The first thing Cha Hae-won noticed when he surfaced from the black, drowning dark was weight.
Not the weight of chains. Not the drag of iron, nor the ache of bruised bones. It was subtler, and crueler. The weight of a hand gripping something it should not.
When his eyelids cracked, the infirmary's dim oil lamps blurred against the ceiling. He became aware of his own trembling fingers clenched around a hilt. Cold. Burning. Alive.
The cursed sword.
But when he blinked again—it was gone.
Seo Ha-young was standing by his bed, one hand loosely spinning the black blade as though it weighed nothing. Its shadow carved lines in the air. Her expression was unreadable, her voice low.
"You really like sleeping with dangerous toys, don't you?"
Hae-won's lips parted, a protest half-formed. The sword belonged to him—it had been born for him. Yet something in her grip silenced the thought. The hymn that had been gnawing at the inside of his skull since the infirmary swallowed him went quiet, as though the blade had been pulled out like a thorn.
She tucked it behind her, away from his reach, her dark eyes sharp. "You don't get this back until I'm sure you won't slit your own throat with it."
Her words were mocking, but her hands trembled faintly when she set the sword down on the far table, within her sight but out of his reach.
For the first time since he had opened his eyes three days ago, he felt air pass fully through his lungs.
Then the visions began.
The infirmary dimmed around him, walls blurring like ink running in water. His body sank backward into a drowning dream.
—
Ash.
The stench of iron.
A figure standing in the smoke, faceless, hair like shadow spilling across their cheek. Their throat torn open by a cut that should have killed them, yet they sang. The hymn of the Silent Martyr filled the world like static, neither melody nor scream, but both.
[ Fable: Hymn of the Silent Martyr stirs. ]
[ Regression 148 unlocked. ]
The figure knelt in the ruins, lips moving with words he could not hear. Every step closer warped the vision—blood where ash had been, laughter where silence should be, then collapse. Always collapse.
Hae-won reached for them, but the ground cracked beneath his hands. And then the hymn bled away into something worse.
Dark. Blurry. Fragmented.
A corridor of memories.
He walked barefoot through a house with no doors. The rooms flickered—sometimes filled with laughter, sometimes empty, sometimes smeared with blood. Shapes stood in corners. A tall figure with hands folded. Another shorter, gentler one, weaving strands of silver thread. They had no faces. No names. No voices.
Every time he tried to focus, the vision cracked apart.
A boy sat at a table, ink staining his fingers. Writing. Scribbling. Tearing pages apart. A voice—not father, not mother, because those words meant nothing to him—murmured indistinctly. A lullaby, or a warning.
Fragments. Nothing whole.
He pressed his palms against his skull, desperate to drag something coherent from the blur. But the closer he came, the more it slipped.
The faceless figures turned to look at him. Their empty sockets bled light.
And then, as though spliced from another reel, he was back at the ash-field. The hymn returned—louder now. Ha-young's voice that wasn't hers, singing through a slit throat.
Hae-won screamed.
His body jolted. He was back in the infirmary bed, chest heaving, sweat soaking his collar. The oil lamps flickered violently as if the dream had bled into the waking world.
Seo Ha-young was beside him instantly, her hand on his shoulder. "Hae-won. Hey. Look at me. You're here. Here."
His lips trembled. "Fragments… I… I don't…"
"You don't have to." Her voice was steady, anchoring. "Not now."
But outside the infirmary walls, other voices moved.
Low, hushed, urgent. Professors and nobles who had lingered these three days, whispering against the door as though the wood were thin as paper.
"…Most Ancient Dream…"
"…I told you it was impossible for him to exist here…"
"…if the sigil reacted, it means the prophecy was right. The Last Vision wasn't the end after all…"
"…no. Not Last Vision. The Most Ancient Dream."
The words struck like iron against bone.
Hae-won turned his head slowly. His ears rang, but he could still hear it—the muttering professors, their fear strangled with reverence.
Most Ancient Dream.
