A faint blue light began to wash across the hospital corridor. Patients and staff collapsed onto the floor, asleep, victims of the Mayor's bodyguard's power.
"Sleep for the last time," one of the bodyguards said with an evil smile.
"Stop talking. Do you find the girl?" ordered the second bodyguard.
"Why? If Master Jevier can possess her, why can't he just control her and kill her easily?" the first bodyguard replied.
"Do your work, Antonio. Master Jevier never kills humans so easily, and he also likes to drink their blood when they are in pain," the second bodyguard, Daniel, hissed. He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Wait! Somebody is still in there."
Almost everybody had succumbed, but one figure was still standing normally. It is Dr. Arthur.
"Hey, does your Mesanychta power become dull in these times, Daniel?" Antonio mocked, referring to Daniel's sleeping ability.
Dr. Arthur felt the oppressive mana filling the air. He raised his hand, and the light of his defensive blue sphere covered the immediate area. Antonio, seeing the sphere, tried to use his dark power against it. But it's too late.
Time is stopped. The bodyguard who just killed the receptionist feels something. The time is stopped. Everything becomes motionless around him except him. He walks towards the aura.
At that moment, Johan and Jennifer reached the hospital's main gate. They pushed it open.
A bright, pervasive blue light pulsed everywhere. They saw a translucent blue glass sphere surrounding the immediate area of the lobby—a powerful shield preventing entry.
"Somebody put up a mana shield, Johan!" Jennifer said, her voice tight with concern.
Johan snapped his fingers. Dark lightning—pure, raw power—came from the ground, surging through his veins and culminating at his fingertips. The lightning coalesced, spinning into a dense, volatile dark cube. The dark light emitted from it was the antithesis of the shield, threatening to tear it apart.
He hovered the volatile cube in the air. A weapon materialised in his hand—a revolver in black, shimmering glass instead of metal, crackling with dark energy.
With a single, focused shot from the black glass revolver, cracks spiderwebbed across the blue mana shield. But as the shield strained, the light of Arthur's mana flashed, blinding them. Time itself seemed to seize, freezing the air around them. Johan threw an arm up to shield his eyes.
"This is Arthur's power, isn't it?" Johan muttered, lowering his hand. He glanced at his twin. Jennifer was frozen mid-stride, like a statue.
"Oi, this girl said her power was for fighting, and now she's frigid as a statue," Johan taunted the immobilised Jennifer, a smirk touching his lips. "Ah, it's because she hasn't used her full power in too long. Aura negative!"
He focused, forming another dark cube, and thrust it at Jennifer. The cube splashed against her like water, washing away the binding influence of Arthur's time-lock. Jennifer gasped, taking a deep, ragged breath as she snapped back into motion.
"You two ever use your mind?" Jennifer shouted at Johan, her voice thick with anger and residual shock.
She snapped her fingers and, just like Johan, instantly formed a dense black cube in her hand. In the next moment, the cube compressed and morphed into a serrated, obsidian dagger. It was fully black, the material humming with dark lightning.
Suddenly, a cacophony of screaming and agony ripped through the hospital's interior.
"Johan, we have to go now. Fast," Jennifer said, her tense tone cutting through the mana-charged air.
They ran through the now-cracked shield and burst into the hospital reception area. The scene was horrific: blood was spread everywhere, coating the floor and the desk. A headless body lay next to the shattered reception table.
Jennifer's palm clamped over her mouth.
Before they could even process the grim situation, multiple flashes of dark lightning erupted further from the corridor, signalling the intensifying conflict inside.
Jevier emerged slowly into the corridor, his boots crunching lightly on something unseen. He stopped, his gaze falling upon Daniel and Antonio, who stood unnaturally still—non-living statues caught in Arthur's temporal field. He focused, his red eyes narrowing, sensing the source of the interruption.
Dr. Arthur, using any power of invisibility, stayed concealed.
Jevier did not hesitate. His mana flowed, instantly coalescing into a black-iron handgun, far more sinister than Johan's glass revolver. He fired. The bullet, a concentrated bolt of dark energy, struck Arthur's shoulder, tearing through his defence despite the invisibility.
Arthur, reeling, hurled a sphere of blue mana at Jevier, but Jevier effortlessly swayed, dodging the attack with chilling ease.
"Not so strong," Jevier scoffed, preparing to fire again.
Suddenly, the world fractured. The stable white corridor vanished, replaced by an oppressive landscape of shifting red and suffocating black.
"You took me to the Timeless Dimension. That means you are a Chrono, the keepers of time," Jevier declared, his voice echoing with horrific amusement. He was not surprised, only delighted.
"It will please me to kill you," Jevier tell him with a devilish smile, levelling his weapon.
He fired again. The dark bullet pierced Arthur's hand, a visible shockwave ripping through the wound, and the concentrated force of the blast created a crack in the very fabric of the dimension.
"What! How can he break the dimension? Arthur's mind screamed, his thoughts frantic. Besides that, how can he attack me even if I am in a vision shield? I thought I could trap him. He is too strong, far stronger than I imagined."
Jevier discharged multiple rounds into the empty red-and-black void. The barrage tore gaping holes in the dimension, and through one of the rents, he located his two paralysed partners, Daniel and Antonio. He manifested a small, dense mana ball and flung it at them.
The moment the sphere touched them, Daniel and Antonio screamed—a raw, intolerable sound of pain that shredded the silence. They clutched their heads, collapsing to their knees, their bodies wracked by invisible torment.
The pain suddenly ceased, replaced by a cold, resonant command. "Hey! Find the girl, you fools."
"Mr. Jones goes there, Master," Daniel gasped, his face pale with lingering terror.
"What is the problem with this old man? He can't control his lust for a second. The room is 024. Take her blood for me," Jevier ordered, his voice laced with venomous anger.
Daniel, driven by fear, scrambled to his feet and rushed toward the designated room.
But Antonio remained, trembling, unable to recover from the blinding agony. He looked up at Jevier, whose monstrous red eyes were fixed upon him. The sheer terror was uncontrollable; Antonio's body began to twist and transform. His nails elongated into sharp talons; he involuntarily began to rake them across his chest, tearing skin until his white bones were visible. He stopped, frozen mid-torture.
"Why do you wait for? Goooo!" Jevier roared, his voice monstrous and inhuman.
Antonio, now barely recognisable, rushed down the corridor. Looks like a horrific monster.
Suddenly, the dimensional holes snapped shut. Arthur, despite his wounds, desperately tried to close the hole and trap Jevier permanently. Jevier looked back and fired one last time. The bullet slammed into Arthur's chest. The invisible shield disappears.
Arthur gasped, panting heavily, and collapsed to the ground, critically wounded. Jevier walked toward him, aiming the gun at Arthur's head.
"My end is now. I can't protect her, not even anybody, the Chronos keeper thought, tears blurring his vision. This is a world where nobody is safe. I believed in order, and I believed that they—Johan and Jennifer—were the only ones who at least had a motive to help people, but they soon realised the reality. But I am the only one who refuses to quit. They are my only family, my friends, my comrades. Please, if my death brings you all back to save the world, I pray to God to make it happen." Arthur closed his eyes.
Finger tightened on the trigger.
BOOM!
But instead of Arthur, the bullet struck Jevier's head. Arthur opened his eyes and looked in the direction of the shot. He couldn't believe his eyes. Tears streamed down his face.
"Thanks, Johan Bennet, the son of Alexander," Arthur says, overwrought with emotion.
It is Johan. He stood in the dimension, his glass revolver still smoking, his face grim.