In the very next instant, violet light surged from Ayan's body. A twisting spiral of energy erupted outward, shaping itself into a tornado of glowing mist. Then it split. One vortex spiraled behind Ayan, the other behind Kanisk.
The energy continued to spiral, rotating like a gateway to some distant world. Within the swirling violet ring, its edge traced in a glowing white border, nothing could be seen beyond it. It was a void, unstable and flickering.
Arcs of electric plasma cracked through the ring, leaping from one edge to the other in bursts of violet-white light, as if the structure itself was struggling to hold reality together.
Kanisk broke the contact and lowered his hand. Their eyes separated. He looked down, his expression shadowed.
"Remember this... Death is the seed of life. End is the seed of beginning. Destruction is the seed of construction. Annihilation is the seed of creation."
Kanisk lifted his head and locked eyes with Ayan—but then froze.
His expression twisted, not with cosmic calm, but with something that resembled raw, human fear.
Real fear.
For the first time, Kanisk's face showed it openly. Not some cosmic awareness, not a calculated concern. Just true, trembling fear. Though the fear wasn't unnatural... it was something deeper.
Because what stood before him might have looked like Ayan, but...
Was it really Ayan?
Dark purple chains coiled around Ayan's body, hundreds of them—thick, heavy, metallic shackles that shimmered with cursed light. Some hung loose, dangling downward as if obeying gravity, while others clung tightly around his limbs and torso like they had grown from his own skin.
The chains wrapped him entirely. Only his eyes remained visible. Two glowing crimson orbs. They burned through the darkness, unblinking.
Ayan looked like a prisoner. A slave bound by time itself.
But what chilled Kanisk wasn't the chains. It was the realization that struck him deep—He doesn't feel them.
Ayan stood there unaware. Unbothered. As if the shackles weren't even there. As if their weight, their curse, didn't register in him.
Kanisk's thoughts spiraled.
I made the right choice... didn't I? No. Did I really?This is the one I'm depending on?
Kanisk closed his eyes. His hands trembled. Then he exhaled slowly, drawing out the breath as he forced his body to still.
He opened his eyes again, gaze firm but shadowed.
I have no more time to think.
With one swift motion, he pressed his palm against Ayan's chest and shoved him backward into the spiraling vortex portal behind him.
※ ※ ※
Ayan blinked rapidly.
His senses were still trying to adjust. He didn't fully understand what was happening, but deep down he knew their time had ended.
Immediately after pushing him toward the portal, Kanisk did something strange. He stepped forward again. Then, in one smooth motion, jumped backward into the portal behind himself.
His eyes never left Ayan's.
That same gaze, once filled with fear, softened in an instant. Kanisk's expression relaxed, and for a fleeting moment, he offered a gentle smile.
As he passed into the swirling void, his lips moved, just enough for Ayan to catch the last few words. "Whatever it costs… make the right choice. And also… please save m—"
His voice vanished with him, swallowed by the portal before he could finish.
Gone.
Ayan stared, stunned, as the space around him trembled with the remnants of a collapsing, incomprehensible reality.
But in this place, the rules never applied. Here, logic had no meaning.Here, even the impossible… was just part of the design.
Ayan's body followed Kanisk's, swallowed whole by the swirling vortex.
The space they had shared, where truths were spoken—where fate had shifted, shattered like glass behind him.
Cracks raced outward. The warped dimension splintered, fragments tumbling into nothingness. And then, it was gone.
All of it was consumed by darkness, including the portal he had entered.
Ayan drifted, or maybe he fell. He couldn't tell. Direction didn't mean anything here. The path ahead twisted endlessly, like a tunnel made of coiled light and shattered space.
He looked around, eyes fluttering as if trying to adjust.
The tunnel was violet, yet transparent. Outside its walls, threads of light streaked past, as if the entire passage were moving at the speed of light.
The tunnel… was stretching. No, he was stretching.
His legs thinned out, becoming threads, strands of himself pushed forward like dough through an invisible hand. His body followed, unraveling into a long, noodle-like shape.
Yet there was no pain. No panic.
Just… observation.
He glanced at the tunnel walls, at the fragments of himself twisting in rhythm with the swirling space.
"I guess consciousness given form doesn't sense pain." His voice echoed strangely through the tunnel, half-thought, half-sound.
Arms stretched next, followed by the torso and face, until there was no body left, only a thread of thought stretched through the twisting tunnel.
And at the end of it, something shimmered.
A new vortex gate spun at the tunnel's end. Its surface pulsed with white light, glowing like a passage between dreams and memory.
His threadlike form spiraled into it, carried by the current. And vanished through the white light.
The next moment Ayan remembered was when he fell off the bed and saw a memory from his teenage years with Ruby on the mountain road.
I see… so that's how I ended up here. And, like Mr. Kanisk said, I did forget about it.
The thought floated through the darkness, quiet and weightless, as if his eyes were still closed.
※ ※ ※
Ayan snapped his eyes open.
He was still lying down, just like before—right when he was about to remember things.
I guess the first thing I need to do is understand this ability—Violet Mist and Time Travel both.
Time Travel feels like too big of a name to call it. I should give it one myself. But right now, I can't think of anything meaningful, something I'd understand. Maybe it's better to wait until I learn more about it. Yes… that's definitely the best option.
And I definitely need to look into that Radio Wave Plasma Bomb. Also, what really happened during World War III? Father mentioned it once, but I forgot.
So, Internet.
"Looks like I can stand," he whispered to himself.
He picked up the phone from the floor, the same one he had left lying there before everything came rushing back, and slid it into his pocket.
He placed his hands down and slowly pushed himself up, leaning against the bed for support like before.
Without trembling, he managed to stand.
A gentle, faint smile bloomed on his face.
After a moment, he took a step forward.
Followed by the other.
One step at a time, he moved slowly and steadily. Five steps in total, heading toward the table on the other side of the room where his laptop waited.
Then.
Thud—
He collapsed onto the floor.
His head hit the floor with a dull shock. His vision blurred. Eyes slowly closed.
He lost consciousness.
The wall clock read 5:50 a.m. at the moment he fell. Time moved on. The second hand ticked, minute by minute, until it reached 6:20 a.m.
But Ayan still hadn't moved. He remained unconscious, motionless.
The unfamiliar man's voice echoed in his mind. "You'll fail! You can't save anyone!"