The phrase settled inside him like a shard of glass, jagged and unmovable. He did not understand, and yet a part of him already knew it was true. He had always known.
Because he had dreamed this all before. Every death. Every failure. Every hymn.
The black dragon stitched into his sleeve opened its eye again. Not in dream this time, but in waking.
And the world shook.
System text burned across the air, visible to every soul in the Academy.
[ ALERT: Outstanding balance detected. ]
[ Payment not yet received from Planetary System #2190. ]
[ Initiating Debt Collection. ]
[ Opening: The Descent. ]
The oil lamps blew out. The infirmary plunged into silence so deep it felt like the pause before an executioner's blade fell.
Seo Ha-young's grip on his arm tightened. He could see his reflection in her eyes, pale and broken, the dragon's eye wide open on his sleeve.
And then the sound came.
Not footsteps. Not thunder. But something heavier than both. The sound of the sky splitting, of pages tearing, of a story rewriting itself over his bones.
The descent had begun.
The world dimmed again.
Not because the lamps died, not because the professors whispered outside the door, but because something inside him fractured.
It began with sound.
A creak, like a chair rocking in another room. The muffled scrape of pen on parchment. A low hum that could have been a lullaby, or the echo of someone mourning.
Hae-won's sight shifted, blurred edges closing around him like shutters. The infirmary fell away, replaced by a place he should have known—yet didn't.
A corridor. Narrow, endless. Its walls were papered with fragments of memory, each peeling at the edges. He walked barefoot, and the floorboards bent under his weight like they were soaked in water.
Rooms opened on either side. In one, a long table, ink bottles shattered across it, paper scattered. In another, a hearth burning with no firewood, flames feeding on nothing but air. Shadows flickered across the walls in shapes that looked like people but collapsed when he tried to look straight at them.
A laugh echoed. Childlike, high-pitched, broken halfway. He froze.
There, at the far end of the hall, sat a boy at a desk. Ink stained his fingers black. His small hand trembled as it dragged across parchment, writing line after line, tearing the pages, starting again. The boy's face was obscured by blur, as though smeared out by someone's thumb across a painting.
"Why…?" Hae-won's lips moved, though he didn't know what he was asking.
The boy looked up. For a moment, his face almost resolved. Cheeks hollow, eyes too large for his head. Familiar. Almost a reflection. Then, like wet paint, it dripped away again.
Behind the boy, two figures.
One tall, shoulders sharp, hands folded neatly behind their back. Another shorter, softer, weaving silver thread between their fingers. Their outlines shimmered, fragile as moth wings. No faces. No names. Only presence.
Every time Hae-won blinked, their gestures changed. Sometimes the tall one raised a hand as if scolding. Sometimes it fell heavy, almost like striking. The other reached toward the boy with a hand that dissolved before it could touch him.
Words drifted through the hall like mist. Not language, not syllables. Just the shape of meaning.
"…not enough…"
"…rewrite it again…"
"…stories must live, even if he dies…"
The corridor shook. The boy slammed his quill onto the desk, black ink spraying across the walls. It writhed like worms, forming half-letters, half-symbols that burned in Hae-won's vision.
Something inside him recoiled.
He stumbled backward, clutching his temples. The hymn wasn't here. Not yet. This place was quiet. Too quiet.
"Who… are you?" His voice cracked, desperate.
The tall figure turned. Their faceless gaze locked onto him, and for a moment, the corridor snapped into focus.
A dining table. Two sets of hands. A child between them. Ink on the child's lips like blood.
Then, shatter.
The world ripped apart in noise.
Hae-won fell forward, palms slapping against the corridor floor. Only it wasn't wood anymore. It was glass. Beneath him—thousands of reflections of himself, each fractured differently. Some younger. Some older. Some bleeding, some screaming.
And one—the boy at the desk, throat slit open, still trying to write through the blood.
Hae-won's scream caught in his throat.
The shadows of the tall and short figures bent toward him, mouths opening wide—too wide, too inhuman. From their throats came not words, but static, the sound of paper tearing, a story collapsing.
