Chapter 36: Black Crown
The tower stood clean.
No missing windows. No rusted scaffold. No bloodstains on the concrete lip of its rooftop. A single structure, untouched, rising straight through the ash haze like nothing ever happened. Out of place. Untouched. Wrong.
Around it, everything else told the truth.
Collapsed highways sank into seawater and rebar. Rooftops leaned like broken teeth. Makeshift wires and gang-stitched antenna rigs stretched between dead buildings like veins, feeding off what signal still leaked in from the world beyond.
This was the Sunken Coastline.
Some still called it Koryo. Some just said Shatterbay.
Didn't matter.
Nobody ruled here. No Kings. No councils. Just corporate warbands, shard cults, and whatever was left of human instinct. Territory meant checkpoints, and checkpoints meant fangs. Or worse.
The tower was Changhar's only clean spire. A private shell left over from before the collapse. Whoever held it now had the resources to repair windows and paint walls. So they did. That was the law here. Power got to pretend.
Everything else rotted.
Below, streets twisted into coastal sink. Fog clung to the foundation like it couldn't decide what realm it belonged to. The sea didn't move right anymore. Some said it breathed. Others said it whispered. No one wanted to check.
And yet the tower stayed.
No dungeons dropped on it. No Fae grew through its floors. No Spirit Realm scavengers nested in its stairwells.
It was waiting...
And someone was coming.
A scream rode the clouds.
Not wind. Not wings. Just blood. A seething torrent of red, screaming with a woman's voice as it cut through the coastal air and banked toward the high-rise. No wings, no flesh, just rage and velocity.
It hit an open window halfway up the tower.
The garden room inside, ferns, herbs, even a few tech-grown fruits, flared with alarms as the blood poured in. It spiraled through the room in a whipping cyclone, rattling furniture, tearing leaves from stems, coating every surface in hot mist.
Then it slammed down. One single, wet impact. Like a waterfall forced into skin.
And Hye-jin hit the floor, naked and coughing, blood still draining from her nose and eyes as she gasped through clenched teeth.
A skull, sitting neatly in the crook of a bonsai tree, twitched.
Veins bubbled. Tendons snapped like string pulled tight. Then a spine whipped out of the base, dragging ribcage and shoulder and jaw with it. Flesh rolled like hot wax over forming hips. Breasts surged from a flat sternum. Hair spilled down her back, long and black, pubes bristling in full bloom.
Yu-na exhaled through new lungs, gasping once, then curling into herself, teeth bared.
The ground bulged near them. Roots clawed free, writhing, tangled with dirt and blood. A final heave launched something from the earth like a vomiting wound, and Ji-yoon landed face-first, bile and soil dripping from her lips.
Three bodies. Barely breathing, and shaking with fury.
The Woon sisters were back.
Yu-na moved first. Her eyes locked on Hye-jin like knives drawn.
"What the fuck was that?! You better have a good explanation—"
Her tone dropped. Cold. Dead.
"—or I'll kill you."
Hye-jin didn't flinch. Blood still pooled at her feet, but the bleeding had stopped. Strength returned slow but steady. All three of them had used their emergency spells, one-time failsafes they'd nearly died acquiring. Guaranteed escape at a cost. Three levels, burned. Each.
Even now, Hye-jin didn't regret it. Her chest still pounded with what could've been.
"You didn't feel it? Even with your garbage perception, you should've. We were going to die."
"Bullshit!"
Yu-na snapped.
"The dark lord hadn't even crossed!"
"She's right."
Ji-yoon wiped dirt from her mouth, reaching into her inventory. She pulled out a vial, popped the cork, and downed it. Her skin flushed back to color as the potion kicked in.
"The gate exploded."
She tossed the bottle aside.
"Snapped my ribs."
Ji-yoon stripped the remains of her clothes without fanfare, blood and soil streaking her thighs.
"Was it a betrayal?"
She asked, her tone casual, like asking about the weather.
"I doubt it."
Hye-jin turned and walked toward the far end of the garden room, toward the artificial pool nestled among the trees and moss wall. Water flowed from the ceiling like a manufactured waterfall, crafted to mimic nature. Luxury built on rot. Pausing for a moment, she shook her head.
"And it wasn't Ellie."
Yu-na's fists clenched, jaw tight. She wanted to blame someone. She needed to.
"If I don't get that seed, I don't complete the quest! Where is it, Hye-jin?! Where's my fucking seed?!"
Hye-jin ignored the tantrum. She stepped into the pool. Blood slid from her legs in sheets, drifting toward the garden soil as her body sank deeper.
"The only thing that makes sense…"
Her voice remained calm, cool, practiced.
