The sky burned crimson. Not from fire, not from mana—it was a wound. A wound in the very fabric of reality.
From the far reaches of the cosmos, Antares stirred. He did not need to descend. He did not need to step into the battlefield. His presence alone, an echo across dimensions, was enough to warp the universe. And he had noticed.
The first tremor hit the eastern continent. Mountains cracked, not from earthquakes, but because the laws of reality themselves refused to maintain coherence. Rivers reversed, flowing backward in flashes of blue-white light. Time shuddered, causing stars to blink out and relight like faulty candles.
The Rulers, stationed in the astral plane observing the fight below, froze in unison.
Solarius' golden aura dimmed slightly. "This… this is not a Monarch attack. Not even a coordinated army. What is this?"
Arctyron gritted his teeth. "It's not something that can be fought conventionally. Gravity itself is fluctuating. I can feel the mass of continents shifting on a whim."
Valerion's green light flickered. "The life streams of entire continents are being corrupted and rewoven simultaneously. This… this is Antares. He doesn't touch the battlefield, but everything bends to his will."
Zephyriel's storm spun violently, winds screaming, tugging at her robes. "He's bypassing the Monarchs entirely. Humanity… Earth… even Jinyoung… everything is under stress."
Chronaxis' form trembled. "Time is unsteady. Seconds fold into themselves. Past events are colliding with futures that will never happen. The battlefield—already ruined—is tearing itself apart."
Aetherion, the Ruler of Mana, screamed mentally. "The residual mana from the fallen Monarchs—it's being drawn out! The planet can't stabilize fast enough! The flow is collapsing!"
Umbrael's shadowy essence flickered. "Souls are screaming. Even the Law of Rest… can't maintain control. Antares is manipulating existence itself without touching it."
Seraphel's judgement glow faltered. "We cannot intervene directly. He's beyond our reach. Even our combined authority cannot challenge this."
The Rulers panicked. Not because they lacked power, but because Antares' indirect influence bypassed all known laws. He had achieved a level of detachment from reality where even their cosmic authority was inadequate.
Humanity's struggle
On the ground, hunters screamed as their weapons backfired. Lightning arcs froze mid-strike, arrows stopped in midair, and spells detonated before leaving caster hands.
The streets of previously rebuilt cities cracked once more. Entire blocks were inverted, as if time had spat out the structures in random sequences.
The Abyssal Legion, once a uniform force of death and order, faltered. Shadows froze in place, skeletal soldiers collapsed mid-step, and the Ice Bear boss staggered as frost and death collided in unstable resonance.
Liam roared, charging into a squad of Frost Wolves, only to have his body flicker violently—part of him replaced with an earlier version of himself, younger, unarmored, confused. The battle had become temporal chaos incarnate.
Jinyoung's Duality flared. White and Black spiraled, trying to stabilize reality. Yet even he felt the tug of a force beyond comprehension.
"This… this is Antares!" he bellowed. "He isn't here… but he's everywhere!"
Haru, Riyomi, and Riku adjusted instantly. Haru's mana stabilized the erratic flows around their units. Riyomi moved through gaps in temporal distortions. Riku ran along fractured ground with impossible reflexes. But the strain was visible: hunters were dropping faster than they could recover.
The indirect counterattack
Antares' method was elegant in its brutality. He did not directly attack—they were too small to notice him. Instead, he used causality and probability manipulation:
Spells reversed themselves mid-cast.
Footsteps folded into previous actions, causing collisions with allies.
Mana constructs collapsed under their own weight.
Even the resurrection spells, including those from the Insect King, began flickering as if they had never been summoned.
The battlefield was chaotic beyond comprehension.
Rulers' desperation
The Rulers convened mentally, their forms flickering across the astral plane.
Solarius gritted his teeth. "If he keeps this up… he can erase entire armies without physically touching them. He's destabilizing planetary mana flow. Earth may collapse before Jinyoung can act."
Arctyron slammed a fist into his gravity sphere. "I cannot compensate! Every attempt to stabilize the field creates another distortion somewhere else. His reach is infinite!"
