The shadow hunter smiled behind her mask.
"Found you… Ajin of Rogo."
Her words were soft—
yet they slithered into Ajin's ears like cold steel.
Jarot stiffened.
"Shit—she saw us!"
But the assassin didn't wait.
She moved.
She dropped from the branch—
not falling,
but gliding from limb to limb,
her body bending and snapping forward with impossible speed.
ZRAAAAS!
Two curved black daggers flashed in her hands—
coated with venom so dark it reflected no light at all.
She raced toward Ajin like a streak of living shadow.
Jarot roared.
"OVER MY DEAD BODY!"
He lunged forward, stone axe raised—
"NO!" Ajin's voice cut through the air like thunder.
"She is MINE!"
Ajin shoved Jarot aside with surprising force—
Pushing a mountain with one hand.
The assassin appeared in front of Ajin in a blur—
daggers aimed straight for his eyes.
Ajin didn't flinch.
He lifted his arm.
TINGGGG!!!
Metal rang across the forest.
The assassin's elite Bayang-Purwa dagger—
forged to cut bone and pierce armor—
BENT on Ajin's forearm.
Only a faint scratch appeared on Ajin's skin of dull, living iron.
The assassin staggered back a single step—
her eyes widening behind the mask.
Impossible.
She had slain dozens of sect masters.
She had cut through spirit-hardened bodies.
She had pierced stone.
But this man…
his flesh was harder than tempered steel.
Ajin's eyes glinted crimson.
He seized the moment.
He punched.
Not with form.
Not with technique.
With hate.
Angkara Retak.
Cracking Wrath.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The assassin was lifted off her feet—
Slammed into a giant tree trunk behind her hard enough to splinter bark.
KRRRAAAKKK!!
The trunk cracked down the middle.
The assassin slumped—
vomiting blood—
yet miraculously, she still stood, trembling.
Jarot could only stare.
"Holy shit…"
The assassin wiped the blood from her lips.
Then she hissed:
"So… the rumors were true."
"The Forbidden Scroll of Rogo has awakened."
She blurred again—
but this time not toward Ajin.
She spun sideways, vanishing like a wisp—
dagger aimed straight for Jarot's neck.
"JAROT!" Ajin roared.
Jarot barely had time to raise his axe—
But the assassin's speed was too sharp, too refined.
She would cut Jarot's throat clean—
If Ajin had not appeared between them.
CLANG—!!
Ajin caught the assassin's blade between his fingers.
SREET!!
A second blade sliced across Ajin's cheek.
A clean cut.
Blood welled.
Black blood.
The assassin froze.
Her mask tilted.
That was fear.
Ajin touched the blood on his face.
He looked at the stain on his fingers.
Dark.
Thick.
Unnatural.
A dead man's blood.
He smiled.
A small, cracked smile—
Wrong.
Savage.
Beautifully terrifying.
"Pain…" Ajin whispered.
"…feels good."
Jarot shivered.
The assassin stepped back involuntarily.
"You… monster."
Ajin stepped forward.
"No."
His voice was low.
Cold.
Broken.
"I am WRATH."
And he lunged.
What followed wasn't a battle.
It was slaughter.
Ajin slammed into the assassin, driving her through a tree.
BRAAAKK!!
He pinned her down, fists rising like hammers.
He struck once.
BUK!
Her mask cracked.
He struck again.
BUK!
Her jaw broke beneath the wood.
He struck again.
BUK! BUK! BUK!
Each punch carried the weight of Loka's final scream,
of Bodin's laughter turning to ashes,
of every child burned alive in Rogo's last night.
Jarot didn't move.
For once—
the giant was afraid.
Ajin's punches grew faster—
wilder—
deranged.
He screamed as he struck.
Not in rage.
But in release.
In catharsis.
In ecstasy.
The assassin's face became pulp—
a ruined mosaic of bone and blood beneath the shattered wood.
But Ajin didn't stop.
Not until his fists sank into a faceless mass of flesh.
Then—
Silence.
Ajin rose slowly.
His breathing ragged.
His arms dripping with a mixture of red blood—
and his own black blood.
He stared at the corpse with empty eyes, then crouched.
Calmly.
He reached into the assassin's cloak.
Jarot approached cautiously.
"Jin… you…"
Ajin ignored him.
He pulled out a sealed scroll.
He tore it open.
Both of them read the message.
A simple royal decree:
"Capture or kill subject: AJIN."
Threat Level: DIVINE."
Jarot felt his stomach drop.
He swallowed.
Hard.
Then he asked the question all of Karadipa would soon be asking.
"…Divine? Jin, what the hell are you?"
Ajin closed the scroll slowly.
He tied Loka's burned scarf tighter around his arm.
He looked ahead.
Toward the mountains.
Toward Dahana.
Toward vengeance.
His voice was barely a whisper.
"I am what they made me."