The capital city of the Luminal Court was unlike anything Alex had ever seen.He had walked the streets of the Roshar capital on Blue Star, with its towering spires and bustling marketplaces. He had visited the Aurelian Empire's golden cities, where every building was a monument to power and prestige. He had even seen the video of the demon realm's capital from footage sent by spies , a brutal fortress of black iron and volcanic stone. But this place, this quiet, peaceful city hidden on a dying planet was something else entirely.The streets were wide and clean, paved with smooth stones that gleamed softly in the golden light of the planet's sun. The buildings were simple but well-maintained, their walls painted in soft, muted colors that blended harmoniously with the surrounding landscape. There were no grand palaces, no towering monuments, no displays of wealth or power. Instead, there were gardens filled with flowers, and fountains that sparkled with clean water, and open squares

That night, Alex returned to his quarters in the guest wing of the Oracle's dome. The room was simple but comfortable: a bed, a desk, a window that looked out over the quiet city. He sat on the bed, his back against the wall, and thought about everything he had seen and heard.The humans he had met were not cowards. They were survivors. They had fled from a world that had offered them nothing but pain and death, and they had found refuge in a place that asked nothing of them except to live in harmony. It was humbling. It was inspiring. And it was also deeply troubling.Because it meant that the human race had failed them. The kingdoms, the nobles, the cultivators all of them had failed to protect their own people. And that failure had driven those people into the arms of a sanctuary that most humans didn't even know existed.“James and Alara,” Alex thought suddenly. “They fled too. Ten thousand years ago, they fled the greater universe because they had no other choice. They were hunte

The five monsters exchanged glances. Then the serpent-bear stepped forward, its massive claws scraping against the blackened stone. "We have waited three thousand years for this moment. If this Oracle can truly free us from the darkness, we will follow you to the ends of the universe."The Oracle stepped forward, her golden eyes studying the five monsters with an expression of quiet surprise. "They're still sane," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. "The dark energy has corrupted their bodies, but their minds are intact. How is this possible? Monsters of their level should have been consumed by the corruption centuries ago."The serpent-bear heard her words. "A voice spoke to us," it said. "In the depths of our despair, when the corruption was at its worst, a voice whispered that we would be freed. It told us that a person would come, someone who could defeat all five of us without injuring us and that person would be the key to our salvation. The voice told us to hold

Alex emerged from the hidden sanctuary with the image of the egg still fresh in his mind, the steady pulse of its heartbeat, the warmth of its shell, the weight of the promise he had made to protect it. The spatial gate shimmered and faded behind him, sealing the pocket dimension away from the world. He stood alone in the corrupted wilderness of the inner zone, the bruised purple sky stretching overhead like a bruise that never healed.“A month,” he thought. “It's been a month since I left the starlight base. Diana is in the Law Tower, practicing. I don't need to return yet. There's still work to do here.”He extended his perception outward, letting his space law sweep across the landscape. The corrupted energy of the inner zone pressed against his senses like static, but beneath it. he could feel the subtle distortions in space that marked the locations of hidden dimensions. There were more of them out there, more pocket dimensions, more secret realms, more places where the source

Alex stood motionless, his grey eyes fixed on the figure opposite him. The attacker had stopped its assault, but its burning eyes still watched him with a mixture of wariness and desperation. The shadows that clung to its form made it difficult to discern its exact shape, but as Alex studied it more carefully, pieces began to fall into place.“Not human,” he thought. “Or at least, not fully human. The proportions are wrong, too broad in the shoulders, too thick in the arms. And the size... it's larger than a human, but smaller than the giants I've encountered. Almost like a dwarf, but taller. Much taller.”He adjusted his stance, careful not to put too much pressure on the cracked ground beneath his feet. The secret realm was fragile and dangerously so. The spatial barriers that contained it were already strained, and any significant release of power could shatter them entirely. If that happened, the energy release would spill into the Stargate, damaging the already weakened core and