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.
