POV: SEO-JUN — THE EXECUTIONER]
(WORLD-LINE FRACTURE: 24.3% / EXTERNAL CORE DRAIN DETECTED.)
I woke up in the wreckage of the Academy. The sky was no longer blue; it was a grid of failing code. My HUD was a mess of error messages. Ha-joon was lying a few feet away, his body twitching as violet energy leaked from his [REBOOT FRACTURES]. Those GL parasites, Ji-soo and Hana, had used our bond as a syphon. By amplifying our intimacy, they had cracked the world's security firewall.
I crawled to him, my own mana feeling like liquid lead. I didn't have time for a medical skill. I had to use the (BLOOD-CODE INFUSION). It was a painful, ritualistic necessity. I bit my palm and pressed it against his mouth, then dragged my bleeding hand across the fractures on his chest.
"Drink it, you stubborn bug," I growled. "You don't get to die until I say the mission is over. Your life isn't your own to lose."
As my black mana entered his system, the bond stabilized, but the process was agonizing. He arched off the ground, his eyes rolling back as our souls synchronized on a deeper, more violent level. I felt his 99 lives of pain; he felt my thousands of years of boredom. (BOND EVOLVED: MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION.)
"Target... spotted," Ha-joon whispered, his eyes snapping open. They were violet with black streaks—my mark, inside and out.
We found them at the base of the Clock Tower, the last standing fragment of the dissolving plaza. Ji-soo was holding the World Core, which was glowing with a sickeningly sweet pink light. Hana stood in front of her, her light-blade humming.
"Look at the King and his pet," Hana taunted. "You're so obsessed you didn't even notice us stealing the floor from under you. You're too busy choking each other to save your world."
I didn't answer. I lashed out with my [EXECUTIONER'S WHIP], the black lightning tearing through the air. Ha-joon moved with me, a blur of violet shadow. He took a hit from Hana's blade on purpose, reflecting the 'Echo Pain' back at her with triple the force. Her shield shattered instantly.
"Ji-soo, now!" Hana screamed, her physical form flickering.
Ji-soo didn't run. She raised a [BOND-SEVERING BOLT]—a specialized tool designed to rip souls apart. She fired it straight at Ha-joon's heart.
I had two choices: block the bolt and let Ji-soo escape with the Core, or catch Ji-soo and let Ha-joon's soul be shredded.
I didn't even think. I threw myself in front of Ha-joon, taking the hit directly in my spine.
(SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: EXECUTIONER CORE DAMAGED. FRACTURE: 60%.)
The agony was a digital tooth pulling at my existence. I collapsed, coughing up black ichor.
"Seo-jun!" Ha-joon screamed. For the first time in 100 lives, there was genuine terror in his voice. Not for himself, but for me.
Ji-soo laughed, activating the Core's final harvest. The Academy began to fold inward like a crushed soda can. Static hit my vision.
____
POV: HA-JOON — THE REGRESSOR
(LOCATION: SOUL-SPACE / TIME: NON-EXISTENT.)
The world was a swirling vortex of white and violet memories. I wasn't in the Academy anymore. I was inside 'Us.' I saw Seo-jun's thousand-year boredom—the millions of worlds he'd deleted without blinking, the cold weight of a machine wearing a crown.
"I deleted worlds because nothing ever mattered," he said, his voice raw and echoing in the static. He appeared before me, leaking black smoke, his eyes vulnerable for the first time. "I was a god of nothing. But you... you're the first thing I've ever wanted to keep. The first glitch I didn't want to fix."
"And I spent 99 lives waiting for someone who wouldn't just end me," I answered, my fingers tracing the black smoke leaking from his skin. I showed him my deaths—the smell of burning mana, the feeling of blades ending my life over and over until I became this hollow thing. "Every death felt the same. A cold, quiet end. Until you. You made the pain feel like home. You didn't end me. You made me want to stay broken—as long as it's with you."
"Then stay broken," he whispered, his hands gripping my waist with a desperate force. "Stay mine. I'll burn every dimension the Order sends me to if it means I can keep you in the ashes. I've spent an eternity being the gardener of reality. I'm ready to be the one who burns the garden down for you."
"I've spent an eternity being the weed they tried to pull," I whispered back, pulling him closer. "Let's see what happens when the weed and the gardener both refuse to play the game."
In that soul-space, the branding was deliberate. Slow. Tender in its cruelty. I didn't claw at him; I let his black mana ink itself into my spirit, and I seared my violet marks into his core. It wasn't about sex; it was about the absolute surrender of two broken codes.
"No more resets," I said, my forehead resting against his. "No more worlds. Only this."
(BOND UPGRADE: MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION — RANK MAX.)
The soul-space shattered. We snapped back to reality.
The Academy had folded into a singular point, leaving us standing on a floating shard of static in a white abyss. Ji-soo was clutching the Core, her eyes wild with terror. "This shouldn't be possible! The bond-severing bolt should have erased you both!"
I walked through her final energy blast. The [ECHO PAIN] reflected back with such intensity that her weapon exploded, taking her fingers with it. She staggered back, clutching her bleeding hand. "You idiots! The Order will—they'll come for you! You're dead!"
Seo-jun moved like a shadow. He didn't use his whip; he used his bare hands. He grabbed Ji-soo by the throat, lifting her off the static floor.
Ji-soo clawed at his wrist, her eyes bloodshot. "You think this ends us? The Order will send more—they'll delete you both—"
"They can send a thousand," Seo-jun hissed, his grip tightening until the digital code of her avatar began to fragment. "They'll all end the same way."
Seo-jun cut her off with a void-rift that swallowed her scream. Her avatar fragmented into grey ash, the Core tumbling free into the void.
I caught the World Core as it fell. It was vibrating, trying to tear itself apart.
"If we let this go, the universe reboots," I said, looking at Seo-jun.
"Let it go," he said, pulling me against him. "We don't need a universe. We have the void."
I crushed the Core.
(FRACTURE: 99.9%.)
The last pixel of reality vanished. The sky, the ground, the very concept of 'existence' disappeared. We were floating in a white abyss as the timeline was erased. Seo-jun buried his face in my neck, his black mana wrapping around us like a cocoon.
"Just us," I whispered, as the void swallowed the last pixel of reality. "No more resets. No more worlds. Only this."
(SYSTEM: WORLD-LINE COLLAPSE COMPLETE. STATUS: SURVIVAL PACT ACTIVE.)