The smoke cleared after a couple of minutes – though, in that time, a portion of the day had passed… white clouds shifted to a semi-darkening sky.

A thick mist of black-brown choked Alcides, Sam, and Xavier due to their proximity to the explosion’s epicentre.

Out of the three insane men who had met in the centre of an unknown forest, Alcides had now been officially determined as the most senile.

After all, he was the oldest.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Xavier’s mouth spewed obscenities alongside the dirt that came fluttering out.

It was the first time Xavier hadn’t killed someone he disliked, and as it turned out, it was also the first time he had almost died due to a rather stupid accident.

Though, it wasn’t an accident as much as it was an attempted assassination by something lurking beneath the Earth.  

“I hate little girls…” Sam grunted, brushing the dozen shattered rocks that had showered his body during the explosion.

It was surprising that none had penetrated his body.

When The Shapeshifter noticed the sharp, jagged faces of the rocks, and examined the spandex Xavier had provided, Sam finally understood why he needed to wear the tight suit.

It was soft, versatile, and obviously made of something better than Kevlar.  

‘What shit did I get myself into?’ Sam internally groaned.

Not needing to hide his abilities around Alcides and Sam, Xavier smacked the ground with his hand, charging a blast of gravitons that shifted all loose dirt into the air.

Then, The Eternal merely floated to a standing position.

Alcides was the last to recover, and as the vampire’s shattered jaw snapped back into place, he seemed familiar enough with being blown to bits to resume his work immediately.

“What was the point?” Xavier blurred to Alcides’s side and raised the vampire into the air with a single hand around the neck.

“Easy…” Sam placed a hand on Xavier’s shoulder.

“Relax, I can snap his neck and he still won’t die,” Xavier stated, but then grew uncertain… “Right?” He inquired.

Alcides used his incredible strength to pry his way out of Xavier’s hand, and though it took some time, neither The Eternal nor The Vampire were trying their best.

“What were you hoping to achieve here?” Sam inquired.

Alcides blurred into the six-foot-deep indentation in the ground, and dirt flew into the air for a couple of seconds before The Vampire realized he was not getting anywhere.

Then, an idea struck…

Alcides re-emerged from the hole, glanced at Jacob, and turned to Xavier. “Do large dogs dig faster?” He questioned.

Sam took a step forward, and Xavier quickly placed himself between The Vampire and The Shapeshifter since what would follow was an actual fight.

There were threats, and then there were actual death battles.

Xavier’s mood for a battle to death had already been stifled by the name La Magra – an Ancient Blood God that somehow felt less terrifying because of shitty CGI from 1998.

But this was the real world.

“I told you it was twenty feet deep,” Xavier frowned, recognizing the weak point in The Veil was their goal. “We need an industrial drill or something.”

“Getting that sort of equipment out here will take some time,” Sam added.

BZZZZZZ

Xavier and Alcides clutched their heads, kneeling as pain rippled across their faces.

A torrent of Cosmic Energy bombarded Xavier’s organs, causing internal damage to The Eternal. Alcides wasn’t much better, and the wounds on his face that had recently healed once again reopened.

“You okay?” Sam placed a hand on Xavier’s shoulder.

“WAIT!” Xavier tossed himself to the ground, rolling away from Sam and into the six-foot-deep hole.

WWWRRRRTTTT

A golden blaze erupted from The Eternal’s eyes, and this time, instead of trying to stop the inevitable, he directed the metal-melting beam of pure Cosmic Power into the ground.

Sparks…

The ground sparked as heat and light met bedrock…

But Xavier had yet to truly control his Cosmic Beams, and the episode didn’t last much longer.

The Eternal crawled out of the hole feeling much better, and Alcides was quick to examine the progress made from the outburst.

“I didn’t know you could do that…” Sam frowned.

“I did this when we first fought, remember?” Xavier shrugged.

“I only saw the aftereffects,” Sam admitted. “I never really thought about what caused all the damage to the logs after the incident.”

“You need to be more observant,” Xavier explained, glancing over his shoulder to the forest. “Or you won’t survive very long in this world.”

