Zulfa's consciousness felt forcibly ripped from his physical frame. He tumbled headlong down an endless, hollow corridor where millions of splintered fragments of time and memory spun wildly around him like a glass storm. When the violent surge of energy finally halted, the young engineer found himself standing atop an expansive mirror floor that reflected a bloody, darkened sky.

There was no thunderous roar of the factory nor the hissing of underground pipes. Only an absolute, bone-chilling silence remained.

Zulfa panted heavily, clutching his throbbing head. He raised his eyes slowly, and his breath caught instantly in his throat. Across the horizon of the mirror floor loomed a massive vision—a premonition of the city's total annihilation.

Skyscrapers melted and collapsed into ash, the earth split open to vomit dimensional lava, and millions of human souls were sucked up into a permanent cosmic gate vortex towering in the night sky. Atop the highest altar tower in that vision stood the master puppeteer, fully transformed into a dark god entity lording over the void of space.

"No... this cannot happen," Zulfa muttered in horror, stepping backward as he shook his head slowly. "This is just an illusion... a future that hasn't happened yet!"

"Yet that future becomes reality if you surrender here, Zulfa."

A deeply familiar baritone echoed softly all around the empty expanse.

Zulfa whipped around. Before him stood a transparent, sharply suited shadow with a warm smile on his face—the projection of his late father's consciousness, Dr. Aris Arditama.

"Dad...?" Zulfa whispered with a trembling voice, tears spilling slowly down his cheeks. He rushed toward his father's apparition. "Dad, where am I? Why am I trapped inside this horrifying vision?"

Dr. Aris smiled calmly, opening his arms to welcome his son. "You're standing across the dimensional mirror, Zul. The mystic artery you sealed earlier acted as a bridge of pure consciousness. This space wasn't created to kill you, but to test the strength of the resolve burning in your chest."

Zulfa clenched his fists tight, fixing his father's projection with a gaze heavy with pain and the weight of the past. "I'm tired, Dad. The burden of saving this city, our family secrets, and the shadow of The Foundation Council... it feels like my shoulders can't bear it alone anymore. Why must our bloodline shoulder a destiny this heavy?"

Dr. Aris's apparition stepped closer, reaching out to rest a hand on Zulfa's shoulder. Though intangible, the emotional warmth seeped straight into the youth's soul.

"Because from the very first day you drafted the blueprints of your dreams in that cramped bedroom, Zulfa, you ceased to be an ordinary engineer," his father spoke with absolute authority and affection. "The Arditama family didn't pass down a curse; we passed down a key. You are the guardian of the gate between the human world and the cosmos. The doubts plaguing you now aren't weakness, but the shadow of your own fears."

Suddenly, from beneath the mirror floor all around them, dark figures burst forth—mirrored likenesses of Zulfa himself, radiating an aura of profound despair, rage, and deep-seated terror. The doppelgangers began to whisper mockingly, clawing at his sanity.

“You're going to fail... your friends will die on the surface...” “Vian is gone, but the grand architect is far stronger than you imagine...” “Why fight when this city is doomed to fall?”

Zulfa clamped both hands over his ears, groaning in agony as the whispers slammed into his mind repeatedly. This was an internal war against his own doubts in the void of the dimensional chamber.

"Get away! You aren't me!" Zulfa roared, opening his eyes with a glare blazing with fury.

He drew a deep breath, casting off every ounce of fear and doubt. He thought of Naya fighting in the upper quarantine zone, Captain Danu staking his life in the Northern District, and his sacred vow before Mr. Darma's grave.

Zulfa straightened his posture, fixing those doubt-filled specters with a confident smile. "I'm not fighting alone. I'm an engineer who builds the future, not a slave to despair!"

With a single, forceful sweep of his empty hand, a shockwave of pure willpower erupted from Zulfa's chest, sweeping those doubts away in a heartbeat and shattering them into a million glittering white fragments of light.

Dr. Aris's projection smiled proudly, nodding slowly before his form dissolved into the light. "Your time is up, my son. Go back... the real world awaits you."

Bzzzt—Whoosh!

Zulfa gasped violently, blowing his eyes wide open.

He found himself pitched backward onto the steel platform plating of the subterranean water treatment plant. Roni and Jefri rushed to his side in a panic, hauling Zulfa up to his feet.

"Zul! Are you alright?! You were unresponsive for nearly ten full minutes!" Roni cried anxiously, checking Zulfa over.

Zulfa shook his head slowly, steadying his ragged breath. He glanced down at the Aether-Tech tracker in his grip to check the mission timeline.

Yet upon reading the time metrics on the device screen, Zulfa's eyes blew wide in shock.

"Wait... how long was I trapped in that vision?" Zulfa panicked.

"Nearly ten minutes right here, Engineer!" Jefri answered fast.

Zulfa shook his head fiercely. "That's not what I mean... Out there, in the real world..."

He checked the digital clock on his device synced to the city's satellite network. Real-time had not flowed normally; time passing out there had accelerated vastly faster than he anticipated due to the dimensional gravity distortion.

The time remaining for them to stop the grand architect's ritual atop the city's highest tower was now down to mere hours. Their mission window had plummeted drastically, forcing Zulfa and his team to move ten times faster before the permanent dimensional gate cracked wide open.