The opening of the Rift threw the two rods forming the Gates aside. What hovered there gave many of the Humans their first ever glimpse into the Daemonic dimension. The realm of chaos. It was blank white and shining like a lesser sun, but it stayed that way for only a minute until a blob of blue and purple gas, but clearly outlined and speckled with starlight, came into view. It approached carefully, and though it took a full five minutes, eventually it filled the portal and removed any trace of the white background. Then it entered the plane of Doc Forrest.

While all this had been going on, the combat between the final Mantis and the Humans had kept on; reaching a fever pitch. But the whole [Guild] stood frozen, their attention transfixed by what was coming through that portal.

The Mantis leader finally fell, even as he butchered the noble Casters with each of his supersonic raptorial legs. The empowering Spell which made him appear steeped in visible bloodlust seemed to have robbed him of all sense, and so he was skewered by a dozen Spells from different angles as his protections failed at last.

The Hive's greatest warriors all panicked. The few remaining Mantis commanders were now being targeted by several different groups of elites who had zero reasons remaining to preserve their cooldowns. With the rampaging human army, their odds of surviving, let alone accomplishing the mission they barely understood, went down drastically as their forces lost the last of their leadership.

They no longer had anyone to keep fuelling individuals to enter the Spell-induced frenzy. Now they fought for survival, but they were spread across a vast field and even when they split into smaller groups their tormentors kept up the harassment, refusing to waive their fee in blood.

The painstaking ritual was a failure. With no Mantis there to take control over the final phase, no Natural Treasure would be able to manifest, and even if some one in a million ant genius had the affinity to operate the item that you would need to activate… They were too fractured to even consider dreaming of getting away with the doom-inviting thing.

That was all background as the Daemon took its first step into the realm of man.

The ritual may have failed, but the Rift was here to stay.

It moved as if underwater, and the part that first touched grass looked like little legs trying to take steps inside of a balloon. It had squeezed through the opening, but now that it was out in the open you could compare it to other objects for the first time. The blob could have fit hundreds of warrior ants.

The Human Casters took aim and threw Spells at the thing to try and force it to back up through the portal again, but even as the first piercing Spell struck it, the thing popped as if it had been but the thinnest of bubbles.

Out came pouring hundreds of different creatures of every shape. Each starlight had apparently been the eye of a creature peeking out. Some of them were cyclops, while others had the standard two, or more. A few even had upwards of fifty eyes, scattered over their forms.

Some of them fell from a height, but some were just a metre above the ground and had already fallen to roll on the grass. One and all they were the size of toddlers, dogs and smaller bears.

The shocked Humans loaded up even more Spells to throw the things back where they belonged, but a few among their number opened maws as big as a riverhorse and swallowed the Spells whole.

The rest were busy making a great commotion. Clapping appendages, shaking rattling digits in the air, trumpeting their proboscis. They seemed almost to be celebrating.

The first Human warriors reached their lines and despite their exhausted states they threw Skills at the Daemonic individuals. It was to no avail. The things dodged around, pushed and shoved, went between the legs and altogether cooperated to avoid any harm.

When they attacked it was to suddenly get stuck sucking on some enchanted item or other, until the panicked warrior was able to beat them off, only to discover their enchantment forever dead to the world. But for some strange reason they did not do more than that.

It was clear the Human forces were panicking, all over their Spells and Skills failed while the Daemons frolicked and took their price in magic, for the rude welcome, from all around. Only a few were actually eating Spells, but the rest all had their ways of sapping affinity from their environment. They were busy at work stabilising their very nature.

That was when Kalle suddenly felt one of his dormant Skills activate for the first time. His vision was suddenly enhanced with details that should have been impossible, and as he focused he even felt like his vision was zooming in. All the way across the field, heading in a straight line from the portal to himself, he spotted a tiny, navy blue figurine of a tall and rather thin man with the nose of an imp, and it was running right at him waving its arms.

They made eye contact and the look of joy on the creature's face was like that of a son running into the arms of a father returned from war, tears were streaming down the things face and when it noticed him noticing it, it started waving even more frantically.

“Ehm, Sten, are you seeing that thing?” Kalle pointed the creature out, but it was miles off still, having not made it further than a kilometre in the minutes since the bubble popped.

“Yes, the blue thing? I can’t see what it is… How are you seeing it, exactly?”

“I’m not even sure,” The Skill he was feeling must be [Prize Familiar], but the implications were too much to easily comprehend in his exhausted state. Kalle was not even aware his chin was drooping.

The Humans sounded the retreat, and the Daemons apparently had no interest in following. Some of them started eating the corpses, others dug for items they could sense.

After just a short break, which Redd speculated was to drink potions, the force from Dormata got to work bombarding from a distance again. The target this time was the Rift. But the attacks seemed to accomplish nothing at all.

