Everyone watched as balls of fire flew into the sky, almost like fireworks, only to signal the coming deaths of untold thousands.

Ten minutes to go.

One of his minds switched to doing a countdown while the rest just focused on the world around them as he pulled out the bar of food he was given, taking off the paper to give it a look.

If he didn’t know better he would have thought it was chocolate, with its dark colour and glossy appearance, only to see how wrong he was as he took his first bite, and despite the situation they were in felt his eyes light up.

It was rich, but not sweet, with flavours coating his mouth and constantly shifting as a feeling of power came over him, the buffs from it permeating his body to fill it with strength. He couldn’t even begin to guess how it had been made but desperately wanted to know if he ever got the chance. Even if he couldn’t fill his food with power, he at least wanted to recreate the flavour as every feast or holiday meal he’d ever gotten to enjoy in the past flashed through his mind, all while parts of him watched those in the surrounding area go through the same thing as the reason they must have been distributed in the first wave became clear. It wasn’t just for the extra power each person would receive, It was a way to break the tension.

He didn’t think he was wrong to say that some good food could make any situation a little easier, and what he was experiencing wasn’t just good, it was incredible. He’d been letting himself feel smug occasionally with how good his own cooking had been ever since he’d awoken his crafting, but between seeing what his teacher could forge and now trying the food of a tier three cook when it was clearly a mass-produced ration, be couldn’t help but feel humbled in how far he could still grow if given the chance.

He continued to nibble on it, savouring each bite as minutes passed while everyone around did the same, happy to indulge in that brief respite from their thoughts as much as they could before they all finished, going back to focusing on the point with weapons in hand, even if the general atmosphere felt just a little calmer than it had.

Four minutes left.

Without any real thought going to the act, Ben reached out, taking Thera’s free hand in his own, watching her as her eyes were glued to the point before turning to look at the others with him, many of them looking the same.

It was only those who were in charge of the weapon who seemed to have pushed away the world, fully devoted to doing their final checks as they prepared to activate it, each of them desperate for it to go off without a hitch, all of them wanting to see their work paying off and saving the world if they could prove its viability, with the resources to make a dozen more already prepared while what they truly wanted was one for every gate, with how it turned out for the first wave being the deciding factor in that.

He could see Iberu among them, the head of the whole project looking like every muscle in his large body was tense, with him having more invested in the weapon than anyone else. It was the culmination of his life's work, and he was about to have to see if all of those years had been wasted in the end.

Two minutes.

His minds felt more attentive than they ever had before, even with the thirty-two at his disposal entirely focused on the world around him as time continued to tick down. It felt like each moment was slowing to a crawl from it and he had to force himself to ensure he was still counting properly. Even if keeping track of the seconds himself didn’t truly do any good, he wanted to know, wanted to be aware of every single one before the world changed forever as he felt Thera’s grip on his hand tighten.

Despite the thousands upon thousands of people present, the area was shockingly quiet, nobody able to say a word as they were forced to confront themselves before they’d have to confront the wave, those moments leaving everyone's minds filled with words left unsaid, things left undone and actions never taken. Aside from the summoned, every person on that world had spent their lives hearing about the monsters that would be making their way to their home, coming for nothing but a mindless slaughter and conquest with hundreds of known victories under their belts and likely thousands of unknown ones. It wasn’t like every world was going to have survivors after all. It could be said that the one they were currently on was filled with the lucky ones whose races at least had the smallest bit of hope.

They knew what was coming compared to their ancestors who’d had to face it blindly. They and their gods had been planning for the day for centuries, with their civilization far advanced compared to where most of the worlds had been invaded at, even if a few had declined, and even if every demon in the universe would get access to the system the moment the gates opened, they hadn’t had their whole lives to take advantage of it. They would benefit, but the people of the world had thrived under it to reach heights in strength and power unimaginable to their ancestors.

And with their growth in strength and the union of both gods and men that never would have met if not for the disaster that had befallen their old homes, they’d grown in knowledge as well. Weapons technology incomparable to the sticks and stones many had to wield in the past, with systems of enchantments refined to the point that items were enhanced far beyond their base potential, letting them deal unseen amounts of damage compared to what one could do in the past, and that was only beginning to touch on the growth of magic.

There were more mages than ever before, most people even having one branch as their blessed skill as the people who pursued the craft had refined the primitive ways mana was previously used into an art form, creating spells that no individual before could have achieved in their quest for growth as all of them learned what they could and passed it onto future generations, letting knowledge pile up and continue to be built upon until it reached its current state as people held their staves at the ready, already grasping the mana within themselves to let loose at a moments notice.

One minute.

The balls of fire shooting up into the sky told him that his counting had remained true as the tension that had fallen came back in full force while he felt his heart pound. The entire reason he was even in that universe was before his eyes as untold gods were watching down and an entire other world looked on from across the primordial chaos that separated realities, just as invested in their success.

Every grey was watching what was about to take place, letting them temporarily forget their own troubles as most of them were locked on to the representatives of their own kind who’d been brought to the world, the only members of their race who had a chance of surviving their world’s eventual cold end, though a few looked elsewhere. There were many interesting individuals after all, and as a universe that had received more attention than any other for how it had reached out across the gap into so many others, people couldn’t help but get invested in what they saw.

As each second passed, Ben could feel his pulse rising, getting to the point where he thought his heart might just burst altogether as he took one last look at Thera beside him before putting his eyes squarely on the light beaming into the sky, acting as a call signal for what was to come.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six.

“Five, four, three, two, one.”

By the end, the countdown slipped out of him, and with the final word came a change to what they were seeing, the invasion point no longer being a beam of light, nor a tear in space like he’d usually see with that branch of magic. Instead, it looked like a fractal tube stretching into the sky, still as large as it had been only moments before but now showing snippets of a thousand different worlds as it finally began.

The gate opened up and pandemonium poured out.