They said the man nad Kang Soo Jin was a monster.
A heretic — a fallen being who had turned his back on the Order, the Gods, the light.
In the sanctified tales of the New Church, he had sold his soul to Sparda — the primal demon of ancient tis, whose very na scorched holy scrolls — to seize a power no mortal was ant to wield.
But what those tales chose not to say — not from ignorance, but from deliberate silence — was that Kang Soo Jin had loved.
Deeply, simply and enormously.
To love, in a world where emotions were codified, controlled, judged... was a cri.
Worse still an unforgivable heresy.
For in the Empire of the World Governnt, where all deviant feelings were seen as threats to unity, to love was to plant a seed of chaos in a garden of control.
He beca a forbidden figure.
The World Governnt — that bureaucratic and militarized born from the ashes of the Apocalypse — had nad him among the ultimate enemies of humanity.
He stood atop red lists, beside corrupted entities and forbidden cults.
But the history told by the Governnt was not one of unity, not a pact forged by peoples yearning for peace.
No.
That power was born of fear.
After the teors fell, after the rifts opened, after the corruption that lted flesh and souls began to rise, the old continents cracked.
Chaos followed.
Then despair.
And finally, the hunger for order — any order.
So the powerful united, those who held weapons, technology, words, prayers.
Bankers.
Generals.
High priests.
Corporate lords.
Awakened in exile.
They joined their voices, their dogmas, their armies, and built a throne upon the ruins of the old world.
A throne of steel, crowned with broken crosses and satellites.
And upon that throne, they placed a Silent God — a faceless symbol.
The World Governnt.
The New Church was born in the sa breath.
It beca the Empire’s spiritual arm, its invisible fist, its bloody incense.
It gave aning to the cataclysms, teors beca Divine Judgnts.
Those touched by corruption ?
Abominations to be cleansed.
The devastated zones ? Forbidden lands.
Humanity had survived through obedience, they claid.
And obedience could not coexist with love, doubt, or compassion.
It was in this world, corseted by certainties, that Kang Soo Jin appeared.
Not as a savior.
Not as a chosen one.
Not as a demon.
But as a man.
A man with no authority, no divinity, no legitimacy.
But with two hands, a heart, and a mory. A man who refused to look away.
— "They’ll all die if nothing is done."
Those were his first public words, spoken at the edge of a forgotten village, rotting from a black plague born of a corrupted shard.
A place abandoned by authorities, ignored by rescuers, erased from digital maps.
Jin held no title.
But he entered the village.
He broke locked doors.
He carried sick children in his arms and brought them to safety.
He spoke to the dying.
He closed the eyes of the dead.
He burned the bodies with respect.
Then he vanished.
And so, without aning to, a legend was born. But a legend... is a threat.
In an empire founded on divine truth alone, the existence of a man who acted from love — outside of dogma, beyond permissions — was intolerable.
So they hunted him for twelve years and tree months.
Inquisitors, soldiers of the Order, rcenaries, guild mber, and spies scoured every city, every hamlet, every sewer grate.
The old were interrogated, the poor tortured, entire families deported, hos burned on suspicion alone.
And he... always... slipped away.
Not from fear, but put of respect because he knew that wherever he stayed too long, the Order brought fire.
And those few who helped him...
Did so not for gold. But for sothing rarer still, love.
Years passed after his arrest due to his advanced age—he was 102 years old and consud by his excessive use of corruption.
History, once twisted, hardened into dogma.
In the sacred schools of the Church, children recited verses condemning heretics, oathbreakers, and the "Crownless" — for so they were called now :
The dissidents, the lovers of chaos, the drears.
But in the shadowed places, where the light of the High Capital no longer reached, his na refuse to die.
From the ruins of forgotten city rose songs no monk had ever written.
His likeness was painted not as a demon, but as a man with an outstretched hand, his eyes gazing at an empty sky.
So even whispered that miracles blood where his blood had once touched the soil.
In the underground corridors of Arkandor — the Machine-City — a one-eyed old man told, night after night, the ending of Kang Soo Jin to those brave enough to listen.
— "He isn’t dead. Not truly. The Sun does not take the souls of those who loved. It passes them on — like torches. That is what the Church fears. Not him. You. What you might beco if you followed his path."
And the children listened, eyes wide, wondering if they too, one day, could defy the world while keeping their hearts whole.
For that was the true miracle :
In a world torn by war, rotted by corruption, and chained by dogma, Kang Soo Jin had loved — without condition.
He had seen light even in the blackest depths.
But he was not an example of divine goodness or unconditional love, he was very cruel to his enemies, a mocker capable of doing destructive things out of boredom.
But he never hurting an innocent all these battles were just, he was only defending the earth and its forgotten ones.
And it was that rare humanity despite its power that made him a threat.
One day, amid the ashes of an ancient battlefield, a young girl found a journal — battered, bloodstained, yet still legible.
It was one of Jin’s notebooks.
He hadn’t written it for posterity, but to keep his own mory alive in a world trying to steal it from him.
— "I am not a hero.
Not a savior.
And certainly not a prophet.
I’m just a man who refuses to believe that fear must rule.
If they kill tomorrow, let them know they’ve only defeated my body.
My voice will speak in every gaze that refuses to be mistreated."
The girl passed those words on.
Then others.
And more still.
A network blood.
Not an army.
Not a cult.
But a mory, organized.
A choir of awakened souls.
They ca to be known as the Firebeare. They are waiting for a rumor to co true, a rumor persisted. His return.
So survivors of the an activist organization called Truth tellers, claid that, on the dawn of the third day, Jin’s body had vanished.
Only his silver hooks remained, lted. The ground had blackened.
The Church insisted he had been incinerated, but no witness had seen the flas.
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