The world did not explode.
It fell silent.
The roads did not empty all at once. First, the trucks disappeared. Then the intercity buses. Then the private cars that had once hurried for no clear reason. What remained were isolated vehicles moving without rhythm—slow, hesitant, as if their drivers no longer knew where they were going.
Harry noticed it before the news did.
Because the news was still trying to speak.
Radio outlasted the internet.
Comments vanished first. Then updates. Then consistency. The same event was reported as an incident, a rumor, or a temporary situation under control, depending on the channel and the hour.
The only thing still under control was inertia.
And inertia was all that kept the world moving.
Harry avoided cities.
Not out of fear.
Out of unpredictability.
People were not panicking yet—but they were watching differently. Longer. Sharper. Lines formed without reason. Arguments erupted over nothing. Logic was quietly уступing ground to instinct.
He left the main highways.
Where the asphalt cracked and the signs thinned, there were fewer people. And where there were fewer people, there was time to think.
The first abandoned places appeared on the third day.
A gas station with dead pumps. A store with a sign reading Back in an hour that no longer meant anything. Cars left on the roadside.
Keys still inside.
"That's a bad sign," one of the portraits said.
"No," Harry replied. "It's an honest one."
People hadn't fled.
They had simply stopped knowing what to do.
He spent the night in the forest.
Not as a camp—but as home.
The house on wheels stood quietly. The magic held steady. Harry didn't light a fire—not from fear, but from a refusal to become a signal.
"The waiting has begun," Sirius said.
"It's been going on for a while," Harry answered.
He saw the police car at dawn.
A sedan stood at an angle, partly off the road. Lightbar dark. No signs of a crash.
Harry stopped at a distance.
He already suspected what he would find.
He approached from the left. Slowly. No sudden movement.
Something shifted inside.
A figure in a police uniform rose from the seat and pressed against the glass. Gray skin. Clouded eyes. Movements jerky but persistent.
"That's not human anymore," Harry said quietly.
Not alive.
Not dead.
A mechanism.
His mind worked calmly.
No pain response.
No avoidance.
Slow reaction.
"Brain," he concluded. "That's the switch."
Not the heart.
Not blood loss.
The brain.
Distance—or control.
The rifle would be excessive.
A gunshot would be noise.
The knife settled into his hand as if it belonged there.
Harry yanked the door open just enough for the body to lurch forward.
The strike was short.
Precise.
The blade slid into the base of the skull. The magic didn't flare—it simply worked. Movement stopped instantly.
The body collapsed.
Harry stepped back and exhaled.
Not relief.
Confirmation.
"So that's the rule," he said. "Destroy the brain—everything ends."
"And no hesitation," his grandmother added.
"And no emotion," Harry agreed.
The police car was a resource.
Resources are not ignored.
Harry worked methodically.
From the trunk and cabin he took the medical kit, radio, flashlights, a ballistic vest.
And the service weapon.
A Glock 17.
Full-size. Standard issue. With spare magazines and ammunition.
"Loud," Salazar observed.
"Reliable," Harry replied.
He stored it away. Not for close work—only for situations where silence wouldn't matter.
Only then did Harry stop.
And make a decision.
There was no point in hiding weapons anymore.
The world no longer reacted to appearances. Civilian clothing didn't calm it. Normality no longer protected anyone.
He equipped himself fully.
The ancestral gladius went into its sheath along his spine. Beside it, the bow and a quiver of arrows.
The pistol remained in its leg holster.
Over his clothes he secured leather armor—bracers, chest piece, greaves, knee and elbow guards.
A compact load-bearing vest went over his coat.
At his abdomen, hilt down, rested the knife.
The dragonhide coat—Lily's gift to James—covered everything without restricting movement.
The reduced rifle vanished into the magically stabilized inner pocket of the coat.
Every weapon except the ancestral blade carried runes.
Anti-slip grips.
Sharpness and durability on the knife.
Reinforced arrows.
Cleaning and wear-resistance on firearms.
Not for power.
For consistency.
A small expanded-space satchel completed the setup—limited by design, so he wouldn't carry excess.
"Limits create control," Sirius said.
"Exactly," Harry replied.
When Harry stepped away from the house on wheels, he no longeEnd of Chapter 8r tried to blend in.
There was no reason to.
The world had stopped.
And he had not.