The anomaly began during an ordinary afternoon lesson.
There was no warning.
No bell rang.
No one immediately realised that something was wrong.
Suddenly, the air felt heavy.
It was as if something unseen had pressed down on it.
It was the students sitting by the window who were the first to notice.
They instinctively looked up and out of the window.
The sky was unchanged.
The clouds were normal.
The barrier was stable.
However, they began to breathe more heavily.
'Don't you all feel a little stuffy?'
A quiet question was drowned out by the rustling of pages being turned in the classroom.
Li looked up.
He felt it more than the others did.
It wasn't stuffiness,
but rather—
an imbalance.
A spiritual pressure reading formed in his mind.
It wasn't a sudden surge,
rather like an overstretched piece of cloth.
a certain point was forcibly fixed,
While the rest began to spring back.
'So that's how it is...'
He understood almost instantly.
Someone was interfering with the outcome.
The world was adjusting.
A subtle vibration permeated the air.
It wasn't sound.
It was space itself searching for balance.
When the first scream rang out,
the barrier had only just begun to crack.
Suddenly, a student clutched his chest and collapsed to his knees.
This wasn't an attack.
Nor was it possession.
It was simply a failure to withstand spiritual pressure.
He felt as if he had been forced to stand in the centre of a stage that wasn't his own.
The classroom erupted into chaos.
Chairs were overturned,
The teacher shouted in an attempt to maintain order, but he couldn't even stand steadily himself.
Li stood up.
He could feel the overwhelming spiritual pressure,
searching for a new outlet.
The most obvious anchor point
was him.
'Don't go near the edge of the barrier!'
Someone shouted.
But it was too late.
The second point of loss of control exploded in the corridor.
It wasn't an explosion,
— it was a distortion of reality.
The wall appeared to have been pushed in from the inside.
It formed an arc that defied the laws of physics.
Students were thrown to the ground.
Screams erupted everywhere.
Li gritted her teeth.
This wasn't on the same scale as the nightclub's plan.
This was—
The world was recovering its balance.
He closed his eyes.
His body acted before his mind could register what was happening.
Li reached out.
Not towards the anomaly,
but towards—
all those affected.
He didn't know what he was doing.
He only knew that if he didn't,
Someone would get hurt.
The next second, a sudden spiritual pressure converged on him.
This wasn't an attack,
Rather, it was 'organisation'.
It was like scattered data being forcibly pulled back into a coordinate system.
A sharp pain shot up his spine.
Li almost knelt down.
But she didn't let go.
The air gradually became lighter.
One by one, the moments of loss of control were pressed back into place. The cracks in the barrier slowly healed before his eyes.
The whole process took only a dozen seconds.
But it felt like an hour.
When the last distortion disappeared,
Only rapid breathing remained in the classroom.
The students stood frozen.
not knowing what had just happened.
They only knew that someone had pulled them back from the 'abnormality'.
Li's hand was still suspended in mid-air,
His fingertips trembled.
He slowly lowered his hand.
He felt as if a piece of his chest had been ripped out.
At that moment, he felt—
an extremely clear gaze.
It didn't come from the students.
It didn't come from the nightclub,
—but from the Student Council.
In the barrier monitoring room, the red warning marker locked onto the same name for the first time.
This wasn't the source of the incident.
Neither the source nor the victim.
It was—
a stabilizing factor.
The student council president stared at the data, silent for a long time.
"Confirmed," she whispered.
"Li has begun to influence the structure of reality."
Meanwhile, in another building, Mio slammed her hand on the table.
The pain was more intense than expected.
This wasn't synchronization.
It was feedback.
She didn't even need to look at the prophecy to know what had happened.
The world had given her the answer through reality.
The person she favored
had been pushed to the very center of all the shifts.
Mio closed her eyes, her breathing becoming unsteady.
This time, she had nowhere to retreat.
She finally understood.
As long as she continued to stand on his side,
the loss of control would draw ever closer.
And the world,
had begun to warn her with "the injury of others."
Li fell asleep late at night.
Not from exhaustion,
but from a profound tranquility that left him feeling empty.
The daytime loss of spiritual pressure had been classified as a 'sudden anomaly'.
The student council took over the investigation.
The scene was sealed off.
