The moon was a ghost—full, pale, watching.
Its light poured down in cold ribbons through the thinning canopy as Ex stepped beyond the Forest of Death. Bark twisted behind him like dead fingers; roots coiled like veins through ancient stone. There was only the hiss of wind and the heaviness of eyes he could no longer feel.
He had walked for hours in silence. Not out of caution—but habit. A shadow of a soldier's discipline. A phantom of an assassin's rhythm...
Behind him, the trees loomed like ancient sentinels. Their twisted trunks curled upward, scarred by age and soaked in old soel. The air still smelled of bloodless decay, a sweetness that clung to the back of the throat. The last root he stepped over felt warm. Alive. And as he passed the treeline, the soel within it shivered—as if mourning his exit.
He walked in silence.
Not because he feared being heard.
But because he was listening.
Not for danger.
But for the voice.
The boy's voice.
"I want you to burn them at their thrones?"
The words haunted him more than the dream itself. They slid into his thoughts like blades between ribs—slow, precise, unshakable. He hadn't answered the boy then. But now… now the silence forced him to.
Was he?
Ready to go back to what he was?
His hand drifted to his side—fingers brushing the hem of his coat. The fabric was stiff, still damp from the humidity of the forest, clinging to his ribs. He reached inside without thinking, almost idly, as if to check for a weapon.
Instead, his fingers found something soft.
His steps slowed.
He drew it out.
Three petals. Faintly golden, brushed with pale violet at the tips. Slightly wilted but untouched by rot. They pulsed faintly with warmth—not power. There was no soel in them. Just… presence.
His chest tightened.
As he stared, a flicker cut across his vision—
flash
—the dream sister standing barefoot in the field of crownflowers, a wreath in her hair, laughing, laughing—
flash
—her fingers placing something behind his ear. "This one matches your eyes."
flash
He blinked.
And she was gone
The memory faded like breath on glass, but the pain it left behind didn't. It settled in his gut like coals, dim and smoldering. He clenched his jaw, swallowing down something sharp.
Then his fingers brushed something else.
Metal.
He pulled it free.
A single rusted link of chain, its surface rough and mottled with red-brown decay. It was cracked on one side—snapped open by brute force. But it hadn't come from the forest. He knew that. This wasn't new.
This had been with him. Buried. Carried.
The chain from the dream.
From his wrists.
From his childhood.
Another flicker—
flash
—hands gripping his arms, too large, too strong, forcing him to his knees as the chains were wrapped, cinched, locked tight—
flash
—a burning brand pressed to the skin beneath them, his throat hoarse from screaming, and his father's voice: "This is your cage, beast."
flash
The boy's voice again, distant but clearer:
"want you to tear Heaven open and leave the bones of tyrants in its gates."
Ex inhaled, slow and controlled, and let the breath bleed out through his teeth.
He stuffed the petals and chain back into the inside pocket of his coat, pressing them against his chest—where they could be near his heart, and far from his hands.
But the air had shifted.
He knew the signs.
It began in the pressure—subtle, like a ripple beneath his skin. The soel in the world recoiled. The light of the moon grew sharper, colder. The soil beneath his boots buzzed with invisible judgment.
And then, it hit.
A spike of pain slammed through his head, behind his eyes, down his spine.
Sin Perception activated.
He staggered a step, grabbing a nearby boulder to steady himself. His knuckles whitened around the stone. The pain was molten. Sacred. Too clean to be natural. Too cruel to be divine. His body trembled, not with fear—but restraint.
His eyes burned.
Then cracked.
He felt it before he saw it—the familiar fracture in his iris. His vision fractured at the edges. The world shimmered through jagged patterns—red, crystalline, like broken stained glass. It was as if the divine itself had taken a hammer to his soul and left the shards in his vision.
Ex growled low in his throat.
His shadows stirred violently within him.
He felt them crawl under his skin, dragging their claws against his ribs, writhing like a caged animal. They wanted out. Wanted to feast. Wanted to paint the world red and drape it in silence again.
But they couldn't.
Not now.
Sin Perception lit up his soul like a furnace. Every attempt the shadows made to breach that sacred light scorched them like insects to flame. They screamed in silence.
And he said it aloud—not for anyone else, but for himself:
"Dark and light cannot dwell in the same body."
His voice cracked.
"I can't use them… not while this is active."
The wind stirred. Not strong, but deliberate. As if the world itself had heard and approved..
He was still Ex—but not the same one who tore through Hell with a smile.
The moon cast his shadow long behind him. It twitched. Then stilled.
He took another breath and began walking again—southward, always southward.
