In a Seoul apartment complex, the master bedroom of an apartment big enough for a family of three was pitch-black.

The lights were off, and thick blackout curtains covered the windows, letting no light through.

The space felt completely cut off from the outside world, eerily quiet. It seemed someone had dragged the bed to block the entrance to the master bedroom.

Boom!

A powerful shockwave swept in from across the river.

Rustle.

The apartment shook as if it were a building under bombardment in a movie, with dust and debris falling from the ceiling.

“Mom…”

A frightened child’s voice echoed in the dark room.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

The mother held the child close, gently patting their back, though her face showed deep anxiety.

Had the thick darkness not concealed her expression, the child would have been even more scared.

The association dolls, which had once been guaranteed to be safe, had gone rogue. And now, powerful shockwaves had started rumbling through the area only minutes ago.

Unlike the mother, who was trembling with fear from all these events, the father was using binoculars, peeking through a gap in the blackout curtains to observe what was happening outside.

“They’re gone.”

The father’s low voice filled the room.

He let out a breath of relief because the dolls that had been filling the streets were now nowhere to be seen.

In reality, the situation outside hadn’t improved, but something had started to change when the shockwaves began bursting from across the river.

The change started with a sudden increase in the number of black grim reapers.

At the start of the doll crisis, the giant black grim reapers had gorged themselves on dolls until their bellies bulged, and then they had stopped moving altogether.

But at some point, the stationary black grim reapers had risen, marching swiftly toward the southern part of Seoul.

When they returned, their swollen bellies were flat again, and they resumed devouring the dolls.

As the dolls were rapidly consumed by the black grim reapers, other mini grim reapers began to move more freely.

The golden grim reapers, who had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of dolls, were now searching every corner as if looking for something. Other mini grim reapers also started poking their heads out, moving around.

“As expected, mini grim reapers are far superior as companion objects. The association dolls were always troublesome from the start.”

The father, forgetting that he was the one who had bought the doll that took over their living room, began praising the mini grim reapers.

“At this rate, the doll rampage should be over soon!”

As the father watched the mini grim reapers in action, a giant golden grim reaper’s face suddenly filled his entire field of vision.

Heehee.

The golden grim reaper gave a mischievous smile.

“!!!”

Startled, the father pulled his eyes away from the binoculars, only to see the golden grim reaper dangling from the end of them.

The room was filled with the warm scent of the sun.

A soft golden light spread throughout the space.

Perhaps because the room was so lacking in light, the warmth of the golden grim reaper seemed to fill every corner.

That comforting warmth gave the impression that the doll rampage, which had thrown Seoul into chaos, would soon come to an end.

Boom!

When the purple foreign entity clapped its enormous hands, a powerful shockwave shattered nearby buildings and roads into rubble.

I rolled along the ground to avoid the shockwave, but my reflexes weren’t enough to dodge it completely.

“Ugh.”

My leg, caught by the purple shockwave, vanished without a trace, only to instantly regenerate.

As soon as I stood up, I reached out with one hand, clenching my fist toward the foreign entity’s hand.

Crack.

But the foreign entity’s hand remained intact within the warped space.

“How is that even possible?”

I couldn’t even strike the parts of it that were affecting the Earth.

If this were a boss monster in a game, it would be a balance issue that needed an emergency patch.

“Hmph.”

The current situation was one where neither of us could deal proper damage to the other.

My attacks didn’t work on the purple foreign entity, and I didn’t have to worry about running out of kindling because I could regenerate it.

Still, I was achieving my main goal.

My purpose was to “buy time until the mini grim reapers find the anchor!”

“That thing is getting stronger.”

But it wasn’t a situation I could be optimistic about.

The blurry form of the purple foreign entity was becoming more defined, and with that, the shockwaves were growing in both range and power.

The purple threads clinging to my wounds were increasing, and the amount of kindling needed for regeneration kept rising.

And as the purple foreign entity grew stronger, the distortion in reality intensified.

If this kept up, the distortion would reach Yerin’s location!

I could only hope the mini grim reapers found the “anchor” in time.

Otherwise, I’d grab Yerin and run, even if it meant getting hit a million times.

In a residential area already filled with the eerie atmosphere of the purple-tainted air.

A place where the shockwaves from the nearby fight involving the gray grim reapers rumbled like earthquakes.

It was also a place the golden grim reapers had already passed through in their search for the “anchor.”

The blonde girl walked through the quiet neighborhood, relying on a faint sense of direction.

The place she was heading for was her grandfather’s mansion, the very place she had planned to go from the beginning.

Creak.

She pushed open the front gate, which let out a loud sound, slightly warped from the shockwaves.

“I’ve finally arrived.”

The butler, who always greeted her.

The garden, which always exuded a serene atmosphere.

The mansion, filled with her fond memories, now felt unfamiliar.

The well-trained staff had been replaced by creaking dolls, and the orchids her grandfather had tended to had all withered to a sickly yellow.

Whoosh.