Everything was quickly explained within "acceptable limits".
However, some things cannot be suppressed.
For example, the feeling of having been replaced by something else.
The dream came quickly.
without transition.
When Li opened his eyes, he found himself in an extremely calm place.
There were no buildings,
no sky,
Only a slowly flowing crack hung before him,
like a wound in the fabric of time.
He recognised this place.
Not a memory,
but a sense of familiarity.
'Here again.'
He walked forward.
With each step, the ground sank slightly beneath him,
as if this space were not meant to bear his weight.
Before the crack stood someone.
This time, he could see clearly that it was Mio.
It was Mio.
She stood between him and the rift.
not side by side,
but directly in front of him as the contents of the rift churned.
It wasn't a monster.
It wasn't a physical form.
but rather a multitude of failed futures,
They overlapped and collided, trying to crash into reality.
In that instant, Li finally understood.
The loss of control during the day
wasn't a sudden accident.
Rather, it was the result of "endings that should have fallen upon him".
that had been temporarily blocked.
Mio's body trembled slightly.
This wasn't from fear.
It was from the weight she carried.
With each tremor of the rift,
her shoulders slumped slightly.
Li wanted to speak,
, but he was unable to utter a sound.
This wasn't a limitation,
He realised for the first time that this place didn't belong to him.
Mio didn't turn around.
But she knew he was there.
'You finally saw it.'
Her emotionless voice appeared directly in his mind.
Emotionless,
Yet exceptionally clear.
Ryou's chest tightened.
He took a step forward.
The crack began to churn immediately.
It was as if it sensed the 'target shift'.
Mio raised her hand.
Not to attack,
, but to block.
The moment she raised her hand, all the surging emotions were forcibly pushed back into the depths of the crack.
The price was immediately apparent.
Her breath hitched.
'Don't come any closer.'
For the first time, these words carried a clear sense of prohibition.
Ryou stopped.
Not because of an order,
But because he could finally see clearly.
She wasn't just standing there observing.
She was forced to stand there.
'Is this your prophecy?'
Ryou's voice had finally regained some strength.
Mio was silent for a moment.
'It wasn't like that originally,' she said slowly.
She said slowly.
'Originally, I was only responsible for watching.'
The crack trembled again.
This time, the pain hit simultaneously.
Li groaned.
Mio's reaction was much stronger than his.
Her knees bent slightly before bracing themselves immediately.
Li's fingertips trembled.
"Then why…"
Why are you standing here for me?"
Mio finally turned around.
This was the first time Li had seen her face clearly in his dream, and she didn't look calm.
No calmness.
No distance.
Only a near-exhausted focus.
"If it weren't for this,
You wouldn't be here now." "
His words were soft,
Yet they were heavy, almost suffocating.
At that moment, all the fragments aligned.
A blank space. An unfinished thread of destiny.
the epicentre of the spiralling spiritual pressure,
And there was a sense of unease that had been there from the beginning, protecting it from all sides.
This was no coincidence.
She was pulling the ending towards herself.
Li's throat tightened.
'So... you're the one who's hurting.'
Mio didn't deny it.
'That's why you see it.'
'You've begun to influence reality.''If we continue like this, it will only become more dangerous.'
The cracks began to close.
The stability of the dream decreased.
Mio shifted her gaze back to the front.
"After you wake up,
You will remember some things.'
'That's enough for you to understand.
You're not alone,' Li suddenly spoke.
Li suddenly spoke up.
'And you?'
Mio paused.
'I can still stand.'
These words were spoken so naturally,
It was as if she had repeated them to herself countless times.
The dream began to crumble.
In the instant her consciousness was pulled away,
Li finally uttered those words:
'Don't try to hold it all alone anymore.'
Mio didn't answer.
Before the cracks closed,
He only saw her standing in place,
Her back was still, but she seemed somewhat frail — this was the first time he had noticed.
Li abruptly opened his eyes.
It was still dark.
However, his heart was pounding wildly, unlike that of someone who had just woken up.
He sat up and found his palms were covered in cold sweat.
The weight of the dream remained.
This time, he had no more doubts.
That familiarity
wasn't because he'd walked the same path.
It was because someone had always been ahead of him.
He finally realised:
If things continued like this,
She would be crushed by the world before him.