He staggered to his feet, heart slamming. His hands bled where he had pressed them to the glass, and the cuts spelled letters across his skin. Words he couldn't understand. Words not meant for him.
The faceless figures whispered together. This time, their words almost made sense:
"…he is the vessel…"
"…not yet paid…"
"…the dream must remain…"
Then the corridor split down the middle like a book's spine tearing open.
Through the gap, a field of ash. The hymn returning, faint, echoing.
Seo Ha-young's blood-soaked throat. Her lips still moving. Her hymn that had never stopped.
"No," Hae-won gasped, staggering back. "Not here—don't—"
The figures bent lower, whispering against his ears.
"…you will write again…"
"…and again…"
"…until it is enough…"
His vision cracked like a mirror hit by a hammer.
And when it shattered completely, he was back in the infirmary, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his body, Seo Ha-young gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise.
"Hae-won!" Her voice was sharp, real, grounding. "Stay here. Don't slip."
He couldn't answer. The fragments still clawed at his mind—the corridor, the faceless figures, the boy at the desk bleeding ink.
But one thing lingered sharper than all the rest.
The words they had whispered.
The dream must remain.
The world dimmed again.
Not because the lamps died, not because the professors whispered outside the door, but because something inside him fractured.
It began with sound.
A creak, like a chair rocking in another room. The muffled scrape of pen on parchment. A low hum that could have been a lullaby, or the echo of someone mourning.
Hae-won's sight shifted, blurred edges closing around him like shutters. The infirmary fell away, replaced by a place he should have known—yet didn't.
A corridor. Narrow, endless. Its walls were papered with fragments of memory, each peeling at the edges. He walked barefoot, and the floorboards bent under his weight like they were soaked in water.
Rooms opened on either side. In one, a long table, ink bottles shattered across it, paper scattered. In another, a hearth burning with no firewood, flames feeding on nothing but air. Shadows flickered across the walls in shapes that looked like people but collapsed when he tried to look straight at them.
A laugh echoed. Childlike, high-pitched, broken halfway. He froze.
There, at the far end of the hall, sat a boy at a desk. Ink stained his fingers black. His small hand trembled as it dragged across parchment, writing line after line, tearing the pages, starting again. The boy's face was obscured by blur, as though smeared out by someone's thumb across a painting.
"Why…?" Hae-won's lips moved, though he didn't know what he was asking.
The boy looked up. For a moment, his face almost resolved. Cheeks hollow, eyes too large for his head. Familiar. Almost a reflection. Then, like wet paint, it dripped away again.
Behind the boy, two figures.
One tall, shoulders sharp, hands folded neatly behind their back. Another shorter, softer, weaving silver thread between their fingers. Their outlines shimmered, fragile as moth wings. No faces. No names. Only presence.
Every time Hae-won blinked, their gestures changed. Sometimes the tall one raised a hand as if scolding. Sometimes it fell heavy, almost like striking. The other reached toward the boy with a hand that dissolved before it could touch him.
Words drifted through the hall like mist. Not language, not syllables. Just the shape of meaning.
"…not enough…"
"…rewrite it again…"
"…stories must live, even if he dies…"
The corridor shook. The boy slammed his quill onto the desk, black ink spraying across the walls. It writhed like worms, forming half-letters, half-symbols that burned in Hae-won's vision.
Something inside him recoiled.
He stumbled backward, clutching his temples. The hymn wasn't here. Not yet. This place was quiet. Too quiet.
"Who… are you?" His voice cracked, desperate.
The tall figure turned. Their faceless gaze locked onto him, and for a moment, the corridor snapped into focus.
A dining table. Two sets of hands. A child between them. Ink on the child's lips like blood.
Then, shatter.
The world ripped apart in noise.
Hae-won fell forward, palms slapping against the corridor floor. Only it wasn't wood anymore. It was glass. Beneath him—thousands of reflections of himself, each fractured differently. Some younger. Some older. Some bleeding, some screaming.
