The Hellmouth collapsed in on itself with a thunderous snap, a storm of searing light and black vapor surging skyward as the last of its twisted energy unraveled. Gussa stood at the center of the shattered chamber, his hand outstretched, white hair slicked to his face with sweat and blood. His golden eyes burned like twin suns as the final etheric thread was severed, sealing the infernal breach beneath Stillwater.

Silence rushed in, thick and suffocating.

Martina, Milo, Natalya, Taylor, and the other battered survivors stood in grim, blood-soaked silence, watching the impossible happen.

“It’s done,” Gussa rasped, his voice raw. He staggered back, barely catching himself against a scorched wall.

James Bellamy, Michelle’s father and Stillwater’s senior commander, pushed through the gathered defenders. His graying beard was matted with ash, and a long gash ran down his temple, but his eyes were sharp. “Lock this sector down. Full perimeter sweep. No assumptions — if there’s one breach, there might be more.”

A team of engineers, Stillwater’s best, moved in. They weren’t salvagers or scavengers — they were trained before the world fell apart, technicians and defense specialists prepared for a world-ending scenario like this.

One of them, a lean, wiry man named Evan Marris, crouched near the closed breach. He adjusted a small portable sensor rig, watching flickering readouts dance across the screen.

James stepped up. “Report.”

Evan shook his head slowly, brow furrowed. “It’s… strange, sir. The Hellmouth’s energy signature is gone — sealed like it was never here. But there’s something deeper. A power source, buried far below this level, something ancient or… alien. I don’t know what it is. The sensors can’t make sense of it. No known material, no recorded frequencies.”

“Is it a threat?” James demanded.

“I don’t know,” Evan admitted, glancing uneasily at the scorched floor. “Whatever it is, it’s still active.”

Before James could reply, the radio crackled to life.

“Stillwater Compound, this is John speaking — come in. Repeat, this is John. We need a status report on Gussa’s team.”

James snatched the transmitter. “John, it’s Bellamy. They made it. Gussa’s alive — Hellmouth’s sealed. But it’s bad down here, son. We took losses. Stillwater held, barely.”

There was a tense pause.

“I need to speak with Gussa. And you. Now.”

“We’re stabilizing the area,” James said. “If you can hold yourself together long enough for us to—”

The transmission cut out. A sudden ripple of spatial distortion flared in the middle of the bunker. In a heartbeat, John appeared in a burst of displaced air and warping light, his cloak smoking from the strain. Bloodshot eyes darted to Gussa, then to the blood-slicked survivors around him.

Everyone froze.

“John?!” Milo barked, hammer rising reflexively.

John exhaled raggedly. “I couldn’t wait.”

James cursed under his breath, stepping forward. “Damn it, kid — you can’t just teleport into a combat zone.”

“I had to see it,” John muttered, steadying himself. “I had to know you were all still breathing.”

Martina relaxed first, lowering her bone-armored arms. “Well… now you know.”

John's gaze lingered on Gussa — both relief and something deeper flickering in his expression. “We need to talk. All of us.”

Later in Stillwater’s secure command center, they gathered. Gussa, pale but standing. James Bellamy, stoic and sharp-eyed. Martina, Milo, Natalya, Taylor. Survivors ringed the room, battered but attentive.

Evan Marris stepped forward, a holo-display projecting shifting data streams behind him. “As requested — preliminary analysis of the closed Hellmouth.”

He hesitated.

“I… don’t have answers,” Evan admitted. “We detected a residual power source under the compound, something deep, old, and beyond anything we’re trained to identify. It’s not nuclear, chemical, or electromagnetic in nature — it reacts to nothing we can measure. But it’s active. And it was feeding the Hellmouth.”

James frowned. “Are we in danger?”

“I can’t say. We’ve quarantined the lower sectors, and sensors show no further breaches — for now.”

A tense hush fell over the room.

Finally, John stepped up, rubbing a hand down his face. “Let me explain what I can.”

He took a breath. “The apocalypse didn’t start by accident. It was triggered. The veil between our world and what lies beyond — call it Hell, the Abyss, it doesn’t matter — was ruptured. Magic wasn’t new. It was suppressed, hidden, bound by laws older than history itself. But two years ago, someone, somewhere, broke those seals.”

John’s voice darkened. “That’s what the Hellmouths are — tears in reality, feeding on old ley-lines, ancient power points no one believed were real anymore. There were legends about it — places the ancients feared, sealed, abandoned. Stillwater was built over one of those. The founders didn’t even realize what they were preparing for, but they were right to be ready.”

He gestured to Evan’s display. “That power source down there — it’s part of the world’s original framework. The old laws, the ancient grid of energy that predates any civilization. When the seals fell, these places started bleeding into our reality. That’s why monsters crawl out of them, why the air warps, why mana burns like wildfire.”

Martina’s voice was tight. “So we’re standing over a… what? A wound?”

“Exactly,” John said quietly. “A wound in reality. And unless we figure out how to cauterize it, there’ll be more. The apocalypse isn’t over. It’s just begun.”

James Bellamy folded his arms. “Then we need a plan. We can’t afford to wait until the next Hellmouth rips open beneath us.”

Gussa finally spoke, his voice a low, weary growl. “We stop running. We hunt these things down. Close them one by one. No matter what it takes.”

The survivors murmured in agreement.

Stillwater was battered, bloodied — but it was still standing.

And now, it had a purpose.