The street was no longer Seoul. It was a battlefield, a fissure between two realities. Neon signs flickered wildly overhead, their lights bending and stretching as though dragged by unseen hands. The air reeked of ozone and smoke. Civilians scattered in blind panic, so abandoning cars in the middle of intersections, others pressed flat against storefronts, too terrified to move.
And in the middle of it all, Lin stood trembling, Min-joon’s arms steadying him as the tether writhed like fire beneath his skin. Across the broken asphalt, the figure in the immaculate suit erged fully from the scar. Unlike the grotesque shadows that had co before, this one was composed, almost regal. He walked with the calm of soone who belonged here, though every inch of him radiated wrongness.
"Finally," the figure said again, voice steady, reverberating through the fractured street. His pale eyes locked on Lin, unblinking, as if the chaos around them was nothing more than a stage. "The tether has chosen, and the key awakens."
Lin’s throat tightened. He forced words past the pressure in his chest. "Who are you?"
The figure tilted his head, almost amused. "Who I am does not matter. Who you are... that matters more than you can yet understand." He stepped forward, shoes crunching against shattered glass. Civilians in his path bolted, screaming, but he never so much as glanced at them. His gaze never left Lin. "You are the link. The fracture made flesh. And you’ve finally shown yourself."
Keller’s gun was already raised, his voice sharp with fury. "Back away from him, you son of a bitch!"
The shot cracked through the air, echoing across the broken street. But the bullet never hit. The suited figure raised one hand lazily, and the round froze midair before crumbling into dust.
Keller swore under his breath. "That’s new."
Min-joon pulled Lin closer against him, whispering urgently. "Don’t listen. Don’t let him in."
But the tether burned hotter, thrumming like a drumbeat in Lin’s skull. The man’s presence wasn’t just visible—it was connected to the tether. He could feel it, like an answering hum resonating in the sa frequency as the fire inside him.
"You feel it, don’t you?" the figure said softly, almost kindly. "The pull between us. The truth. You were never ant to sever the scar. You were ant to beco it."
Lin staggered forward, his knees buckling. Min-joon caught him instantly. "Lin!"
"No—" Lin wheezed, gripping his own chest as if he could tear the tether out. "He’s... tied to it. To ."
"Damn right he is," Hwan growled, stepping between Lin and the suited figure with both hands on his weapon. "That thing reeks of the abyss. It’s using your tether to anchor itself here. If it isn’t stopped, this whole district will collapse into scar territory."
The figure smiled faintly. "Collapse? No. Transformation. This city was never ant to remain untouched. You should be grateful, boy." His glowing eyes bore into Lin’s. "You are the beginning of the true world."
Lin clenched his teeth, fury sparking through his exhaustion. "I’m nothing like you."
The figure chuckled. "No. You’re worse. Because you don’t even know what you are."
The tether surged violently, dragging a cry from Lin’s throat. Smoke coiled upward from the cracks in the asphalt as the seams widened. The figure raised his hands, and the fractures responded, splitting wider, belching pale vapor and shrieking echoes from the other side.
Reality itself was bending around his will.
Keller didn’t hesitate. He opened fire again, each shot sharp and precise, aiming for the figure’s head. But once again, the bullets slowed and shattered before they reached him.
Hwan barked, "Suppressing fire’s useless! We need to destabilize the seam, not him!"
But Min-joon wasn’t listening to tactics. His entire world was Lin, whose body trembled violently in his arms. He pressed his forehead against Lin’s temple, voice shaking but firm. "Listen to . Anchor to , Lin. Not to him. Not to that thing. ."
Lin gasped, vision splitting again. In one eye, Seoul fractured and broken. In the other, he saw the abyss bleeding through—the tether like a bridge between them. And the figure was right there, standing effortlessly on both sides, his presence as natural in the scar as it was on the street.
"Let go," the figure murmured, his voice sliding into Lin’s skull like silk. "Stop fighting it. You’ll see what you were ant to be."
Lin scread—not in words, but in pure defiance. The tether flared, white-hot, and the nearest seam convulsed violently. The suited figure staggered for the first ti, his smirk flickering.
Hwan shouted, "Yes! He can push it back!"
But the backlash was imdiate. The tether whipped inside Lin like a lashing serpent, his body arching in Min-joon’s arms. Blood trickled from his nose, his breaths ragged.
Min-joon tightened his hold on him, desperation raw in his voice. "Don’t do this alone! Lin, damn it, share it with !"
Lin’s eyes snapped open, glowing faintly white again. He looked at Min-joon, breathless, terrified, but he nodded. He opened the tether—not just to the scar, but to Min-joon.
It felt like fire pouring into both of them at once. Min-joon gasped, his own body shuddering as the tether seared through him, but he held on, refusing to let go. His grip on Lin was iron.
Together, they pulled.
The seams across the street convulsed, shrieking as the fractures resisted. Civilians scread and ducked for cover as windows shattered and neon signs blew out in showers of sparks. The suited figure staggered again, this ti visibly straining, his hand twitching in midair as though fighting against an unseen current.
"You think you can resist ?" he snarled, voice finally cracking with rage. "You are nothing but a vessel! Mine!"
The tether burned hotter. Lin’s vision blurred, Min-joon’s voice a lifeline through the chaos. "Don’t let go. Lin, stay with . Right here. Right now."
For a mont, it worked. The seams began to close, the smoke retreating, the shrieks fading. The street seed to stabilize, the fractures knitting back together.
But then the suited figure moved. He slamd one palm against his own chest—and a new seam tore open right through him.
Lin felt it instantly, a violent lurch that nearly ripped him from Min-joon’s arms. His entire body convulsed as the tether yanked toward the figure like a magnet.
And then the man spoke his na.
Not Lin. Not the na he used in Korea.
His real na.
The one he had buried years ago. The one not even Min-joon knew.
"Liu Zhen," the figure intoned, voice echoing with terrible certainty. "The abyss rembers you. And now, so does the world."
Min-joon froze, eyes wide, his grip on Lin tightening as if the na itself threatened to steal him away.
Lin’s heart plumted. The tether flared so violently it felt like his very soul was being ripped apart.
The suited figure smiled again, eyes blazing. "You cannot hide from what you are."
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