Chapter 227: Chapter 227: The Birth That Wasn’t
The hollow was endless.
No ground, no sky, no breath of air to tell Lin where he stood. Yet he felt weight beneath his feet, pressure against his chest, and the echo of something vast watching him. Every time his heart tried to beat, a deeper one drowned it out.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The marrow’s heartbeat.
Lin’s knees buckled, but he forced himself upright. His fists trembled at his sides, nails digging into his palms until blood slicked his skin. The silence pressed against him harder than chains ever had.
Then the dark stirred.
The silhouette loomed, the figure on the throne. Bigger than mountains, bigger than time itself. Its voice was not sound—it was marrow inside marrow, speaking through his bones.
"You are mine."
Lin’s teeth ground together. "No. I’m not. I’ve fought every step to stay myself."
"Your struggle was the proof." The voice reverberated with calm certainty. "Chains break because you exist. Gates fall because you exist. I did not give you choice—I gave you inevitability."
The hollow rippled. Darkness tore open like wet paper, and something bled through—memory.
Lin staggered back, but there was nowhere to retreat. The hollow stretched, reshaping itself into a sterile hospital room. The walls glowed faintly, washed out by fluorescent lights. The smell of disinfectant hit him like a wave.
He knew this room.
It was Seoul, eighteen years ago.
On the bed lay a woman, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, her face pale with exhaustion. Beside her, a man stood, younger than Lin remembered, clutching her hand with desperate tenderness. The cries of a newborn split the air.
The newborn was him.
Lin froze, breath caught in his throat. He had no memory of this moment—how could he?—but he knew the two figures were his parents. He felt their fear, their love, their trembling hope as they gazed down at the child swaddled in thin cloth.
The hollow’s voice laced through the scene.
"They believed you theirs. But before you took your first breath, I marked you."
The newborn shifted. His tiny chest glowed faintly, golden veins pulsing under his skin. The hospital lights flickered. The mother gasped, clutching her husband’s hand tighter. Nurses rushed forward, shouting words Lin couldn’t hear.
And then the air in the room bent. A ripple, a distortion, like the shimmer of heat rising from asphalt. It hovered above the newborn’s chest, invisible yet suffocating.
Lin’s blood ran cold. He could feel it. Even across time, across memory, he recognized the marrow’s signature.
The ripple sank into the infant’s chest. The glow flared. Chains invisible to everyone else twined around his body, burrowing into bone. The newborn screamed—not in pain, but in resonance. The cry was too deep, too raw for a human child.
Lin staggered backward, clutching his chest. He could feel the chains, as if they’d been piercing him his whole life. "Stop... stop it!"
The hollow answered, serene.
"You were born human. I remade you marrow. You were never theirs. You were always mine."
The hospital dissolved, collapsing back into the endless dark. But Lin’s mind burned with the image—the infant’s glow, the marrow’s chains twisting into him.
His voice cracked as he shouted, "If that’s true, why wait? Why let me grow up? Why let me live as Lin if I was only yours?"
For the first time, the silhouette stirred. Its vast body leaned forward, shadows boiling off its form.
"Because I needed you to believe in choice. Only then could you break the gates I could not touch."
The words hit like a knife.
Lin’s knees buckled. The marrow hadn’t just marked him. It had groomed him, allowed him to stumble, fall, rise—all so his defiance would grow sharp enough to cut locks older than civilizations.
He wasn’t a hero. He was a key.
And the marrow had held the lock all along.
Outside the Hollow
Min-joon clung to Lin’s limp body, every muscle screaming. The chains cradling Lin pulsed, trying to drag him higher toward the throne. Min-joon’s arms locked tighter, skin burning where resonance scorched him. "You’re not taking him!"
Keller fired shot after shot into the shifting air around the throne, bullets sparking uselessly against marrow-light. He didn’t stop. Each pull of the trigger was a snarl, a refusal to stand idle.
Hwan’s frail body shook violently as he pressed his palms to the bone beneath him. His lips moved soundlessly, as if whispering to the abyss itself. He couldn’t fight, but he could feel—and what he felt terrified him.
"It’s rewriting him," Hwan whispered hoarsely. "Right now. From the inside out."
Inside the Hollow
Lin collapsed onto his knees, gasping. His veins blazed gold, then black, then gold again. The marrow’s voice pressed closer.
"You see now. There was no birth without me. You are my marrow child, forged for this throne. Accept, and you will end the hollow. Resist, and you will be unmade."
Chains erupted from the dark, snapping around Lin’s wrists and ankles, yanking him spread-eagle before the silhouette. His chest heaved as resonance seared through him.
The throne loomed closer. Its vast chains rose like serpents, crown descending.
Lin lifted his head. His face was pale, streaked with sweat and blood, but his eyes burned.
"No..." His voice was raw, shredded. "I don’t accept that. I don’t accept you."
"You cannot refuse your own marrow."
"Then I’ll tear it out of myself!"
The words ripped from his throat like claws.
For an instant, the hollow shuddered. The chains around his wrists trembled, not loosening but faltering.
The silhouette’s voice grew colder. "You cannot kill what you are."
Lin bared his teeth, a ragged smile cutting through the pain. "Maybe not. But I can choose what I do with it. You lied—you don’t control me. You need me."
The hollow stilled.
Lin forced himself upright against the chains, blood dripping down his arms. "If you could open the gates, you would’ve done it. If you could sit that throne, you’d already be sitting on it. You need me to do it for you."
The silence that followed was sharper than any scream.
For the first time, the marrow did not answer.
And in that pause, Lin knew he was right.
Outside
Min-joon’s eyes widened as Lin’s body jolted violently in his arms. The chains around him cracked, fissures spreading through their marrow-light.
Keller froze mid-reload. "...He’s fighting back."
Hwan’s lips parted, a faint smile ghosting across his face even as blood dripped from his nose. "He’s found it. The marrow’s flaw."
Inside the Hollow
Lin’s voice was hoarse, but it carried.
"You need me. And because you need me, I’ll never be yours. Not completely."
The chains convulsed. The silhouette rose in fury, its eyes blazing like burning caverns. "Ungrateful child. Do you think need will save you? Need only binds us closer."
Lin shook his head. His body trembled, every nerve screaming, but his grin widened. "No. Need means I can break you. If I was truly yours, you wouldn’t have to convince me."
The hollow shuddered. The marrow’s heartbeat faltered for the first time.
BOOM... BOOM...
A heartbeat skipped.