Kim stood in the square, the throne of darkness leaking from his body like heavy smoke, swallowing the colors around him.
The city was painted in ash, and people fled screaming:
— "Monster! He is not human!"
The heroes moved first.
The man wreathed in fire lunged like a bolt of flame, his fist a burning mace.
Kim raised his hand, and a black abyss opened before him, swallowing the flames whole.
But before he could catch his breath, the woman who controls time clapped her hands…
and suddenly his body froze. He felt his heart stop, his veins go cold, everything around petrified in an instant!
The System screamed inside him:
— "She froze your temporal moment! Fight, Kim, or you will be buried here!"
With his eyes still bound, tongues of darkness ignited. The temporal bonds shattered, and a black light exploded tearing the streets apart.
But the super-speed teen appeared behind him instantly, delivering a hundred strikes in less than a second.
Kim's blood splattered, his chest was shattered, even the ground beneath him cleaved!
Kim spat blood and laughed madly:
— "Even if you tear me apart… you will have only a raving corpse!"
He unleashed the "Throne of the Abyss," and souls began to be drawn from the bodies of nearby innocents. Their screams filled the sky, and their eyes turned into black holes before their husks collapsed.
The heroes froze for a moment in horror.
Then…the Dimensional Wardens moved.
Seven masked faces encircled him. One raised a spear that shone with undying stars and drove it into the ground.
A colossal cosmic beam shot up, piercing his body in half; the darkness around him splintered like glass.
Kim screamed, his eyes burning black tears:
— "This… this is impossible…! After all I endured… after five hundred years of the void… am I to die now?!"
He knelt, his hand pressed against his pierced chest.
Blood flowed heavy and hot, and he muttered:
— "Why… why whenever I find hope… is it torn away from me?! I don't want to die… death is pain… if I die, the Resurrection Curse will wake… it will steal the rest of me…"
His tears mixed with blood.
The heroes and Wardens stepped forward slowly to finish what remained of him.
But inside his chest, another voice whispered.
A dark, familiar voice, but different from the System:
— "Kim… you are truly weak"
Kim raised his head, half despairing and half infernal:
— "Shut up—understand!"
The cursed spirit laughed inside him, its whispers like fetters:
— "You are weak; I will not be silenced. I don't even know how you resist. You are weak—let me take your body, I will kill them and we will survive."
— "Kim: No—be quiet and let me focus on them."
Kim shouted:
— "I do not want to be a puppet!"
The sky reddened, and Kim's scream reverberated.
The wrappings around his eyes burned away, and a black light erupted from them.
For the first time, the heroes and Dimensional Wardens retreated in fear.
Kim smiled, blood running from his mouth:
— "Well then… shall we start the party or not? I've been waiting—hahaha."
His body exploded in flames; "I'm waiting for you—let's begin."