The second wave had nearly broken them.
Bodies littered the academy courtyard, black ichor and human blood pooling together until the stone tiles gleamed dark crimson in the fractured moonlight. Screams had thinned to sobs, and sobs had thinned to silence. Only the rattle of the fissure remained, its edges glowing faintly as if mocking the effort of the survivors below.
Cha Hae-won's hands shook around the broken training sword he still held. His lungs burned with smoke and iron, his tongue coated in the coppery weight of blood that wasn't his. His ears rang from the shrieks of things that no longer existed—whether monsters or classmates, he didn't know anymore.
But the third wave hadn't yet begun.
A hush settled, heavy and wrong.
Yun Arin was the first to whisper: "Why is it so quiet?" Her voice cracked, too bright against the ruined courtyard. She still clutched her stave with both hands, knuckles white, her eyes darting between shadows as though searching desperately for light.
"Because it isn't over," Seo Ha-young answered flatly. She didn't lower her cursed sword, its surface still dripping, still whispering hunger through the air. Her cheek was streaked with a ribbon of blood she hadn't bothered to wipe away.
Hae-won forced himself to breathe. In. Out. The fragments of memory rattled at the edges of his vision—courtyards collapsing, friends betraying, gods laughing—but he shoved them down. Not now. Not yet.
The fissure pulsed.
And the dead returned.
They walked out of the shadows on broken legs, in torn uniforms, their faces still familiar. Cadets who had fallen minutes ago, their eyes glazed with a dull light that wasn't their own. Their mouths opened in unison, and the courtyard filled not with screams, but with words.
"Assignment overdue. Promise unkept. Vow broken."
Their voices overlapped, a monotone chorus that scraped like rusted bells.
"Debt unpaid. Debt unpaid. Debt unpaid."
Arin's breath caught. "No… no, it's them. It's—it's Min-ji, and Joon, and—" She dropped her stave as though it burned her. Her steps faltered forward, trembling hands reaching out. "They're not monsters. They're our classmates—our friends. We can save them—"
A collector's head snapped toward her, its jaw hanging too low, bone creaking. Its voice spilled directly into her ear though it hadn't moved an inch.
"You swore you'd study with me tomorrow."
Arin froze. Tears welled in her eyes. "That's—that's right, I did, I—"
The creature lunged. Its hands, bones splintered and twisted, clamped toward her throat.
"ARIN!"
Hae-won's body moved before his mind caught up. His broken blade intercepted the claw, sparks bursting as bone scraped metal. The impact rattled his arm to the elbow. His chest burned with déjà vu—he'd done this before, too many times, too many deaths ago.
Arin staggered back, gasping, frozen by the voice that still echoed.
The collector hissed. Its jaw cracked wider, and another fragment spilled out.
"You said you'd be there. You weren't."
The words felt like nails driven under the skin. Not meant to kill with claws or teeth, but with memory.
Hae-won gritted his teeth. "Stay behind me, Arin."
Seo Ha-young didn't hesitate. Her cursed blade sang through the air, black light trailing. The collector's head separated from its body in a spray of shadow and blood.
The thing didn't scream. It only whispered as it fell: "Receipt acknowledged."
The cursed sword pulsed in her hands. Its surface throbbed, alive, drinking deeper from this kill than it had from any of the monsters before. Its edge glowed with a darkness that clung to her arms like smoke.
She exhaled, almost a laugh, and glanced back at Arin. "They're not your classmates anymore. They're receipts. And receipts don't forgive."
Arin's lips trembled. "But—"
"Look around." Seo gestured with her blade.
The courtyard was filling. Cadets they'd watched die were rising again, every face familiar. Some missing eyes, others missing half their heads. But all of them speaking.
Fragments of every small betrayal, every casual promise, every unfinished vow.
"You owe me a meal."
"You promised you'd help me."
"You said you'd be there."
"You weren't."
The words rose together, overlapping until it became unbearable.
"Debt unpaid. Debt unpaid. Debt unpaid."
Hae-won's skull throbbed with every chant. His fragmented memories trembled at the edges, threatening to splinter him apart. But beneath the noise, beneath the horror, there was something else—
The cursed sword.
It pulsed in resonance. The closer the debt-born walked, the louder its hunger grew.
[ Synchronization with The End: 2% → 6% ]
The words burned across his vision.
His heart stopped. Not just a weapon. Not just cursed. It was fusing with him.
His knees threatened to give. He wanted to scream, to throw the blade away, to let it consume itself in shadow. But Ha-young's hand pressed against his arm, steady and firm.
Her voice was soft this time, almost amused. "Looks like it likes you."
He swallowed bile. The metallic taste thickened on his tongue. His vision blurred with smoke and red. And the Debt Walkers closed in, step by step, voices growing louder, claws reaching forward, fragments of broken promises peeling his skin from the inside out.
The first real test of survival wasn't the monsters. It wasn't even the fissure.
It was facing the debts of the dead.
And the cursed sword—his sword—hungered for them.
The Debt Walkers advanced in a tide of whispers.
Their steps scraped stone, brittle bones dragging across tiles, uniforms clinging to rotted flesh like tattered banners of the dead. Their eyes glowed faintly—not the hungry brightness of monsters, but dull embers, the kind that clung to half-burnt paper. Not alive. Not dead. Carried forward only by the weight of promises that could never be paid.
