The high-pressure night wind wailed fiercely, tearing through the air atop Aethel Corp's highest tower dome. At the edge of the open-air platform overlooking the subterranean cosmic abyss, Zulfa and Vian Pratama wrestled savagely, heedless of the mortal danger surrounding them.

Thud!

An elbow strike landed squarely on Zulfa's shoulder, sending him staggering backward. Vian hauled himself up with ragged breaths, his eyes bloodshot with mounting fury. The corporate director lunged forward, grabbing Zulfa's jacket collar and shoving the youth until half his body hung suspended over the chasm's edge, staring straight down into the raging purple energy vortex below.

"Go die with your ambitions, Zulfa!" Vian screamed hysterically, throwing a punch at Zulfa's face.

Zulfa parried the blow with his remaining strength, using the momentum of his fall to drive his knee straight into Vian's stomach.

Ugh! Vian gasped, his grip slackening.

Amidst the brutal struggle, the countdown screen on the main console flickered wildly at 00:03... 00:02... 00:01 seconds remaining!

Zulfa knew he had no time left. With lightning speed, his right hand plunged into the inner pocket of his tactical vest, snatching out a small object wrapped in aged copper—the portable memory circuit left behind by Mr. Darma containing the total deactivation access codes.

Vian realized what Zulfa was holding. His face drained white with profound panic.

"No! Don't do that, you fool! You'll destroy our system!" Vian shouted, trying to wrench the chip away.

Too late.

With every ounce of his strength and iron will, Zulfa ignored Vian's thrashing hands and slammed the portable memory circuit chip straight into the main port slot of the reactor core on the console platform.

BZZZT—KRAAK-BOOM!

A deafening, high-frequency hum shrieked instantly. The copper chip melted into the main circuitry, triggering a cataclysmic chain reaction. Rather than spawning a destructive blast, the reactor system violently reversed—flipping the entire flow of cosmic energy waves completely backward.

An explosion of pure golden-white energy burst from the console, sweeping clean across the entire room in a heartbeat.

"Arghhhh—!" Vian Pratama screamed as the shockwave of pure energy slammed squarely into his frame.

The blinding light swallowed everything. When the light waves gradually subsided, Vian was pitched backward by the backlash of the dimensional current. His boots lost their footing on the slick steel plating floor.

"Zulfa... HELP ME!" Vian shrieked in panic, stretching out a hand as his body slipped downward, sliding straight into the cosmic chasm.

Zulfa lunged forward alertly, extending his right hand to try and catch Vian's wrist. Yet the reversing dimensional energy vortex sucked everything nearby in with the force of a thousand horsepower.

Whoosh—!

The cosmic backcurrent proved too strong. Vian's fingers slipped entirely from Zulfa's grasp. The corporate director shrieked hysterically as his body was dragged down into the closing dimensional vortex, swallowed by the void without a trace.

Zulfa was hurled backward by the blast wave of the closing rift, slamming hard against the steel deck plating. He panted heavily, crawling forward on the remnants of his strength to gaze down into the subterranean abyss.

Down below, the purple energy vortex that had raged so wildly now steadily shrank, dimmed, and finally sealed shut permanently.

The console countdown screen went pitch black. The entire system of Aethel Corp's primary cosmic reactor in the room powered down completely. A profound silence instantly replaced the screaming turbines that had operated for decades.

Zulfa let out a long breath, dropping his head against the steel flooring as he closed his eyes, feeling an overwhelming wave of relief flood his chest. We did it... The rift is closed... he thought weakly.

Yet that victory was short-lived.

Before Zulfa could recover his drained physical strength, a violent mechanical tremor suddenly rippled upward from the upper sections of the skyscraper.

Kr-r-ack... bzzzt!

The sound of warping, snapping metal rang sharp from the tower dome overhead. Due to total power failure and energy overload from the emergency current reversal, the building's primary structural framework lost its gravity load-bearing capacity.

Zulfa opened his eyes wide, looking up.

Before him, massive reinforced concrete pillars and the glass dome ceiling of the main skyscraper tower overhead began to fracture violently, shattering into millions of pieces and collapsing slowly, threatening to bring the entire apex of the corporate tower crashing down upon the surrounding district.