The plaza had already been reduced to rubble by the clash between Lin's chains and the strike force, but when the figure finally stepped into view, silence fell like a guillotine. Even the drones—those ceaseless, buzzing machines—hung in the air as if paralyzed.
It wasn't the figure's size that commanded fear. It wasn't towering or grotesque. If anything, its silhouette was disturbingly human, draped in a cloak that seemed woven from strands of night itself. But where its face should have been was only a void—a mask of absence, a hollow that bent the light inward.
Lin's knees buckled before he realized it. The chains inside him coiled, tightened, and sang. Not in rebellion. Not in frenzy. But in reverence.
"Lin…" Min-joon's voice cracked as he grabbed his arm, pulling him upright. "Don't look at it. Whatever you do, don't—"
Too late.
The hollow mask turned toward Lin.
And something vast and ancient looked back through him.
Lin's vision blurred with layered afterimages—cities submerged under oceans of black water, skies where stars were nothing but burning holes in reality, and processions of chained figures kneeling in infinite rows. He felt himself standing among them, his neck bent, his body trembling in unison with millions of unseen thralls.
A resonance thundered in his skull, not words yet not silence either. A voice that existed beneath language. When it reached him, the meaning was undeniable:
"Child of fractures. Carrier of marrow. You are not heir—you are vessel."
Lin staggered back, clutching his chest. His heartbeat didn't feel like his own anymore; it throbbed in time with the chains, in time with the abyss itself.
Keller cursed under his breath, raising his rifle though his hands shook. "That's no militia leader. That's not even human, is it?"
The soldiers who remained alive had dropped to their knees, weapons forgotten, trembling as if every instinct told them resistance was pointless. Even Hwan, who had always carried himself with an unshakable steadiness, pressed back against a broken wall, his mouth drawn tight.
Min-joon alone moved forward, placing himself between Lin and the abyssal figure. His whole body shook from the resonance's weight, but his stance was unyielding.
"Get away from him!" Min-joon shouted, though his voice fractured mid-sentence. "He's not yours to take!"
The resonance deepened. Lin heard bones creak—not his own, but Min-joon's. It was as if every syllable from the abyssal figure pressed down with invisible hands. Still, Min-joon refused to fall.
The figure tilted its head. The mask rippled faintly, as though curious.
"Defiance. A tether. That is why the vessel resists dissolution."
Lin's mouth worked, words spilling out before he could think. "What… do you mean? Dissolution—what are you saying?"
The void turned fully toward him, and the world seemed to tilt.
"You mistake yourself for wielder. You are carried, not carrier. Within you stirs marrow of the first breach. Fragment of what drowned the sky. It will claim you. Or you will serve as its door."
The words, if they were words, stabbed deeper than knives. Lin's stomach twisted; he wanted to vomit, to scream, to claw out the chains that writhed beneath his skin. But he couldn't. They liked this presence. They hummed like worshippers at a shrine.
Keller took a step forward, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might snap. "So that's it, huh? Lin's not a weapon—they're trying to open something with him." He spat in the dirt. "All those bastards upstairs knew it."
The figure's mask tilted again.
"This one sees the outline. Yet fails to grasp the shape."
"Shut up," Keller snarled, but his voice lacked strength.
Lin's vision swam again, flashes of memory not his own—scientists carving marrow crystals out of abyssal flesh, governments whispering about containment and power, Jin's shadow laughing in the dark corridors.
The abyssal figure extended a hand. Its fingers were long, jointed wrong, but graceful like calligraphy. Chains within Lin erupted outward instinctively, not by his will. They wrapped toward the figure, like supplicants drawn to a priest.
Lin fell to his knees, gripping his head. "Stop—stop, damn it! Listen to me!"
The chains ignored him. For the first time since they'd emerged, they weren't wild, weren't chaotic. They were obedient. But not to him.
Min-joon whirled around, crouching in front of Lin. His eyes were red, blood vessels bursting from the pressure of the resonance, but his voice cut through with raw force.
"Lin! Look at me! You're not a vessel, you're not some thing for them to use—you're you! Do you hear me?"
Lin's chest heaved. His lungs burned. Min-joon's voice was a thread in the storm, a fragile tether pulling him back.
The figure's resonance trembled, amused.
"Tether breaks, vessel dissolves. Shall I demonstrate?"
The hollow mask tilted toward Min-joon.
Lin's world froze. He felt the intent, the weight of obliteration gathering like a fist above his friend.
"No!" Lin roared. His chains lashed out—not toward the figure this time, but around Min-joon, cocooning him in a cage of black steel.
The resonance paused.
The abyssal figure's hand lowered slightly.
Keller blinked, stunned. "He… stopped it. He chose."
The void mask tilted once more, and Lin could almost feel it smiling without a mouth.
"So it begins. Vessel strains against marrow. Conflict ripens. The door stirs."
Hwan finally found his voice, though it shook. "What… what do you want from him?"
The figure's presence pressed outward, rattling stone, bending the air.
"Willing or unwilling, he descends. Deeper than the marrow, deeper than the fractures. Either he follows… or he watches all tethers cut."
The chains around Min-joon pulsed violently, as though awaiting Lin's decision.
Min-joon reached through them, his palm pressing against Lin's trembling hand. His eyes were fever-bright. "Don't listen. Don't give it what it wants. You're stronger than this."
But Lin could feel it—that crushing truth. His choices weren't choices at all. He could resist, but the figure's intent was clear: Min-joon, Keller, Hwan… everyone would be wiped away if he refused.
The hollow mask leaned closer, and for the first time, Lin heard something almost like words layered beneath the resonance:
"Choose, child of fractures. Door… or witness to ruin."
The air shattered with a soundless boom, and the chapter ended on that knife-edge moment—Lin's breath ragged, the chains thrumming like drums, and the abyss waiting for his answer.