The back garden of the Layver family mansion was no longer a serene stretch of green grass or a colorful flower bed; it had mutated into a shattered fragment of reality. Chunks of marble, uprooted rose stems, and globs of water hovered silently in the air as if time itself had stopped ticking. Within the radius of Theo’s ultimate spell, the laws of nature were dead. Dust no longer fell to the earth; instead, it froze in mid-air, reflecting the faint moonlight like tiny, dying stars.

​Theo stood at the center of the chaos. His breath was heavy, his lungs felt as if they were on fire, but his eyes remained as sharp as a blade. He knew his body was screaming in protest, forced to endure the extreme burden of the gravity he was manipulating. He didn’t have enough time to manually destroy the ritual’s magic circle.

​"Tizmilly," he whispered. His voice sounded crystal clear amidst the absolute silence created by the gravitational vacuum. "Five minutes. Don’t let a single second go to waste."

​Tizmilly did not answer with words. She simply nodded, and immediately after, she vanished from sight. She didn’t ’fly’ in the traditional sense. Theo had instantaneously altered her gravity vectors. For Tizmilly, ’down’ was now wherever her enemy stood. She ’fell’ toward the Demon at a terrifying terminal velocity. Her movements were difficult to track; she glided between floating debris, using chunks of rock and pillar remnants as springboards to bounce, hurtling toward her prey like a silver bullet.

​The Demon roared, trying to strike the empty air with its burning fists. However, without gravity to support its mass, every attack lost its momentum. Tizmilly flew past it like blue-red lightning. As she swung the Waveblade, she no longer relied solely on the sharpness of her magic sword. She began to manipulate the extreme humidity caused by the sulfur vapors and the heat of hellfire surrounding them.

​A massive body of water gathered from the air, forming a giant, transparent crescent wave. As the water slash struck the Demon’s metallic skin, Tizmilly cast her secondary spell.

​"Ice Rose: Bloom."

​The water still clinging to the Demon’s body froze instantly. Red ice crystals in the shape of rose thorns bloomed from the pores of its metallic skin, tearing the Demon’s magic circuits apart from the inside. The Demon bellowed in agony as its giant body began to crack under the synchronized pressure of water and ice.

​Swing after swing, Tizmilly unleashed her blade, each strike landing heavier than the last. She was evolving in the heat of battle. Her synchronization with the Waveblade grew stronger every second. Tizmilly was no longer the girl wanting to flee from her past; under Theo’s command over gravity, she had transformed into a master of the storm, conducting a weightless slaughter.

​On the other side of the battlefield, Jahreon began to lose his sanity. "Anomaly! You are nothing but anomalies that I must erase!" he screamed, frantically casting dark circuits. Thick shadowy hands sprouted from his back, snaking through the air in an attempt to seize Theo, while he continued to fire orbs of darkness at Tizmilly.

​Theo evaded with minimalist movements, but his physical condition was starting to show signs of collapse. Cold sweat drenched his forehead, and his nose began to bleed—the price to be paid for manipulating the fundamental laws of the world. Yet, his aim did not waver for a second.

​Bang! Bang!

​None of Theo’s shots were aimed to kill; rather, they were meant to cripple the mana circulation within Jahreon’s body. Elemental bullets from the muzzle of the Gemgun struck Jahreon’s joints, forcing him to scream in pain every time he tried to regenerate his wounds with energy from the Abyss. The viscosity of mana around them fluctuated as if the world itself were trying to reject Theo’s existence. But the architect of gravity never stopped pressing Jahreon with cold precision.

​"You think you can win with these tricks?!" Jahreon spat, black blood leaking from his mouth. "The Abyss will never let go of its prey!"

​Theo did not respond to the provocation. He simply counted down in his head. Thirty seconds.

​Jahreon lost control over his spells and mana, which caused the ritual’s magic circle to fluctuate for a moment. Theo seized that opportunity to suddenly shift Jahreon’s gravity vector back to normal. Jahreon stopped hovering—his face went deathly pale as his body was pulled with full force toward the ground. With a loud thud, he slammed into the floating garden. A small crater formed where he fell.

​"Tizmilly, now!" Theo shouted, his voice hoarse from mana depletion.

