She looked at Raphael. No longer as an ally, but as a traitor. Her breath quickened. Her body trembled, not with fear, but with rage. Tears spilled down her cheeks, yet they carried no grief. She had already chosen.
"I... I'll protect Kaivan!" she screamed, her voice cracking between heartbreak and fury.
Raphael froze. The gentle girl he once knew now stood before him as a threat. Though his heart shattered, he had no room to hesitate.
Thivi roared and charged. Her body moved with terrifying speed, fueled by illusion-born strength. Her fist sliced through the air. Raphael had only a split second, he threw himself to the side, barely dodging.
A spinning kick followed instantly. He ducked, breath ragged. Strike after strike rained down. He blocked, but each impact sent tremors through his arms, forcing him backward.
In the next heartbeat, Raphael stumbled. A sudden punch crashed into his chest, driving the air from his lungs. He coughed, blood burst from his lips.
Before he could breathe again, a twisting kick smashed into his ribs. His body flew, slamming against stone. His chest burned. But the sharpest pain was the truth itself: Thivi, the one he wanted to save, had become the blade turned against him.
"Your training is still lacking, Raphael," Yusra whispered. Her voice slid through the night like a shard of glass, slicing the silence open.
Raphael staggered, breath ragged, his body barely holding itself together as pain gnawed through every inch of him. Blood streamed freely from his wounds, pooling into a dark red stain on the gritty earth. Through his blurred vision, he saw something far more devastating than any injury: Thivi, standing over him with a large stone in her hands, her face drowned in tears and hatred that did not belong to her.
Raphael shivered. He knew he had to act. Summoning the last scraps of strength, he dodged the killing blow. The stone crashed into the ground with a cracking thud that rattled his bones. A split second slower, and he would have died.
He had no time to breathe. Moving purely on resolve, Raphael lunged toward Yusra. The dagger in his hand glinted under the moonlight, the only light in a night filled with betrayal. He aimed the blade straight for her throat.
Yusra barely deflected it. The edge grazed dangerously close to her skin. She stumbled back, eyes widening, Raphael was no longer the passive victim she expected.
But Raphael didn't stop. He spun, his kick sweeping Yusra's legs and sending her crashing to the ground. This was his chance. He raised the dagger high. His hand trembled, not from fear, but from pain, from everything he had lost.
Before the blade could fall, something slammed into the side of his head.
BRAK!
His body flew sideways, crashing into the dirt. The world tilted and spun. His vision swam. His skull felt like it was splitting apart.
He looked up. Thivi stood over him, gripping a thick wooden branch. Blood dripped from its end. Her eyes were hollow. Her smile was twisted, a demonic echo wearing the shape of the girl who once laughed softly beside him.
The Tome of Omnidream had reshaped her into a monster Raphael could have never imagined. And she… she was the one who struck him down.
"I hit him, Kaivan!" Thivi cried, her voice breaking with a feverish excitement she couldn't understand. She stood proudly in her illusion, even as her body trembled with turmoil.
Yusra rose slowly from the ground. Her body was wounded, but her laugh, hoarse and mocking, cut through the night. She looked at Raphael lying helplessly at her feet, and her grin deepened.
"Good, Thivi. If he dies, I'm safe. Then we can get married. We can have a child every night. You want that, don't you?"
Thivi's face flushed deep red. Under the Tome's influence, Yusra's words twisted into something sacred. She stared at Raphael, not as a protector, but an enemy.
Breath shaking, she lifted the wooden branch high. Her fingers tightened. This was no mere strike, it was the salvation of a future she believed was real.
Raphael could only watch, the world spinning in and out of focus. Pain tore through him, yet his mind fought to stay awake. He didn't want to die, not like this, not by her hand.
His breath hitched. The night blurred into cold wind and agony. He saw Thivi, once a girl with a mischievous smile, now transformed into a creature shackled by hatred. The Tome had stolen everything.
"I'll end this," Thivi whispered, her voice trembling yet firm within the lie.
The branch descended. But Raphael, clinging to the edge of consciousness, rolled aside at the last moment. The strike slammed into the earth with a heavy crash.
Thivi didn't hesitate. She swung again, faster. Raphael blocked with his dagger, but the impact sent him stumbling back. His legs wavered. His body threatened to crumble.
From the distance, Frans and Radit burst onto the scene, their expressions twisting in horror as they understood what was unfolding.
"Damn it, we have to stop her!" Radit shouted.
Frans didn't wait. He sprinted forward, his athletic body moving like a trained fighter. With perfect timing, he caught Thivi's arm just before the branch could strike Raphael again.
"Enough, Thivi! This isn't you!" he hissed, wrestling against her strength. But Thivi thrashed wildly. Her small frame moved with unnatural ferocity, as if possessed. Radit rushed in, grabbing her shoulders.
"Let me go! They'll hurt Kaivan!" Thivi screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks, her eyes hardened with a conviction born from illusion.
Raphael rose to his feet, slowly and unsteadily. His eyes were empty, yet his heart refused to look away from Thivi's broken face. Words no longer meant anything. Nothing could reach a heart consumed by darkness.
Then,
"BANG!"
A sharp crack split the air. Everything froze. Wood stopped creaking. Breaths halted. A thin wisp of smoke curled from the pistol in Yusra's hand, her smug smile gleaming just behind the barrel.
"You ruined my fun," she said lightly. "I only wanted a quiet life, just me and a sweet girl to hold every night. Simple, isn't it?"
Raphael lowered his gaze. His shoulders trembled, not in fear, but from the fury boiling inside him.
"You… trash…"
Yusra laughed, sharp and mocking. "Yeah. And trash like me always gets what I want. I don't care who they are, as long as their bodies stay warm enough to fill my nights."
The air tightened. Every word she spoke was poison, sparking fire in the hearts of everyone who heard it.
Amid the ruins of the once-majestic Radio Malabar, the cold night air hung heavy, like a wounded breath trapped between ribs. Zinnia stepped out from her hiding place, her body trembling not only from the chill but from something deeper, fear that pressed down on her lungs.
Her eyes swept across the rubble, searching, panicked. Her hands shook as she tried to steady herself. "What… should I do…?" she whispered, her voice swallowed by the wind. Her heartbeat raced, ready to burst.