Chapter 224: Chapter 224: The Face Beneath the Mask
The graveyard trembled as though it shared Lin’s heartbeat. Every rib and spine of the titans underfoot quivered, dust rising like ash in a storm. The envoy’s mask split further, lines fracturing outward with a sickening creak. What had once been a faceless vessel of abyssal authority now revealed something far worse—familiarity.
Through the crack, an eye stared out. It was human. Too human. Pale, rimmed in red veins, with an iris that mirrored Lin’s own. Not identical, no. But close enough to spark recognition in the marrow.
Lin’s breath hitched. His body convulsed as if the chains inside him recognized the face before his mind could. They writhed like serpents under his skin, some reaching toward the envoy, others retracting as though scorched.
"Wh—what... what are you?" Lin rasped, his voice raw, ragged.
The envoy tilted its head. The fractured mask widened with a slow, deliberate crack, until half its face was visible: the cheekbone, a sliver of nose, the cruel curve of a mouth that smiled without warmth.
"Haven’t you wondered, child?" The voice no longer echoed with infinite layers. It was closer now, sharper, like a knife at the ear. "Why the abyss chose you? Why you carry chains when others only drown in them?"
Lin’s jaw clenched. He wanted to scream denial, but the words tangled in his throat.
The envoy leaned closer, chains scraping the graveyard as though bowing toward him. "Because you are not simply its heir. You are its blood. Its marrow. Mine."
The words detonated in Lin’s chest. His knees buckled, breath leaving him in ragged bursts. Min-joon tightened his hold, his voice breaking as he forced Lin’s gaze back. "Don’t listen! Lin, look at me. Not it—me!"
But the envoy pressed harder. The chains quivered, vibrating against Lin’s ribs. Images flickered at the edges of his mind—an infant’s cry, a shadowed hand lowering him into darkness, whispers of chains like lullabies.
Lin choked, "No—no, I was—I was human—"
"Human?" The envoy’s half-face curled in contempt. "A shell. A mask you wore so the world would not break beneath your steps. You are marrow-born, carved from abyss long before you learned the name you cling to now."
The ground cracked. A titanic skull beside them split in half, empty sockets blazing with black fire as though nodding in agreement.
Min-joon’s hands shook as he cupped Lin’s face. His own body was trembling from resonance burns crawling across his arms, but his voice was steady. "You’re not its. You’re yours. I don’t care where you came from—you’re Lin. My Lin."
The envoy’s gaze shifted toward him, cold amusement in its single exposed eye. "How quaint. A tether trying to bind what cannot be bound. Do you think your fragile devotion will erase his marrow?"
Chains whipped outward. One lashed across Min-joon’s back, flaying skin in a streak of resonance fire. He staggered, but didn’t let go.
Keller cursed, throwing himself forward. His knife glinted in the dark, utterly useless against chains, but he slashed anyway, knocking one aside long enough for Min-joon to gasp a breath. "You talk too much," Keller spat at the envoy. "Always the same—big words, cosmic crap. You want him scared. That’s all this is."
The envoy’s eye narrowed. "Noise. Always noise."
But Keller’s words lodged in Lin’s mind. The fear roared, but so did the realization: the envoy was performing. Not truth, not entirely—manipulation.
Still, the images wouldn’t stop. His body remembered what his mind denied: lullabies in resonance, a cradle of bones, whispers calling him "child" long before he knew his own name.
"No," Lin hissed, gripping his skull as though he could crush the memories. "I’m—me. I’m Lin. I’m not—"
Hwan’s voice cut in, thin but sharp as glass. "Then prove it!" His hands were still pressed against Lin’s wounds, resonance burns eating into his palms, but he didn’t let go. His teeth were gritted, eyes blazing through tears. "You’re not its, Lin. You’re ours. So fight like it."
The envoy laughed—or tried to. The sound came out as a grinding of chains. "Pathetic. Four gnats clinging to a storm."
It spread its arms wide. The graveyard obeyed. Bones split and rearranged, a spiral forming, pulling them all toward the throne. The crown of chains hovered above Lin, its points glowing with abyssal light.
"You cannot refuse forever," the envoy whispered, its voice slipping beneath Lin’s skin. "Blood calls to blood. And when you kneel, it will not be as heir. It will be as what you have always been: mine."
Lin’s vision blurred. He saw the throne. He saw himself upon it, crowned, his friends erased from existence, his voice no longer his but the abyss’s roar. His stomach twisted in revulsion, but his marrow—his chains—thrummed with hunger.
Min-joon pressed closer, bloodied face inches from his. "Lin. Stay. Here. With. Me. Whatever it says—it’s lying."
Lin’s breath shuddered. His eyes locked onto Min-joon’s, and for a moment the abyss faltered. The envoy’s chains writhed violently, reacting to the fracture in its dominion.
Then the envoy’s mask shattered completely.
And Lin saw the full face beneath.
It was not entirely his. But it could have been. The same bone structure, older, sharper. The same eye shape, but filled with void. A reflection of what he might become—or perhaps what he had once been.
Lin’s chest convulsed. A sound tore from his throat, half-scream, half-denial.
The envoy’s mouth curved into a smile that was Lin’s own, distorted.
"You see it now. You know. You were never born. You were made."
The words thundered through the graveyard, echoing across every titan skull.
Min-joon’s cry rose above the roar: "Don’t believe it!"
But the envoy leaned closer, chains poised to crown him.
"Come home, marrow-child. Or watch them be unmade for your refusal."
The ground split beneath them, bones tumbling into an endless pit. The throne towered higher, the crown descending faster. Min-joon clung to Lin. Keller drew another useless blade. Hwan screamed as his hands blistered against Lin’s skin.
And Lin—Lin felt the abyss pulling at his marrow, demanding obedience.
At last, he understood what the envoy meant. It wasn’t offering him inheritance. It was demanding recognition.
That he had never belonged to himself.
That he had always been abyss.