The ingot didn't launch. It departed . It punched a perfectly circular hole through the roof of the Overworld, revealing a swirling, purple-black sky. A second later, a notification flashed on Kael's communicator.

It looked like a monument to madness. A massive, hollow cylinder built from polished Tuff bricks, its interior lined with concentric rings of Copper Bulbs and Calibrated Sculk Sensors. At its base, a swirling pit of powdered Snow and Blue Ice masked the true heart of the machine: a single, compressed block of Tuff that had been charged with a Resonance Amethyst shard.

"Where to?" he asked the Tuff. It hummed, offering him a set of coordinates written in the language of pressure and regret.