First Light of a New Age

Chapter 152: Two Worlds Collide

Second Civilization Zone, Western Side of the Continent, Asia, Middle East, Islamic Republic of Islam, Bandar Abbas.

4th Year of God, Tuesday, 4th Week, 7th Month of David.

It had been five days since everything changed.

Five days since the sky cracked open like broken glass, and the world Khalid knew was torn apart. The Gulf had vanished overnight, replaced by an endless expanse of strange terrain of coral cliffs, glowing reefs, and waters that defied physics.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, like the rest of Earth, had been thrown into a new world. A world of magic, monsters, and forces no one could explain.

After facing several large Beast tides for the last few days, what was once the port city of Bandar Abbas had become a militarized zone. Military checkpoints, concrete barricades, and sandbagged machine gun nests ringed the city's perimeter.

Cargo containers had been repurposed into bunkers and seasoned veterans of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) patrolled and manned the walls, while nervous fresh conscripts like Khalid tried to hold themselves together as they scanned the wild terrain that had replaced the familiar Gulf waters.

Khalid, barely 19, was crouched behind a pile of concrete on the southern wall, gripping his scratched AK-47 so tightly his knuckles ached.

He hadn’t even completed three months of training before the sky broke open and the alarms started blaring. Now, here he was, in a city half-swallowed by another world, waiting for something worse to come and the call to defend the homeland had come quickly and violently.

And it did.

A sudden thunderous blast shook the wall to his left with terrifying force. A blinding flash of light, followed by an ear-splitting crack that tore through the southern defenses.

The scorching wind and shards of stone knocked him off his feet and hit the ground hard, skidding across debris and rubble. His ears rang and dust clogged his nose and throat. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus while his entire body screamed in confusion and panic.

Above the chaos, he heard shouting and panicked voices, some yelling in Arabic, others in Farsi. Civilians were screaming, both women, children, and old men.

“الله اکبر!” someone roared from the rampart above him.

He rolled over and looked toward the source of the explosion.

A twenty-meter-wide hole had been blasted through the city’s outer wall. Chunks of molten concrete were still glowing red-hot with steam hissing from twisted rebar, including smoke and heat pouring in from outside.

Khalid’s stomach turned as his eyes locked onto Hamid, his friend, bunkmate, and fellow conscript, who had been sitting nearby moments earlier was now on the ground motionless with a blackened and smoking chest and eyes widened. Dead.

“No… no, no, no…” Khalid whispered and reached toward his friend but stopped himself halfway. There was no point. He was gone.

Then the first ships appeared.

They weren’t steel-hulled warships or cargo freighters, these were wooden vessels with sails stitched with symbols Khalid didn’t recognize. They looked like something out of a fantasy novel or a medieval history book. Strange, majestic, and utterly out of place.

Figures began disembarking onto the shore. They appeared as humans. Or at least, not entirely.

They were tall and lean, with long limbs and elegant movements. They wore sea-weathered leathers mixed with colorful silks, armor that almost appeared like scales, and strange emblems.