Morning arrived in Westview with birdsong and a gentle breeze.

Levi stood on the lawn outside his house, trimming the hedges with oversized shears.

Light blue knit sweater. Collar perfectly folded. He looked exactly like the model husband from an old black-and-white sitcom.

Wanda stepped outside carrying two glasses of lemonade, her skirt swaying softly.

"Darling, did you hear? The community committee is holding a talent show this afternoon."

Levi accepted the drink and took a sip.

"Mrs. Hart just mentioned it. Apparently, she has a lot of confidence in our grand finale performance."

Wanda lowered her head with a shy smile, fingers twisting at the edge of her apron.

"I just thought... if we’re starting a new life here, we should participate more in community activities. Everyone says you’re the most talented person in town."

Levi set down the shears and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, since you’ve already bragged about me, I can’t let you lose face. Though are you sure they want magic tricks and not a hedge rabbit sculpture?"

Wanda laughed and leaned against his shoulder.

"As long as it’s you performing, they’ll love it."

Agnes jogged over from across the street in her purple tracksuit, waving a gaudy flyer in her hand. Her voice was loud enough to carry across two blocks.

"Hey, genius couple! Ready to amaze the whole town?"

She stopped outside the fence, her gaze lingering on Levi with hidden scrutiny.

Levi nodded politely.

"We’ll do our best. Hopefully your gardening seminar goes just as well."

Agnes gave an awkward laugh.

"Oh, forget that. Everyone’s waiting to see Mr. Anthony’s miracle performance. Heard you’ve prepared a huge surprise?"

Levi didn’t answer, merely smiled.

He could feel faint magical fluctuations drifting around Agnes, probing at the law barriers surrounding his body.

On the surface, though, it was nothing more than neighborly small talk.

Wanda noticed none of it. She was immersed in excitement over the upcoming social event.

"We’ll be ready."

As Agnes turned to leave, the smile on her face faltered for a split second before returning.

She waved while walking away, her back carrying an indescribable sense of wrongness.

Levi looked down at Wanda in his arms.

This talent show wasn’t just neighborhood entertainment.

Wanda was using Chaos Magic to reinforce the logic of this world—and Levi needed to perform this role more convincingly than reality itself.

---

Three in the afternoon.

Sunlight slanted across the wooden stage in the town square.

The air smelled of popcorn and cheap perfume.

The townspeople sat neatly in folding chairs dressed in bright formalwear, every smile looking as though it had been measured with a ruler.

Behind the backstage curtains, Wanda adjusted Levi’s suit.

"Darling, you seem a little nervous."

She spoke softly.

"If you don’t want to do the disappearing act anymore, we can switch to mind-reading."

Levi held her hand, his palm faintly damp.

"Relax. As long as you’re watching from the audience, I’m the greatest magician in the world."

Agnes appeared from nowhere, carrying a magician’s wand wrapped in red silk.

"Look at this perfect couple! Anthony, I already brought your prop box onto the stage."

She laughed dramatically, though her eyes scraped across Levi’s face like hooks.

"But that box felt pretty heavy. You sure it’s only holding doves?"

Levi accepted the wand, fingertips brushing lightly across the red silk.

"Maybe it’s carrying surprises. And who doesn’t love surprises?"

The wand was coated in sticky layers of curse magic.

Agatha’s little prank.

The moment he waved it, the doves meant to appear would instead transform into uncontrollable black corrosive sludge, tearing open the illusion of reality itself.

Agnes leaned toward his ear.

"I bet the audience is going to scream really loudly."

"I think so too."

Levi tilted his head slightly.

"Especially when you realize the script isn’t in your hands anymore."

At the front of the stage, mailman Dennis mechanically distributed programs.

His movements were stiff. Every step created faint afterimages, like a television suffering from signal interference.

Levi glanced at him through the curtains, and the Seed of Reality within his consciousness trembled slightly.

"And now, please welcome Westview’s perfect husband—Mr. Anthony!"

Host Phil shouted dramatically from the stage.

Thunderous applause erupted.

Wanda kissed Levi encouragingly.

Carrying the tampered prop box, Levi stepped onto the stage.

Agatha hid behind the side curtain, fingers twitching as she prepared to trigger the chaotic energy the instant he opened the box.

Levi stood center stage and bowed toward the audience.

"Neighbors, for the next performance... don’t blink."

His hand rested on the lid.

[Alchemy Law]

The law seeped from his palm like mercury, wrapping around Agatha’s curse.

He didn’t erase the energy.

Instead, he used it as fuel, reconstructing the atomic structure inside the box.

Agatha’s eyes widened from the audience.

The chaos she expected never came.

She could feel her magic being forcibly devoured by something vastly larger and colder—as if trying to light a forest with a matchstick, only to discover a black hole swallowing all light.

Levi lifted the lid.

Brilliant rainbow-colored streams exploded into the sky.

Not ordinary fireworks, but highly compressed fragments of law energy.

The lights intertwined into countless transparent threads, spreading like a web over the entire venue.

A synchronized gasp erupted from the audience.

"Wow! That’s even better than TV!"

Levi smiled, his gaze sweeping across the crowd.

In the third row, Dennis’s body suddenly convulsed violently. Under the colorful lights, his skin took on a bizarre bluish-gray hue. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Agatha’s expression darkened.

She realized she not only couldn’t reclaim her magic—her own body had begun to feel subtly locked in place by those transparent threads.

"What... are you?"

She whispered shakily, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Onstage, Levi waved the wand again, and countless flower petals drifted down from empty space.

I’m just a husband trying to make his wife happy, Agnes.

He answered silently.

---

The petals never touched the ground.

They slowly circled above the audience.

Wanda sat in the front row, hands clasped tightly together, eyes filled with fascination.

