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Zavei’s expression shifted with disbelief before he whipped back his luminous head and took off.

Issa almost laughed, stifling a chuckle when Ki’Remi sliced his glowing meta eyes at her, his face altering to narrowed concern.

Taunting Zavei was easy, but the battle ahead would not be.

The chamber they entered deep inside the ship was a prison in name only.

It was vast, with ceilings so high they disappeared into a void speckled with shifting star patterns.

The walls, if they could even be called that, were not solid.

They were a mirage, a cosmic trick of perception that gave the illusion of glass susurrated with energy beyond mortal comprehension on the threshold of space.

Through the thin, transparent barriers, the cosmos stretched out before them.

A panoramic view of the celestial expanse, not as seen from a ship but as if they had been set adrift betwixt the stars themselves.

The Saatifa guards bowed and exited, taking their place outside the shimmering doorway.

Ki’Remi chose silence as the luxurious entryway slid shut, leaving the pair alone.

He slid off his duffel bag, placing it next to the equally compact carrier Issa had brought.

Her eyes tracked him as he stalked past her and stood by the edge of the impossible window, leaning against a barrier, eyes on the view as they awaited departure.

His arms were crossed over his broad chest, his muscles flexed, his eyes darted, and his intellect warred between logic and disbelief.

The subtle shifting of his metanoid tattoos, silver and gold pulsing over his dark skin, betrayed the calculations running through his neural node.

His mind was working hard, seeking to render a reality that existed without translation.

The man was on overload, Issa guessed.

She felt a stab of pity for him. Twas a hella lot to take in.

Just then, the Cosmic Gate activated.

A shuddering rippled through the air.

A deep bass vibration, not of sound but of existence itself, pulsed through the chamber, resonating in their bones, sinew, and breath.

Then, the skies warped, bent, and fractured.

The darkness beyond the barely-there windows tore open into a vast, roiling, energy-charged vortex.

A maelstrom emerged through the rift, a corridor of light and shadow, a spiraling current of galactic energy, shifting like a river of auroras coiling through the void.

Ki’Remi narrowed their eyes, for this was not hyperspace nor a structure generated by mortal hands and space-time continuum engines.

‘Tis the divine passage, the Celestial Pathway, an interstellar route carved between dimensions leading to the Seventh Heaven.’

The Rider arched a brow at Issa, now at his side, and exhaled.

‘Fokk,’ he muttered, raking a hand down his face, his rasp and scraped raw from the sheer impossibility of what he was witnessing.

He turned to his woman, his silver-threaded eyes burning into hers. ‘I thought I’d seen it all.’

She smirked, arms crossed. ‘Yet here you are, struggling to process it.’