Smoke still choked the air.
Biji stood at the mountain's edge with Tiny and Yukie behind her, the crater still pulsing behind them. Whatever that meteor was… it had changed everything. They had to leave.
But the air stopped moving.
Even the wind refused to whisper.
Then—
A portal unfolded like a slow blink.
Reality peeled sideways.
The space next to them bled.
And out of it stepped a being made of silence and pressure.
"Shadow of Monarch."
His form had no face. Only jagged patterns — pure black carved with flickers of shifting crowns and kingdoms.
He didn't float.
He didn't walk.
He simply existed, and the mountain screamed beneath his weight.
> "Biji," the voice rang in her head.
"You are a flaw in the weave.
You should not be."
---
Biji stepped forward instinctively, fists clenched.
She didn't even know why.
Just that her chest hurt at the sight of him.
Tiny cracked his neck and summoned unstable threads of chaos.
> "You want her, go through me first, weird shadow dude."
Yukie, now awake and more serious than she'd ever been, narrowed her eyes.
> "No one tries to kill my friend while I'm conscious. It's house rules."
---
They attacked together.
Yukie twisted space with a sleep-laced ripple, aiming to trap him in a lull of disconnection.
Tiny followed with a burst of gravity collapse — turning his belief into sheer movement chaos.
Biji, silent as ever, stood in front, waiting for the precise moment to step — the way she always did — into something that shouldn't be possible.
They landed their hits.
None of it mattered.
The Shadow didn't flinch.
He raised a finger. Reality cracked.
Yukie's magic folded in on itself — sleep turning to pain.
Tiny was sent flying, bones grinding.
Biji tried to hold her ground…
She failed.
He struck once.
Her body hit stone, hard. Her ribs shattered. The crater behind them erupted again as the meteor pulse reacted.
He raised his hand again.
> "End."
---
But something changed.
The light bent wrong.
And then —
It shattered.
Like a mother scolding a storm, a single voice echoed across the mountain:
> "That's enough, sweetheart."
---
The Shadow stopped.
Something arrived.
Descending like gravity reversed, she floated down between them — tall, calm, and barefoot.
She wore a shawl made from numbers that shifted constantly. Equations trailed behind her like royal cloth. Her hair was obsidian silver, tied in sharp loops like spirals of logic itself.
Her presence made the Shadow step back.
> "You," he rasped. "You should not interfere."
She smiled.
A calm, motherly smile.
> "And you should not exist, but we all make compromises, don't we?"
---
"THE MOMMY."
That was her name to commoners.
Nickname?
"Numbers."
To the world?
She was Ranked #7 on the List of Ten — the ten strongest beings alive in Arcane.
To reality?
She was a problem-solver.
---
She turned to Biji and the others, kneeling briefly.
> "Breathe, little ones. You're safe now."
Then she stood.
Facing the Shadow again.
The sky crackled.
> "I will not warn you twice," she said softly.
"Touch my children again, and I will erase your concept."
The Shadow trembled.
He turned.
And vanished.
---
The crater behind them pulsed again — quieter this time.
The storm had passed.
But Biji… couldn't move.
Not from fear.
But from something else.
Something in her had recognized that shadow.
And deep inside, something older than belief itself whispered:
> He wasn't wrong.