Time froze for a moment at Kim's question; his voice came out in gasps as if clinging to the last shreds of his consciousness: — "Who… are you? And how am I… a remnant of you?!"
The Ruler smiled and lifted his head to the dark sky. Lightning struck the earth behind him, and the echo of his voice sounded as if it came from the void itself: — "I am he whose ashes you were forged from… I am king of the darkness, lord of death. You were not born, Kim… you were made."
The air trembled. The ground split beneath Kim's feet, and a tide of shadows seeped into his body through his soles. He screamed as he tried to cast them out, but the more he resisted, the stronger they grew within him.
Amon screamed in his head in despair: — "Noooo! This is not your power anymore! If you let it in, you will never be human again!"
But Kim no longer heard. The black runes on his body began to blaze with infernal light, and the sky filled with wings of darkness sprouting one by one from his back. His voice changed… deeper, heavier, no longer human.
— "S T O P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P —!"
Black light burst from his body, covering the entire kingdom. Palaces collapsed, the earth ruptured, and the sky itself bowed under the pressure.
The queen shoved Elena away as she screamed: — "Run!! He is no longer Kim!!"
But Elena did not move. She stared at him amid the whirlwind, tears mingling with the flying ash. She said in a trembling voice: — "Kim… please… fight him!"
He lifted his head toward her, his face half human, half demonic, his eyes flashing with a confused silver-and-black light. He reached out toward her, but instead of touching her, a torrent of darkness surged at her, shattering the royal gate and crushing the nearby soldiers.
The Ruler laughed like thunder, making the walls shake: — "Behold my true heir! This is what I sought! Look well, you weaklings… this is darkness when it awakens!"
Kim roared, but his cry was no longer human — it was a roar that tore the cosmos. His body changed completely: horns of darkness erupted from his head, two wings of ash and flame spread wide enough to cover the sky, and with every step he took life around him was erased.
The queen unleashed her strongest spells to stop him, but her sword turned to ash before it could touch him. She cried out: — "Elena! Get out of here now!"
But Elena was advancing toward him slowly, tears bleeding from her eyes: — "If I don't stop him… he will never come back."
She halted a few paces from him and reached out her hand in a voice barely audible in the storm: — "Kim… you promised me… that you would bring them back. That you would revive them… No—will you abandon those who want to see you? Why?!"
His body froze for a moment. The wings stopped moving. A faint voice emerged from within him, as if thousands of voices spoke at once: — "Elena…? I am… go away from me…."
Darkness surrounded him again, trying to devour him. But amid it all… a tiny point of light began to glow inside his chest.
For the first time, the Ruler took a step back, whispering angrily: — "Impossible… how does he still retain a human consciousness?!"
Elena screamed with all her strength, her voice echoing across the sky: — "Because his heart was not made from you, but from a life you do not own! He lived through hell as a human — how will you break him when you are only darkness?!"
The ground could no longer bear his presence, the sky bowed as if afraid to look at him. Kim… was no longer Kim. His skin cracked, darkness oozed from his pores like smoke, his eyes had become an endless black void, and his voice creaked like iron.
But darkness enveloped his body completely. The earth opened beneath him, storms began to whirl around him, and from his hand emerged a black sword unlike any seen before. A blade of pure nothingness that swallowed light and air; everything it touched turned into smoky ash.
The Ruler smiled with satisfaction: — "Behold… the Sword of Nightmares. Your first step toward greatness."
Kim looked at him, then at his trembling hand holding the sword; a single tear slid from his black eye but evaporated before touching the earth.
In an instant he vanished from his place and reappeared behind Elena. Her scream could not be heard — only the gleam of the blade as it pierced her chest.
Time stopped. The world fell silent.
She reached out with her trembling hand and touched his face gently, speaking in a weak voice with a smile: — "Kim… even if the darkness swallows you… I saw the light in you."
Her words froze him — the very phrase Mary had once said to him in the past, before he fell in love: "I saw the light in you…"
His body trembled, and the darkness began to recede slowly, as if those words were a blade in the heart of the void itself.
Kim screamed with a tremendous voice that pierced the heavens: — "Aaaaaaaaah!!"
The storm exploded, the Sword of Nightmares shattered into thousands of black shards, and the abyss itself convulsed. The darkness withdrew from his body piece by piece, and his eyes regained their silvery gleam for a single moment… before he collapsed to the ground, hands covered in blood.
Elena had vanished entirely… nothing left of her but a fleeting trace of light.
Kim lifted his gaze to the sky, tears mixing with burning smoke around him, and whispered in a broken voice: — "Why… did he weep with his words? Why does everyone who delves into my life… disappear?"
The Ruler responded with a dark laugh that shook the palace: — "Because light does not live in the heart of the abyss, my heir."
At that moment, Kim fell to his knees, blood dripping from his hand, but he raised his head with blazing eyes: — "Silence… because of the likes of you fate toyed with me! You wanted me to kill them all? Then taste hell yourself… just wait."
Amon: — "Have… you regained your senses?"
Kim: — "Shut up for a moment."
Then he spoke coldly: — "Hourhands of Doom — System: Activated."
A colossal dark clock emerged behind him, made of heavy shadow; its hands moved downward a little, but that was enough to roll back time. From the point of its appearing… life returned again.
Kim then advanced toward it.