The storm came two nights later.
Jin didn't remember falling asleep. He only remembered waking to thunder. The temple shuddered under the wind, rain hammering against the broken walls. Every flash of lightning illuminated fragments of what used to be murals, gods of light, mages of old, their halos cracked and faded.
He stared at one of the carvings, its face chipped away. The inscription beneath was half-buried in moss. Only a few words remained visible:
"The silence comes for us all."
He exhaled slowly, voice lost in the rain. "Yeah… seems like it."
The world outside had started to unravel. He could feel it now, thin places in the air, like invisible wounds where mana bled out and vanished. Wherever he went, the void followed. It was no longer just reacting; it was expanding.
And he didn't know how to stop it.
When the storm broke, Jin left the temple to search for supplies. The nearby coastal town had been abandoned long ago after the leyline collapse. Half the streets were underwater, and the rest were swallowed by vines and rust.
He moved cautiously between shattered storefronts, scavenging what little food was still sealed. A can of rice, two bottles of water. It wasn't much, but it was something.
The silence was constant, no hum of mana grids, no spelllight flicker. Even the air felt heavier.
That was when he heard it.
A sound that shouldn't exist.
Footsteps.
He froze, scanning the street. The sound echoed faintly between the buildings, measured, deliberate. Not Bureau. Too quiet for armor, too steady for panic.
"Who's there?" Jin called out.
No answer.
He extended his awareness, the faint field of void energy that stretched around him. Normally, it absorbed mana nearby, but now, something strange happened. The air rippled, like a reflection disturbed by wind. Someone was inside the silence.
He turned sharply
And saw her.
A girl, standing at the far end of the flooded street.
She couldn't have been much older than him, nineteen, maybe twenty. Short dark hair plastered to her face by rain, a long coat frayed at the edges. But what struck him wasn't her appearance.
It was the faint shimmer around her.
She stood in his anti-magic field, and she didn't fade.
Her presence held steady, untouched by the void.
Jin's breath caught. "You… you can stand there?"
The girl tilted her head, eyes calm but sharp. "You're the one they're hunting."
He took a step back instinctively. "And who are you?"
"Someone who's not with them," she said. Her voice was quiet but carried through the rain like steel. "My name is Seo Aera. I used to work for the Bureau."
Jin's jaw tightened. "Then why are you here?"
"Because I saw what you did," she said simply. "And I think I understand what you are."
They took shelter in an old diner as the storm picked up again. The roof leaked in three places, the furniture was rotting, but it was dry enough to talk.
Jin kept his distance, sitting near the window. The air between them buzzed faintly, the void reacting, but not devouring her aura. She radiated something different.
"You said you worked for the Bureau," he said. "That makes you my enemy."
Aera shook her head. "Not anymore. I was part of the research division, specializing in leyline behavior. When the collapse in Sector 13 was reported, I saw the readings. Mana didn't just die there. It was… inverted."
Jin frowned. "Inverted?"
She nodded. "Every spell, every trace of energy, flipped inside-out. It's not destruction. It's transformation. You're not erasing mana. You're returning it to its base state, the void it came from."
He didn't respond. The words didn't comfort him. They scared him more.
"So what?" he muttered. "You're saying I'm some kind of natural disaster?"
"No," she said. "You're balance."
He looked up sharply.
Aera met his eyes. "Magic has been growing stronger for centuries. Every generation draws deeper from the leylines, bending reality further. But the world never created a counterforce to that power, until you."
Jin let out a bitter laugh. "A counterforce that kills everything it touches."
"Maybe that's how balance begins," she said softly.
For a moment, silence settled between them, not the suffocating void Jin carried, but something gentler. Understanding.
She reached into her coat and pulled out a small, cracked mana crystal. The faint light inside flickered weakly.
"Watch," she said, placing it on the table between them.
The glow pulsed, then dimmed. Jin felt the void stir instinctively, the light bending toward him, draining out. But instead of crushing the crystal, the energy folded inward, spiraling into a small black spark.
Aera watched in awe. "You didn't destroy it."
Jin blinked. He hadn't even realized he'd been controlling it.
The black spark hovered for a moment, then dispersed into the air.
"See?" she said. "You changed it."
He stared at his hand. The cold that usually followed wasn't there this time. For the first time since his awakening, the void felt… calm.
"How are you able to stand near me?" he asked finally. "Everyone else"
"Dies?" she finished for him. "My body's different. I was part of an experiment, they called it Echo Sequence. They wanted to create artificial resonance between magic and its absence." She smiled faintly. "It failed. Until now."
"So you're saying…"
"I'm saying," she interrupted, "maybe we can help each other. You need to control your power. I need to understand why it exists."
He hesitated, studying her expression. There was no fear there, no disgust, no awe. Just conviction.
"Why would you risk this?" he asked.
Aera's gaze darkened. "Because the Bureau isn't trying to stop you, Jin. They're trying to replicate you."
The words hit harder than the storm outside.
Far above, in Aurea's central command, the Director stood before a containment chamber, inside, a swirling fragment of corrupted mana pulsed like a black heart.
The scientist beside him adjusted his gloves nervously. "This residue was collected from the site of the anomaly. It still rejects all interaction, but it… reacts to null frequencies."
The Director nodded slowly. "Good. Continue Phase Two. If the world is birthing an anti-force, we'll learn to wield it before it destroys us."
He turned toward the window, looking down on the cities below, their lights flickering in patterns that didn't match the leylines anymore.
The world was starting to unmake itself.
And somewhere f
ar beneath the storm, the boy who began it all sat across from the only person who didn't fear him — the girl who might be his mirror.