With no one in the mansion, she set the dolls on fire with each step she took.

Step by step, she advanced toward the painful cries of her cloned sisters.

The red grim reaper tilted its head in confusion, questioning her path.

“Why are we going here?”

The gray grim reaper’s command was clear:

“Find suspicious objects.”

This place had already been swept by the golden grim reapers once, so there was no reason to come here.

“There’s something I have to do here.”

The blonde girl spoke resolutely as she entered her grandfather’s room and began operating the mechanism to open the secret room.

As the hidden passage opened, the stench of death flooded out.

The overwhelming smell of blood, strong enough to numb her senses.

And the lingering presence of her sisters’ deaths, which only she could perceive.

The blonde girl could see her sisters’ bodies, torn and dismembered.

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry for being too late.

As she muttered to herself and walked deeper into the underground, the traces of her sisters slowly burned away in red flames.

Every step she took inside the mansion set it aflame.

“!”

As the traces of her sisters burned one by one, red grim reapers emerged from the void.

These red grim reapers wore slightly sorrowful expressions.

Seeing this, the red grim reaper accompanying the blonde girl smiled brightly.

“So many younger siblings!”

With that resolve, the red grim reaper rushed forward, and the sorrowful red grim reapers gently embraced it with warm smiles.

Leading hundreds of red grim reapers, the blonde girl finally reached the basement.

There, she saw the grotesquely fused forms of her sisters and the twisted figure of her grandfather, Oh Mooryong, who had merged with them.

“Grandfather.”

The blonde girl’s voice was low, devoid of any emotion.

But her voice did not reach Oh Mooryong.

Entwined in a mass of his cloned granddaughters, Oh Mooryong simply petted the twisted figures lovingly, as if they were precious.

To put an end to her grandfather’s madness, the blonde girl raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

With that, she unleashed a massive flame, woven from the power of all her red grim reaper sisters.

Boom!

A different kind of shockwave, unlike the ones from the purple foreign entity, reverberated across Seoul.

A massive red pillar of fire engulfed Oh Mooryong’s mansion, rising as if it would pierce the sky.

But in an instant, the fire was extinguished by a purple wave.

And from within, the blonde girl was flung out, her body in shambles.

“!!!”

Oh Mooryong, consumed by madness and now beyond human language, revealed himself from within.

The overwhelming power radiating from him surpassed even that of the mini grim reapers, leaving the blonde girl feeling powerless.

Was it truly impossible to win again?

Even now, the tortured screams of her sisters could be heard from the sphere that made up Oh Mooryong’s lower half!

At that moment, the upscale residential area began to fill with a radiant golden light, as bright as the sun.

“Light?”

When the blonde girl lifted her head to look up, she saw a massive boulder filling the sky.

It was the golden armored grim reaper, holding a boulder reinforced with kindling to increase its durability.

“Run away!”

“It’s dangerous!”

Seeing the boulder about to fall, the red grim reapers tugged at the blonde girl.

Startled, the blonde girl shot flames from beneath her feet, quickly escaping from under the boulder.

As soon as she was clear, the golden armored grim reaper released the boulder it was holding, letting it fall onto Oh Mooryong.

Thud.

A deep, heavy sound echoed through the deserted high-end residential area as the enormous boulder slammed into the ground.

Where on earth did they find such a boulder?

While I was pondering that question, the flames of ability nullification began clinging to the foreign entity’s skin, burning it.

Whoosh.

“The anchor has been destroyed!”

With the destruction of the anchor, the purple foreign entity had lost its status, becoming not even an object.

It had turned into nothing more than a byproduct of the red foreign entity’s powers, melting away in the white flames.

Screech!

The foreign entity screamed in agony as its body melted away.

The foreign entity, which had been hiding in a space disconnected from Earth, was now fully anchored to it.

First, the smooth liquid surface covering the ground began to harden.

The surface, which had reflected the Color Universe like a mirror, cracked and shattered with a sharp sound, breaking into jagged shards.

Before the pieces could even hit the ground, they were consumed by the flames of the halo, vanishing like sparks from a campfire.

The jagged wounds that had been carved into the sky began to mend, and the Color Universe that had drawn so close began to recede.

As the Color Universe retreated, the association dolls, the pride of the Association, lost their power and disintegrated.

As if they could not exist within the laws of Earth alone.

The twisted threads, formed from elements like oxygen and nitrogen, dissolved into the air as the distortion vanished, returning to their original state.

“Nooo!”

The golden grim reapers, who had wrapped themselves in the threads to save the humans, let out disappointed cries.

They resembled cocoons with only their legs sticking out, much like the time they had been wrapped in bandages.

Everything that had been twisted was returning to its rightful place.

And as the distortion vanished, the sun began to rise in the eastern sky.

The golden grim reapers raised their arms in celebration, and the other mini grim reapers smiled as they basked in the warm sunlight.

With the purple foreign entity from the Color Universe defeated, the association doll crisis must be over now, right?

Though, I suppose the exposition is ruined again.

Sigh.