**CHAPTER 19: **
The sky tore wider.
It wasn't just a rift anymore—it was a *mouth*, a jagged maw of swirling darkness that devoured the horizon. The clouds themselves recoiled, shredded into wisps as something colossal stirred within the abyss. Seoul's skyscrapers trembled, their glass facades cracking under the weight of the pressure rolling off the anomaly.
Seun's shadow soldiers froze mid-motion.
Not out of fear.
Out of *recognition*.
**[SYSTEM ALERT: MONARCH-CLASS ENTITY DETECTED]**
**[IDENTIFICATION: SUBJECT ZERO]**
**[STATUS: ██████ ██ ████████]**
Then the world screamed.
---
### **THE WRONG SHADOW**
The first thing that emerged from the rift wasn't a body.
It was a *sound*—a frequency so low it liquefied concrete, reducing the ruins of the Lazarus facility to slurry. Seun's shadow veins flared in response, forming a protective barrier just as the wave hit. His soldiers weren't as lucky.
Seven of them *shattered*.
Not dissolved, not dismissed—*shattered*, like glass statues dropped from a great height. Their fragments didn't fade into darkness. They *crawled*, scraping across the ground toward the rift, pulled by some invisible force.
The Lazarus director let out a wet, gurgling laugh. "It calls them home, Master."
Seun backhanded the creature hard enough to rupture its shadowform. "Silence."
Above them, the rift pulsed.
And *it* stepped out.
Subject Zero wasn't human. Not anymore.
It was a silhouette stretched into the shape of a man, its edges bleeding into the air like ink in water. Where Seun's shadows were precise—scalpel-sharp and controlled—this thing's darkness *rippled*, alive in a way that defied physics. Its face was a smooth plane, featureless save for a single vertical gash where a mouth should be.
When it spoke, the words didn't come from the gash.
They came from *inside Seun's skull*.
**"You wear his crown."**
The pressure spiked. Seun's knees buckled, his bones groaning under the weight of the gaze now fixed upon him. The System interface flickered wildly:
**[WARNING: SHADOW INTEGRATION CRITICAL]**
**[CURRENT: 89%]**
**[RECOMMENDED ACTION: SEVER CONNECTION]**
Seun bared his teeth. "I don't take advice from ghosts."
Subject Zero tilted its head.
Then it *moved*.
---
### **TWO MONARCHS CLASH**
The first blow sent Seun through three collapsed walls.
He barely registered the impact—Void Step activated on instinct, phasing him through the debris just before it crushed him. His counterattack was pure reflex: a concentrated beam of abyssal energy ripped from his palm, carving a molten trench through the battlefield.
Subject Zero didn't dodge.
It *ate* the beam.
The darkness splashed against its chest—and vanished, absorbed into that endless void of a body. The gash on its face *stretched*. A smile.
**"You are still a child."**
Seun's remaining soldiers surged forward, a wave of blades and gunfire. Subject Zero didn't even turn. Shadows *unspooled* from its back, lashing out like whips. Where they struck, soldiers didn't just fall—they *turned*, their loyalty overwritten in an instant.
A Korean Hunter, bisected by Seun earlier, lurched upright—his severed halves stitched together by Subject Zero's darkness. His voice was a chorus of overlapping whispers when he spoke.
"The First Monarch welcomes you, pretender."
Seun barely dodged the man's corrupted sword strike.
This wasn't a fight.
It was an *exorcism*.
---
### **THE SYSTEM'S BETRAYAL**
Mid-duel, the System's voice changed.
No longer detached. Now *hungry*.
**[INTEGRATION: 92%]**
**[ADVANCEMENT OPPORTUNITY DETECTED]**
**[ACCEPT Y/N?]**
Seun's vision doubled. For a fraction of a second, he saw *through* the System's interface—past the sterile blue text, into the writhing mass of something *alive* coiled beneath the code.
It stared back.
He rejected the prompt.
The System *hissed*.
**[COMPULSION OVERRIDE ENGAGED]**
**[DP COST INCREASED BY 300% FOR ALL ABILITIES]**
His next Void Step *burned*, draining vitality like an open wound.
Subject Zero's laughter echoed inside his ribs.
**"Now you see."**
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