The void swallowed them whole.

For a moment, there was nothing. No sound, no air, no Bureau, no ground beneath their feet. Just a sensation of falling without movement, a slow-motion descent into an abyss of shifting light and whispering static.

Then, the world reassembled itself.

Trench hit solid ground first, rolling onto his side, his Service Weapon still clenched in his hand. His head throbbed with the telltale pressure of dimensional transit—like a bad hangover mixed with the sensation of drowning.

Darling landed nearby with a grunt, his glasses knocked askew but miraculously unbroken. He coughed, shaking off the disorientation, already fumbling for his scanner.

Emily was the last to emerge, but unlike them, she didn't stumble. She floated down, her boots touching the unfamiliar surface with unnatural ease.

Trench narrowed his eyes. "That's new."

Emily didn't respond right away. Her eyes were unfocused, flicking across the strange environment as if reading an unseen script. The air around her shimmered, faint tendrils of Resonance curling off her fingertips.

Darling took a sharp breath. "She's still connected to them."

The them needed no explanation.

The space they had entered was neither the Astral Plane nor the Bureau, but some impossible intersection of both. The walls pulsed with shifting black geometry, void fractals looping in on themselves. The floor was tangible but moved subtly underfoot, like standing on the surface of a living thing. Floating obelisks hung in the air, twisting with the same eerie cadence as the figures they had encountered before.

And ahead, through a corridor of jagged light, a doorway stood open. A threshold.

And something was waiting on the other side.

Emily shuddered, clutching her temples. "It's calling me."

Trench steadied himself, glancing at Darling. "Can we pull her back?"

Darling's expression was grim as he studied his scanner. "Not unless we want to tear her mind apart in the process. The link is too deep now."

A pulse of unseen energy rippled through the space. The floating obelisks trembled. The air itself seemed to tighten, constricting around them.

Then, from the threshold, a voice. Not layered this time. Not fractured. A single, direct whisper that sank into their bones.

"Come and see."

Trench exhaled slowly. He tightened his grip on his weapon and stepped forward. "No turning back now."

And together, they crossed through.