The body split in two.
The woman held her child tightly, trembling.
Maximilian turned away.
"Begin."
His voice was calm.
He moved.
Through the monsters.
Unstoppable.
Each strike ended a life before it could react.
This wasn't combat—
It was eradication.
Shadow flowed forward.
Not attacking—
Consuming.
Darkness spread across the ground, climbing walls, piercing through bodies, tearing them apart from within.
No screams.
Only collapse.
"Don't let any of them pass," Maximilian said.
Shadow answered like a distant echo: "None will remain."
The frontline shattered.
Elsewhere—
Above South Africa—
Marley hovered in the sky.
Wind roared around her, but her focus never broke.
Below—
The Temple of Kyosh.
Ancient.
Hidden.
She raised her hand.
Dark energy gathered—dense, heavy, swallowing light.
"I won't enter."
A whisper.
"I'll erase it."
She released it.
The explosion tore the land apart.
The temple collapsed instantly, revealing its depths.
She descended.
Steps calm over ruin.
Guardians rushed toward her—
They never reached her.
A crushing darkness surrounded her… and they fell before they could strike.
At the center—
A glowing disc remained.
The Sun Disc.
She reached out.
For a moment—
Everything paused.
Then—
She took it.
The earth trembled.
The sky opened.
Portals.
Dozens.
Colors shifting—
Red.
Black.
And blue.
Silent… unnatural.
Then—
The ground split open.
More portals rose from below.
A flash—
Violet appeared beside her, blade glowing.
Her eyes scanned the sky.
"What is this?"
Marley didn't look away.
"I don't know…"
A pause.
"But this isn't natural."
Violet stepped closer: "These portals… they're different."
Marley spoke slowly: "According to the book… when the planets align…"
Silence.
"An ending begins."
Violet's voice hardened: "The end of what?"
Marley answered quietly:
"Everything."
Her gaze shifted to the blue portals.
"This… is temporal interference."
Elsewhere—
Cities burned.
Alfred moved through enemies with precision, his magic cutting through the transformed sorcerers.
"You're still resisting?" one mocked.
"I'm not resisting."
A strike.
The first fell.
"I'm ending it."
Nearby—
Kaisa fought relentlessly.
"These aren't human!"
"They no longer are," Alfred replied.
Magic erupted.
The battlefield cleared.
Back to the sky—
Marley and Violet stood beneath the expanding portals.
Light flooded the horizon.
The earth trembled beneath them.
"If this is the beginning…" Violet said—
Marley cut her off:
"What comes next… is worse."
She tightened her grip on the Sun Disc.
Her eyes burned with resolve.
"And we must be ready."
Far away—
Maximilian paused.
He looked up.
At the sky.
At the portals.
He felt it.
The shift.
"It's begun…"
The world was no longer collapsing—
It was being rewritten.