Chapter 208: Chapter 208: The Hand of the Crown
The city no longer felt like Seoul.
It felt like something wearing Seoul’s skin, stitched together from broken neon, bent steel, and shadows that had forgotten how to behave like shadows. The air pulsed like a drumbeat, every vibration synced with Lin’s own heart, until he couldn’t tell if the world was echoing him or if he was echoing it.
The abyss-born filled the streets in impossible numbers. They weren’t attacking. They weren’t hunting. They were kneeling—foreheads pressed to cracked concrete, claws scraping in rhythmic devotion. Their bodies writhed with twitching veins of black ichor, but they moved as one, every twitch bending toward Lin like blades of grass bowing to the wind.
And then the sky tore open.
The clouds split like skin, and from the wound came the silhouette—colossal, impossible, crowned. A shape so large it stretched from one horizon to the other. Its head bowed, draped with a crown of bone and flame that burned without fire. Its eyes were pits of galaxies collapsing inward. Its shoulders scraped the air itself raw, leaving streaks of bleeding light in their wake.
And when it spoke—there was no sound.
The marrow of the world shook. The station beneath their feet, the city ruins above, even the air inside their lungs—all vibrated at once. It wasn’t words they heard. It was resonance.
—HEIR.
The syllable shook the teeth from Keller’s clenched jaw. Min-joon doubled over, clutching his chest like his ribs were splitting. Hwan’s smirk faltered for the first time, his wide eyes reflecting awe as much as terror.
Lin staggered, his chains bursting from his back like veins turned inside out, writhing as if they recognized the thing above. His knees buckled under the pressure, and he tasted iron on his tongue.
The colossus’s crown tilted, a gesture both reverent and commanding. Its massive hand lowered from the sky, blotting out entire blocks as it descended. Fingers the size of towers unfurled, palm open, an invitation and a demand wrapped in one.
The resonance deepened.
—INHERIT.
Lin clutched his head, vision blurring. He could feel the words in his marrow, in the chains, in every ragged heartbeat. The abyss wasn’t pressing him into the dirt—it was lifting him, offering him something vast, endless, intoxicating.
A mantle.
Not death. Not destruction. Not even corruption.
A crown.
And in that moment, Lin saw it—his mind filled with images that weren’t his own. A vision of the city remade, not broken. Streets paved in veins of crimson light, skyscrapers bent like titans kneeling, every shadow carrying chains that writhed to his command. A kingdom of silence and obedience, where he stood not as fugitive, not as victim, but as sovereign.
The abyss didn’t want him to rot. It wanted him to rule.
"Lin!"
Min-joon’s voice cut through the resonance like glass shattering against stone.
Lin blinked, the vision breaking apart, but the ache it left behind was almost worse. His friend was on his knees, crawling toward him despite the pressure that made every other human body fold. His face was pale, veins bulging against his skin, but his eyes were locked on Lin with a clarity that felt like defiance itself.
"Don’t listen! Don’t you dare!" Min-joon’s voice cracked, but he forced the words out, his fingers digging into the ground as he dragged himself forward. "You’re not theirs. You’re you. You’re Lin!"
Lin’s chains quivered, their tips twitching toward Min-joon like snakes drawn to warmth.
Behind them, Keller fought against the invisible pressure, spitting blood from his lips as he forced himself upright. His rifle dangled from one hand, shaking, but his glare burned hotter than ever.
"This is it, Min-joon," Keller snarled, his voice shredded by the strain. "Look at him! He’s not fighting it anymore—he’s basking in it!" He spat red onto the cracked concrete. "Don’t you get it? He’s already gone."
"Shut up!" Min-joon snapped, his throat raw. He planted a hand on Lin’s chest, gripping his torn shirt, his voice breaking with desperation. "You hear me? You’re still in there. You have to be. Don’t... don’t leave me alone in this."
The resonance shook again, a second syllable tearing through the marrow of reality.
—SOVEREIGN.
Lin’s knees hit the ground. His vision swam. The hand above, vast and unyielding, descended until it filled the sky. Chains tore from his back uncontrolled, slamming into the pavement, wrapping around light poles, digging trenches into the concrete. They weren’t obeying him anymore—they were answering the call of the colossus.
And still, Min-joon clung to him. His voice, cracking and terrified, anchored itself in Lin’s mind.
"You’re not Jin. You’re not them. You’re you. If you put that crown on... I’ll never reach you again. Please, Lin. Please."
The words pierced deeper than the abyss.
For a heartbeat, Lin saw both worlds: the throne of chains offered to him, vast and terrible, and Min-joon’s trembling hands pulling at him, human and fragile.
Keller staggered closer, his rifle raised, eyes bloodshot with fury. "If you take that hand, I swear I’ll put a bullet through your skull myself, Lin. Crown or not, abyss or not—I’ll end you before I let this world bow to you!"
Lin’s chest heaved, caught between rage, longing, guilt, and power so intoxicating it made him want to scream.
Hwan’s laugh cut through the chaos, low and ragged, tinged with something close to awe. "Ah... so this is it. The moment. I wondered who it would be, but... it really is you." He spread his arms like a prophet greeting a storm. "Do you feel it, Lin? The abyss doesn’t choose lightly. You were never a victim. You were chosen. You are the Crown."
The chains around Lin lashed the ground, sparks flying. His body trembled like it was tearing itself apart, every vein burning with ichor.
Above, the colossal palm hung open, trembling with divine weight.
The abyss-born screamed as one, their chant shaking the ruined skyline.
"CROWNED. CROWNED. CROWNED."
The ground split in veins of red. Glass shattered. Towers leaned. The city itself bent like it was preparing to kneel.
Lin forced himself upright, Min-joon’s grip slipping from his shirt. He raised his eyes to the hand above, tears cutting through blood and grime on his face.
And for the first time, he spoke—not to Min-joon, not to Keller, not to Hwan.
To the abyss itself.
"I..." His voice cracked, but the chains trembled in anticipation, the chant rising to fever pitch.
"I will not—"
The world shuddered.
The colossus leaned lower, crown blazing like a sun of bone and fire.
"—kneel."
The word tore from his throat like a weapon.
The chains exploded outward, striking the ground, shattering the chant for a heartbeat. The abyss-born shrieked, convulsing, their worship breaking into chaos. The colossus’s resonance faltered, the air stuttering like a machine stripped of rhythm.
And yet—the hand did not withdraw.
It hovered, patient. Waiting.
Not a command. An offer.
An invitation that would not vanish.
Lin collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from his nose, his vision a blur of crimson and black. Min-joon caught him, holding him upright as the world screamed around them.
The abyss had made its move.
The choice still burned in his chest, heavier than any chain.
And the hand—massive, unyielding, eternal—remained.
Waiting for his answer.