Nothing changed in the sky.
No clouds.
No lightning.
No rift in reality.
Yet Kim stopped suddenly.
Not because something had appeared…
but because the world had fallen silent for too long.
Even the wind
forgot how to move.
Kim said quietly, "Step forward."
The reply did not come from the front,
nor from behind,
but from the void between steps.
"Your taste in greetings… aggressive."
The man appeared.
He was not a giant.
Nor deformed.
Nor steeped in shadows.
He was provocatively elegant.
His clothes were dark,
his eyes the color of the sky just before extinction.
Behind him…
there was not one shadow,
but several,
moving half a second behind his body.
He said, "I am Val-Mor.
Ruler of the World of Broken Mirrors."
Kim did not respond.
Val-Mor continued, smiling:
"I came alone.
Not because I am the weakest…
but because I am the smartest."
He took a step forward.
Kim did not stop him.
"I will take the shortcut,"
Val-Mor said.
"I do not want to kill you.
Nor bind you.
Nor even understand you."
He raised his hand.
The air split
like glass.
And Kim saw…
scenes that had not happened.
Nir…
walking without fear.
Laughing.
Not looking back.
Biath…
laying down his weapon.
Sitting calmly.
Nothing chasing him.
Val-Mor whispered, "This is not an illusion.
This is a guaranteed possibility."
He stepped closer.
"Join me.
I will not place you beneath my throne.
But beside me."
Then he said the sentence no one had said before:
"You do not belong to chaos.
Chaos needs you…
to become a new order."
A heavy silence fell.
Then something stirred inside Kim.
It was not energy.
Nor anger.
But a memory.
Kim finally spoke: "Shall I show you the possibility you did not calculate?"
Val-Mor froze for a moment.
Kim lifted his eyes.
"In every world you have seen…
I was standing."
He stepped forward.
"But they were dead."
The mirrors around Val-Mor cracked.
Kim said, low and steady:
"You are not offering me a future.
You are trying to bribe me with a clean ending."
The shadows behind Val-Mor grew restless.
"I do not want to be saved,"
Kim said.
"Nor do I want to save anyone."
Then he whispered,
and the air contracted:
"Return to your worlds.
And tell the others…"
He stepped so close that his face was in front of Val-Mor's:
"That whoever tries to put chaos in a frame…
will break with it."
Val-Mor disappeared.
He was not expelled.
Not destroyed.
But forcibly returned to his throne.
In the World of Broken Mirrors,
the first throne cracked.
And in the sky,
the voice returned.
But this time…
it was a faint laugh.
Kim turned.
"Next."