Further into the hospital, the corridors were quiet.
Night shift nurses made their rounds. A few patients walked slowly, recovering from surgeries. An elderly doctor reviewed charts at a nurses' station.
Then a faint blue light began to wash across the corridor like a gentle wave.
One by one, people collapsed.
A nurse fell mid-step, her clipboard clattering to the floor. A patient slumped in his wheelchair. The elderly doctor's head hit his desk with a soft thud.
Within seconds, dozens of people lay unconscious on the floors, their eyes rolled back to show only white.
Two bodyguards, Antonio and Daniel, stood in the centre of the corridor, watching their handiwork with satisfaction.
"Sleep for the last time," Antonio said with an evil smile.
"Stop talking," Daniel snapped. "Did you locate the girl's room yet?"
"I'm working on it. But I don't understand why Master Jevier doesn't just possess her completely and make her kill herself. Would be much more efficient."
"Do your work, Antonio." Daniel's voice was harsh. "Master Jevier never kills humans quickly. He enjoys the process. The fear. The suffering. He likes to drink their blood while they're still in pain."
He paused, his eyes narrowing.
"Wait. Someone's still conscious."
Almost everyone in the corridor had succumbed to the Mesanychta- The sleep spell.
But one figure remained standing normally, seemingly unaffected.
Dr. Arthur Smith stood in the centre of the corridor, a translucent blue sphere of defensive mana surrounding him like a protective bubble.
Antonio laughed mockingly. "Hey, Daniel, has your power gotten weaker? You missed someone."
"Shut up and help me deal with him."
Dr. Arthur felt the oppressive mana filling the air like toxic smoke. He raised both hands, and the light of his defensive sphere expanded, covering a wider area around him.
Antonio saw the expanding barrier and immediately began forming dark energy in his hands, preparing to attack before—
SNAP.
Arthur snapped his fingers.
Time stopped.
Everything froze instantly. Antonio stood like a statue, his dark energy sphere half-formed. Daniel was caught mid-step, one foot raised off the ground. Even the dust particles visible in the fluorescent lighting hung motionless in the air.
The only thing still moving was Arthur himself.
He panted heavily, feeling the massive drain on his mana reserves. Stopping time in this large an area was incredibly taxing. He couldn't maintain it for long.
Just hold them until Johan and Jennifer arrive, he thought desperately. That's all I need to do.
Down the corridor, in the reception area where the murdered receptionist lay, Jevier felt the temporal shift.
He tilted his head, interested.
"Time magic," he murmured. "A Chronos keeper is here. How delightful."
He began walking toward the source of the disturbance, his footsteps echoing in the frozen silence.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP
At that moment, Johan and Jennifer reached the hospital's main entrance.
They pushed through the doors and immediately stopped.
The entire lobby was bathed in pulsing blue light—Arthur's temporal barrier, visible to anyone with mana sensitivity. A translucent sphere surrounded the immediate area like a giant glass dome, shimmering with protective energy.
"Someone put up a mana shield," Jennifer said urgently. "It's Arthur's power. He's already fighting."
Johan didn't hesitate.
He snapped his fingers.
Dark lightning erupted from the ground beneath his feet—pure, raw power that surged up through his body in crackling black streams. The energy coalesced at his fingertips, spinning and compressing into a dense, volatile cube of concentrated mana.
The dark light radiating from it was the perfect antithesis of Arthur's blue barrier.
Johan hovered the cube in the air with one hand. With his other hand, he manifested his weapon—a revolver made of black crystalline glass that crackled with dark energy, its surface seeming to absorb light rather than reflect it.
He aimed at the temporal barrier and fired once.
CRACK.
The bullet struck the blue shield. Spiderweb cracks spread across its surface instantly. But as the barrier strained, Arthur's mana flashed even brighter, attempting to freeze the cracks themselves in time.
The temporal lock expanded outward.
Johan felt it wash over him harmlessly—his inherited resistance to temporal magic protected him completely.