Cha Hae-won gripped the broken blade tighter. Sweat slicked his palms, but the steel burned cold, almost eager. The cursed sword strapped to Seo Ha-young's back pulsed in answer, its black veins crawling higher up her arm as though savoring the debt-born.
The whispers grew louder.
"You borrowed my notes."
"You never paid me back."
"You swore you'd cover my shift."
"You said you'd walk home with me. You didn't."
"You promised."
"You promised."
"You PROMISED—"
The chant built until the air vibrated, pressing against Hae-won's skull. He bit down hard enough to taste blood. Copper flooded his mouth, bitter and metallic. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, blending with the endless words.
Arin staggered forward again, shaking her head, tears streaming freely now. "No, stop it—stop—please, they're not gone! They're still them! We can reach them, I know we can!"
"Arin—" Hae-won's voice rasped. "Stay back. That's not—"
"They're still here!" Her stave clattered to the floor as she pressed her hands to her ears, as if trying to block out the words that burrowed straight into bone. "We can't just kill them—we can't!"
The nearest collector's head twitched at her, vertebrae snapping with a wet crack. Its jaw stretched impossibly wide, the skin of its face splitting as it spoke:
"You swore you'd never leave me."
Arin froze. The voice was exactly like the cadet's had been in life.
Her knees buckled.
The collector's claws slashed down—
Steel screamed.
Seo Ha-young's cursed blade intercepted mid-swing, black veins flaring brighter. The sword didn't just cut—the debt-born shattered, bursting like brittle glass, fragments scattering across the tiles in a cloud of dust and bone.
The sword pulsed. Hae-won felt it as if it were his own heartbeat.
[ Synchronization with The End: 6% → 9% ]
The air itself shuddered.
Seo grinned, teeth bared. "There. That's more like it." She flicked blood from her cheek, eyes glinting in the dark. "Now let's carve this nightmare apart."
She moved like a storm, black light slicing through debt-born as though they were paper dolls. Every cut birthed another whisper:
"Receipt acknowledged."
"Balance cleared."
"Interest collected."
Each kill deepened the sword's glow, its hunger bleeding outward until Hae-won's skin prickled as though a thousand unseen mouths brushed against him.
The sword wasn't simply killing. It was consuming.
Arin sobbed behind him, clutching her ears. "Stop! Stop, please—don't kill them! Don't—"
"They're already dead," Seo snapped, voice sharp as her blade. "All that's left is the debt. Do you want to die next to their receipts, Arin?"
Arin shook her head violently, but her lips quivered with denial.
Hae-won's chest constricted. The sight twisted something deep in him. He wanted to protect Arin's hope, to believe the people stumbling toward them could still be saved. But every instinct, every splinter of memory, every scream from regressions past, told him otherwise.
He felt the cursed sword's call in his bones, even though it wasn't in his hands. He staggered, clutching at his head as whispers merged with voices that weren't his:
"You failed before."
"You'll fail again."
"Break them. Break them all."
The synchronization surged, unbidden.
[ Synchronization with The End: 9% → 12% ]
The broken blade in his hand rattled. For an instant, he thought he saw black veins crawling along its surface too, answering the resonance.
Then the collectors lunged as one.
Dozens at once, claws scraping stone, voices echoing like knives:
"Debt unpaid."
"Debt unpaid."
"DEBT UNPAID—"
Hae-won roared, swinging his blade. Sparks flew, bone shattered, his arm screamed with the force of every impact. But they didn't stop. For every one he broke, two more crawled over the fallen. Their words stabbed deeper than claws, dragging memories of every failure, every regret he thought long buried.
"I couldn't protect them…"
"I wasn't enough…"
"I left them behind…"
His vision blurred red. His knees nearly gave. He couldn't—he couldn't—
Then her hand gripped his shoulder.
Seo Ha-young's voice cut through the noise, low and vicious. "Listen, Cha Hae-won. You either kill them, or they'll kill her."
Arin's scream pierced the night.
A collector had seized her arm, bone claws digging into her flesh. Her stave lay useless at her feet. Tears blinded her eyes as the cadet's face—half-familiar, half-decayed—pressed close, whispering the vow she'd broken.
"You said you'd save me. Why didn't you?"
Hae-won's body moved without thought.
The cursed sword ripped free from Seo's grip, flying into his hand like it had been waiting all along.
It pulsed. Alive. Hungry.
The world slowed, drowned in black. Every collector froze mid-motion, whispers echoing in drawn-out chorus. His veins burned cold fire. The blade thrummed against his palm like a second heart.
[ Synchronization with The End: 12% → 15% ]
The debt-born's words twisted, merging into a single voice that filled his skull.
"Write their ending."
The cursed sword slashed.
It didn't cut. It erased.
The collector holding Arin dissolved into dust, its form unraveling into pages of black ash. The whispers died mid-sentence, snuffed out as though they had never existed.
Arin collapsed backward, gasping, eyes wide with horror and gratitude all tangled together.
Hae-won stood over her, chest heaving, cursed sword dripping shadows. His reflection in the blade wasn't his own—it smiled when he did not.
Seo's laugh rang sharp and vicious. "Now that's more like it. Looks like you've finally chosen."
Hae-won's grip trembled. His knuckles whitened. His throat burned with words he couldn't say.
Because he knew the truth.
He hadn't chosen anything.
The sword had chosen him.
And it was hungry for more.