The entire highway had become a burning graveyard.
Twisted steel.
Exploding fuel tanks.
Overturned vehicles.
Screaming metal.
The once-orderly road now resembled the aftermath of a war zone illuminated by roaring flames and drifting black smoke.
Inside the wrecked minivan, Scarlett's ears rang violently.
For several seconds, she couldn't hear anything clearly.
Blood trickled slowly down the side of her forehead.
The airbag had exploded directly against her face moments earlier, leaving her dizzy and disoriented.
But even through the pain, she understood one terrifying fact immediately.
This was no ordinary accident.
Death had gone completely mad.
The bridge collapse.
The chain collision.
The impossible timing.
Everything had been arranged deliberately.
And now—
it was trying to kill them both at once.
Scarlett forced herself to stay conscious.
The protective charms hanging against her chest radiated intense heat.
One had already shattered.
Then another.
Then another.
Even without checking, she could feel the fragments crumbling apart beneath her clothes.
The charms were running out.
And Death still wasn't stopping.
A deep metallic groan echoed above her.
Scarlett instinctively looked upward.
Her pupils contracted instantly.
A crushed sedan was sliding downward from the pileup overhead, directly toward the roof of their vehicle.
If they had still been driving the sports car—
they would already be dead.
Scarlett immediately abandoned any thought of restarting the minivan.
The engine was completely destroyed anyway.
She reached for the side door handle and pulled hard.
Nothing happened.
The collision had crushed the frame inward.
The door wouldn't move at all.
Outside, flames spread rapidly across leaking gasoline.
The temperature inside the vehicle continued rising.
Scarlett gritted her teeth and turned toward the shattered side window instead.
That was their only path out.
She climbed awkwardly over the damaged seats, ignoring the sharp pain in her bruised ribs.
Then she pushed herself through the broken opening.
Halfway out—
warm liquid suddenly dripped onto the back of her hand.
Engine oil.
Her grip slipped instantly.
Before she could recover, her body lost balance completely.
The jagged remains of shattered glass rose violently upward as the damaged frame shifted.
Scarlett's eyes widened in terror.
The razor-sharp glass edge pierced toward her abdomen.
She struggled desperately, but there was nowhere to brace herself.
She could already imagine her body being sliced open.
Then—
burning heat erupted from her chest again.
Another talisman shattered.
CRACK.
At the same instant, the damaged car door hinge snapped loose under the pressure.
Scarlett fell forward out of the vehicle and slammed onto the asphalt.
The deadly glass edge narrowly missed cutting through her stomach.
She lay there gasping heavily.
Fourth talisman.
Gone.
Less than five minutes.
Four charms destroyed already.
Her entire body trembled.
This wasn't survival anymore.
This was simply delaying death.
But then her eyes drifted instinctively toward the passenger seat.
Lucien Blackwood still hadn't woken up.
Worse—
blood was slowly leaking from the corner of his mouth.
Scarlett's heart tightened violently.
The repeated impacts must have injured him internally.
"Lucien…"
Fear surged through her chest.
Ignoring her own injuries, Scarlett climbed back toward the passenger side and dragged him out with enormous effort.
Lucien's body felt frighteningly limp.
His eyes remained closed.
His breathing was shallow.
Scarlett's hands shook.
Then suddenly she remembered the remaining protective charms inside her coat.
Without hesitation, she pulled several out and pressed them against Lucien's chest beneath his shirt.
Only then did she wrap one of his arms around her shoulder and force herself upright.
"Lucien…"
"We won't die…"
She didn't even know if she was speaking to him or herself anymore.
Supporting Lucien's weight was incredibly difficult.
The height difference between them made every step exhausting.
Yet Scarlett continued forward stubbornly through smoke and flames.
She remembered what Lucien had said earlier.
Open spaces.
The fewer surrounding objects there were, the less opportunity Death would have to manipulate coincidences.
So she headed toward the widest part of the road.
Behind them—
BOOM!!
The minivan exploded.
A wall of fire erupted upward instantly.
Flaming gasoline spread rapidly across the pavement, cutting off the path behind them.
Scarlett immediately turned another direction.
But flames spread there too.
Almost deliberately.
Like something was herding them.
Scarlett stopped briefly and looked around.
Every direction was burning.
Except one.
A narrow opening remained between the walls of fire.
Just enough space for two people to pass through.
Scarlett stared at it silently.
