I opened my eyes to darkness.
Complete, utter darkness.
I wasn't standing, walking, or even floating. I was falling—plummeting—through a field of shadow so deep it was mirrorless black. No glimmer. No reflection. No light.
There was nothing else.
No sound. No smell. No wind rushing past my ears. No sensation of my own skin.
It was… peaceful.
At first, I felt like I was both nothing and everything at the same time—an insignificant grain of sand drifting in an endless void, yet somehow the only thing that existed.
Time didn't feel real here, but as it passed—however long that was—I began to realize what I was.
I was human.
I had hands, feet… a body. I tried curling my fingers, flexing my toes, opening my mouth to speak. Nothing. No feeling. No breath filling my lungs. No heartbeat thudding in my chest.
The absence of it all should have been terrifying. And maybe it was. But even my fear was… muted. Without the racing pulse, without the rush of adrenaline, it was like my panic existed only in thought, never in body.
I was more than limbs.
I had a name.
I was Myd—
…No.
I was Jae. Jae Hoon, son of a beautiful, loving family.
And then—
A presence slid into existence around me. It wasn't sound. It wasn't sight. It was pressure—cold, suffocating, like death itself was coiling around my soul.
The void bled red.
The black was gone in a heartbeat, replaced by blood—dripping from nowhere, painting the darkness, coating the unseen ground. Then came the wave.
A wall of crimson roared forward, swallowing me whole.
I tumbled in the flood, choking on liquid iron until, suddenly, I was sitting atop it. The blood rippled under me like some living ocean, and ahead, in the shadows, I saw… him.
No—it.
Chained. Humanoid. But wrong.
The figure stepped forward, and his voice was a low growl.
"It's hard to believe this weakling is me."
I stared, confusion locking my tongue.
He smirked.
"Look at you—small, skinny… weak. Pathetic."
In the blink of an eye, he vanished from in front of me—only to reappear behind my shoulder.
"I guess it's because you're still just a kid. But didn't you say you were going to avenge your father? To find your mother and sister? To become stronger? Dig deep, and what do I find? A scrawny little weakling pretending to be a warrior."
Before I could react, his foot slammed into my face.
I flew, rolling across the slick, shifting blood until my back smashed into a jagged cliff. The metallic taste of the ground filled my mouth as I tried to stand, but the thick, slippery flood pulled me down.
He stalked toward me.
"Son of the Crimson King. Mydeimos. That's all you'll ever be—a dreamer, a fake, a weakling who can't save anyone and never learned his place."
The ocean of blood began to rumble under his words, as if agreeing with him.
"Shut your mouth!" I roared.
He lunged, kicking for my stomach, but I flipped backward, barely dodging. For a heartbeat, I thought I'd escaped—until a colossal fist burst from the blood beneath me and smashed me into the crimson surface.
My vision blurred. My ears rang. And then—he was there again, crouching over me.
"So pathetic. All that talk—I'm going to avenge my father, I'm going to find my family. And this? This is the best you can do? When you die here, Jae, you'll have no one to blame but yourself."
I stared down, my breath shallow.
Maybe… maybe he was right.
The red bled away beneath me, and I sank deeper—into a place where no light dared follow.
I didn't break all at once.
It was slow. Quiet.
With every goodbye, with every sacrifice, a piece of me was chipped away. What was once innocence became instinct. What was once love became duty.
I stopped reaching out. I stopped hoping.
The boy who once cried in fear became a man others now feared to face. Not because of his power—
…but because there was nothing left in his eyes.
This… was the cost of destiny.
This… was the man who would fight fate itself.
This… was King Mydeimos.
And then—
A voice in the dark.
"Yes. Come back to who you were. You are a king. A god. The legendary Mydeimos."
For a moment… I almost believed it.
But then, a vision bloomed before me—warm and vivid.
A bustling street. Friends laughing at my side. My baby sister toddling forward, her tiny voice calling, "Bra-bra…" My mother and father standing behind her, smiling.
"Hello, our precious son… our precious daughter… we… love… you."
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
My chest burned.
"No…" I whispered. "My name… is Jae Hoon."
The darkness around me cracked like breaking glass, shards of shadow falling away.
The chained figure snarled.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? Do you not want to become a god? Do you not want strength? To rule the world?"
"That's not my dream." My voice was steady now, even in the chaos. "Not my way."
The world spun—blood becoming shadow, shadow becoming light.
When I opened my eyes, Astrid's face was above mine, her voice breaking with relief.
"Thank goodness… you're alive!"
I exhaled, feeling the weight of the void slip from my shoulders.
"I will become strong," I told her, "but the right way."
And for the first time since the darkness swallowed me, I believed it.