The air cracked with a thousand screams of silence. The engagement hall had collapsed into utter chaos. Chris Walker lay dead, his body crumpled at the foot of Han Lillian, whose tears were no longer of grief, but fury. The chains that bound her soul shattered in a scream that tore through dimensions.
Jin staggered back to his feet, his body trembling with pain. "Lillian, stop!" he shouted, but her glowing eyes met his only briefly before she raised her hand—and with a flick, he was thrown across the valley.
Jin's body crashed through mountains, stone and sky alike rupturing under the force. He fell silent in a crater, bones cracked, blood pooling beneath him. In the distance, Hae In and Mr. Singh, now soaked in their own blood, laughed from the edge of death.
Then it happened.
The world twisted.
The sky bled.
A scream left Lillian's mouth that wasn't hers. Her raw sorrow and pain fractured the boundary between realms. Dimensional rifts cracked open like splinters of broken mirrors. The seal had shattered.
Far above in a forgotten void, ancient eyes opened—eyes that had not blinked in eons.
In the darkness beyond dimensions, they stirred.
"The Monarchs have awakened."
Jin emerged from the debris, his silver-white hair drenched in blood, his golden eyes barely able to stay open. Before he could take another step, space warped beside him.
Nyreth appeared.
"Jin!" he shouted. His voice echoed through the battlefield.
But as Nyreth tried to reach Jin, two figures stood in his way.
Hae In and Mr. Singh.
No longer merely human, their bodies began to mutate. Hae In's bloodied form glowed, her skin becoming pale as porcelain, her hair turning jet black, cascading down like corrupted silk. Dark wings unfurled from her back, resembling a plague-stricken angel. Her beauty was most terrifying, like death in its most seductive form.
Mr. Singh's muscles expanded. His tan skin became hardened stone. His eyes now burned a molten gold, fangs lining his jaw. He roared, and his roar shook the shattered dimensions.
Even Chris Walker's body twisted in death, bones cracking, his form warping into a monstrous statue of brutal power.
Jin's lips trembled. His eyes narrowed.
"...Monarchs."
The air itself stopped.
Tharagon – Monarch of Blooming Rot. The fusion of decay and beauty. Life and death reborn in grotesque harmony.
Vyrealis – Monarch of Silent Memory. Master of time echoes. All timelines known. None spoken.
Myrrak'thal – Monarch of Dissonant Chaos. The First. The Prime. His voice distorts reality.
The three stood like gods before Jin.
"My, my," Tharagon purred, her voice like flowers blooming on corpses. "You've grown, little Shang."
Vyrealis said nothing. His golden werewolf eyes glimmered with endless knowledge. He only watched.
Myrrak'thal laughed—a sound that shouldn't exist. "You touched the Rubik's Cube... and yet, you're still a worm."
Nyreth summoned his Domain—a field of pure, contained order—to protect the nearby central worlds from being consumed.
"I'll handle Lillian," he said to Jin.
Jin stared at the Monarchs, breathing hard. "You want a fight?"
Tharagon smiled. "No... we want your extinction."
The battle began.
Jin stepped forward. "I won't let you destroy this world."
Tharagon laughed, voice like blooming roses in decay. "You're already too late, Jin Shang. The seed has bloomed."
Vyrealis, now in his towering werewolf-like form, stepped through time itself. "Your fate was seen… long before you were born."
Myrrak'thal's voice shattered the air. "The chaos is here."
The battle erupted with a quake. Jin darted forward, unleashing a burst of golden flames, meeting Vyrealis's claws. Sparks flew. Jin summoned the resistance gifted by the Rubik's Cube—his form flickered with light resistant to Monarch corruption.
Jin faced the three Monarchs. Bloodied, limping, but eyes blazing.
"You won't take this world."
"You can't protect what is already broken," Vyrealis murmured.
The clash began.
Steel met chaos. Magic shattered time. Tharagon's garden of decay swallowed the battlefield. Vyrealis bent timelines, blinking through attacks before they were made. Myrrak'thal's words unmade Jin's senses.
Jin was a blur of skill, unleashing all he had. He screamed, roared, bled.
Still, they overpowered him.
Bones cracked. Limbs torn.
Myrrak'thal's hand plunged through Jin's chest.
"Goodbye, resistance."
And then time slowed as if the world lost his motion,Jin collapsed, lifeless.
Nyreth screamed. " Nooooo..''
As they turned away, Jin's body trembled. A dark aura leaked out, swirling violently. The Monarchs froze.
Nyreth looked back. "No… this isn't the time… not this presence."
Jin's eyes opened—but they were not his.
The earth shook.
Dark tendrils of energy rose from his body, and a black sun ignited behind him. He stood—not as Jin—but as something greater.
"Wh... What is that?" Tharagon backed away.
Vyrealis's time halted involuntarily. "This… presence... it predates even us. Don't tell me he is The First Whisper "
Jin roared, the sound breaking dimensions. The Whisper took control fully.
In an instant, he appeared behind Tharagon. A single touch—and the Monarch of Rot exploded into spores.
Myrrak'thal screamed and invoked chaos laws, but The Whisper manipulated the very essence of his voice, sending it back into his own mind. Myrrak'thal writhed and dissolved into paradoxes.
Vyrealis, terrified, tried to flee through time.
But The Whisper smiled. "Time obeys me."
He extended a hand. Time fractured, froze, shattered.
Jin—no, The Whisper—walked forward, impaling Vyrealis through the heart with a blade formed from his own echo.
With all three Monarchs slain, The Whisper turned his gaze toward the heavens.
"More will come."
Nyreth, terrified, stepped forward. "Master... You have to stop now."
The Whisper looked at Nyreth and, with a faint smile, replied, "Of course. But not now."
He looked toward the palace—toward Lillian—and vanished into smoke.