CHAPTER 1234: LANGUID DAYS (1).

Rhea wasn’t so lucky.

The shockwave threw her sideways into a pile of collapsed support beams. She grunted, bracing herself with an arm to keep from getting buried entirely. Nothing pierced her, nothing crushed her — but the impact was enough to leave her stunned for a second longer than she liked.

The tear didn’t collapse.

It expanded.

A pillar of warped air rose from the ground to the ceiling, shimmering like heat haze but dense enough to distort every object behind it. The reflection Cain had been reaching for staggered inside the distortion, as if shoved aside by whatever force had pushed outward.

Then the second shape appeared.

Unlike the reflection, this one wasn’t clear.

It wasn’t humanoid at first.

It wasn’t anything.

Just a mass of bent space — like a smear of glass, like a shadow given weight. It was the wrong color, the wrong texture, the wrong shape. Nothing about it should’ve existed in a space with rules.

Cain forced himself to stand, pushing off the wall even as his legs shook.

Rhea called out, voice raw. "Cain—! Don’t move yet, wait—"

But he was already stepping forward.

Because the new entity... was stabilizing.

The smear condensed.

Contours formed.

Edges sharpened.

A silhouette stretched outward and settled into something approximating a person — but only in the most basic sense. Limbs. Torso. Height. Balance.

The rest was noise.

Its "skin" wasn’t skin — it was flickering geometry, fractal shards assembling and reassembling without rhythm. Its "head" was a cluster of shifting polygons with two hollows that resembled eyes only because of what they weren’t.

It took one step out of the tear.

The ground dented beneath its foot with a sharp metallic crunch.

Cain’s pulse spiked. "That thing wasn’t in the fracture."

Rhea managed to pull herself fully upright, blades in hand. "That thing wasn’t in anything."

The reflection — the Cain inside the tear — slammed his palm against the inner boundary, trying to stabilize the distortion again. His movements were frantic, panicked in a way Cain didn’t mirror.

Rhea saw it.

Cain saw it.

This wasn’t an ally.

This wasn’t a counterpart.

This was something even the reflection feared.

The entity turned its faceted head toward Cain. It tilted slightly — curious. A dragging, scraping hum rattled through the hangar as its fractured form adjusted itself.

It didn’t lunge.

It didn’t charge.

It simply moved with the slow confidence of something that had never once considered the concept of threat.

Cain took a stance, fists tightening.

Rhea hissed, "Cain...?"

"I know," he muttered.

"Do you?"

"I know it’s here for me."

The entity took another step — no faster than before, but the hangar creaked louder with the force of its presence. Its weight wasn’t proportional to its size. It felt heavier than tanks and dropships combined. Its footfalls warping the metal floor didn’t make sense physically — this was pressure, not mass.

The tear behind it flickered violently, shrinking as if strained by what it expelled. The reflection hammered against the interior boundary with increasing desperation.

Rhea’s voice went sharp. "Cain—this thing feels wrong. It’s not magic. It’s not mana. It’s not anything."

"It’s from the fracture," Cain said. "Not the same as my reflection — deeper. Something buried inside the timeline crack."

"And it got out because you touched it."

"Looks that way."

The entity stopped four meters from Cain.

Then it raised its arm.

The limb fractured into a dozen overlapping planes before re-forming into a single shape — and a low, resonant sound rolled through the air like a deep, inverted pulse.

The metal floor under Cain’s feet buckled downward.

He jumped back instantly as the ground collapsed where he’d been standing. A crater formed with no projectile, no explosion — just raw interference. The entity hadn’t even swung. It had simply pointed.

Rhea swore under her breath. "That was an attack."

Cain steadied himself. "Obviously."

The entity raised its arm again.

Cain dashed sideways this time, keeping low. The air where he’d been standing split open — not cut, not scorched. Split. Like the particles themselves separated for a moment before snapping back, leaving a rippling distortion behind.

Cain’s mind raced.

This thing didn’t attack with elemental energy.

It didn’t use dissolved mana.

It didn’t distort gravity or space in a recognizable way.

Its existence alone rewrote the rules around it.

Rhea moved to flank it, blades humming with mana. "Get its attention!"

"I think it already has it."

The entity twisted its head toward her, eerily smooth, too smooth.

Then it turned back to Cain.

"No," Cain murmured. "It doesn’t care about you."

"Not comforting."

"It’s worse than that. It doesn’t even see you."

Because the thing wasn’t focused on the room.

Or the tear.

Or the collapsing ship.

It was focused on the thread Cain felt earlier — the connection that tugged inside him. The thing stepped closer, its fractured surface sharpening, its edges folding inward like blades preparing to unfurl.

Cain felt that pull increasing — steady, deliberate.

Then he understood.

"It’s trying to reconnect something that broke when I fell out of time."

"Reconnecting sounds harmless," Rhea muttered.

"Not if something else takes your place."

Rhea froze. "So it’s not here to kill you."

Cain exhaled. "It’s here to overwrite me."

The void behind the entity spasmed, shrinking rapidly. The reflection clawed at its inner wall, unable to speak, unable to break through, but screaming a warning with its expression alone.

Cain braced his feet, raising his guard.

The entity’s arm folded back, preparing a strike.

The floor beneath Cain trembled.

Rhea lunged at its side.

Her blades met the entity’s form—

—and passed straight through.

No resistance.

No contact.

Her feet nearly slipped from momentum alone.

"What—!?"

Cain shouted, "Rhea! It’s not fully material here!"

The entity completed its swing.

Cain dodged again, leaping over the ripple that tore through the floor. The distortion trailed behind the strike like a ribbon unraveling reality. Steel plating peeled upward as if sucked toward the anomaly.

The hangar lights blew out one by one.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.