Chapter 207: Chapter 207 – The Bowing CityThe silence came first
Not the comfortable kind of silence, but a pressure, like the whole of Seoul was holding its breath. The marrow station lay in ruins behind them, smoke twisting into the ashen sky. The group stumbled through cracked streets, shoes scraping glass, lungs burning with soot and dust.
Then, the sound rose.
Not from one place. Not from one throat. But from everywhere.
It was a low, layered hum, rippling through alleyways and skyscraper husks. The kind of sound that carried no air, no breath—just vibration. The abyss-born had not attacked. They had not even moved to encircle the survivors. Instead, they had knelt.
Lin froze at the center of it all. Shadows gathered like armies, some hunched with jagged bone limbs, some tall and hollow-eyed, some formless masses dragging claws against the ground. Yet every one of them bent forward, foreheads touching asphalt, arms outstretched as if in worship.
The hum thickened into words.
Not Korean. Not Chinese. Not any language the living should understand. Yet Lin felt every syllable bloom inside his skull.
"Crown-bearer."
The word slithered through his spine like fire. His chains—those dark, barbed links that had sprouted in the marrow station—rattled in response. Without his will. Without his consent.
Lin staggered backward. His boot struck shattered glass. His chest rose and fell too quickly.
"No," he whispered to himself. "Not me. Not this."
The chant deepened. From the rooftops, more abyss-born appeared, dropping down on skeletal limbs only to kneel again. Their voices joined the chorus until the entire city seemed to tremble with one single word.
"Crown-bearer."
The others reacted violently.
Keller shoved past Min-joon and raised his rifle, the scope glinting under the fractured light. His voice cracked with rage.
"This is it! Look at them! They’re not attacking because he’s one of them!"
"Keller—" Min-joon’s hand shot out, gripping the barrel, pushing it down.
But Keller snarled, jerking it back up, his eyes bloodshot. "You don’t get it, Min-joon! He’s not fighting the abyss anymore—he is the abyss! Look at them bowing to him! Tell me I’m wrong!"
The words cut deeper than the gun aimed at his chest. Lin wanted to scream back, to deny it, but his throat clenched shut. His heart was hammering too fast, his vision swimming. He could feel the chant like a pulse under his skin. The chains weren’t just moving—they were... waiting.
Waiting for him to speak.
"Stop it, Keller!" Min-joon planted himself between them again, voice hoarse with desperation. "You think Lin asked for this? You think he wants it? He’s still fighting—don’t you see?"
"Fighting?" Keller barked a humorless laugh. His hands shook on the rifle. "His chains moved without him. That’s not fighting—that’s losing. You’re blind, Min-joon. He’s already gone."
And then Hwan spoke.
He hadn’t raised his voice since the marrow station collapsed. He had been watching, smirking in that half-mad way of his, letting the others tear themselves apart. Now, he tilted his head toward Lin, as if finally satisfied with what he saw.
"You’re both wrong," he said softly. His tone carried more weight than a shout. "This isn’t losing. This isn’t surrender. This is coronation."
The word cracked the air like a whip.
Lin turned, shaking. "Coronation?"
Hwan smiled, teeth glinting. "Did you really think the abyss just spawned? No. It obeys. It listens. But it doesn’t bend to just anyone. Jin tried to take the Crown for himself. He thought he could force it. He was mistaken." His eyes glittered as he gestured to Lin. "You didn’t seize it. You survived it. And now it has chosen."
The chant surged again, louder, echoing against glass towers and broken billboards.
"Crown-bearer. Crown-bearer. Crown-bearer."
Lin’s stomach twisted. He dropped to his knees, clutching his head, trying to drown the voices out. "No! I’m not—" His breath broke, his body trembling as the ground beneath him quivered. He pressed his palms to his skull as if he could squeeze the sound away.
But when he blinked, he saw it—just for an instant.
The city wasn’t ruined. The city was his. Skyscrapers were not broken, but bowed. Their tops bent forward like stalks of wheat in a storm, every window glowing with a faint crown-shaped sigil. Cars crumpled not from collapse but from deliberate submission, hoods pressed down like beasts genuflecting. Even the clouds above spiraled inward, a halo forming around him.
It wasn’t a hallucination. It was a promise.
Lin gasped, jerking his head aside, breaking the vision. But the imprint remained. The sense of rightness he couldn’t deny.
Keller saw it in his eyes. His fury cracked into horror. "You... you felt it, didn’t you?" His finger tightened on the trigger.
Min-joon shouted, "Don’t!" and lunged, but Keller was already pulling.
Lin didn’t think. His chains did.
With a metallic scream, they lashed out, slamming through the air like serpents. One coiled around Keller’s torso, pinning him against a ruined streetlight with enough force to splinter metal. Another snapped the rifle from his hands, shattering it in half.
The sound of gunfire never came. Only Keller’s strangled gasp as the chains tightened.
Lin’s chest heaved. His arms trembled. He hadn’t given the order. He hadn’t even thought it. The chains had moved of their own accord—defending him.
"No... no, no, no," Lin whispered, stumbling backward, shaking his hands as if he could throw the chains off like water. But they slithered at his sides, barbs glinting, restless and eager.
Min-joon turned to him, wide-eyed. "Lin..."
But Lin saw fear in that gaze.
Not trust. Not certainty. Fear.
The chant roared now, thunderous, unstoppable.
"Crown-bearer. Crown-bearer. Crown-bearer."
And then the ground shook.
From the east, a horde surged. Thousands of abyss-born, their silhouettes blotting out whole districts, pouring through streets and alleyways like a tide of nightmares. But as they approached, they didn’t strike. They didn’t scream.
They dropped to their knees.
The entire city bowed.
Lin staggered, eyes wide, as every street, every rooftop, every shadowed figure pressed itself down in perfect unison. The sound of bodies hitting the ground was like a wave crashing over concrete. Their chant reverberated so loud the streetlights shattered, sparks raining down like fireflies.
And then—
The sky split.
A jagged tear ripped through the clouds, glowing with crimson light. Thunder cracked like bones breaking. And from that wound in the heavens, a silhouette emerged.
It wasn’t a monster. Not in the way the abyss-born were. It was colossal, towering beyond skyscrapers, its body half-formed from stormcloud and flame. A crown of bone and burning halos floated above its head, and its faceless visage turned downward, directly at Lin.
And then, impossibly, it bowed.
The world trembled with its submission.
The chant became a scream.
"Crown-bearer!"
Lin’s chains whipped in ecstasy, barbs slashing sparks against the asphalt. His knees buckled under the weight of it. His chest felt ready to split open. He wanted to run. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to surrender.
And worst of all—
A part of him wanted to accept.