3:15 AM WIB. Enver's apartment was located on the ground floor of a long-abandoned concrete building on the outskirts of Jakarta. The room had no windows, only damp cement walls reflecting the sound of a slowing heartbeat. The temperature inside the room was set constantly at 10 degrees Celsius. This temperature setting was not for human comfort, but rather to maintain the viscosity of the Essence of Life stored in glass bottles atop a rotting wooden table.
Enver Eraly stepped inside and instantly lost his balance. His body hit the concrete floor with an unnaturally loud thud. The sound did not come from his body weight, but from his black hair hitting the floor. In Chapter 1, after the purification of Bramantyo, Enver's hair grew ten centimeters longer. This increase in length automatically increased the mass of his hair to 180 kilograms. The gravitational pressure from the hair pinched the cervical nerves in Enver's neck bones, creating a sensation as if his skull were being slowly nailed down.
Hair Weight (Gravity of Sin): Enver's hair is physical matter with a molecular density exceeding lead. This hair is a concrete manifestation of the sins he absorbs from the world. Every time he performs a purification, the density of his hair increases, creating a permanent threat of a broken neck for Enver.
Enver crawled on the floor, dragging hair as heavy as the weight of two adults. He reached for a tube containing thin golden liquid and drank it. The essence seeped into his nervous system, functioning as a biological lubricant so his body would not shatter under the weight of his own hair.
"Only 730 days remaining, Enver," a heavy voice echoed from within the large mirror in the corner of the room.
Enver looked up. Inside the reflection of the mirror, a pair of red eyes without pupils appeared, glowing dimly. It was Z'loq, the Absolute Overlord of Fate.
"You paid dearly for the intervention at the casino earlier. Your contract cut fifteen years of your life instantly," said Z'loq. "Your fate is now locked in a countdown. There is no negotiation. There is no replay."
"I understand," Enver answered hoarsely. He pulled the Golden Vein from behind the skin of his wrist. With precise and expressionless movements, he stitched the tear in his own skin using the vein. He used no anesthesia; physical pain was the only thing that made him feel still connected to reality.
The Null Zone: Monolith of Silence
Far beyond the reach of satellite radar or the human dimension, there is a spatial rift known as the Null Zone. This place has no atmosphere, no sunlight, and no gravity. In the middle of that absolute void, floats a giant black crystal monolith that looks like a dense slice of night.
Inside the heart of that crystal, Maxcen's body was in a state of suspended animation. He had been trapped there for thousands of years, wrapped in a silver robe whose surface never gathered dust. His body stood upright yet stiff like a statue frozen in time. Even though his physical form did not move, Maxcen's consciousness was the sole ruler in this dimension.
Maxcen did not see through physical eyes. Around his monolith, thousands of astral glass shards floated freely. These shards were not dead objects; they were fragments of frequencies from the human world caught by his consciousness radar. Maxcen manipulated these shards using only the atomic vibrations of his cold thoughts.
Maxcen: An ancient entity holding the Death Essence. If Enver is the antibody that maintains life, Maxcen is the decomposer who longs for the void. His power is able to hack the nervous system of the universe even though his body is sleeping in a time blockade.
"Z'loq is too obsessed with the order of his threads," the echo of Maxcen's voice radiated from the monolith. His voice did not travel through the air, but rather vibrated directly in the atomic core of that dimension. "The world does not need a regulated fate. The world needs a silent rest."
Maxcen moved a bit of his energy. One of the glass shards in front of him enlarged, showing the figure of Ibu Sumiyati at a bus terminal in Jakarta. Maxcen touched the shard with his thought vibration. Instantly, the essence of death seeped from the Null Zone, leaped across dimensions, and infiltrated the fate path of that old woman.
High Chamber: Anxiety of the Rulers
In the highest layer of the earth's atmosphere, the 7 Councils were gathered in a silent panic. Their courtroom, which was usually sturdy, now shook due to vibrations coming from the direction of the Null Zone.
"Maxcen is starting to pulse," the First Councilor's voice trembled, triggering ripples on his energy robe. "Even though he is still in suspended animation, a single echo of his thought is enough to disrupt our Neutral Loom."
"We must eliminate Enver before Maxcen succeeds in synchronizing his consciousness with that antibody body," suggested the Fifth Councilor.
"If Enver dies, the nerves of the universe will snap and we will lose our immortality!" snapped the Third Councilor. "But if Maxcen fully awakens, we will not only lose power, we will be erased from existence. Maxcen is the end of every kind of authority."
The councilors were trapped. They were rulers filled with fear, caught between the weapon they hated (Enver) and the void they feared (Maxcen).
Bus Terminal: Prison of Black Fate
Enver walked in the middle of the crowded Kampung Rambutan Bus Terminal. He was in a state of Astral Invisibility, so thousands of potential bus passengers just passed him as if he were empty air. However, Enver's vision was fixed on Ibu Sumiyati, who was serving customers nasi uduk.
In Enver's eyes, that woman's back was no longer clean. Thousands of black astral leeches, Mutated MAU made by Maxcen, were sucking good memories from her spinal nerves and replacing them with residue of pure hatred.
"This is a trap," Enver whispered softly.
Suddenly, Ibu Sumiyati stopped moving. Her head turned toward Enver's position with an abnormal mechanical movement. Her eyes turned into deep black holes with no white part remaining. Through the throat of the old woman, Maxcen's magnificent and authoritative voice came out, tearing through the astral silence.
"Welcome back to a heavy reality, Enver," the woman said. Her voice vibrated with a lethal frequency. "Z'loq gave you the power to cut fate. Now, try cutting the fate of this woman. If you purify her, you will erase the only human who ever helped you when you were still trash stepped on by the world."
Instantly, the reality around Enver cracked like glass hit by a hammer. The entire bus terminal froze. The sound of bus engines and human shouts disappeared, replaced by a haunting silence. The lines of the Neutral Loom in the air changed color from gold to pitch black, then solidified into giant chains coiling around Enver's body and hair.
The weight of those chains reached thousands of tons, pressing down on Enver's shoulders until he almost collapsed onto the asphalt. Enver was now trapped in Maxcen's Projection Zone. Even though Maxcen's real body was millions of miles away in the Null Zone, the influence of his death essence felt real and destructive.
Z'loq laughed inside Enver's head. "Choose, Enver. Let that parasite destroy her soul, or do you erase her from history with your own hands? Her fate is now in your hands, but the consequences remain mine."
Enver clenched his hand until his fingernails pierced his palm, triggering a seepage of golden blood. Under the pressure of Maxcen's black chains, he had to decide: remain a cold universal antibody, or maintain the remnants of his humanity at the risk of letting Maxcen's death infection spread to the entire world.