Jennifer, standing beside him, froze mid-stride like a statue.
Johan glanced at his twin sister and smirked slightly.
"This girl said her power was made for fighting, and now she's frozen like a statue." He shook his head mockingly. "Ah, it's because she hasn't used her full power in too long. Aura Negative."
He formed 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 violently, taking a deep, ragged breath as she snapped back into motion.
"Do you two ever use your brains before throwing powers around?!" Jennifer shouted, her voice thick with anger and residual shock from being frozen.
She snapped her own fingers. Instantly, a dense black cube formed in her hand. In the next moment, it compressed and morphed into a serrated obsidian dagger, its surface humming with dark lightning.
Suddenly, a sound cut through the air.
Screaming.
Raw, agonised screaming coming from deeper inside the hospital.
"Johan, we have to go. Now."
They ran through the cracked barrier and burst into the hospital reception area.
The scene was horrific.
Blood was everywhere—coating the floor, splattered across the desk, dripping from the walls. A headless body lay slumped beside the shattered reception counter, a pool of crimson spreading around it.
Jennifer's hand flew to her mouth, her face going pale.
Before they could even process the carnage, multiple flashes of dark lightning erupted from the corridor ahead, signalling an intensifying battle somewhere in the building's depths.
"Arthur's in trouble," Johan said grimly. "Let's move."
They ran toward the flashing lights, weapons ready, prepared for the worst.
Neither of them knew just how bad things were about to get.
Jevier emerged into the corridor where Arthur had frozen Daniel and Antonio.
His boots made soft sounds against the tile floor as he walked. He stopped, his gaze falling on his two subordinates who stood unnaturally still—living statues caught in Arthur's temporal field.
His red eyes narrowed as he focused, sensing the source of the time magic.
Dr. Arthur remained concealed behind his invisibility shield, hoping to catch Jevier off guard.
Jevier didn't even hesitate.
His mana flowed instantly, coalescing into a weapon—a black-iron handgun far more sinister than Johan's glass revolver. The metal seemed to drink in the light around it, pulsing with malevolent energy.
He fired at seemingly empty air.
BANG.
The bullet—a concentrated bolt of dark energy—struck Arthur's shoulder with devastating force, tearing through his defensive shield as if it weren't even there.
Arthur reeled backwards, his invisibility shattering. Blood sprayed from the wound.
How did he see through my shield?!
Desperately, Arthur hurled a sphere of blue mana at Jevier.
The Oneiros simply swayed aside with inhuman grace, dodging the attack as if it were moving in slow motion.
"Not very impressive," Jevier said with a mocking smile. "I expected more from a Chronos keeper."
He prepared to fire again.
Arthur made a desperate decision. If he couldn't trap Jevier with a normal time stop, he'd pull him into his personal realm—the Timeless Dimension, where Arthur theoretically had complete control.
SNAP.
Reality fractured like breaking glass.
The stable white corridor vanished, replaced instantly by an oppressive black landscape. The ground beneath their feet was cracked, dark earth, like shadow. The sky above was suffocating black—no sun, no stars, no light except for the eerie dark glow emanating from the ground itself.
The Timeless Dimension.
Jevier looked around with interest rather than fear.
"Ah, you brought me to your personal dimension. That means you're a true Chronos—a keeper of time magic." His smile widened, revealing teeth that were just slightly too sharp. "How wonderful."
He raised his black-iron handgun.
"It will be an honour to kill you."
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Three shots in rapid succession.
The first bullet pierced Arthur's hand, shattering bones. The second struck his knee, dropping him to the ground. The third—the most devastating—slammed into his chest, creating a shockwave that rippled through his entire body.
Arthur collapsed, gasping for air.
But even more terrifying than the physical damage was what happened to the dimension itself.
The bullets had created cracks in the very fabric of the Timeless Dimension.
Impossible! Arthur's mind screamed. This is an absolute realm! It exists outside normal space-time! Nothing should be able to damage it!
