Chapter Text
It began as a vibration in the marrow.
Across the vacuum of space, the fabric of the Multiverse didn't just "feel" the tension—it recoiled. Chaos wasn't a whisper anymore; it was a rhythmic, discordant thrumming that set the cosmic threads to fraying like old wire under too much voltage. But it didn’t taste like magic. It tasted of decay. A thick, cloying sweetness that clung to the back of the throat, like overripe fruit left to fester in the dark. It was the scent of a world beginning to rot from the inside out.
The time of quiet was dead.
The Souls—once meant to be solitary anchors, rising one by one through the centuries—were being pulled toward the surface of reality all at once. The Multiverse was no longer asking for guardians; it was screaming for a shield.
On Earth, in a small, shadowed flat in the heart of London, the air suddenly curdled.
Wang Fu and Marianne Lenoir did not just "shudder". The tea in Fu’s cup rippled in perfect, concentric circles, though his hands remained like granite. A cold, sharp pressure slammed into their chests—the physical weight of a cycle breaking.
They did not speak. In the dim light of the morning, their eyes met, reflecting the clinical terror of generals who realize the front line has already collapsed.
"It’s time," Marianne’s voice was a dry rasp, barely audible over the hum of the city outside.
Meanwhile, in a corner of the universe that light had long ago abandoned, something shifted. It was a presence that occupied the spaces between atoms—a void that was both everything and nothing. It didn't "grin" with its face; it grinned with the gravitational pull of a collapsing star.
The first thread had snapped.
Soon.