Valerion swayed. "The life streams… hundreds of thousands of hunters are at risk. Even the resurrected Insect King cannot protect them all!"
Zephyriel spun her storm into a cyclone of desperation. "He's… he's testing them. Testing Jinyoung… testing the planet. But we don't have the time to wait!"
Chronaxis' sands poured outward in warning. "Time is fracturing. Every second we debate… is a second of collapse. We must act before reality collapses entirely."
Aetherion's mana flared uncontrollably. "If this continues, Earth will be rendered uninhabitable! Jinyoung's Duality cannot sustain the planet indefinitely without support!"
Umbrael's soul threads frayed. "The Law of Rest is failing. I cannot keep resurrected beings intact under this stress."
Seraphel's light dimmed. "We are supposed to guide, not intervene directly. But if Jinyoung fails… everything fails."
The Rulers panicked. The first time in their existence, the omniscient arbiters of order had no solution, only observation.
The first stabilization attempt
Jinyoung floated above the battlefield, his aura flaring.
"Duality—stabilize!" he shouted.
Black energy devoured rogue causality spikes. White energy rewrote broken time sequences.
The Insect King roared, reforming fractured segments of the world.
Liam, Rune, and the other units surged forward, forming protective patterns around hunters caught in temporal turbulence.
It worked… temporarily.
But even as one distortion healed, two more appeared elsewhere. Antares' reach was not localized. Every attempt to fix reality was feeding his indirect assault.
Hugo, the French SS-rank assassin, tried to flank a group of spectral Frost Wolves. One blinked out of existence mid-leap, leaving him exposed. He fell—another casualty in the creeping dread of Antares' influence.
The Rulers watched helplessly, their energies straining to sustain the Law of Rest.
Solarius' golden form glowed fiercely. "We cannot sustain this. If he keeps interfering, we will have to intervene directly."
Arctyron shook his head. "Even together, our direct action might not reach him. And if we act… we may create even more catastrophic paradoxes."
Humanity's struggle intensifies
Hunter formations collapsed. City defenses failed. Monsters—both Monarch and rogue—slipped through cracks in reality. The world became an unrecognizable chessboard, constantly rearranging itself under the silent thumb of Antares.
Even Jinyoung felt the strain. Duality pulsed violently, threatening to split his consciousness as timelines he had already corrected tried to overwrite themselves.
The Insect King, sensing the impossibility, formed a living barrier around Jun Ho, Jinyoung's sister, and the retired SS-rank hunter. Its enormous carapace glowed with restored Monarch mana, providing a pocket of stability in the chaos.
"This… is Antares' indirect counterattack," Jinyoung muttered. "He doesn't fight… he watches, disrupts, and tests. We need to survive. Earth… must hold."
The Rulers panic fully
The scene in the astral plane deteriorated.
Chronaxis' hourglass shattered. Time itself was bleeding.
Aetherion screamed internally, mana flows tangling into knots beyond repair.
Umbrael's threads snapped, leaving fragments of resurrected hunters adrift in limbo.
Solarius, for the first time, radiated fear. "If Jinyoung fails… every world will be at risk. Antares' power… it is beyond anything we have witnessed. He is testing our greatest champions."
Zephyriel's wind became a hurricane, uncontrolled, ripping fragments of cities into the sky.
Valerion's green aura flickered. "We cannot act openly. Not yet. We are too exposed. He may perceive even our intention as a threat."
Seraphel, normally calm and unyielding, faltered. "Jinyoung… you are the only chance. We can only support. Pray he succeeds."
The battlefield below remained chaotic. Hunters struggled to adapt. The Abyssal Legion stabilized partially, but even they flickered as the indirect attacks warped causality.
Elyndra's echoes were distant now, replaced by a new awareness—Antares' shadow. He was not here. Yet he was everywhere.
The Rulers had no choice but to watch.
And Jinyoung knew it.
He would face this. He would stabilize the planet.
He would survive Antares' test.
Because Earth must endure.