Chapter 202: Chapter 201: The Heart’s Rebellion
The chamber throbbed with life.
The pit’s grotesque heart beat faster, its pulse echoing through the walls like the rumble of war drums. Each thud sent shockwaves through the floor, cracks racing outward in jagged lines. The stench of ichor was suffocating, heavy with rot and heat.
Then, the heart moved.
Tendril after tendril erupted upward, slick with black-red slime. Some were as thick as tree trunks, others whip-thin, slicing through the air with razor speed. They lashed across the chamber, smashing into stone, tearing grooves into the floor, and showering fragments of bone-like debris.
Keller reacted first. He dropped to one knee, rifle braced against his shoulder, and let loose a hail of bullets. His gunfire tore chunks from the tendrils, spraying ichor across the chamber. But each time one was severed, another grew in its place, writhing like a hydra that refused to die.
"Damn it—it’s regenerating!" Keller snarled, slamming a new magazine into his rifle.
Min-joon stumbled backward, eyes wide, arms shielding his face from the spray of ichor. "We—we can’t fight this! Hyung, it’s impossible!"
Lin stood at the edge of the pit, chains writhing like serpents around him, their metallic bodies trembling with a hunger that mirrored the heart’s rage. His crimson eyes blazed. He didn’t answer Min-joon. He couldn’t. The whispers were deafening.
Chained heir. Protect us. Feed us. Become us.
The abyss didn’t see him as an enemy. It saw him as its future. Its heir. Its vessel.
And part of him wanted to give in.
His breath hitched, his hands shaking as the tendrils rose higher, surrounding him like the bars of a living cage. Jin’s voice threaded through the storm, soft but insistent.
Command them, Lin. Don’t resist. This is your birthright.
Lin’s teeth ground together. "No... not my birthright." His voice was a growl, low and feral. "My weapon."
The chains snapped outward. With a roar, they struck the nearest tendril, shearing it in half. Another coiled around a second, crushing it with enough force to splatter ichor across the pit’s rim.
The creatures kneeling in the cavern above stirred at his fury. Their voices rose in unison, a chorus of madness: Chained heir. Chained heir. Lead us.
Lin raised his hand, every nerve in his body screaming, every vein burning like liquid fire. "Obey me!"
The abominations responded instantly. They swarmed into the chamber from the tunnel above, dropping from the walls, scuttling on all fours, screeching as they hurled themselves toward the pit. Dozens of twisted bodies leapt onto the tendrils, biting, clawing, tearing. Ichor sprayed in gouts, raining down in steaming arcs.
The heart shrieked. The sound rattled the stones, made Min-joon collapse to his knees, hands clamped over his ears. Keller cursed under his breath but kept firing, his bullets cutting through tendrils before they could impale the boy.
Lin staggered forward, sweat dripping down his temple, his vision blurring. Each command tore at him, draining something deeper than blood. The abyss didn’t give power freely—it demanded pieces of him in return.
Behind him, Hwan remained unnervingly calm, his crimson eyes gleaming faintly in the pulsating light. "Good... yes, Lin. Push further. Don’t hold back."
Lin’s chains lashed out, severing three tendrils at once. He roared in defiance, but his knees buckled. His body shuddered, convulsing as the abyss pressed harder into him. His veins glowed faintly crimson, light searing beneath his skin like fire beneath glass.
"Lin!" Min-joon cried, reaching out, but Keller yanked him back. "Stay clear!"
The whispers became screams, a hurricane inside Lin’s mind.
Bow, heir. Crown yourself. We will make you eternal. Bow!
The chains thrashed violently, some striking the walls at random as if trying to tear the chamber apart. Lin clutched his head, teeth bared in agony. His voice ripped out of him, broken and raw. "I said—I’m not your heir!"
For a heartbeat, the abyss faltered.
Then Jin’s voice cut through, clear, closer than ever.
Yes, you are.
The words hit him like a blade through the chest. His breath caught, his eyes wide. For a second, his chains drooped, his will unraveling. Tendrils surged forward, seizing the moment, curling toward him with lethal precision.
"Hyung!" Min-joon screamed.
The tendrils never reached.
Lin’s eyes snapped back into focus, crimson blazing hotter than ever. He flung his arms wide, chains exploding outward in a circle of whiplash force. The abominations echoed his fury, hurling themselves at the tendrils in suicidal waves.
"Then fine!" Lin roared, voice shaking the chamber. "If I am your heir—then obey me and die!"
The swarm responded with a frenzy, tearing chunks of the heart’s flesh, dragging tendrils down with their own bodies. The pit boiled with ichor, the heart thrashing violently as cracks split across its pulsating surface.
Hwan finally stepped forward, his tone a dangerous mix of admiration and hunger. "Magnificent... you’ve turned the abyss on itself."
Keller spat, firing another burst into a flailing tendril. "Shut up and shoot something, you bastard!"
The heart screamed again, the sound shaking dust from the ceiling. The pit collapsed inward slightly, spilling molten ichor across the chamber floor. Lin’s chains whipped around him in a storm, his body trembling from the strain. He could feel himself breaking apart—his skin splitting faintly at his arms where crimson light glowed through, his breath ragged, his vision a blur of red and black.
But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
"Finish it!" Keller shouted.
Lin staggered forward, planting his foot at the pit’s edge. His chains lashed into the heart itself, piercing deep into the throbbing mass of flesh. Ichor surged up the chains, burning like acid, searing into his arms. He screamed—but held.
The swarm piled onto the heart, clawing, biting, ripping. The cracks widened, light pouring out, red and white at once, an impossible radiance that seared the chamber.
With one final roar, Lin wrenched his arms apart. His chains ripped through the heart, tearing it down the middle.
The heart burst.
A wave of ichor exploded outward, slamming into the walls, flooding the chamber. The ground buckled, stones shattering under the pressure.
Lin was thrown backward, his body slamming into the cavern floor. His chains fell limp, twitching weakly like dying serpents.
The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was Jin’s voice, soft and close, whispering at the edge of his consciousness:
You’re almost there, brother. Don’t stop now.
Then silence.