to be flowing to the eighth-floor machinery. He held tighter on his timepiece and threw it back to his coat when he noticed faint blue currents passing through the semitransparent cables.

"Doctor, we are ready." Another man wearing the same laboratory attire tapped him on the shoulder.

He promptly nodded before raising his voice for the rest of the personnel to hear.

"Off to your posts ladies and gentlemen. We shall begin!"

He noticed that the chamber has become more "lively"; green, cyan and orange lights were seen on the graphs, charts and gauges of the machinery. A tolerable brightness has taken over the dim white of the ceiling lamps. He went deeper inside the workplace, seeing the stern faces of many men and women working on numerous machines that were attached to the chamber walls.

Five metal rings were embedded in the middle of the floor, staring at a ceiling that mounted a deep dark orb at the center with downward-pointing needles on four sides. Faint figures of men and women were looking at the centrally-placed machines while working on consoles at the same time.

This was his team, after all, his operation. His job to direct the whole process was about to begin.

"And now, it is time to test if the theory is right. We should be able to get the process corrected with all calculations corrected."

"Course energy on all filaments. Start the power outflow at sixty-five percent."

His voice boomed across the room and the other personnel began working on their machinery with no question. One of his aides pushed up a green lever; a turbine-like device not far from the man began to him.

"Target energy output will be met in thirty-five seconds" A random low voice from the left corner was heard. An onion dome of another mechanism started to spin, gradually picking up power to the extent that its grooves were no longer visible.

"Output at sixty-five percent in three... two... one..."

"That will be enough Friedrich. Lower the medium sphere!" The standing scientist raised his left arm. A gunmetal-colored hand connected to a steely appendage peeked out of his sleeve. He had to raise his voice to be heard amidst the growing buzz, whirr, and screech of the room.

The assistant flicked a switch on his console and was reciprocated by eight clicks from the ceiling before the ceiling-mounted black ball began to descend. Clacks and cranks were done by other assistants from their consoles, causing a surge of blue energy course through four cables that led to the downcast rods. These crystalline apparatuses gave out a faint purple light; its glow was intensifying with more energy that was passed to them.

Purple light emanated from the four energy-packed rods competed with the chamber lights for space, giving the team the signal to move them closer to the black sphere. Whizzing sounds made by the rods' moving receptacles were distancing from the scientists and stopped when their tips touched the ball at the center. Energy was coursed to the obsidian ball, draining the purple glow out of the crystal rods until it manifested on the orb's surface in the form of a small swirling aurora. Seven colors that came from the infusion merged into one circle of pure whiteness that was slowly occupying the sphere's space with each passing moment.

Goggles were worn the moment the light was too much for the naked eye to stare at. The light has lost composure and burst outward from the orb, completely washing the room in a white wave. This brightness joined with the sun after two minutes, leaving a perfectly dark wound floating in the middle of the chamber. It was an umbral streak that ran between five to six feet. None of them could see anything inside the tear, but the team did not have the foolish curiosity to go anywhere near it.

"Should we send a probe to investigate what's inside, Doctor?" Freckle-faced Friedrich approached the metal-armed scientist while raking his hair with his hand, which did not help to fix the top of his head.

"There shall be no need for that yet." The head scientist gazed at the artificial dimensional wound his team created. "Let us find out if we will draw the attention of anything from the other side."

He was right: the dark line was being contorted by something. Ripples formed at first followed by a large, four-fingered arm shooting out of the rip. Its palm slammed on the floor and shook the chamber; hard, crystalline skin glinted in its frantic search for something to grip on. Friedrich and the rest no longer stood in place and moved near the exit when a second arm appeared and swung in empty space. Both hands gripped on the floor; the creature then had the strength to completely pull itself out of the void. Its back banged on the ceiling and crushed the ceiling-mounted instruments; the mangled and broken devices that once held the energized crystal rods sent sparks and burnt metal ash across the floor.

What appeared before them was a being in humanoid fashion. Its skin shared the orange-redness of adobe; its blocky head sported ruby-like eyes. The monster roared upon seeing the lead scientist and his now frantic team that rushed to the chamber exit; the sound of its cry was identical to one screaming through a long steel pipe. Its agitation worsened when it could not stand straight; the room only allowed two-thirds of its eighteen-foot frame. Five men, one with sword and the rest with rifles, passed through the exiting scientists. Bolts were pulled from the guns; muzzles were aimed at the otherworldly behemoth.

"Do not shoot. We do not know how it will react to bullets," commanded the lead scientist; his right arm was set on one of the rifle muzzles. The guards reacted accordingly and took a step back.

After seeing that the puny beings did nothing but stand in its presence, the creature roared throatily and swiped his massive arm in front of the six. The air it made was enough to make the group shield their faces with their arms. Its eyes followed the light coming out of the chamber and rammed its body through the wall where it plummeted to the ground. A large hole in the wall and sparks coming out of flaming and wrecked machinery were left after the monster made its escape.

The mild quake and the loud bellowing of its source alarmed the guards outside the tower. Bullets were instantly rained on the massive being, but none of them did better than to irritate it. A brigand at the battlements aimed its handheld cannon at the beast and struck its head. The missile exploded on impact and made the giant kneel, but the hit achieved nothing but the creature's first taste of pain from the little beings that littered the place. No mass of flesh was burnt, or a piece of its stony skin flaked off by the blast; it was the time when the creature began its desperate dash away from the place.

Sounds of crushed objects, cries of pain and gunfire greeted the lead scientist's ears after descending from the eighth floor. He was no longer with the five who first saw the rampaging beast that plowed anyone in its path with its massive built. On his right hand was a crude, crown-like implement made of flexible metal; a red gem was fixed on one of its triangular points. Six uniformed men were with him; each carried a long gun-type weapon attached to a metal backpack. The metal-armed leader approached one of the guards' leaders.

"Order the men not to waste bullets on the beast." The lead scientist spoke in a displeased tone; he could not believe that his men would pour round after round on the fleeing monster when the previous hits did nothing to harm it. He then followed the enraged giant in casual steps, watching his six guards run ahead of him.

The group managed to corner the escaping monster on the fortress' western wall, where it roared at its would-be attackers. All six of the uniformed gunners discharged their weapons at the creature; harpoons with four-pronged claw heads speared the target on its arms, legs, chest and head. The huge beast ignored the metal implements that struck it until jagged currents of energy appeared on the shafts that were connected to cables attached to the gunmen's backpack devices.

A final scream was heard from the creature that was unaware of the pain that pierced through its skin. Its body wobbled twice before its knees lost balance until the giant fell sideways to the ground.

The fortress lord caught up with his men; he secured the steel crown on the disabled being, after which he pulled up his left sleeve to reveal a compartment on the artificial arm's wrist. He emptied two vials' worth of a strange red fluid on a fine-pointed syringe, unloading all its contents on the monster's left temple. Somehow, the crown's gem gave off a red glow after the serum was injected.

"Its mass should make it a worthy specimen. Let no one approach the creature."

He looked at the plowed path and a few streams of blood that came from the men who were foolish to underestimate the giant's strength. Broken and displaced crates were scattered on the central grounds. Above everyone else was the cloaking orb that still continued generating the invisibility field set on the fortress boundaries. At least, the damage was minimal, he thought to himself. It would take twenty minutes before the serum entered the creature's brain and allow the crown to take control of its entire body. None of the fortress occupants suspected that something worse than a wild netherworld giant was about to hit their facility.