The battlefield had fallen into a suffocating quiet.
No screams.
No commands.
Only the shallow, raspy breaths of two survivors—two monsters forged by grief and vengeance—echoed over the riverbank.
Five minutes earlier, the forest had been a storm of violence.
Now, only corpses bore witness to the carnage.
Jarot stood atop a shattered boulder, rivers of blood dripping down his arm as he yanked the final arrow from his shoulder. His massive chest heaved with each breath, every inhale coated in pain. Charcoal-black bruises spread across his ribs like dying flames.
Ajin sat at the river's edge.
His reflection in the dark water was almost unrecognizable—skin gray and cracked, eyes sunken but blazing with hatred, blood crusted against metal-hard flesh. His bones throbbed like heated iron cooling in a forge.
Baja Angkara Batin had taken its toll.
They stared at each other through the mist of exhaustion.
The last soldier's dying scream still hung in the air.
And then—
"…You're hunted by the kingdom too?"
Jarot's voice was low, raw.
"Just like my people were… before they burned."
The echo of the commander's earlier shout—Target is Ajin! Bring him alive or dead!—had flipped a switch in both their minds.
In the chaos of that final clash, in the fire of shared hatred, something primal connected them.
Ajin wiped blood from his mouth.
He spat crimson into the river.
"Ajin," he murmured.
"That's my name."
Jarot eyed him with suspicion that slowly softened into grim understanding.
"Ajin…" he repeated. "Why does your name make soldiers tremble? Why do they scream it like a curse? And why—"
He clenched a fist.
"—why did they shout 'Dahana'?"
Ajin closed his eyes briefly.
Then he spoke.
"I was…" he rasped, "a teacher. A weak one. A pathetic one. But my students—my children—were everything."
His voice cracked, not from weakness, but from a wound that would never heal.
Jarot froze.
"I watched them burn," Ajin continued. "Rogo was torched. Not by bandits. Not by rebels."
His jaw clenched until it cracked.
"By Dahana."
The giant stiffened.
Something in Jarot's massive frame shattered.
"They burned my home…" Ajin whispered.
"They burned my children alive."
Jarot lowered his head, his breath trembling.
Then, slowly—very slowly—his hands curled into fists so tight that his own nails pierced his palm. Blood streamed between his fingers.
"Burned… alive…?"
His voice trembled.
A mountain shaking.
Ajin nodded.
And Jarot's knees nearly buckled.
He lowered himself, kneeling in front of Ajin as if witnessing a ghost wearing his own face.
His next words were barely a whisper:
"Rogo…? That was your home?"
Ajin nodded again.
Jarot swallowed hard, his throat bobbing like a man forcing down grief that refused to be silenced. His voice cracked—not with weakness, but with scars.
"My name…"
He steadied himself.
"…is Jarot. Last disciple of Padepokan Dahana Satria."
Ajin's eyes snapped open.
"…You're Dahana?"
Jarot shook his head hard, teeth clenched.
"No. Not anymore."
His voice thundered with emotion as raw as an open wound.
"Dahana is dead. My real Dahana. My teachers. My brothers."
His breath quivered.
He forced the words out through a clenched jaw.
"The kingdom took our home. They took our techniques—our name. They took our identity and twisted it into a weapon."
His voice softened to a trembling whisper.
"…And they burned my sister. Alive. In front of me."
Ajin froze.
Two tragedies.
Two infernos.
Two souls butchered by the same tyrants.
In Jarot's eyes, Ajin saw the reflection of his own destroyed life.
And beyond that reflection—
he saw a brother in suffering.
Ajin pushed himself up from the riverbank.
Every movement dragged pain through his flesh, but he no longer cared.
Jarot rose as well, looming like a mountain, breathing like a wounded beast ready to tear the world apart.
Their gazes locked.
Two storms staring into each other.
"I will destroy them," Ajin whispered.
Jarot's massive fists tightened.
"I will kill them all," he growled.
Ajin stepped closer.
Jarot did not step back.
In the mist rising from the cold river, beneath the gray sky that watched the birth of monsters,
they spoke the same oath—
without ever needing to say it.
Ajin turned to the southeast, where the path to Kawah Merapi lay.
Smoke rose faintly from that distant direction—like the world itself was warning them.
He inhaled slowly.
"We go to Dahana first," Ajin said.
Jarot nodded, breathing hard.
"We burn them," Jarot snarled.
Ajin shook his head.
"Not burn."
His voice was cold steel.
Hard. Unforgiving.
"We tear down all ten traitor sects from the roots—one by one."
Jarot's eyes gleamed.
A grin—grim, broken, and full of rage—spread across his brutalized face.
"I'll follow you," Jarot said. "As long as there's blood to repay."
Ajin turned away, stepping into the forest's shadow.
Jarot followed without hesitation.
The river behind them ran dark with blood.
The corpses of Dahana's soldiers drifted downstream like broken offerings.
And under the dying light of dusk, two shattered silhouettes walked side by side—
One forged in fire.
One forged in stone.
Both reforged in vengeance.
Two names.
One fury.
A new path began that night.
A path leading into the heart of hell.