Then she understood.
Death was mocking them.
It was watching their struggle.
Enjoying it.
The so-called Grim Reaper wanted to witness their desperate attempt to survive before finally killing them.
Scarlett tightened her grip around Lucien and continued forward through the burning corridor.
Heat scorched her skin painfully.
Smoke filled her lungs.
Then another explosion erupted behind them.
A violent shockwave nearly threw her off balance completely.
Metal debris blasted through the air.
Car fragments spun toward them like shrapnel.
But each deadly fragment barely missed.
Two more talismans shattered.
Then came the sound of screaming brakes.
A truck horn blared endlessly in the distance.
The deafening crash that followed shook the entire highway.
A massive transport truck smashed through several wrecked vehicles before overturning sideways.
One tumbling car spun directly past Scarlett's head.
More talismans broke.
Seventh.
Eighth.
Ninth.
Tenth.
By the time the wreckage finally stopped moving—
twelve charms had already been destroyed.
The surrounding streetlights suddenly sparked violently.
Several lampposts collapsed toward them.
Again, they narrowly missed.
More charms shattered.
Exposed power lines whipped wildly across the wet pavement like living black serpents.
Electricity crackled across the ground.
Scarlett gritted her teeth and dragged Lucien through the deadly field.
Fifteenth.
Sixteenth.
Gone.
All the protective charms had been exhausted.
Every single one.
Scarlett finally stopped moving.
Her legs trembled violently from exhaustion.
Around them, the highway had become eerily empty.
No civilians.
No rescuers.
Only flames.
Smoke.
And death.
Then she heard it.
A distant roaring sound from above.
Scarlett slowly lifted her head.
Her face turned pale instantly.
A burning passenger airplane was falling from the sky.
The flaming wreckage spun downward directly toward them.
There was nowhere left to run.
Nowhere left to escape.
Scarlett stared silently at the approaching inferno.
Then, slowly—
she lowered Lucien onto the ground beside her.
And sat down next to him.
The fear gradually disappeared from her face.
All that remained was exhaustion.
"…I tried," she whispered softly.
The flames reflected across her tear-filled eyes.
The crashing airplane descended closer and closer.
The entire world became engulfed in blinding fire.
And then—
everything disappeared beneath the explosion.
Somewhere nearby, from the twisted remains of a destroyed vehicle, faint music still played through damaged speakers.
"He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year…"
"Coming home to a place he'd never been before…"
The soft voice of John Denver drifted briefly through the burning night before another explosion drowned it out completely.
Like the cold laughter of death itself.
—
Meanwhile—
near the airport several miles away—
a few frightened men and women sat together in shock, grateful their friends had convinced them to miss their flight earlier that day.
None of them knew how narrowly they had escaped death.
And none of them noticed—
inside the blazing remains of the highway disaster—
something black slowly rose into the air.
It resembled smoke.
But thicker.
Darker.
Alive.
The shapeless black mass floated upward silently, twisting and shifting like an enormous living shadow.
Its presence radiated indescribable malice.
It lingered above the wreckage briefly—
as though searching for its next target.
Then suddenly—
the black mist froze.
Violent agitation spread through its body.
The entity began thrashing wildly.
Something was wrong.
It was trying to leave—
but couldn't.
Like an animal trapped inside an invisible cage.
Then a calm voice echoed through the flames.
"Catching you really wasn't easy."
The black mist trembled violently.
A figure slowly emerged from the sea of fire.
Lucien Blackwood.
Completely unharmed.
The surrounding flames twisted around him without touching even the edge of his clothing.
Though his face looked somewhat pale, a faint smile rested there calmly.
Scarlett's "dead" body nearby slowly dissolved into drifting paper talismans.
An illusion.
A substitute technique.
Lucien stepped forward slowly, his dark eyes fixed on the struggling black entity above.
"I spent a long time thinking about how to deal with something intangible."
"A conceptual existence."
"But I kept failing to find an answer."
"Because I didn't know where you truly existed."
"How you observed me."
"How you tracked my movements."
Lucien raised one hand slightly.
Golden talisman fragments floated around him within the firelight.
"I should've detected your evil aura long ago."
"But then I realized something."
"You're worshipped as a god."
"Faith disguises your true nature."
"Like covering rotten clay with gold paint."
The black mist twisted violently.
For the first time since this nightmare began—
Death itself looked afraid.