Sam raised his head and pressed his nose to the wind, noticing a distinctly sweet scent that he could not place at the moment.

“You got us six feet deeper,” Alcides popped his head out of the hole to update the two men who had become his companions.

The Vampire had only now acknowledged both men since they were contributing to ridding him of the annoying headache, and presenting him with a key to solve long-lost mysteries.

“So, all we need is eight feet more to breach the underground cave, right?” Xavier questioned.

“More or less,” Alcides shrugged. “And I am out of grenades.”

“Thank God,” Sam whispered under his breath.

Xavier stretched his muscles, testing his strength as he channelled Cosmic Energy from every cell in his body – it cleared his mind and focused him on the task to come.

“I think I can manage that…” The Eternal revealed.

“How?” Sam frowned. “There isn’t a drill for a hundred miles.”

“Watch your step,” Xavier urged.

Alcides seemed to understand what Xavier was about to do, so he quickly blurred to Sam’s side and pulled The Shapeshifter away from the area.

A pale golden hue enveloped Xavier’s body, and he allowed the combat instinct ingrained in his body to take over. The Eternal soared into the skies, covering a mile upward in two seconds.

Xavier excelled at flight.

At the peak of his ascension, Xavier spun his body into a dive and compacted the Gravitons as much as possible, sending him on a beyond-terminal velocity back to the ground.

BOOOOOOOOM

With pinpoint accuracy, Xavier’s glowing body sunk into the twelve-foot hole in the ground, and the entire area rumbled a deep, earthy groan.

CRACK

CRACK

The ground shattered as if glass.

Xavier had torn through the remaining eight feet to reach the cavern below, and like falling dominoes, the ground beneath Sam’s and Alcides’s feet was not spared.

Everyone sunk into the darkness below.

Even Xavier – capable of flight – could not arrest his momentum since the collision and proximity to The Veil had muddled his mind enough to forget his innate sense of direction.

-----------------

UNDERGROUND CAVERN

Xavier struggled to remove the large rock that lay atop his chest. For some reason, he felt greatly weakened, and soon, he realized the reason why.

Golden stains ran from his cheeks – it was blood.

Even the smallest drop of Eternal Blood held enough Cosmic Radiation to kill a whale so Xavier hopped to his feet to make sure Sam was nowhere nearby.

A Shapeshifter had a body countless times more efficient than a human’s, but there were still limits.

As for Alcides – Vampires weren’t alive to begin with, so what was the big deal if the Ancient Vampire died one more time?

The large werewolf shook the countless rocks from atop its body as it rose to its feet, and as soon as the creature saw Xavier, it shifted back into Sam.

Surprisingly, his clothing wasn’t ripped to shreds with the transformation, though Sam was too concerned with other matters to notice this small detail.

“Where is the vampire?” Sam inquired, making his way to Xavier’s side.

“The vampire is here…” Alcides’s voice came from the centre of the cavern, directly above where Xavier had smashed through.

“Well, we are down here,” The Eternal stated.

“And I fear we have to go up again,” Alcides replied, gesturing to a distortion dancing in the air and rising higher by the second.

“It looks like it’s—”

“Flickering out of existence?” Alcides questioned. “Yeah, it tends to do that, so we best get going.”

Xavier gripped Alcides and Sam by the shoulders, ensuring his hands mostly held onto their clothes since a casual squeeze from him could crush their shoulders.

“Are you sure we won’t die?”

“About 50% sure,” Alcides replied.

“I am not comfortable with that gamble,” Sam grumbled.

WHOOOOSH

Xavier kicked off the ground and soared into the air, pulling Sam and Alcides along with him. It took a split-second before the three men disappeared into the distortion in space above.

BANG

The men were swallowed by the distortion, and immediately after, a Glamour fell onto the environment they had destroyed, returning the field to a Haven of green grass.

It had been as if nobody was ever there.

A ripple travelled throughout the structure of The Veil since it had been breached for the first time in thousands of years.

