Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 239: Rogue Gate

On stage, the presentation continued.

Sloan divided the enchanted sand into two portions. Each mound shimmered separately, and with a few murmured incantations and precise gestures from all three scholars, the sand began to rise. Swirl. Form.

Two portals materialized. One on the left side of the stage, one on the right. Identical arches of swirling, glowing sand, their centers shimmering with the peculiar distortion of folded space.

Yakub picked up a simple block of wood from their demonstration table. He held it up for the crowd to see. It was ordinary, unenchanted, solid.

Then he tossed it through the left portal.

The block vanished.

A heartbeat later, it emerged from the right portal, tumbling through the air to land on the stage floor with a soft thunk.

The crowd erupted.

"Woah!"

"It’s actually a small teleportation gate?"

Gasps. Shouts. A wave of excited murmurs that built into something almost deafening. People were on their feet, leaning forward, hands raised with questions, with requests and curiosity.

"Groundbreaking!" someone yelled from the back.

"Can you scale it up?!"

"What’s the maximum distance?!"

"How much does the sand cost to produce?!"

Mimoxa, Sloan, and Yakub turned to each other. Pride shone in their eyes, bright, almost disbelieving. This was already a success. A massive success. And they had only demonstrated a fraction of what the sand could do.

Meanwhile, Cecilia moved.

She slipped along the edge of the stage, unnoticed by the ecstatic crowd, her attention fixed on that corner. On that small, glistening puddle.

She reached the curtain. Her hand extended, fingers grasping the fabric near the bottom—it was... damp!

Her eyes widened.

Behind the first line of watching crowds, two figures stood together.

Roarke and Arkai.

They weren’t focused on the presentation anymore, not since they had noticed Cecilia’s sudden movement. They watched her reach for the curtain, watched her fingers close on the fabric, watched her expression shift from curiosity to something else entirely.

Pale. Her face went pale.

"Water...?" The word was a whisper, barely audible, but Arkai read it on her lips.

At the same moment, from the top of the curtain, from the section that had been soaked in Ruby’s torrent of water just minutes ago, a single drop of water detached itself.

It fell.

Straight toward one of the sand portals.

PLOP.

The sound was insignificant. A single drop of water, falling from a damp curtain, absorbed into shimmering sand.

Then—

FLASH.

The moment the drop touched the magically charged portal, light erupted. Not just light, but force. Within a split second, the sand separated, destabilized, one portal crashing into the other. Millions of grains exploded outward in a horizontal wave, spreading as far as they could reach, slamming against the walls of the hall in a crystalline spray.

And suddenly—

The entire floor of the hall disappeared.

Not collapsed. Not destroyed. Gone.

A giant teleportation gate had opened beneath their feet, and through it, they could see—clouds.

The floor was connected to the sky.

Thousands of feet in the air.

In that split second, everyone knew. Most of them were going to die.

"AAH—!"

"KYAAAA!!!"

"WAAAAAAA—" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Screams tore through the hall. People clutched at nothing, braced for the fall, for the wind, for the end—

"Huh...?"

They weren’t falling.

They were floating.

"Everyone! Grab everything around you! Grab all the nearest objects! Especially the sensitive or dangerous ones! Stabilize them, now!"

A magically amplified voice cut through the chaos. It was Cecilia’s voice.

She floated at the edge of the stage, Arkai and Roarke already beside her, their faces pale.

The crowd stared, stunned, their brains short-circuiting. They were floating. Everyone was floating. Students, professors, booths, tables, chairs, the entire stage, every object in the hall suspended above the gaping void where the floor used to be.

Telekinesis? Who could cast telekinesis that fast? That vast? Lifting an entire hall full of people and objects in the split second before they fell?

"DO AS SHE SAID!" Arkai’s roar snapped through the paralysis.

Finally, people moved.

"Come on, folks!" Roarke’s voice joined the chorus, strong and urgent. "She’s in charge here! Don’t burden her telekinesis, move carefully!"