And one—the boy at the desk, throat slit open, still trying to write through the blood.
Hae-won's scream caught in his throat.
The shadows of the tall and short figures bent toward him, mouths opening wide—too wide, too inhuman. From their throats came not words, but static, the sound of paper tearing, a story collapsing.
He staggered to his feet, heart slamming. His hands bled where he had pressed them to the glass, and the cuts spelled letters across his skin. Words he couldn't understand. Words not meant for him.
The faceless figures whispered together. This time, their words almost made sense:
"…he is the vessel…"
"…not yet paid…"
"…the dream must remain…"
Then the corridor split down the middle like a book's spine tearing open.
Through the gap, a field of ash. The hymn returning, faint, echoing.
Seo Ha-young's blood-soaked throat. Her lips still moving. Her hymn that had never stopped.
"No," Hae-won gasped, staggering back. "Not here—don't—"
The figures bent lower, whispering against his ears.
"…you will write again…"
"…and again…"
"…until it is enough…"
His vision cracked like a mirror hit by a hammer.
And when it shattered completely, he was back in the infirmary, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his body, Seo Ha-young gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise.
"Hae-won!" Her voice was sharp, real, grounding. "Stay here. Don't slip."
He couldn't answer. The fragments still clawed at his mind—the corridor, the faceless figures, the boy at the desk bleeding ink.
But one thing lingered sharper than all the rest.
The words they had whispered.
The dream must remain.
The world pressed in like a bruise.
The fragments of the corridor clung to him still, black ink dripping from the corners of his thoughts, refusing to dry.
Seo Ha-young's grip on his shoulders steadied him. Her face was taut, eyes sharp, but her touch was steady, grounding. "Breathe," she ordered, as if she could command his lungs like reins.
Hae-won sucked in a ragged breath. It didn't feel like air. It felt like smoke.
And then—
A voice, muffled but close.
"…do you understand what this means?"
He froze.
The infirmary doors. The whispers behind them were no longer the chaotic buzz of students or nobles. No, this was lower. Steadier. Professors. Their voices seeped through the wood like oil.
Another voice answered. Old, ragged, broken by decades of smoking. "I told you. I warned you when his Modifier awakened. He is not just another cursed child."
A pause. Then, sharp words, almost spit: "He is the Most Ancient Dream."
The phrase hit Hae-won's ears like glass shattering inside his skull.
Ha-young glanced toward the door, then back at him, lips pressed tight. She had heard too.
The voices outside pressed harder, crowding the silence.
"Impossible—those are only myths."
"Are you blind? Did you not see the system? Did you not hear the hymn resonate? There can be no mistake."
"Then we are all dead men walking. If the dream wakes—"
The first professor cut them off, his voice like a blade scraping stone. "It is already awake. You felt it, didn't you? The weight in the hall. The Modifier's tremor. That was not the birth of something new. That was something remembering itself."
Hae-won's pulse pounded in his ears. His nails tore at the sheets.
Most Ancient Dream.
The words pulsed like a brand against his skull.
The second professor hissed, "Then what do you suggest? Kill him now? You saw what happened when the Fable stirred. One ripple nearly destroyed the hall. If we strike, it will drown us all."
Another, softer voice: "If he is truly the Dream… then this world is not his to begin with. We are living inside his story. Any death we give him may just be another page he's already written."
Silence. Heavy, suffocating.
Then, the old one again, low and final:
"Then let us pray his revenge is not against us."
The words slid like knives into Hae-won's chest. Revenge.
His chest tightened. His throat felt raw.
Revenge?
Against who?
Against what?
He searched his own memories, but there was nothing. Only fragments—the ink-stained boy, the faceless shadows, the endless corridor. Revenge? He had no target. No cause. No names.
But deep, deep inside, something stirred.
A spark.
A thread pulled taut.
A whisper not from the professors, not from Ha-young, not from any human throat.
From himself.
