He was trapped in the midst of a crowd of bodies. People all around him. Yelling and shouting, voices angry and affronted and afraid.

He was reminded, unpleasantly, of his entry to the Trials, a dangerous place he had unfond memories of, though the crowd wasn't quite as pressing. There was a bit of space between everyone, not all squeezed together.

Back then, he'd been naked and unarmed. Now, not so much.

He held his assault rifle ready, casting his Soul Sense around him in a passive scan of his immediate environment. Merging with Threat Analysis, he was able to view the world through every camera on his Skin Suit and the drones he let loose to fly above him. They joined the humming cloud of dozens of other drones up there already, and more joined as he watched.

Through the ones he released he saw the extent of the crowd. A few hundred-odd people, spread out over a large, circular area. The ground beneath him was worked stone. Where the circular area ended, there was nothing else. This place was suspended in an empty white void.

The resemblance to the Trials was intensifying. This could be dangerous. Those immediately around him were peering about and holding their own weapons warily. Neither he nor Threat Analysis detected any signs of impending attack—all were too busy with their own concerns—but that could change in an instant.

The people around him were a very mixed bunch; not what he'd describe as standard fare. These weren't the average randoms. Everyone here was someone out of the norm.

Immediately before him was a Tier 2 Cultivator wearing a dazzlingly emblazoned purple robe, with an Artifact Bow in her hands and spiritual wings furled on her back. She, in turn, was subjecting the large Level 2 Cyborg beside her to a stunned stare.

That Cyborg was staring back at her through the six cameras dug into his orbital sockets. He was very tall and his skull was a patchwork of metal and flesh, the rest of him hidden beneath his large black coat. Bulges told Nicolai he had numerous weapons tucked under it.

They both glanced over in response to the flicker of blue light as Nicolai used his Mark to reactivate his personal portal, which had disappeared after he stepped through. It spun back into life beside him. He released it. So long as it remained callable he wasn't in too much dangerous here. If it all went to shit he could just spin it up and be gone.

The Cyborg let out a mutter of surprise when the Cultivator bent her legs and jumped into the air. Nicolai felt the Aura ripple as her spiritual wings unfurled soundlessly, taking her weight and flapping as she rose higher. She raised her bow threateningly when a number of the drones up there shifted closer to check her out. She wasn't the only human up there. He saw more Cultivators, and even some Earthborn riding hoverboards or jetpacks.

Nicolai turned his eyes away. He could have used his Pegasi ring to join her up there, but he was content to remain on the ground. Flying would make him more noticeable, more of a target.

His Soul Sense monitored the space around him, but he saw no signs of attack. Only confused people. The people could hardly have looked more different while still being human.

Earthborn with body parts replaced by metal, wearing techwear and tactical gear, festooned with straps and bags, guns and bombs, magazines full of bullets tucked into webbing.

Then the Cultivators, who were almost entirely clothed in robes of varying colours, from simple to ornate, slim to voluminous, dark to pale. Occasionally these Cultivators had weapons or tools hanging from their belts. Imbued and Artifacts, if Nicolai was any guess. They also wore numerous items of jewellery—earrings, amulets, necklaces, and rings that glittered on their fingers.

Their skin was also paler, and they tended to wear their hair much longer than those from Earth—even many of the men had long hair.

Watching through his drones, Nicolai saw portals flashing open and closed at the edges of the crowd as more people arrived. The number of flashes was decreasing. This was the initial mass, those who had come in the first moments of its opening. People were spreading out, too, and the press was growing less tight. There was only so far to go, however.

Heaven seemed to have a penchant for unceremoniously dumping people at wherever they were meant to go; uncaring as to whether those humans might be squashed by all the other people it was also putting there.

His attention was drawn to the white void surrounding this place, because something had appeared out there. Giant words, writ in red light, which formed a repeating band that encircled the great stone disc they stood upon. The words said:

—LOADING PHANTOM CITY—PLEASE WAIT—LOADING PHANTOM CITY—PLEASE WAIT—LOADING PHANTOM CITY— PLEASE WAIT—…

The crowd was beginning to move. A Cultivator strode past, treating him to a cold look at he went. From the other direction came someone from Earth.

Over there, in the direction the one who'd passed him by was heading, the Cultivators were all gradually forming into one mass. Meanwhile, behind Nicolai those from Earth were forming up.

This movement seemed to have started without any words spoken, it was just a kind of natural sorting where people, noticing that those around them were increasingly strange and foreign, decided to move to somewhere more comfortable; where people looked more like them.

In front of him, the two men striding in opposite directions bumped one another. Nicolai noted that this was unavoidable, because both had clearly seen the other and consciously decided to not give way. After colliding they spun, both their faces twisting with sudden fury.

'You dare touch me, barbarian?' hissed the Cultivator.

'Fuck off,' sneered the Earthborn, looking the Cultivator up and down. 'Primitive,' he added, after a moment's thought.

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The Cultivator drew himself up, eyes glittering coldly. 'You, a mortal, dare to insult me? Hand over your valuables, beg for my forgiveness, and I will leave your family a—mostly—intact corpse.'

A circle of empty space rapidly grew around these two, as people recognised the imminent violence and pulled back and away. Nicolai, like many others, took a few steps back then settled in to watch.

The Earthborn laughed incredulously. He glanced around, realising he and the Cultivator standing across from him were increasingly the centre of attention. Nicolai saw a flash of pridefulness on the man's face. Then he gripped and aimed his auto-shotgun, levelling it at the Cultivator. 'Hand over your valuables, beg for my forgiveness, and I'll leave your family a somewhat intact corpse.'

The Cultivator sneered and a shield shimmered around him. He raised a hand and light glittered as he activated a Symbiote.

The Earthborn snarled back, and squeezed his auto-shotgun's trigger.