"Surprised?" Jevier's red eyes gleamed with cruel amusement. "Did you really think your little pocket dimension could contain me?"
He fired multiple rounds into the void.
Each shot tore gaping holes in the dimension's fabric. Through one of the tears, Jevier spotted Daniel and Antonio—still paralysed in the normal world.
He manifested a small, dense sphere of corrupted mana and flung it through the dimensional rift at his subordinates.
The moment the sphere touched them, Daniel and Antonio screamed.
It wasn't a normal scream of pain. It was the sound of agony so profound it transcended physical suffering—the sound of souls being tortured from the inside out.
Their bodies convulsed violently. Blood poured from their eyes, ears, and noses. They clawed at their own faces, tearing skin, unable to stop the invisible torment.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the pain stopped.
"Find the girl, you worthless fools," Jevier's voice echoed through the dimensional rift, cold and absolute.
"M-Master," Daniel gasped, his face deathly pale. "Mr. Jones already went to her room."
Jevier's expression twisted with disgust. "That lustful old man can't control himself for even a second. Very well. The girl is in room 024. Bring me her blood. Make sure she suffers properly first."
Daniel, driven by pure terror, scrambled to his feet and rushed toward the designated room.
Antonio remained on the ground, trembling uncontrollably. The psychic assault had shattered something fundamental inside him. He looked up at Jevier through the dimensional tear, and the sheer horror of seeing those monstrous red eyes staring back triggered something primal.
His body began to transform.
His fingernails elongated into razor-sharp talons. His jaw cracked and reformed, filling with rows of predatory teeth. His eyes turned a sickly, glowing green. Without any conscious control, he began raking his claws across his own chest, tearing through skin and muscle until white bone gleamed beneath the shredded flesh.
He froze mid-motion, his body locked in tortured stasis.
"Why are you waiting?" Jevier's voice was no longer remotely human. It had become something monstrous, ancient, and utterly inhuman. "GO!"
Antonio—now barely recognisable as having once been human—rushed down the corridor. His transformed body moved with unnatural speed, a grotesque monster hunting innocent prey.
Back in the Timeless Dimension, Arthur desperately tried to close the dimensional holes and trap Jevier permanently.
Jevier looked back at him almost lazily and fired one final shot.
BANG.
The bullet slammed into Arthur's chest, dead centre over his heart.
His last defensive shield shattered like breaking glass. Arthur gasped, coughing blood, and collapsed completely to the crimson ground.
Jevier walked toward him slowly, savouring every moment. He aimed his gun directly at Arthur's head.
Arthur lay there, bleeding out, tears blurring his vision.
This is how it ends. I couldn't save her. I couldn't protect anyone.
He thought of Freya—his wife, waiting at home. Their son David, only three years old, would grow up without a father.
I believed in order. I believed in justice. I believed that Johan and Jennifer would eventually return to fight for this world. But I was just one man fighting forces I could barely comprehend.
His eyes closed.
Please, God. If my death brings them back to the Order... if it makes them realise this world needs them... then let it mean something. Let my death have purpose.
Jevier's finger tightened on the trigger.
BANG.
A gunshot echoed through the dimension.
But Arthur felt no impact. No pain.
Confused, he opened his eyes.
Jevier stood frozen, a perfect hole blown through his skull from behind. Black blood oozed from the wound. His expression was one of pure, absolute shock.
Arthur looked in the direction the shot had come from.
Standing in the Timeless Dimension, his black glass revolver still smoking, was Johan Bennet.
His suit was torn and bloodied. His skin showed deep cracks where forcing his way through the dimensional barrier had nearly destroyed him. Blood dripped from multiple wounds.
But he was there.
He had come.
Tears streamed down Arthur's face—tears of relief, of hope, of overwhelming gratitude.
"Thanks, Johan Bennet," he whispered, his voice breaking with emotion. "Son of Alexander Baros."