The wind shifted.
Snowflakes danced through the air as a sudden pressure settled over the forest. Trees groaned under the weight of something unseen, and the sky dimmed ever so slightly—like the world itself was holding its breath.
The boy was walking back to his cabin, one hand tucked into his coat, the other casually twirling a twig he'd picked up out of boredom. The events with the last beast were already fading in his mind. He was still trying to piece together what this place was and how much of his memories he could actually trust.
Then came the sound.
A low mechanical whir. Followed by the crunch of heavy metallic limbs pressing into the snow.
He paused mid-step.
A Chariot-class Honkai beast burst through the treeline, claws sparking with corrupted energy, joints hissing steam. Its glowing core throbbed violently with hostile intent, eyes locking instantly onto the small, still figure in the clearing.
The boy blinked lazily."…Ah."He exhaled. "Another one."
The Chariot gave no warning, only action.
It lunged forward with terrifying speed, the ground shattering under the force of its weight. A claw swung—wide, sharp, fast. Enough to cleave a boulder in half.
The boy didn't flinch.
Didn't even blink.
And then…
The claw stopped.Just a hair's breadth from his face.Completely still.Frozen in space.
The beast trembled, unable to move further, though all its systems screamed that the strike had already been made. Its core glitched, confused.
The boy tilted his head slightly, looking up at the motionless claw.
"Yeah," he mumbled, "that's not gonna work."
With a slow yawn, he stepped to the side, the claw remaining exactly where it was—suspended, mid-air. The creature tried to adjust, but its movement distorted unnaturally, like trying to walk through a wall that shouldn't be there.
"You know," he said, looking at the beast with sleepy eyes, "if you fold space the right way… you can make a point and another point infinitely far apart."He lazily gestured between himself and the beast."Right now, you and I? We're not even in the same neighborhood."
The Chariot-class shrieked, frustrated, its frame vibrating violently as it attempted to break through whatever unseen wall separated them. But to no avail.
The boy simply turned around and walked a few steps back toward his cabin, not even sparing it another glance.
"Keep trying if you want," he called over his shoulder. "But you'll need more than angry robot arms and a light show to breach a folded dimension."
Behind him, the beast continued to twitch in place, claw still suspended in front of empty air, forever unable to close that impossible distance.
The boy stopped at the edge of the clearing and glanced at the snow-covered trees.
"Huh… wonder if I can weaponize that," he mused. "Fold space hard enough to crush something in the middle…"
He scratched his chin, eyes half-lidded with thought.
"Yeah. That sounds fun."
The Chariot-class beast was still stuck.
Its claws remained frozen mid-air, snarling in a glitchy stutter as it tried to push through the intangible barrier the boy had casually constructed. The folded space between them hadn't moved an inch.
The boy observed it in silence, hands in his pockets, eyes half-lidded in thought.
"Still stuck, huh?" he mumbled. "Guess it really wasn't a fluke."
With a shrug, he raised a hand.
This time, he didn't fold space between two points. He removed it.
Not all of it—just enough to create a tiny, compact vacuum.
There was no sound. No dramatic pulse of energy. Just a strange tug—like the world hiccuped. The air shimmered, and then, in an instant, the area around the beast collapsed inward.
Snow, branches, shattered debris, and the frozen Chariot-class itself were suddenly pulled forward, dragged into the point of absence like marbles rolling into a sinkhole.
The Honkai beast let out a final, corrupted screech—distorted and high-pitched—before it vanished, crumpled into the collapsing space.
And then silence.
The forest was still again.
The boy blinked. Looked at his hand. Then casually dusted it off against his coat.
"Yup," he said simply, "made a vacuum. That was easy."
He turned around, already walking away like none of it had happened.
But then—
Grrrrggghhh.
His stomach let out a deep, groaning growl that echoed a bit too dramatically in the quiet woods.
He paused. Looked down at himself.
"Oh," he muttered. "Right."
A second passed.
"...I haven't eaten since I woke up, have I?"
There was no panic. No urgency. Just the casual acceptance of someone realizing they forgot to do laundry or check the mail.
He looked up at the sky, then off toward the endless stretch of trees.
"Let's see if there's any towns nearby," he said, more to himself than anything.
Then he stretched, arms overhead, and started walking again—through the snow, through the silence, through the aftershocks of a battle that never really felt like one.
Because to him, it wasn't.