For a moment, no one moved, not Kael, not the crowd, and certainly not the thing that had just stepped out of a reflection and into the middle of a Lagos street like it belonged there. Then the screaming started. It broke the stillness instantly sharp, panicked, and human. People stumbled backward, some tripping over themselves in a desperate rush to escape, while others froze, unable to process the nightmare before them. A woman dropped her phone, the screen cracking loudly against the pavement, while the screech of tires echoed behind the crowd as drivers tried to reverse out of a situation their minds refused to accept. But Kael didn't look away. He couldn't. Because the thing in front of him was no longer half-hidden or confined to distortions; it stood fully in the open, its form stabilizing in a way that made his chest tighten. It wasn't as massive as the one from Veyruun, but it was taller than any man, its near-human shape wrong in every detail, limbs just slightly too long, posture too still, and features that shifted as if they couldn't quite settle.
Its eyes locked onto him immediately. "You see it, don't you?" Kael muttered under his breath, more to steady himself than anything else. "You followed the tear." The creature tilted its head with the same eerie awareness it had shown before, then took a step forward. Reality shifted with it; the air bent like heat rising from the ground, but sharper and more controlled. Kael felt the pressure instantly the same crushing weight from Veyruun, weaker here but no less dangerous. "Back up!" Kael shouted, his voice cutting through the rising panic. "Everyone, get back!" While some listened, most didn't, their fear making them unpredictable. Another step from the creature caused the streetlight above to flicker violently and shatter, raining glass fragments down and sending a fresh wave of screams through the crowd. That finally got their attention, and people began scattering in all directions.
Kael stepped forward, placing himself directly between the creature and the retreating crowd. His body ached, his side throbbed, and his mind screamed for caution, but this was his world, and he wasn't letting it turn into the other one. "Alright," he said, his voice low and steady. "You and me." The creature didn't rush him; instead, it watched and studied him before finally speaking. "Closer now." The voice was layered and imperfect, sounding as if it came from the air itself rather than just its mouth. "You opened the way," it added. Kael's expression hardened as he shifted his stance, searching for the edge of the world's thinness. "You keep saying that. Starting to sound like you're blaming me." The creature's lips twitched in a gesture that wasn't quite a smile. "Not blaming. Recognizing."
"Then recognize this," Kael said quietly. He moved first, energy surging through him with a sharpness he had never used on stage this was no longer a performance. He reached for the space in front of him and pulled, tearing a thin, jagged fracture into the air. The creature reacted immediately, stepping back with a sense of wary recognition. Kael pushed forward, forcing the tear wider and directing the distortion toward the entity. The warp pulled at the creature's form, destabilizing it enough to make it flicker, but it didn't disappear. Instead, it adapted, moving sideways around the tear with impossible speed and lunging. Kael barely brought his arm up in time, his energy forming a shield that absorbed an impact so powerful it sent a shock through his entire body and slid his feet across the pavement.
Pain flared in his side, sharp and immediate, but he gritted his teeth and held his ground. "Not this time," he muttered, twisting to redirect the force before driving a concentrated burst of energy into the creature's chest. The thing staggered, its form flickering violently as the impact disrupted its cohesion. Kael pressed the advantage, opening a tear directly beneath the creature to pull it back to where it belonged. The ground cracked and the air warped as the tear deepened, and for a heartbeat, it seemed to work as the creature's lower half slipped into the distortion. Then, the creature grabbed onto something non-physical, and the space stabilized. The tear snapped shut with a violent backlash that threw Kael backward, slamming his body into a parked car hard enough to dent the metal and blur his vision.
As the sound of sirens and panicked murmurs rushed back into his ears, Kael forced himself up, his breathing uneven. Using that kind of magic here was different; the world resisted it, and the cost was physical. "The cost," the creature said, stepping forward steadily. "You feel it." Kael wiped blood from his mouth, his expression tightening. "Yeah, starting to." The creature tilted its head, studying him with unsettling focus. "You are not built for both." Kael let out a quiet breath, steadying his trembling limbs. "Then I guess I'll have to learn." When the creature moved again, Kael didn't try to overpower it. He adapted, tracking the slight delays in its movements and the moments where its form destabilized. Seeing a flicker, he reached through the thinness and ripped at the creature's unstable core.
The creature jerked violently, its shape distorting as its internal alignment shattered. Kael drove forward, forcing everything he had left into one focused push to collapse the space around the entity. "Go back," he hissed through clenched teeth. The air screamed as the distortion intensified, and the creature's form finally lost cohesion, folding into itself before vanishing into a sharp ripple that faded instantly. Silence followed real silence. Kael stood there trembling, not from fear, but from the sheer strain. The street looked normal again, save for the cracked pavement and the dented car, but the air still felt thin. He had forced it again, and as he staggered against the car to catch his breath, he knew this wasn't sustainable.
The sirens were closer now, bringing the authorities and unwanted attention. Kael pushed himself upright, forcing his body to cooperate. He couldn't stay to be questioned by people who couldn't understand what they had just seen. Pulling his jacket tighter, he started walking away, blending into the chaos like just another survivor leaving the scene. But inside, nothing was calm. The creature had been right: the cost was real. And if this kept happening, it wouldn't just be the city at risk it would be him.