At first…
Kim thought the seal had worked.
The pain had not disappeared,
but it had become breathable.
He no longer woke up choking.
The black veins no longer crept every morning.
They were still…
as if asleep with one eye open.
That calm
was worse than pain.
Because Kim had known it before.
The calm that comes before collapse.
He sat at the edge of the village,
watching the stretching fields,
the clear sky,
and the people who had begun to pass by him without stopping.
They no longer stared.
They no longer whispered.
And that…
frightened him more.
He said quietly,
"They're forgetting what I am."
Neer was standing behind him.
He replied calmly,
"They know you're more than you think."
Kim didn't answer.
Inside him,
something was knocking.
Not pain.
Not anger.
A call.
A faint whisper,
deep,
coming from a place the seal could not reach.
Just once.
Only to see.
No one will notice.
Kim clenched his fist.
The veins moved slightly.
He stopped.
Breathed.
Stood up and left before he could hear the whisper again.
Less than three days passed
before what he feared happened.
The scream came from the outskirts of the village.
A sharp scream,
not human.
People ran.
Kim followed without thinking.
At the hills,
the thing was there.
A twisted creature,
like the remains of a failed experiment.
Its skin cracked.
Its eyes without pupils.
An ancient monster…
from a time this world no longer remembers.
A child was trapped near it,
his leg pinned beneath a rock.
The monster moved closer.
Time froze in Kim's chest.
No.
Not again.
He rushed forward.
He did not use his power.
He did not break the seal.
He attacked with his sword alone.
The first strike missed.
The second barely hit.
The monster struck back.
Kim was thrown two meters,
slammed into the ground.
The air burst from his lungs.
Pain exploded.
The black veins pulsed violently.
He heard Neer shouting:
"Kim! Don't do it!"
Kim rose unsteadily.
The monster was approaching the child.
The whisper returned.
Clearer.
Closer.
Use only the darkness.
Chaos is sealed.
Nothing will happen.
Kim looked at his hand.
Then at the child.
Then he closed his eyes—
And used…
the darkness.
In the first instant,
it worked.
Black fire erupted,
clean,
focused.
The monster burned.
But—
Kim's body did not stop.
Bones stretched.
Skin split.
His voice changed.
He opened his eye.
The hands were spinning violently…
but not forward.
Inward.
Neer screamed:
"Stop! This isn't you!"
But Kim no longer heard words.
He heard only
one pulse:
Release me.
The second monster
was not in front of him.
It was inside him.
This was not a bad phase.
This was his life.
And this was Kim's mistake—
because if you do not fight the monsters inside you,
you become one of them.
Kim struck the ground.
The earth cracked.
The monster fell dead.
But Kim did not stop.
He looked at the people.
"Step back."
Not out of fear of the power…
but of the shape.
His face was no longer fully human.
He had become a dark beast.
The black veins climbed to his neck.
His roar came out distorted.
Biath stepped forward.
Despite the danger.
Despite the terror.
He shouted:
"Kim! Look at me!"
Their eyes met.
For one moment—
He remembered Jack.
He remembered the room.
He remembered the soup on the steps.
He recoiled.
He fell to his knees, trying to resist.
He looked inside himself
and found a vast, pitch-dark void
embodied as a monster.
He stared at it, trying to understand who it was,
how it had come to exist within him.
And the monster, too, was staring back,
wanting to know who Kim was—
the one who tried to create it,
or the one it had created.
Fire went out.
The transformation stopped…
But its mark remained.
The people were silent.
The child was saved.
But did not come closer.
Neer grabbed Kim by the shoulders.
Looked at his cracked face.
He said in a trembling voice,
"This is what I feared."
"The seal doesn't stop you…
it only delays you."
Kim lifted his head with difficulty.
"Would I have let the child die?"
Neer was silent.
That was the answer.
Biath placed his hand on Kim's shoulder.
He said,
"You saved him."
"That's what matters."
Neer turned to him sharply.
"And did you see what he became?"
Then he looked at Kim.
"If this continues…
we'll be forced to stop you."
The words were a knife.
Not because they were a threat—
but because they were true.
Kim stood slowly.
His body hurt more than before.
The veins had not calmed.
He said hoarsely,
"So…"
"I'm a danger even when I do the right thing."
No one answered.
And that was the answer too.
That night,
Kim did not return home.
He sat outside the village.
Alone.
He looked at his hand.
The darkness was deeper.
He whispered,
"If I use my power… I transform."
Then:
"And if I don't use it…
others will die."
He laughed bitterly.
"Always… the same choice.
I wish I had never been born."
He felt the seal pulse.
Chaos was silent…
as was what he had created.
But it had not vanished.
It was waiting.
Not to be summoned…
but to be allowed.
And in the darkness,
Kim understood the cruel truth:
This peace…
is temporary.
And this world…
may not endure him for long.