I raised my hands toward the dead sky, shadows coiling around my wrists while black fire roared in my palms. My last words still echoed in the silence:
> "I am… the King of Void and Hell."
And though the echoes of my laughter still clung to the shattered city walls, something else stirred within me—an emptiness greater than before, a world without doors, without end.
I stepped forward. Ash covered the path, and the only sound was my footsteps, as though writing a new line in a book someone had forced me to read.
I walked for long… I don't know how much time passed. Time here was no time at all, and the road twisted in a deadly loop. Suddenly I felt as if I had returned to the beginning—the same ruins, the same gray horizon, the same poisoned air.
I clenched my fist. "Something's wrong."
Before I could think further, I heard the roar. Beasts emerged from the mist—their bodies twisted, their eyes burning, their fangs glinting as if starved for a thousand years.
Before I could unleash my flame upon them, I saw something in the chaos: a girl.
A fragile human body crouched behind a rock, her breath broken, her eyes full of desperate hope.
I gasped: "A human? Like me? Here?"
No time to think. The beasts circled her like wolves. I surged forward, fire and shadow exploding from my hands.
"Stay away from her!" I roared.
Battle erupted. My strikes fell like thunder, flames devouring one beast after another. But then… something strange.
Each time one fell, it crumbled to dust—only to rise again from the smoke. Their number didn't fall. It grew, as if I were fighting an endless mirage of hatred.
As I fought, my gaze was drawn upward—to the peak nearby. There stood a different beast, towering, its eyes glowing with wicked light, a devil's smile stretching across its face as it watched me like a rat in a maze.
Its voice, heavy and poisonous, sank into my chest:
> "Pathetic… You fight ashes and think you're winning. Haven't you realized yet? This land is a game, and I am its master. Every strike of yours cuts only an illusion… while your truth is this: you are trapped in a nightmare without end."
I froze. The beasts around me dissolved suddenly, the air itself breaking with the sound of his steps as he descended the peak. His power was different—no mere beast, but a nightmare given flesh.
He lunged, striking me with a force that hurled me into the ground. Pain shattered through my bones. I tried to rise, but his fist was faster, crushing me as he laughed.
His laughter pierced my ears like blades:
> "You are weak. Pathetically weak. You don't even deserve to be my plaything."
Kim: "A toy? Are you insane?"
Then—darkness. I knew nothing more until I saw him before me again.
He tore into me, blow after blow. Blood spilled, my body cracked, the fire in my chest began to fade. It wasn't battle—it was torture.
I lifted my head with effort, blood dripping from my lips. And I asked myself: Why? Why does everyone who holds power choose to torture the weaker?
But in the depths of me, something else ignited. Not the fire of my right hand, nor the shadow of my left—something born from the heart itself.
I smiled through the blood, my voice broken yet carrying a demonic echo:
> "You laugh because you're stronger? You crush me because I'm weaker? Then hear me, beast… Every tyrant who revels in tormenting the weak will one day taste a torment he cannot forget."
The beast faltered—his laughter stilled.
I raised my bloodied hand, fire and shadow erupting together, pain itself fueling the storm. I locked my eyes with his and whispered:
> "Now… I'll show you the meaning of true suffering. I'll tear you apart like no creature has ever been torn before."
Flame and shadow fused into my flesh, my entire being turning into a living hell. I grinned, not with sanity, but with delicious madness:
> "Today… begins the reign of the King of Void and Hell."