The writings on the scroll were not ink.
They were dried blood—
blood that was waking.
The fires that engulfed Rogo Pavilion had begun to die, leaving behind only smoldering ruins, collapsing beams, and a choking haze of smoke that hung in the air like a curse.
Ajin knelt in what remained of the children's dormitory.
Ash clung to his skin.
Soot stained his lips.
His hands trembled as they held a tiny wooden-bead bracelet—Loka's bracelet—now half-burned, warm from the ashes it lay in.
He no longer cried.
His eyes were dry, cracked, hollow.
The tears had ended.
The boy who could cry had died minutes ago.
His heart felt like a burnt-out husk.
Before him, half-buried in the charred straw mats, lay the Forbidden Scroll—its leather bindings blackened, its blood-seal cracked.
A relic of violence.
A promise of rebirth.
Or a coffin waiting for an occupant.
Ajin did not move.
He breathed slowly, mechanically, as if even that was a habit he had forgotten to abandon.
The night wind blew.
WUSH…
Cold. Far colder than it had any right to be.
The breeze carried with it the scent of death and ember.
It rustled the half-open scroll—
And then—
The scroll unfurled itself.
Not completely.
Just enough for its first glyphs to breathe.
DHUG.
DHUG.
DHUG.
Ajin's head jerked slightly.
That pulse—
It was not from his own chest.
It was the scroll.
Beating.
Alive.
Under the pale moonlight, the ancient characters carved onto the scroll glowed faint crimson. The blood embedded into the parchment glistened as though freshly spilled.
The wounds of the past… opening again.
Ajin stared at the words without blinking.
They crawled.
Shifted.
Like living veins pulsing under skin.
And as he watched them—
The first line carved itself into his mind:
"First Stage: Wrath."
"Steel cannot be forged from soft metal."
"Destroy your body first—only then may it be rebuilt."
Ajin breathed out.
"Destroy…"
His voice cracked like splintered wood.
He closed his fingers around Loka's bracelet.
He felt the wooden beads pressing painfully into his palm.
"Hurt… break… fall apart…"
His whisper was barely a voice.
Then—
Something feral rose through him.
A scream tore out from his throat.
Not human.
Not even beast.
It was the sound of a spirit collapsing.
"RAAAAHHHH!"
His body lurched.
BAM!
He slammed his head into a half-burned wooden pillar beside him.
A sharp burst of pain exploded across his skull. Blood trickled down his brow, mixing with soot and ash.
"Hurt—!"
BAM!
Harder.
The wooden beam shuddered, and Ajin's vision blurred from the impact. Something warm dripped past his eyelids.
Flashes swept through him—
"Teacher Ajin! Look, I can cut leaves!"
"Teacher Ajin is weak!"
"Teacher Ajin is the kindest—"
"Worm."
"Useless."
He screamed again—
"SHUT UP!"
He was shouting at the memories.
At the ghosts.
At himself.
His breath came in broken gasps.
He staggered to his feet, unsteady.
And then he punched his own chest—
BUK!
A deep, sickening thud vibrated through his ribs.
"BECAUSE I—"
He punched again.
"—WAS—"
Again.
"—WEAK!"
KRAK!
Something cracked.
His ribs screamed in agony.
He coughed blood all over the ashes.
He punched again.
And again.
And again.
He didn't feel pain.
Or maybe he felt too much.
His body was no longer responding to sense—
only to raw, unfiltered emotion.
He fell to his knees and clawed at the ground, leaving streaks of soot and blood in the dirt.
He grabbed his own throat, opening his mouth—
And roared.
Screamed until his voice shattered.
Until his throat tore.
Until only a hoarse rasp echoed through the ruins.
He screamed until blood dripped down his chin.
The black floor beneath him—already smeared with ash—slowly darkened to red.
Drops of his blood.
Drops of guilt.
Drops of his shattered heart.
"Why…"
His voice was nothing but a croak.
"Why didn't I stay…? Why didn't I fight…? Why did only I survive…?"
The pain was unbearable.
Because part of him wished he had died with them.
Ajin slumped, his body trembling violently from exhaustion, blood loss, and grief. The night pressed in around him. The moon dimmed behind clouds, as if refusing to witness the cruelty below.
Every breath burned.
Every limb ached.
His bones felt like glass.
He had failed them.
Failed the children.
Failed the elder.
Failed himself.
Ajin dragged his head upward.
And saw the scroll.
Still glowing.
Still pulsing.
Still alive.
