"All civilians, evacuate the rift zone immediately. All civilians, evacuate the rift zone immediately."

The announcement blared over and over, echoing across the streets, cutting through the rising panic.

People moved fast.

Guides and lower-rank Espers, those cleared for evacuation support only, were pushing civilians back, directing them away from the danger zone, their voices strained, movements urgent.

Ahead, the sky had split.

A jagged tear hung suspended in midair, unstable, flickering at the edges like reality itself was struggling to hold together.

And from it, crawlers poured out.

Dozens of them, dropping, scrambling, spilling into the streets in erratic, twitching movements.

A group of A- and B-class Espers held the front line, but their numbers were barely enough to be effective.

Energy blasts lit the air in sharp bursts, telekinetic force slamming creatures back before they could spread further. Some Espers relied on raw physical enhancement, tearing through what got too close.

Lin Wenzhi’s bike cut straight through the chaos, weaving past evacuation lines, ignoring shouted warnings, his focus locked ahead. On the rift.

His eyes narrowed. "...This Is smaller than that one in Jia’ang City."

He pulled to a stop at the edge of the restricted zone, killing the engine in one smooth motion before swinging off the bike.

A guide rushed toward him immediately.

"What are you doing?!" she snapped, grabbing his attention with a sharp glare. "You can’t park here, are you insane? We’re trying to prevent a massacre!"

Wenzhi ignored her entirely. When he moved past her without a word, she finally lost her temper.

"Hey! I’m talking to you!" She turned, frustration spiking, ready to drag him back if necessary but he was already walking straight toward the frontline. Toward the fight.

The Espers ahead were starting to struggle to contain the spread of the crawlers.

They weren’t winning. They were just delaying the inevitable.

"Hey!" she shouted again, breaking into a run.

"Hey, hey, who are you yelling at?" Another guide intercepted her mid-step.

Pei Luo.

He looked between her and the direction she was pointing, confused. "Calm down. We’re not even allowed near the rift. What’s going on?"

"That guy!" she snapped, pointing back toward the bike. "He just ignored everything I said and walked straight in like he owns the place!"

Pei Luo glanced at the bike and froze. "...Wait."

He stepped closer. His hand lifted, brushing against the frame like he didn’t quite trust what he was seeing.

"This—" His eyes widened. "This is Wenzhi’s bike."

He turned sharply, grabbing the girl by the shoulders, excitement and disbelief crashing together. "He’s not dead."

"What?" The girl blinked, thrown off completely but Pei Luo didn’t wait.

He broke away mid-conversation and sprinted in the direction Wenzhi had disappeared, urgency written all over him.

••°°

Lin Wenzhi didn’t head straight into the chaos.

He veered off instead, slipping along the side of the battlefield, keeping just outside the main line of combat until he reached the threshold of a half-collapsed building.

There were several guides stationed at that location. They were observing the situation and waiting for a chance to provide assistance.

From this angle, the fight was clearer.

The Espers moved sharply, each one distinct in style, some fluid and controlled, others explosive and brutal, cutting through crawlers that snarled and skittered across broken ground.

"Hey. Who are you?" The question came from his side.

Wenzhi glanced over.

A male guide, roughly his height but broader, sturdier, already irritating just from the look on his face.

"Shao Xinyuan," Wenzhi said flatly. "Did you see him enter the rift?"

The guide frowned. "Why are you asking about that Disaster-Class Esper? There’s already news he has a—"

"I asked a question," Wenzhi cut in sharply, his voice dropping, irritation clear, "not a fucking monologue."

The guide froze, caught completely off guard as Wenzhi walked past him without another glance.

Wenzhi’s jaw tightened.

The restraint around his ankle pulsed faintly.

...Fine.

If he couldn’t leave, he would make use of his current situation. He would guide Xinyuan and stabilize him so he could break the restraint.

Or he could look for a different Esper on the battlefield strong enough for the job.

That would work too.

One of the guides abruptly stood out to him. He was leaning against a cracked pillar, a lanky man with hazel hair and brown eyes who looked soft at first glance.

"Yes," the guy said simply, meeting Wenzhi’s gaze. "Shao Xinyuan went into the rift with my Esper." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Wenzhi gave a small nod, already looking away, his attention snapping back to the fight.

And just in time, a female Esper drove her elbow straight into a crawler’s skull, the impact cracking loud enough to echo.

The monster dropped to the ground instantly. A clean kill.

"Is it me, or are these crawlers behaving differently?" she started to ask.

Suddenly, three more crawlers slammed into her from the side.

Her scream tore through the air as claws ripped into her before she could even recover.

"No!"

Two nearby Espers reacted, moving to pull them off but they didn’t make it.

More crawlers rushed forward, cutting them off and ripping them apart.

"No...! No! Anyi!" The guide Wenzhi had snapped at earlier broke completely.

His voice cracked as he ran straight toward the battlefield, face pale, eyes wide, tears already spilling.

It was too late.

The woman, his Esper, was gone. Her screams had already been swallowed.

The crawlers didn’t stop. More poured out of the rift, hitting the ground in waves, their movements frantic, erratic and overwhelming.

The defensive line had collapsed.

Espers who were still standing were being pushed back hard, forced into tighter spaces as the crawlers spilled past them, breaking through into the city.

Cars were crushed under clawed limbs. Windows shattered. Crawlers leapt onto buildings, scaling upward with unnatural speed.

Wenzhi’s heartbeat kicked hard against his ribs.

Right. This world was ending. He’d almost forgotten.

"...Shit."

"Look out!"

The remaining guides snapped into action, pulling out standard-issue firearms, firing rapidly at anything that got too close.

It barely helped.

The earlier guide didn’t even make it halfway. He was dragged down, vanished beneath a rush of bodies.

"Fuck." Wenzhi didn’t have a weapon.

He moved, closing the distance to the hazel-haired guide whose wavelength hummed with power. S-rank. Perfect. An Esper tied to a guide like that would be just as strong.

The guide was already firing, but his aim was off with shots going wide under pressure.

"Give me that." Wenzhi snatched the gun cleanly from his hand without waiting for permission.

The guide didn’t argue. He just pulled a second gun instantly.

They fired their guns at the same time while standing side by side. However, the guide-issued guns were too weak to be effective. They managed to slow the crawlers down, but that was all.

"They’re not stopping!" the guide snapped, frustration bleeding through his voice. "We need to leave now!"

His watch lit up. A command flashed.

Teleport to Esper.

Before Wenzhi could react, his arm was grabbed.

The world around them seemed to warp suddenly. In an instant, they were gone.

The moment they disappeared, a thick, black miasma erupted outward, spilling from the rift like something alive.

It moved actively, twisting and coiling like large, writhing tentacles made from smoke and the void.

Above, a helicopter hovered, reporters capturing everything live.

And then, the miasma struck. It lashed out, wrapping around crawlers mid-movement, yanking them off buildings, off the ground, dragging them back into the rift one after another.