Chaos transformed into desperate order. People reached for nearby objects, precarious displays, fragile equipment, dangerous magical devices, and held on. Those with telekinesis of their own began lifting themselves, lightening the load.

Professors and adult mages spread out, helping students who couldn’t help themselves. But they were hundreds of them, they wouldn’t make it out.

Cecilia’s breathing was ragged. The strain was immense. She had never lifted this much weight, never held so many lives in the palm of her power.

"I need more ambient mana." Her voice was strained but steady. "Can you release your mana into the air?"

Arkai’s hand shot up immediately, raw power flooding from him into the atmosphere. Around them, others followed. Students, professors, strangers from a dozen academies. Mana poured into the hall, feeding Cecilia’s desperate hold.

"Mimoxa, Sloan, Yakub." Cecilia turned to the three scholars, who were staring at their creation in horror. "How to turn off the... ha..."

She was hyperventilating. Her vision was starting to darken at the edges.

"Turn off the portal." Arkai’s voice was curt, urgent. "How."

"T-this—w-we never tried turning on or off a portal this large—" Mimoxa stammered.

"Where is... ha... mana... h... sourc..." Cecilia’s words were breaking apart.

"Mana source! Cut it off!" Arkai grasped her waist, trying to support her, keep her upright. "Hang on. Hang on!"

Sloan shook his head frantically. "We don’t know! This never happened before! We need to find the cause first—"

Cecilia’s hand lifted weakly, pointing at the top curtain.

"Water... there were wate..."

"Water!" Arkai seized on the word. "There’s water here, could that cause this?"

"Wait!" A voice from the crowd. "Just previously, there was a fire! Someone put it out with water!"

"What water?!" Yakub’s voice was horrified.

The crowd’s eyes turned, searching, finding that one person. Ruby Vaiva. She stood frozen near the stage, her face pale as a sheet.

"It was her magic!" Someone pointed. "The spell was Spring of Herome!"

"Oh, fuck." Yakub’s curse was visceral. "Magically conjured water is even worse—no wonder—"

"COUGH—"

Cecilia suddenly vomited blood, the red spray staining Arkai’s uniform in a horrifying bloom.

"Cecilia!" Arkai’s scream was raw, panicked, his mind going blank. He had known something was wrong the moment he saw her touch the curtain. He had jumped to her side immediately the moment she went pale—and now she was bleeding in his arms.

"Fuck! Everyone near the entrance, try to exit, find solid ground!" Roarke’s voice cut through the rising panic.

"Calm down."

Cecilia said. Her calm was somehow unnerving, yet her voice was somehow clearer now, more coherent despite the blood on her lips. Her eyes met Arkai’s steadily, focused.

"Let’s cut off the mana source first." Her words were measured when she turned to the three scholars again. "Spring of Herome is very pure. It can absorb and retain mana, especially when combined with the Silent Court of Void you enchanted into the sand to give it space-warping properties."

Mimoxa stared at her, mouth open. "Y-you know... how our sand works...?"

Cecilia smiled gently. The expression was calming, almost surreal given the circumstances. "I read your document cover to cover." A pause. "Now, rather than forcing the pure mana to stop, let’s find a different solution."

She turned to Roarke. "Find Miss Katarina Ayoola from the Instrument Memory Recording presentation yesterday. We need to cast her spell on the sand. Direct all the separated grains to gather back into the container."

She was breathing harder now, but her voice never wavered. "I know she may never have tried casting it after the movement instead of before. But in theory, it’s possible—"

"It is possible!"

From the crowd, Katarina floated into view, her face alight with the will to help. She had been listening, understanding, and ready.

"I can try! I just need one grain of sand that’s already trained to move back into the container!" She said.

Mimoxa’s hand shot up. "I have a bit stuck in my glove from yesterday! Is that enough?"

"Yes! Please!" Katarina moved forward, and Cecilia’s telekinesis gently guided her toward the center. "As long as they remember how they move, the residual memory of mana can guide them all back!"

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