The ground rose beneath my feet as if iron plates were being torn apart by something colossal. The beast surged from its place with a hidden roar; its steps rolled like war drums through the night. Its violet eyes swallowed the air before me, staring as if they could steal my very will.
It raised its hand, and black shards ripped through the air—spears of shadow that gripped the light. I tried to dodge, but one spear plunged into my left shoulder and I felt it drinking my life, stealing the heat from my blood and leaving a deadly chill.
The beast laughed in a hoarse voice; its words flailed at the soul:
"See? This is not a fight, this is a lesson. You weak ones only learn through pain. The more you suffer, the truer your place: beneath the feet of the strong."
I screamed as I tried to fend off its blows: "Why… do you revel in torture? Why drag the weak into oblivion?"
It stepped closer, its hand—thick as a trunk—clamped around my throat and lifted me like a broken puppet, then spat, lips full of malice:
"Because we can. Because pain breeds pleasure, and the strong have the right to decide the fate of the weak. You are a spark, and I am the storm that will snuff you."
Its grip tightened until the world narrowed and the air began to go thin. Blood burst from my mouth; the girl behind me screamed helplessly. My eyes grew heavy… but something inside me woke up—something that refused to bow.
A dark laugh tore out of my throat, not a cry of pain but the laugh of a mind that tastes freedom:
"Hahahaha… you're all the same. You delight in torment… but have you ever asked: what happens when the weak decides to become the very hell?"
My right hand flung out suddenly; it burned with a deadly flame leaning toward black. My left hand opened and spewed shadows like serpents. The fire was not ordinary—cold flames that ate the air and turned it into burning screams.
The beast staggered back for a heartbeat, shocked—but I seized its scorched arm and shouted at it: "Today… I will teach you the meaning of true torment. I will make you beg for the end… and I will deny you even that mercy!"
Flames and shadow hurled themselves together, coiling around its body, devouring it inside and out at once. The beast howled a cry that shook the ground, but I did not relent. I pressed harder; the shadows tore its limbs slowly, stripping it of itself piece by piece.
I looked into its eyes—for the first time aflame with terror—and said in a sharp tone: "You the strong… you who I now loathe. My turn to be the teacher. I will show you that the cruelest agony is to be slaughtered slowly by the one you deemed weaker than you."
Its screams faded. Its body finally bowed, but it did not fall like a cold corpse; it turned into black dust that evaporated slowly, its dying roar reverberating through the void.
I stood there, my hands ablaze—fire in the right, darkness in the left. I laughed again, a booming demonic laugh: "Hahahahaha… I am not weak anymore. I am the void… I am hell!"
The flames would not die, the shadows would not quiet. My laughter braided with rage and pain, and I spoke with steely resolve: "From today I will not seek an exit from this void—I will make it my throne. I will burn the world and all within it until they kneel before my name: Kim, King of the Void and Hell."
Amid the echo of laughter and the flare of flame, I fell—but not the kind of fall that ends things; a fall that opens a brand-new hell.