Unlike the earlier Gates this magic phenomena had no structure, no sides and no back. It was just a fixture in reality, an opening to a world beyond what space could touch normally.

The Spells all painted streaks in the bright white opening, not always of the same colour as the Spell had been. Each affinity had its own and only a few had mixtures noticeable enough to remain represented in that chaotic realm. It looked like even entering that place stripped the magic to its very bones.

They kept the bombardment up for long, arduous minutes. It was futile, and they were still feeding the group of Daemons who had the ability to both jump up and catch the Spells, so in the end they retreated even further.

Livia did not understand what she was seeing. Watching people she knew use Spells, that she was getting used to. Seeing them fly through the air, it felt as exciting and scary as seeing a monstrously big firework launch, or a rocket maybe. Without a degree in physics it was all too easy imagining the thing turning around and striking the very place it launched from. Guess I may have watched one too many cartoons as a child.

But this was different. This was a magic phenomena, and despite not even being a Caster she felt like the thing was pulsating in her vision, growing in steady beats just from existing in this environment.

It was like she had previously seen lightning, but now she was looking out from the eye of the storm. The only one looking even more scared was Hyde who was trying to hide behind Roldy.

The strange and varied creatures that had spilled from the Rift had already been joined by stragglers who did not arrive in any strange pre-prepared bubble. They seemed to have a harder time adjusting after making the leap, but there was never more than a minute before a new creature came ambling or rolling or jogging through only to fall on down and lay completely still for a good fifteen minutes.

It was looking futile, like this part of Doc Forrest would need to be accepted as lost for years to come. If not decades.

But Kalle noticed something strange. The Humans had backed off further, but it did not seem like they were giving up. They were up to something, and Kalle, who had spent his every waking moment these past days studying the pattern of the ritual, immediately realized that they were up to something similar. Something like a counter-ritual.

“Look, what are they doing Redd, do you recognize that? They are drawing a ritual pattern using all the stumps from when the ants built their palisade, they are making something that must be taking advantage of the natural formation somehow,”

Redd was looking stumped, rituals had never been a staple of the army he had fought with, and he told them as much. This must be something new. Apparently the Hives were not the only ones who knew how to innovate.

It took two hours, and the tension was not helped by the constantly growing number of Daemons making their way into their ancestral home. Even animals had started flocking around, to watch from the treeline; the fate of their land taking its shape.

The new ritual pattern was not nearly as large as the one built by the Mantis. It was making use of completely different principles and the Human Casters had had mere hours to prepare. Clearly it was also an experimental magic, or they would have attempted it from the start, but despite it all…The [Guild] and everyone else stared intently, all having hung their hopes on this one great casting, watching with bated breaths as the ritual finally activated.

A blue lightning started streaking slowly, against its very nature, from stump to stump and mark to mark. It did not go in any pattern that Sten could make out, it chose the next stump randomly, jumping all over the place but gathering speed with each new point added to the locus of power.

Once it had picked up enough speed to move just like the energy it so resembled, it finally struck at the Rift and somehow made a burning hole through the immaterial thing.

The spreading glow suddenly deformed as if it had been shot, and in just a few more seconds the hole seemed to create a vacuum.

All the Daemons that had been unleashed were suddenly on tethers, halting in their tracks and clearly feeling a strong pull.

The strange absence grew, and the strength of the pull increased accordingly. The desperate creatures looked all around, taking their final few memory shots of the world that still eluded their grasp.

They had killed no one, yet in their greed they had caused great harm and changed the nature of a great number of heirlooms and lifesaving trinkets, however justified. They did not belong.

Kalle looked to the strange blue creature that had been seemingly trying to reach him, he stretched a hand out, hoping his Skill would somehow activate and let him know of something he could do. The panicked, blue statuette had turned around with horror as the Human ritual finally activated, now it was desperately trying to dig downward, hoping to use the very planet to resist the pull.

It was futile. Creatures far larger in terms of weight had already been pulled back in. So close to its goal, the thing was hurting itself in its furious efforts. The grip finally loosened and it went flying.

Kalle was the only one who could still see clearly. Sten caught the panorama, but the details were lost to the rest except for Kalle’s Skill-enhanced vision. He reported the win.

“The Daemons are all disappearing, not a one is remaining behind, and it even looks like the rift is slowly closing,”

The words were met by cheers from all his [Guild] mates, and the Human army looked like it was jumping for joy too despite the wretched state many of them were in.

When the final Daemon was returned the Rift suddenly imploded, leaving no trace but multicoloured magic sparks that slowly floated down to join with the soil, disappearing like snowflakes, like every other trace of the Rift ever existing.

They had made it, they had defeated the Mantis’ every effort. They could barely stop shouting and dancing deliriously, after more than a week of having been quiet and careful.

Only Kalle was still staring at the spot, feeling strangely like he had just lost an important friend.

The giant rainbow that materialised a mere hour later just felt inapt.