"Is something went wrong on the other side. Our ritual worked. The summoning was perfect. Something...interfered."
Water rose to her chest. She tilted her head back, soaking her hair and rinsing red from her skin. The blood flowed like dye through the pool, feeding the roots of the ferns nearby.
She seemed collected, even nonchalant, but inside...her body burned. The moisture between her thighs wasn't all blood. Not even close.
She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. No one knew, not even her sisters, how close calls lit something inside her. How near-death made her throb. Even now, her pulse was trapped between fear and heat.
"When we're cleaned up, I'll contact the demon. One way or another, we'll get what's owed."
From the edge of the pool, Yu-na and Ji-yoon exchanged a look. They knew that voice. When Hye-jin got like this, there was no stopping her.
Feeling a bit of their tension ease, both stepped into the water. They washed the filth away, each lost in their own thoughts, their own losses.
But later, after they were clean, after they dressed, after they lit the communication circle again, they tried. They tried multiple times. Over and over. Once, they even sacrificed one of their maids for extra fuel.
Nothing. No contact. No answer. No ripple in the void.
Hell was silent.
----
Back to when the gate exploded.
Not like on earth. Not even close.
A mushroom cloud of fire and pressure roared through the boneyards, ten times the size of what had crossed. It ate the horizon, arms of black lightning tearing through the clouds, carving into the Maw. A soundless quake followed. The world groaned. Then cracked.
For nearly thirty minutes, it didn't stop. Just pulsed, growing, shrinking, shifting, until the very idea of sound or time fell apart. Then the cloud started to settle, the heat began to fall, and the Maw exhaled.
The Boneyards were gone. Glassed.
Every jagged ridge. Every corpse pillar. Every mark of ruin. Erased. The fortress? Nothing left. Not stone. Not gate. Not bone. Not imp. Just crater. Just silence.
The soul stones had been full. Too full. All that power, all that failure, caged until it couldn't be anymore. And now? Now only a mound remained. A blister of warped ruin and fused flesh, right at the center. And it moved.
The mound twitched, then split.
Skaal'ar.
He wasn't whole. Not even close.
Only one arm left, and it wasn't skin anymore, just cords of exposed muscle and twitching veins, like worms choking themselves to death. His torso was torn open. Intestines cooked. Bone porous from heat. His back had fused with the slag beneath him.
But he breathed. Somehow, he breathed.
His mouth opened. Teeth missing. Tongue burnt black.
"Nghh—"
A gasp. A gargle. Then:
"I'll forgive you. I... I'll share it. Everything. We—"
A cough ripped a part of his chest.
"We can start now."
Panic started to take root. His head twitched.
"Please... Please...!"
He wasn't looking anywhere. Just staring. Empty sockets locked to his own shredded gut. He tried to crawl. Couldn't. His flesh sagged and peeled back with every movement.
Then a voice answered.
Not a scream. Not a roar. Just... a voice.
"It's my birthright."
Green fire erupted in his skull.
Skaal'ar shrieked.
"You da—?!"
His body spasmed, like it was fighting itself. His arm clawed at his belly, digging in, trying to hold it in. Too late. Blood poured from his nose, ears, throat, pores. Steam lifted from every inch.
His spine bent. His chest sank.
The inside of him started to move. Something pushed up.
Muscle tore. Bone snapped.
Then his ribs cracked apart from the inside out, one by one, like a maw being opened.
And it ate him.
Skaal'ar's own flesh twisted into a funnel, devouring itself, as black talons pulled his body inward. The scream never ended, only warped, higher, thinner, full of gurgling wet panic, until nothing was left but twitching meat.
The birth took its time.
But when the thing pulled itself free, there was no cry. No breath.
Only movement.
It stood, slow. Tall.
Steam rippled off its human-like body in waves. Muscles taut. Carved. Limbs perfect. Black oil skin gleaming. No face. No eyes. No mouth. Nothing.
Then horns. Two. Thick and curved. Began to rise from its forehead, slow and deliberate, growing upward like bone carved from night.
And when they finished?
A crown formed. Not forged. Not placed. Just born. It hovered above the thing's head, slick and jagged, dripping black sludge down its shoulders and chest. Each drop hit the ground like acid.
The thing stretched. Fingers popped. Joints realigned.
Then it laughed. A deep, cavernous laugh. Inhuman. Endless. It broke the air. Broke the ground. The entire glassed plain shattered into a billion shards, suspended in the air for a second, frozen...then detonated outward like a shockwave of death.
When it cleared, only the demon remained.
Still smiling. Still faceless.
Only the mouth had formed now.
Rows of teeth. Sharp. Clean. Unstoppable.
And it spoke.
"Where did you go, little imp?"
A grin. A breath.
"Where did you go?"