As Edwin savored his last bite, a commotion suddenly erupted near the market fountain. The music stopped abruptly. The townspeople scattered as three figures clad in tattered indigo robes pushed through the crowd—their movements too smooth, too strange. One of them sharply turned its head toward Edwin, revealing empty eyes that glowed with a faint purple hue. A scout from Berkah Nusantara. Seraphine leaped out of the inn's door, biting her thumb. "Edwin, get down!" she shouted. Three blood needle stabs pierced the throat of one of the fanatical scouts, who fell dead. The remaining two scouts fled—one leaping east of town and the other west toward the town's exit.
Edwin and Seraphine split up to chase them. Edwin ran after the scout heading west. The fleeing scout suddenly stopped, his elongated fingers glowing with unstable dream energy. He turned around, smiled, and said, "Gotcha." Instantly, he transformed into a dark chaotic werewolf. The terrifying howl made Edwin and the people around him shiver. The werewolf began attacking everything around it as if it had lost its mind. Everyone around panicked and ran, and the werewolf chased after anyone who ran, attacking them while eating and gnawing on their flesh.
The werewolf looked at Edwin. Its gaze was filled with greed and wildness. The werewolf slowly ran toward Edwin, like a wolf wanting to prey on a rabbit. Edwin was frozen in place and couldn't do anything with his two batons. "Grrooowwwlll!!!" The werewolf attacked Edwin, and "bang! bang! bang!" The werewolf was shot in the head and body and finally collapsed. "Phew... I guess I arrived just in time," a teenage boy with a tactical rifle said with relief while kicking the lifeless body of the chaotic werewolf. Edwin felt relieved but also confused. Who was this teenager who had helped him? "Thank you for your help, but we should now go help my friend. He's on the eastern side of town." The teenager replied calmly, "Oh, Lydia has already gone there to help him. She must be..." Suddenly, a flash of light and the sound of a laser beam appeared in the eastern corner of town. Edwin and the teenager immediately ran toward it. Out of breath, they arrived and saw Seraphine, exhausted from fighting, and a woman whose hands resembled laser guns aimed at the charred chaotic creature.
"Oh, hi Edwin!" Lydia said, transforming her laser weapon hand back to normal. Finally, two of them introduced themselves to Edwin and Seraphine. It turned out that the teenager who saved Edwin was Jeihan, Edwin's younger brother who had died since he birth in the real world and was now living in the Nusantara realm. The cyborg-like woman named Lydia was an AI who had a human body and lived like a human being. Edwin's breath caught in his throat as he stared at Jeihan—the brother he'd never met, whose face still held traces of their mother's cheekbones. The boy grinned, slinging his rifle over one shoulder with practiced ease. "Dad said you'd be taller," he teased, nudging Edwin's arm with his elbow. Seraphine wiped sweat from her brow, her silver-tipped nails retracting as she studied Lydia. The AI woman blinked, her irises cycling through colors like a resetting machine before settling into warm amber.