He stared at it with half-shut eyes.
Then—
The blood-writing shifted.
Lines reshaped themselves.
Characters intertwined.
And new words—new instructions—formed before his gaze.
Ajin blinked slowly as they appeared:
"Pain is the first hammer."
"Break your bones to harden them."
"Destroy your flesh to awaken the core."
"The body must die before the steel within can rise."
His breath stilled.
And then he read the final line of the first page:
"If you still survive…
…then you were worthy to begin."
Ajin's eyes trembled.
His ribs were broken.
His throat was torn.
His skull was bleeding.
His body was failing.
He should not have been able to move.
He should not have been able to breathe.
He should not have survived opening the scroll, much less reading it.
But he was alive.
Barely.
Barely enough.
Ajin let out a trembling exhale.
"So this… is what you want…"
His voice was ragged, almost unrecognizable.
"…isn't it?"
The scroll glowed brighter.
Red runes crawled out of it like serpents of blood, swirling in the air around him.
The ashes trembled.
The air hummed.
The burning ruins darkened and cooled.
A low vibration rippled across the ground—
as if the earth itself recognized the awakening of something forbidden.
Ajin pressed a hand to his chest, coughing more blood.
His vision doubled, blurred, twisted.
He should stop.
He should rest.
He should flee.
But something inside him…
Something beyond reason…
Something born from the ashes and screams…
whispered:
"Continue."
Ajin tipped his head back, eyes dead and alive at once.
His hand reached toward the scroll—
And the scroll responded.
It lunged at him.
The pages whipped upward, slamming against his chest like a blow. The blood-runes shot inside him, carving through his skin, burning paths across his ribs, spiraling into his heart.
Ajin screamed.
A sound of agony so raw it split the night.
The runes dug deeper.
Burning.
Carving.
Branding.
They etched themselves into his muscles, bones, and nerves.
His veins glowed red, pulsing like molten metal.
Ajin clawed at the ground.
His fingers left grooves in the charred earth.
"STOP—!"
He screamed.
"—IT HURTS—!"
But the scroll didn't stop.
It couldn't.
Because the first step had begun.
The step that only the broken could survive:
The Forging of Wrath.
Ajin convulsed violently, his body arching as if lightning struck him. The ash around him swirled and lifted, drawn into the storm of blood-runes spiraling around his chest.
His skin split open in fine lines—
not tearing, but carving.
Like cracks forming in metal being shaped by a hammer.
Blood seeped out…
Only for the runes to suck it back in.
His body tried to escape the pain.
His lungs spasmed.
His heart pounded erratically.
His vision filled with white—
then red—
then nothing but the memory of fire.
He saw Loka's smile.
Bodin's pouting face.
The elder's tired eyes.
All merging.
All burning.
All gone.
Then the scroll whispered—
"Again."
Ajin clenched his jaw until his teeth cracked.
He forced himself to sit up—
to endure—
to survive.
The runes flared brighter.
And in that moment, something impossible happened.
He felt his ribs shift.
The broken bones realigned themselves—
not healing…
but hardening.
The cracks closed, leaving faint red lines where bone had been reforged.
His breath hitched.
His bones…
were becoming something else.
Stronger.
Denser.
Sharper.
The runes pulsed again—
And Ajin's vision exploded with crimson light.
Something deep within him—
in the very core of his being—
shuddered awake.
A furnace.
A storm.
An anger older than himself.
Ajin fell forward, catching himself with trembling arms. His fingers dug into the floor, splintering the wood beneath them.
He inhaled sharply.
And something changed in that breath.
His voice—no longer that of the meek teacher—whispered:
"…more."
The scroll obeyed.
Blood-runes spiraled higher, faster, weaving into chains of light.
The air vibrated so violently that the charred walls around him cracked and collapsed.
Ajin screamed again—
but this time
it wasn't only pain.
It was release.
It was awakening.
It was the first heartbeat of the steel forming inside him.
At last—
After endless agony—
the runes began to slow.
The scroll dimmed.
The furnace within him receded into embers.
Ajin collapsed forward, panting, sweat and blood dripping from every inch of him.
His hair was matted.
His skin cracked.
His breath ragged.
But he was alive.
Barely.
And just before his consciousness slipped away, he heard the scroll whisper one last line:
"Stage One complete."
"Rise, Ajin…
…for the world you knew has ended."
The bracelet fell from his fingers.
The ashes settled.
The wind stopped.
And Ajin's broken body lay still—
the first vessel of Baja Angkara Batin.