The sky was still breaking.
Fragments of reality drifted like shattered glass, dissolving into nothing before they could fall.
At the center of it all… Taufik stood.
Bleeding.
Breathing.
Still.
His white hair moved slightly in the unstable air, strands drifting as if even gravity had forgotten its purpose.
And yet... He did not fall.
Then.
The first of them arrived.
A mass of existence that refused shape, its form collapsing and reforming with every moment. It did not walk. It forced space to yield.
"That weapon is mine!"
Its voice didn't echo.
It imprinted.
And then... It reached.
More followed.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
Presences layered over one another, distorting the sky further. Some tore open reality to enter. Others simply appeared, bypassing distance entirely.
Greed spread faster than fear.
Because for beings like them... Power like that was not temptation.
It was inevitability.
But Taufik still didn't make a move.
Not when the first one closed in.