She could feel Levi’s aura within the petals—that deep, reassuring presence that made her feel utterly safe.

Agatha clenched her teeth so hard her fingers wrinkled her purple dress.

The chaos curse she’d infused into the wand should have torn open spatial cracks, exposing Levi’s monstrous inhuman nature in front of Wanda.

Yet now those same energies had been transformed into gorgeous visual effects.

She suddenly clenched her hand, trying to forcibly detonate the petals swirling over the audience.

Levi didn’t even turn around.

His left hand remained casually in his pocket while his index finger curled slightly.

[Alchemy Law — Barrier]

A transparent membrane instantly enveloped the entire hall.

Agatha’s destructive command slammed into it with a muffled impact audible only to higher-dimensional beings before vanishing completely.

Not only that—

Levi casually crushed apart Agatha’s violent magic and rewove it into the stage scenery.

The crude wooden backdrop slowly expanded and transformed into an illusionary moonlit forest swaying in the wind.

Agnes, your contribution to the performance is far too generous.

Transparent law threads now filled every corner of the hall like microscopic probes, quietly scanning the underlying logic of every resident beneath the cover of applause and cheers.

At the back of the room, Dennis stopped moving.

His body split into severe overlapping afterimages. One half maintained a mechanical smile while the other was twisted by invisible forces into a horrifying bluish-gray distortion.

His eyeballs spun wildly in their sockets, hollow terror leaking from his expression.

Levi’s gaze pierced through the crowd and locked onto him.

The law threads recoiled violently the moment they touched Dennis, producing the sensation of a logical contradiction.

Levi knew this feeling all too well.

The aura of annihilation from the Void layer itself.

The scent of the Anti-Monitor.

A sharp glint flashed through Levi’s eyes, though the smile on his face only widened.

He spread his arms, and the moonlit forest exploded into a storm of golden light.

The audience erupted into deafening applause.

Amid the high-frequency spiritual resonance, Levi flicked out a dark-golden rune. It traced an invisible arc through the air and sank into the back of Dennis’s skull.

[Mark of Greed] successfully implanted.

Dennis’s body shook violently before the overlapping afterimages merged into one.

He stood frozen in place, lips trembling as though trying to scream, yet only hoarse gasps escaped.

He was no longer merely a background prop.

He had become a chess piece planted in Westview by the lingering will of the Anti-Monitor.

Levi bowed elegantly as the performance ended, his eyes lingering on Dennis for less than half a second.

Within that Void power, he had already captured traces of a distinct will—an ancient malice older and purer than even the Council of Kangs.

"Darling, you were incredible!"

Wanda rushed onto the stage and hugged him tightly.

Levi stroked her long hair gently, feeling the delight flowing through the Chaos Magic within her.

Agatha was probably furious enough to kill someone right now, and the thing beneath the clock tower had also exposed itself thanks to the stimulation earlier.

"As long as you’re happy, all of this is worth it."

His gaze drifted toward the clock tower outside the hall, half-hidden beneath moonlight.

The bait had already been cast.

Now all that remained was to see when the fish lurking in the shadows would finally bite.

---

Levi held Wanda’s hand as they stepped off the stage, the cheers still echoing behind them.

Wanda’s cheeks were flushed red as she clung tightly to his arm.

"Anthony, you were so charming up there. I swear those flower petals were real—I could smell them."

"In this town, if you believe something is real, then it becomes real."

As they reached the back rows, they ran into Dennis, who seemed to be preparing to leave.

He had returned to his dull, mechanical state, but the terror in his eyes when looking at Levi remained impossible to hide.

Levi stopped walking.

With a subtle flick of his fingertip through empty space, the Mark of Greed began taking root deep within Dennis’s soul.

"Dennis, I think my program booklet is missing a copy."

Dennis shuddered violently, nearly dropping his mailbag.

A dry sound escaped his throat, like rusted gears grinding together.

"S-sorry, Mr. Anthony. I... I’ll deliver another one immediately."

Through the mark, Levi captured a fragment of shattered information.

Deep within the mailman’s soul was engraved a codename Levi recognized all too well—

Someone who had once been completely erased by the Anti-Monitor in the DC Universe.

Agnes emerged from behind the curtains, face pale greenish-white as she forced a smile and approached.

"Amazing performance, Anthony. I’ve never seen magic quite like that before. Where exactly did you learn it?"

Levi turned toward her, smiling faintly.

"Agnes, some secrets lose their charm once explained. Just like that little surprise you prepared earlier—it didn’t end up being useful either, did it?"

Agnes’s smile froze.

An icy will locked around her throat.

The absolute suppression of a single-universe-level existence crushed down on her, leaving the centuries-old witch incapable of even thinking about resistance.

"I... I don’t know what you mean."

She gave two awkward laughs before hurriedly leaving.

Wanda watched her retreating figure.

"Why is she always acting so strange?"

"Maybe she’s just tired."

Levi guided Wanda out of the hall.

Beyond the doors, Westview remained bathed in eternal twilight.

His Inner Universe trembled slightly.

Bloodline resonance.

Far away in the real dimension, Adam had sensed the "magic show" his father was performing.

Using the faint connection between them, the child forcibly pierced through the barriers of Chaos Magic and sent something inside.

Levi opened his palm.

A tiny metallic fragment glowing faintly with golden light rested there.

A component from Tony’s armor, carrying traces of Adam’s childish aura.

Levi put the fragment away and looked toward the silent clock tower in the distance.

Dennis was slowly dragging his heavy footsteps into the shadows beneath it.

His body once again split into overlapping afterimages, the Void aura becoming greedier, as though trying to drag the entire town into the abyss.

"Darling, let’s go home."

Wanda tugged gently on his hand.

Levi withdrew his gaze, his expression becoming warm once more.

"Alright. Let’s go home."

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