A thumping boom issued from the shotgun which shredded into the Cultivator's—only a Tier 1—shield, breaking it in seconds. At the same time the Cultivator had flicked his wrist and a ribbon of red light flew from his hand. The red ribbon punched through the Earthborn, twisted and went through him again, and again.

Both of them roared as their attacks carved into one another. After a moment the Earthborn's shotgun clicked empty, and the Cultivator's red ribbon faded—taking a moment to move Oma around in his system.

The pair paused, staring in puzzlement first at one another, and then at themselves. Neither was injured. The attacks had appeared to hit and even go through, but done no damage. As though they had existed on a different plane, or just been illusion. Although the bullets had impacted the Cultivator's shield and broken it, but they simply hadn't touched the man himself.

Nicolai took a slow step back, all his senses alert. There was something in the air. His skin prickled. Similar to the sensation of static and the smell of ozone before a lightning strike. He had a strong intuition as to what was about to happen. He recalled the Inheritance, which had possessed some kind of anti-combat field. He remembered how when he'd punched one of the Cultivators, the blow had been reflected back at him.

Light and sound flared and blasted. The Earthborn was hit by a dozen rounds of buckshot that simply appeared from nowhere. The Cultivator was caught by a dozen looping flares of zipping red light.

Both of them danced as the projectiles punched through their bodies, eviscerating them. After only a second the burst of reflected attacks finished and they collapsed. Very dead.

Nicolai raised his brows. Each of them had been killed by their own attacks, absorbed by some unknown magic then returned-to-sender.

An instant after the two had fallen, he felt the Aura ripple of a Soul dispersing, and at the same moment their bodies and items shimmered and disappeared.

So, this was what would've happened to him if he'd tried to shoot anyone, back in the Inheritance. Not a good idea. He stepped forward and sunk to a knee where the Earthborn's body had been, running a thoughtful hand over the ground. His Skin Suit's gloves retracted so he could feel it properly. No blood, nothing. Everything was gone. Where to? And, why hadn't they been warned of this, as in the Inheritance?

Threat Analysis poked him, and he glanced up see that he was in the midst of expanding emptiness. The crowd had split into two. On one side the Cultivators, and on the other those from Earth.

And in the middle, him; wearing a Skin Suit while having many Symbiotes, with an assault rifle slung from his shoulder and an Imbued rapier hanging from his belt.

There were numerous other Cultivating individuals from Earth, but looking around he realised he had much more Cultivation-style gear than most, and based on the Soul Senses he felt from the Earthborn side, might be the furthest along. He determined to hide that fact as much as possible.

He best fit with those from Earth, so Nicolai moved quickly to join them. This was no time to stand out. Fortunately most were too busy discussing what they'd just seen, the swift deaths of the two who had chosen to fight. Any thoughts of engaging in combat had vanished, but still the sides were drawn.

The disgruntled yells and cries from the first moments transformed into conspiratorial muttering as the two swiftly formed armies eyed one another. In each crowd, people peered around and in some cases found faces they recognised, calling out and moving closer together.

He felt the Local around him, generated by these people with all their augments. That Local was extremely active as communications and data ricocheted around.

The question on many of the minds was: Who are they? Who were these strange robed individuals, with the haughty expressions, the robes and swords?

Nicolai felt a similar question echoed from the other side, from the hard and wary eyes that stared back across the gap. He could detect it in the general mass of Soul Sense that formed a kind of invisible sea. The Cultivators over there did not exactly talk with it, as the humans here did with Local, but they did use it to communicate, in a way. A general sense of what was being thought, a way they could draw attention to this or that. They seemed to be using both Soul Sense and Aura ripples to do this.

It seemed that the majority of individuals, on both side, had not yet encountered someone from the other race of humans. Some of those Earthborn around him who had, were now taking on the role of explaining—sending out video clips and images in which they had encountered people of the other race.

By and large, these encounters had not been friendly. The general air with which the information was given was: Don't trust those sneaky, robe wearing, magic-throwing savages!

Meanwhile, he could sense the shape of what was being communicated there on the other side, where in turn those Cultivators who had had encounters with Earthborn were telling their fellows what they'd experienced.

It went something like: Don't trust those sneaky, metal wearing, loudstick-wielding barbarians!

Nicolai and the other Modules found the whole thing—especially the speed with which the sides had been drawn—fascinating. They had all simply entered a portal and arrived here, and by and large had no friends other than the plus-one some had brought. And yet, looking across the street, and then at those around him, Nicolai knew that he was currently surrounded by allies of convenience. If any of the Cultivators across the way tried to start trouble with him, he would have a hundred augmented friends to back him up—and a hundred Cultivating enemies.

It was amazing how quickly the humans of Earth had forgotten their grudges with one another. Earth had possessed significant class-based divisions, but here he saw corpos, mercs, gangsters, and all the rest behaving as though they'd fought alongside one another their whole lives. The power of a common enemy. Maybe that was what the people of Earth had needed, all this time.

Still, he doubted it would last. Soon enough they would recall the divisions between them, especially as more came over and the current chaos was replaced with the old order.

But for now, simply the sight of another large group of humans who were so clearly not one of us had done in an instant what would otherwise have been just about impossible; forging from many independent, untrusting, divisive, ambitious and warlike people two large and cohesive groups.

Me against my brother… My brother and I against our cousins… My cousins, my brother, and I against the strangers, quoted Aiming wonderingly, to the applause of the others. The Modules were delighted to see this ancient saying on human nature turned real before their eyes. The Mask, in comparison, found it somewhat dismaying. Why must we always be in conflict? it wondered.

Nicolai smiled. Because humans are fundamentally human, he answered. The Modules were very pleased by this answer, and he felt them reflecting that above all else, Humans are always interesting.

They were eager to see what might happen next.

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