​Tizmilly plummeted from the sky, her Waveblade now emitting a blue light so bright it swallowed the darkness. She swung her sword vertically, cleaving the Demon’s body right down the center. The blue light incinerated the dark mana of the Abyss within it until the Demon crumbled into dust, leaving nothing behind but silence.

​The final minute. The Realm of Levitation began to tremble, a sign that Theo’s consciousness was starting to fade. Jahreon, though shattered and battered, managed to let out a hollow laugh as the dust settled. The darkness within him was still clawing to reconstruct his mangled limbs.

​"It seems I underestimated you both quite contemptibly. Truly my own mistake. However," Jahreon grinned maniacally, "you cannot kill me! The Abyss is eternal! I will return and make sure to turn your lives into a living hell!"

He looked up to Tizmilly, his eyes burning. "Tizmilly Fallburn! You must remember this day for your life. Because this is the day when you threw every last sense of comraderie I felt toward you! I thought we were the same, the betrayed ones, yet you chose such foolish path, letting yourself be controlled with..."

Jahreon glared at Theo. "Him!!!"

​A thin smile formed on Theo’s face—a smile that made the hair on Jahreon’s neck stand up. "Who said I wanted to kill you? That’s too much of a waste of energy."

​With one last flick of his hand, Theo twisted the gravity vectors around Jahreon, pulling the Apostle’s body straight toward him at high speed. Before Jahreon could react, Theo gripped his jaw and forced the Demon Taming Potion down his throat—a masterpiece crafted by Dorita under Theo’s specific instructions.

​The effect was instantaneous. The crimson glow in Jahreon’s eyes dimmed, replaced by the original black eyes of a brilliant but now vacant scholar. His once wild and chaotic demonic aura turned docile. The dark entity within him ceased taking orders from Jahreon; it now submitted to the new instructions embedded within the potion. Jahreon was no longer an Apostle; he was merely a helpless, empty vessel.

​A split second later, the Realm of Levitation collapsed.

​Normal gravity slammed back into the world with full force. Every piece of debris, stone, and marble pillar fragment—along with the entire floating garden—plummeted back to earth with a colossal thud that shook the entire mansion and the grounds for dozens of meters beyond. Dust billowed high into the sky, marking the end of the long terror that had blanketed the place.

​The cold, eerie atmosphere haunting the mansion vanished, replaced by a soft, fresh breeze. The ritual’s magic circle flickered for a moment before fading completely. Jahreon was the one who had built it; once he was defeated and "tamed," the circuit lost its mana supply and failed to maintain the connection with the Abyss.

​In the middle of the ruins, Tizmilly stood panting. Her sword had returned to its sheath. She looked at Theo, who sat weakly atop a large rock. Theo looked utterly exhausted, yet his ’unshakable’ aura remained.

​Tizmilly realized something major had changed. The man before her was no longer just ’the strange guy with crazy ideas.’ Theo had become a man ready to challenge the laws of the world to achieve what he desired.

​"Job finished, Mr. Roost?" Tizmilly asked with a soft but firm smile.

​Theo chuckled softly, wiping blood from his nose. "Yeah. Now, let’s get ready to fetch my mother. Gyllena has an engagement party to face, and we have a golden opportunity to boost the restaurant’s reputation."

Tizmilly responded with a nod and a wider smile. But she tilted her head a little, looking at him curiously. "By the way, what kind of magic was that? I haven’t seen you use it before."

Theo smiled weakly. "Well... It was actually what I got after I failed to invent new spell."

Tizmilly blinked confusedly, but Theo didn’t give her the answer.

​With Jahreon tamed, Theo knew that Gyllena’s path in the future would surely differ from the original game’s plot. Perhaps this would be a major stepping stone for him and his family. Or perhaps it would be the turning point where everything began to crumble in a different way. No one knew the future for sure now. Not even Theo. His knowledge was now merely a reference, no longer an absolute prophecy.

​’Abyssal New Gate... they really are a nuisance,’ Theo thought.

​He took a long breath before rising from the ground, then walked back toward the mansion with Tizmilly, with Jahreon trailing behind them like an obedient servant.