The hills unfurled like a path carved by fate itself. Trees thinned. Rocks jutted like broken bones from the ground. The soil changed underfoot—from soft loam to gravel to cracked earth.
Somewhere behind him, the Forest of Death vanished from sight.
And not long after that…
He felt it.
Eyes.
Watching.
Four pairs.
Four soldiers. Following his trail.
Ex didn't stop.
Didn't speak.
He just smiled—barely a curl at the corner of his lips—and whispered:
"You shouldn't have followed me."
He kept walking..
his eyes had told him what his body hadn't responded to yet.
They were following.
The Sin Perception hadn't deactivated. Not since the forest. It still throbbed like a cracked lens behind his eyes—fracturing the world into reds and blacks, harsh outlines and bleeding edges. Pain flickered in and out at the corner of his mind, like a knife being rhythmically pressed against his skull.
But he was used to pain.
What he couldn't ignore… was the auras.
He saw them first. Four of them. Not people, not entirely—because people didn't ooze that kind of filth. Their auras were twisted, broken, dripping with dark intent. Not demonic. Not cursed. But wrong.
Who were they?
He didn't know.
His head tilted slightly, locks of long, nappy, curly hair falling across his face as the wind moved through it. The ponytail loosened, brushing his shoulders with each step. His hand briefly tightened at his side—not from fear, but from the nagging itch of not knowing.
Why are they tracking me?
They don't feel like demons.
Not cultists either…
But they burned with the rot of conviction.
He slowed.
The air shifted. Not the chill of danger—but that dead weight of intent when prey is marked. His eyes narrowed, the red-glass glow intensifying. His gaze drifted toward the ridgeline—a narrowing pass ahead, flanked by stone outcroppings and tall, brittle grass.
A perfect place.
For blood.
Elsewhere, moments before –
The four soldiers moved in a staggered line through the brush, boots crunching softly under the veil of night. Their armor bore the insignia of the Vierila Kingdom—polished black metal reinforced with cloth and fiber for speed. These weren't ordinary guards.
These were sanctioned enforcers, sent to protect the border of the Forest of Death.
"Target is roughly one hundred meters ahead. Confirmed visual. Lone figure," one whispered.
"He came out of the forest," another spat, venom in his voice. "No one comes out of that place unless they've consorted with the spirits. He's tainted."
"You sure?" a younger one asked, lowering his crossbow. "He didn't look… twisted."
Their leader, a tall woman with her hair tied in a knot of precision, didn't look back.
"Orders are orders. Kill anyone who exits the Forest. Anyone. No exceptions."
"But what if he's not—"
"He is."
Her tone was final. Cold.
"Whatever power he took from that cursed land, we sever it here. Before it spreads."
Back to Ex –
He stood now, motionless atop a ridge of jagged stone, the wind brushing the tall grass around his ankles. The trail ahead wound downward, creating a narrow funnel between two short cliffs.
He inhaled slowly through his nose.
Still didn't turn around.
But the weight behind him shifted. One of them stepped wrong, crunched a rock.
His red-lit gaze blinked once. No fear. No anger.
Just quiet recognition.
They had chosen.
He raised his head slightly, long curls fluttering as he tilted his ear toward the wind. The Sin Perception flared again—one of the figures behind him flashed violently red for a moment, as if their soul had screamed.
His lips parted.
"Four of you," he said. Calm. Not a question.
Silence.
Then, a shout. Nervous. Too forced.
"Identify yourself! You are trespassing on protected land. This is a sacred zone of the Vierila Kingdom—state your name or be fired upon!"
Ex's fingers twitched.
Vierila… Kingdom.
So that was it.
He didn't recognize the name. Didn't care to. But now he had context. Soldiers guarding a place they feared, trying to kill what they didn't understand.
He still didn't turn.
"I'm not here for your forest," he said quietly.
"Then why are you here?"
Another voice, more confident. The commander, maybe.
Ex finally turned, slowly—body relaxed, eyes glowing like fractured rubies.
His shadow sprawled behind him across the grass, long and unnatural in the moonlight. It twitched, pulsed… trying to slip free. But the Sin Perception held it down—an invisible pressure sealing it in his bones. It burned. It ached.
But it stayed.
"I don't know why you're following me," Ex said, voice quiet but sharp, like a blade under velvet. "But I'll give you a chance. You leave."
Silence.
Then laughter.
"We're the ones holding the weapons," one of them said.
Ex cracked his neck slowly, stepping sideways, letting the moonlight touch one half of his face—red glow in one eye, hair casting the other in shadow.
"Then you better be good with them."