To become steel…
a human must first be destroyed.
Ajin's breath rasped through torn lungs, each inhale scraping the inside of his chest like shards of broken glass. Every exhale trembled, weak, uneven—his ribs too fractured to move without stabbing agony.
Yet he pulled himself forward.
He crawled—dragging his ruined body across soot, ash, and his own dried blood—toward the Forbidden Scroll.
The scroll rested calmly on the blackened ground as though waiting for him like a patient executioner.
The moment he reached it, something shifted.
Fresh blood—fresh—appeared on the parchment surface, writing itself with deliberate strokes.
Slow.
Thick.
Alive.
Ajin stared as the new instructions revealed themselves:
"Stage One: Absolute Destruction."
"Strike your body until it can no longer stand."
"Pain is your companion. Ruin is your teacher."
The words glowed faintly, pulsing as though mocking him.
Ajin's swollen eyes twitched open halfway. The world was blurry—warped, swaying—but he recognized the demand.
"Strike…" he whispered, voice hoarse and broken.
A breeze swept through the ruins, chilling him to the marrow. His breath steamed under the moonlight despite the heat still radiating from the smoldering wreckage.
He forced his mangled body upright.
He sat cross-legged, spine trembling, ribs grinding.
He lifted one shaking hand.
And slapped himself.
PLAK!
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't symbolic.
It was violence—directed inward.
He struck again.
PLAK!
PLAK!
PLAK!
His cheek split open.
Blood dripped down his chin.
His teeth rattled.
But this was only the beginning.
He drew in a wet, trembling breath.
Then he hammered his fist into his own chest—
BUK!
A heavy, ugly impact that sent pain detonating through his rib cage.
"Because I… was weak…"
His voice cracked like breaking bone.
He struck again.
BUK!
"…you all… died!"
KRAK!
A sickening snap shot through his torso. One rib gave way, grinding deeper into muscle. His vision flashed white, and bile splattered from his mouth.
Ajin fell forward, coughing thick, dark globs of blood.
But he pushed himself back up.
He had no strength left.
But hatred pushed where muscles could not.
He struck his arms next.
Punching.
Clawing.
Bruising the skin until it bloomed purple, then black.
He struck his abdomen until his breath wouldn't come anymore.
He struck his thighs until they spasmed violently and refused to obey him.
Then, with a groan, he staggered to his feet.
Every step was agony.
His ankle bent wrong.
His knee buckled.
His vision dimmed.
But he walked—
toward the lone surviving tree.
The old banyan tree that had stood at the center of Rogo Pavilion for generations.
It had survived the flames.
Ajin saw it—
and saw a target.
He positioned himself before the massive trunk.
And he kicked.
KRAK!
But it wasn't the tree that cracked.
It was his shin.
Ajin collapsed to his side, clutching his leg, gasping through his teeth. Pain flared so sharply he saw stars.
But the scroll behind him glowed again.
Bright.
Red.
Demanding.
The word formed:
"Continue."
Ajin's body twitched.
He forced himself to stand again—
on one good leg, one broken.
He limped toward the tree.
Lifted his foot.
And kicked again.
DHUG!
The impact vibrated through his bones.
He switched angles—
kicked with the side of his foot—
then with the heel—
then with the fragile toes.
His toenails split.
One tore off entirely, blood spraying the bark.
His sole ripped open.
His ankle twisted.
Each strike mangled his flesh further.
And with every strike—
Ajin saw their faces.
This kick…
…is for you.
Loka laughing in the morning sun.
This strike…
…is for you.
Bodin pouting because his porridge was bland.
This pain…
…is yours.
The children running around him.
The elder smiling softly at him.
Everyday warmth he thought would last forever.
Ajin's breath turned ragged.
Then—
KRAK!
His ankle snapped.
He fell backward immediately, hitting the burnt ground with a heavy thud.
His body convulsed.
HOEEKK—!
He vomited again.
Not food.
Not water.
Just dark, tar-like blood and stomach acid that burned his throat raw.
Ajin lay in his own filth, coughing, trembling, broken.
He could not move.
Every limb screamed.
His body was swollen, purple, twisted, shattered.
He had followed the instructions.
"H… until… I cannot… stand…"
The words escaped his lips like dying embers.
Above him, a black crow circled, watching with silent judgment.
Its eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight, reflecting a world that no longer had a place for pity.
Ajin glared up at it through half-closed eyes.
"I…
am not…
done…"
Then darkness washed over him.
His body went limp.
He fainted.
But unconsciousness was not the end.
It was the beginning.
Because beneath his bruised, purple, swollen skin—
something began to stir.
His broken muscles twitched with unnatural life.
Fibers pulled themselves together, but not the way they once were.
They were thicker.
Tighter.
Coiling like heated ropes.
His bones—fractured, splintered—began to shift.
Not healing…
hardening.
The marrow inside them boiled—figuratively and literally—reacting to the runes carved into his blood in Chapter 6.
His body convulsed in his sleep, twitching and spasming.
His temperature rose.
Then fell.
Then rose again.
From the outside, he looked like a corpse fighting to climb back into itself.
The Forbidden Scroll on the ground pulsed a soft, dark red glow, responding to his suffering like a master pleased with its apprentice.
Cracks spread along his bruised skin—thin red lines that shimmered faintly, like the first hints of molten metal beneath rock.
Even in unconsciousness, Ajin groaned, his face twisting, breath hitching.
His body remembered every injury.
And reshaped each one.
His shattered ribs thickened.
His cracked shinbone straightened imperceptibly.
His torn muscles bound tighter together.
It wasn't healing.
It was reforging.
Agonizingly slow.
Painfully incomplete.
Terribly unnatural.
The first step of Baja Angkara Batin had truly begun—
the destruction of the human body
so that the steel inside
could emerge.
Above him, the crow cawed once.
Soft.
Ominous.
As if acknowledging:
A new monster was being born in the ruins of Rogo.
And the world had no idea.