۞۞۞

QUEBEC CANADA

THE AXE AND CROSS

Kaulder sauntered down the stairs of the centuries-old church, reminding him once again that he was the one who laid the first brick to build the place.

This was a common situation.

As an immortal, he had outlived most of the buildings that now made up the city around him, and of course, he knew what bodies were buried beneath which buildings.

He entered the lobby.

“You seem strangely reminiscent today, sir,” The 36^th Dolan reported.

It was his job to tell every little shift in mood when it came to Kaulder, and Dolan had been doing it successfully for several decades.

But, his time would soon come.

“Just another day on the job,” Kaulder spoke in his usual heavy, demanding voice as he placed Hexenbane in the nearby case.

BBBBZZZZZZ

However, as soon as Kaulder had released the sword that had accompanied him for centuries, strange mental fatigue had him unstable on his feet.

The Immortal fell to his knees – a feat his enemies had not achieved in decades.

“Sir… sir… sir…”

Kaulder’s mind cleared enough to hear Dolan’s loud yells, but a raging headache still echoed in the background – presenting vague flashes of images that only a fully-trained mind could decipher.

A couple of minutes passed.

“Is everything okay, sir?” Dolan inquired. “Is there a need to summon The Witch Council?”

“There is no need, but it seems there are some mysteries I have yet to see,” Kaulder replied, noticing the eerie glow of his magic-detecting signet ring. “And from the looks of it – it will be my deadliest journey yet.”

“It is a good thing you can’t die then,” The 36^th Dolan joked.

“With magic of this level involved…” Kaulder made a point to show the blazing orange of his signet ring – indicating world-level magical energy. “Anything is possible – even killing an Immortal like myself isn’t out of the question.”

Kaulder reached into the case and retrieved Hexenbane, sliding the anti-magic weapon back into its sheath. Even if his immortality failed – which was impossible, Hexenbane could solve most of Kaulder’s problems.

“I shall prepare, sir…”

Kaulder shook his head. “No,” The Immortal thought for a couple of seconds, deciphering the memory until a clear intention was conveyed. “Where I go next, no mortal can come.”

“But you can get some things from The Witch Council for me,” Kaulder added, surprisingly Dolan since The Witch Hunter didn’t like cooperating with Witches more than absolutely necessary.

“What may that be?”

“Fae Roots and The Third World Grimoire,” Kaulder replied.

“And where should I send it to?”

“The base in Los Angeles…”

Before Dolan could inquire further, Kaulder had already disappeared up the stairs, and though he was just twenty feet away, Dolan knew Kaulder could not be found if he didn’t want to be found, regardless of distance.

--------------

All over the world, the breached VEIL allowed a mental image through several layers, accessing the mind of powerful Beings of similar personality traits – resonance in a sense.

BBBZZZZZZZ

… Lady Emilia rose from her pool of blood as images flickered in her mind – the newborn in her arms was handed to the nearest handmaid…

… Dr. Edward Coventry stood still, completely forgetting the class he was currently teaching. The magic rippling through the atmosphere was something only few could detect, and it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

… Marcus Edge withdrew his razor-sharp teeth from the bloody, empty hole that once held a witch’s heart. Lightning flickered across his body – this was an ability he liked, and it would aid him well when tracking the origin of the strange images in his mind…

… Caligula sighed when the images flickered inside his mind – unlike most Supernatural Creatures, he had an idea of what the phenomenon meant. “It’s time, huh…” He whispered.

… Vlad III Tepes stirred in his tomb, and for the first time in centuries – he could feel it. Caligula had come out of hiding, and many Supernatural Beings were moving – it was time for him to awaken.

… Andromache The Scythian didn’t know what she felt, but the images flickering in her mind were not unlike when a New Guard resurrected for the first time. “What a bother…” She mumbled…

… Mother Superion felt the Halo, merged into her back, vibrating with powerful expectations. Up until that moment, she never thought the object was alive… and while that surprised her, what surprised her more was the images flickering in her mind…

Heroes and Villains of The Immortal World were converging across The VEIL.