Anthony and Wanda in Westview, with Chu Hang (Part 1)

The rift in space tore open, and Chu Hang knew something was wrong.

The fluctuations of Chaos Magic weren't a collapse. They were a reconstruction.

Like a vast, invisible net, they wrapped around him and began forcibly rewriting him from the foundations of his existence.

The laws within him turned sluggish in an instant, as though steeped in frozen time and transformed into amber that could no longer flow. The Greed Concept instinctively tried to devour the force binding him, only to discover that it wasn't energy. It was a rule—an obsession so absolute it had a name: "love."

Greed understood obsession. It could even sense how much this obsession called "love" resembled itself at its core. Both were possessive desires taken to the extreme, unwilling to share.

He looked down at himself.

A pristine white shirt cuff encircled his wrist, fastened with a silver cufflink intricately engraved with the letters "W" and "V." The indestructible armor he remembered was gone. In its place was a tailored dark gray suit, with a vivid red carnation tucked into the breast pocket.

He instinctively tried to summon his trident, but his fingers touched only a cold briefcase. It was heavy, as though it held not documents but the weight of fate.

Chu Hang didn't panic. He calmly surveyed his surroundings.

A straight asphalt road. Pure white fences. Lawns trimmed so uniformly they looked copied and pasted. The sky was as blue as a painted backdrop, its clouds too perfect to be real. The whole world appeared in eerie shades of black, white, and gray. Only the flower on his chest and the warm yellow light shining from a distant window had any real color.

Wanda's cage. A dream she had woven for herself—and for him.

He walked forward, his polished leather shoes