"…revenge is the only thing left."
Hae-won's breath hitched. His vision swam.
Seo Ha-young leaned close, her brow furrowed. "What are they talking about?"
He couldn't answer. Because for the first time, the fragments inside him aligned. Just for a second. A boy at a desk, ink bleeding down his wrist. Shadows whispering: "Stories must live, even if he dies."
The professors outside continued their mutters, oblivious to the storm they'd woken.
"…the planetary system still hasn't paid its debt."
"…then the Descent will begin. Collection cannot be delayed."
"…and if the Dream is the vessel, the scenarios will come here first—"
The infirmary shook. Not from anything physical, but from the way those words etched themselves into reality itself.
Scenarios. Debt. Descent.
Ha-young's hand clenched on his shoulder tighter. She whispered, barely audible: "Hae-won… what are you?"
He had no answer. Only the echo of the professors' sentence burned inside him.
He was the Most Ancient Dream.
And the debt had come due.
The infirmary lights flickered. One blink, and the lamps swayed like pendulums. Another blink, and the room was submerged in a twilight haze, shadows stretching like they were alive.
Hae-won's pulse thundered in his throat.
Then it came.
A sound that wasn't sound.
Metal scraping across the sky. Bone grinding against glass. The kind of noise that curdled marrow and made human throats seize shut. It wasn't meant for ears—it was meant for existence itself.
And within it, the text appeared.
[ SYSTEM NOTICE: Outstanding Balance Detected. ]
[ Payment not yet received from Planetary System #2190. ]
[ Initiating Debt Collection Protocol. ]
[ Opening Descent… ]
The words seared themselves into his vision. No voice spoke them. They were carved directly into the fabric of reality, burning behind his eyes.
Seo Ha-young staggered back, her face pale. "What—what is that?" Her voice cracked in a way he'd never heard before. The bravado gone, replaced by raw fear.
The professors outside erupted into panic.
"It's too soon!"
"The scenarios weren't supposed to begin here!"
"The system… the system's skipping the order—"
And beneath their words, the ominous hum grew louder.
The floor of the infirmary shuddered. Tiny fractures spread across the polished wood. The air itself grew thick, clotted, like breathing tar.
Hae-won gripped the sheets so hard his knuckles split. Blood smeared into the fabric, and still he clung. Because the text hadn't stopped.
[ Debt Collection Tier 1 Opening. ]
[ Scenario One: Descent of the Otherworldly. ]
[ Objective: Protect the Academy. ]
[ Failure Condition: — ]
The last line blurred, as though the system itself hesitated. Then it struck through the silence like a blade.
[ Failure Condition: Total Erasure of All Survivors. ]
Ha-young's hands curled into fists. She turned toward the door, where the professors still hissed their panic. "They knew," she muttered. Her voice shook with fury. "They knew something like this would happen."
The lamps flickered again, sputtering sparks. The entire Academy groaned as if a massive weight had pressed down on it.
And then—
The dragon stitched into Hae-won's sleeve opened its eye wider. Not metaphor. Not imagination. The thread itself slithered like scales, an abyssal eye gleaming from the black spiral.
[ Chaos Sigil Responds to the Descent. ]
[ Regression Energy Stirring… ]
He felt it, deep in his bones: the pull of every death he'd ever lived. The fragments of his regressions throbbed, aching like scars being torn open.
His chest heaved. "Not again…"
But the system didn't care.
[ Infinite Regression: Awaiting Trigger. ]
[ Warning: If activated, the timeline will collapse. ]
The hymn rose faintly in the back of his skull. Not in song, but in silence. A promise. A curse.
Seo Ha-young's voice sliced through it. "Stay here." She crouched low, her eyes flashing like steel. "If you vanish on me now, I'll drag you back myself. Dream or not."
Her words were defiance against the void. But outside, the Descent had already begun.
Screams tore through the Academy grounds.
The sound of glass shattering, walls collapsing, alien roars ripping through the air.
The scenarios had arrived.