In the hall, the piano music died mid-note.
Masked figures flooded the room. Conversations cut off. Glasses slipped from hands and shattered on the floor. People screamed, ducked, scrambled for cover.
Some of them did more than that.
Emir, Uncle Mehmet, Aunt Şeyma—this was not their first intrusion. Guns appeared in their hands with unsettling speed. They pulled nearby guests down, flipped tables, sought lines of fire.
"Down!" someone shouted.
"Get them out of here!"
Shots thundered.
You'd think, in a moment like this, that Emrah's first feeling would have been fear.
It wasn't.
It was pain.
His legs, already tired from the stairs and the standing, flared with a deep, dragging fire. His muscles seized. His breath came hard, every inhale thin, insufficient.
Not now, he thought.
His vision narrowed. The world around him fractured into pieces: the angle of an attacker's gun, the trembling shoulder of a cousin trying to aim, Nilay's white-knuckled grip on Aslan's arm.
Then something else cut through everything.
Heat.
It started in his chest, spreading outward. A rush coursed through his veins, burning away the ache like paper under a match. His fingertips tingled. His heart hammered, not with panic, but with a sharp, inhuman focus.
Adrenaline.
But not the kind he'd grown used to in tournaments and emergencies.
This was… more.
The air thickened.
Sound stretched.
The scream of a bullet became a low, drawn-out growl. The crash of glass slowed to a lazy cascade. People's movements turned viscous, like they were swimming underwater.
Then—
Silence.
Total and absolute.
Bullets hung in the air.
Attackers froze mid-step, fingers locked on triggers, eyes fixed on targets they would never reach. Guests crouched halfway to the floor, mouths open in soundless panic. Even the chandelier held its crystals at an unnatural angle.
Emrah stood alone in a world turned to glass.
His legs no longer hurt.
He straightened slowly, aware of every muscle responding, every joint obeying without hesitation. A strange, weightless clarity filled his skull, like someone had cleared the fog from his thoughts.
He tested his balance.
Perfect.
Whatever the chocolate had been, it was working now.
"I see," he murmured.
He moved first to the nearest bullet.
It shimmered faintly in the suspended air, still pointing at a guest's temple. Emrah's hand shifted—not just a touch, but a controlled motion, blending martial arts precision with his cane as an extension of his body. The cane flicked, spun, and pivoted, redirecting the metal mid-flight.
A bullet aimed at his sister's chest now curved toward the attacker's own head. Another, meant for his father's throat, twirled around and snapped with lethal precision, as if guided by a ghostly blade.
Each movement was a symphony of combat: kung fu, taekwondo, and championship sword forms merged into one fluid motion. His footwork was perfect; his posture, unbreakable. His cane became both shield and sword, spinning in arcs, striking the air, nudging death away from those he loved.
He weaved through frozen threats and terrified family, adjusting balance and leverage. A tiny step forward, a wrist twist, a gentle sweep of his cane—each motion calculated to redirect danger, turning bullets against the shooters.
Time stretched. Perfection stretched with it.
When he finished, he stepped back to his starting point, retrieved his glass of vodka, and settled into his red chair.
He lifted the drink. The liquid made a slow-motion wave inside the glass.
He smiled.
"Cheers," he said.
Then he snapped his fingers.
Time crashed back.
Bullets completed their journeys—but not to the targets they'd been promised. Attackers collapsed, obliterated by their own fire, spinning into tables, masks, and shattered glass. Guests screamed in real time, and the chandelier's crystals fell in a glittering cascade.
Emrah sat, glass steady in hand, cane leaning against the chair, unassuming. Every motion—martial arts, sword techniques, and cane mastery—had executed flawlessly.
No one in the hall saw the precision. Only death and survival.
As the chaos unfolded, the family regrouped.
Emir's jaw clenched. "This was coordinated," he said, voice tight. "Someone thought they could wipe us out tonight."
Uncle Mehmet's eyes were hooded. "And if not for… luck, they might have."
Humans love that word. Luck.
Leyla stood near a window, arms wrapped around herself. "We need to find out who ordered this."
"We will," Aslan said darkly, eyes scanning the exits. "No one touches this house."
Nilay stayed close, pale but quiet. Sahra kept glancing at the door, expecting another wave of men to burst through.
In the middle of the shaken circle, Emrah sat in his red chair, hands loosely wrapped around a now-empty glass. His body seemed calm, even tired.
But his mind was sharp, alive, analyzing.
Because he was thinking.
Not just about the attack.
About the chocolate.
About the old man who disappeared at the curb.
About the decades spent fighting a losing war against his own body, only to feel, for the first time, utterly free and strong—at the exact moment bullets filled the air around his family.
Someone had tried to kill them.
Someone else had given him the power to stop it.
You can call that coincidence if you want.
He didn't.
Someone attacked us tonight, Emrah thought, staring at the last smear of blood being wiped from the floor. And someone chose me.
From that moment on, time was no longer just the enemy he'd been running from since childhood.
Time was the weapon in his hand.
He just didn't know yet who had handed it to him… or what it would cost.
But I did.
I always did.
After all… he has these powers because of me.
Somewhere beyond time, beyond sight, a presence stirred. It pulsed in rhythm with the heartbeat that had just mastered bullets, a spark waiting to be named.
Subject Infinity ∞ — has acquired Chrono Freeze.
More Observation Required.
Standing by for the acquisition of the Mark of Infinity ∞.