Ajin dropped to his knees.
His entire body trembled—not from fear, not from shock—but from something far more catastrophic.
For the first time since his metamorphosis began…
the cold steel within him collided with pure, volcanic fury.
And the world heard it.
"GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"
The sound that tore from his throat was not human.
It was the howl of molten metal screaming inside a forge.
Ajin convulsed on the ground, limbs jerking violently as if strings of fire were ripping through his veins. The Crimson Scroll lay unfurled before him, spraying waves of concentrated wrath like a furnace with no lid.
Jarot froze—then rushed forward.
"JIN! Stay with me!"
But the transformation had already begun.
The Clash of Two Sacred Legacies
First came the heat.
An impossible, skin-melting, marrow-boiling heat.
The energy of Dahana's Inner Flame surged into Ajin's body, trying to incinerate him from within.
But Ajin was no longer human flesh.
He was Baja Angkara Batin—a body forged from cold hatred and battered trauma, a vessel of steel tempered by loss.
The Inner Flame found no flesh to burn.
Instead, it collided with iron will.
And then—the screaming began.
KRAK!
KRENG!
KRAK!
Bones cracked.
Then fused.
Then cracked again.
Steel clashed with fire.
Fire clashed with steel.
Ajin's veins bulged—glowing red like heated iron fresh from the forge.
His skin darkened, turning crimson-black like metal hugging the edge of meltdown.
Jarot's face twisted in horror.
"Your blood—Ajin, your BLOOD!"
Ajin's blood boiled under his skin. Not red. Not black.
Molten.
Like liquid ember.
"STOP IT!" Jarot roared.
But Ajin wasn't listening.
He was trapped.
The Illusion Returns
The flames returned.
The screams returned.
The children burned again.
Loka's charred face rose from the embers, inches from his own.
"GURU AJIN… IT HURTS."
Ajin clawed at his skull—tearing at his scalp as the illusion tunneled into him like a parasite crafted from guilt.
"ENOUGH!" he roared.
But the illusion ignored him.
The heat, the guilt, the voices, the fire—everything flooded him at once.
Jarot saw Ajin drowning.
He did the only thing he could.
BUK!
Jarot punched Ajin in the face with the force of a falling boulder.
"WAKE UP, YOU DAMN FOOL!"
The illusion cracked.
Ajin gasped as he saw reality again. Blood—black and red—spurted from his nose and mouth.
He shook violently, and in that chaos—
a memory surfaced.
A voice.
The voice of Sepuh.
The last night of Rogo.
"If your heart breaks… then learn this."
Ajin realized what he had been doing wrong.
He was resisting.
He shouldn't resist.
He shouldn't shield himself.
He needed to accept.
Because he wasn't whole.
He wasn't stable.
He was already shattered.
He was the perfect vessel for wrath.
The perfect container for fire.
Ajin spat blood and smiled—a trembling, broken smile.
"Give it to me…" he growled, fists digging into the stone.
"Give me ALL OF IT."
And he let go.
The Resonance
He did not fight the Flame.
He welcomed it.
He allowed the frigid iron of Baja Angkara Batin to become a furnace—
And he allowed Dahana's inner fire to become fuel.
The moment he submitted—
GRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!!
The underground chamber EXPLODED with a blast of raw power.
A shockwave rippled out of Ajin's body, cracking the floor like dried earth under a hammer blow.
Jarot was thrown backward, smashing into a pillar.
"What—WHAT ARE YOU TURNING INTO?!"
Ajin's scream twisted into a monstrous metallic roar, like iron plates grinding inside a collapsing mountain.
Energy spiraled around him, a vortex of black-red flame and cold steel. The walls vibrated until dust rained from the ceiling.
The scroll's final embers dissolved into his skin—
—And then silence.
Ajin knelt on the fractured floor, steam rising from his body.
Slowly…
Deliberately…
He lifted his head.
The New Eyes of Anger
His eyes no longer held pupils.
Instead, they glowed—a deep, sinister red, swirling like embers trapped inside obsidian glass.
Eyes born not from cultivation, but from trauma given form.
His voice was lower now, carrying a metallic resonance.
"A new force is born…"
He clenched his fist—and the stone beneath him cratered under the pressure.
"…when steel and rage become one."
Jarot swallowed hard, unable to speak.
Ajin stood—slow, steady, terrifying.
And when he exhaled, the air around him shimmered with heat.
This was not Baja Angkara Batin.
This was not the Flame of Dahana.
This was something else.
Something impossible.
The Resonance of Steel and Wrath.
A stage no human had ever reached.
Ajin stared at his own trembling hand.
He was no longer a survivor.
He was a calamity.