Ajin rose slowly.
Not wobbling.
Not staggering.
But steady—too steady for someone who had just forced two sacred legacies to collide inside his bones.
A thin veil of heat shimmered off his skin.
The air around him warped the way air does above a furnace, distorting the edges of reality itself.
His skin—once dull steel-grey—was now faintly glowing. A soft, sinister crimson threaded under the surface like molten veins.
And his eyes…
A faint ember-red still pulsed inside them, dying down from the blaze that had erupted moments earlier.
Ajin stared at his hands in silence.
"This power…" he whispered, as if afraid the room might hear.
A New Being
Jarot hesitated, then stepped closer, swallowing—a rare sight for a man his size.
"Jin…? Are you—still you?"
Ajin finally looked at him.
The ember-red dimmed, stabilizing into something vaguely human again.
"I'm better," he answered.
But his voice carried an echo.
A subtle metallic vibration beneath the words.
Jarot felt it.
The change.
The danger.
Ajin felt something else—heat swirling in his core, like a second heart made of fire.
The Crimson Scroll of Dahana had not merely given him a technique.
It had carved something into his soul.
Something hungry.
Something that wanted to destroy.
He flexed his hand.
A ripple of red energy trembled across his knuckles—violent, unstable, waiting to erupt.
He needed to test it.
And instinct told him exactly how.
The First Technique: Tremor of Wrath
The Scroll had burned knowledge directly into his mind.
A technique.
A strike.
A beginning.
Tremor of Wrath — Single Pulse.
Ajin walked toward a solid slab of volcanic rock embedded in the wall of the underground chamber. The same wall Jarot had failed to crack even with full force.
Jarot's face drained of color.
"What are you doing?"
Ajin exhaled.
He gathered fury.
He gathered memory.
He gathered the names of the dead—Loka, Bodin, Rini, every child that screamed inside fire.
His hand did not harden.
It vibrated.
A deep, dangerous hum filled the room.
Jarot instinctively stepped back.
"Jin—! Don't—"
Ajin struck.
DHUUMMM!
A deep thud—a heartbeat of stone—echoed.
Nothing happened.
One second.
Two seconds.
Then—
KRRR–RAAAAAA—THOOOOMM!!
The entire wall exploded outward.
Not shattered.
Not cracked.
Exploded.
Fragments of black volcanic rock shot into the darkness in a spray, revealing a corridor that had been sealed for decades.
Jarot's jaw fell open.
He looked at the pulverized stone…
Then at Ajin.
"You…" he whispered hoarsely.
"You absolute… demon bastard…"
For the first time since the fall of Rogo…
Ajin smiled.
Not wide.
Not warm.
A thin, icy smirk that showed the birth of something terrifying.
"This is only the beginning."
The Memory of a Sister
But then Jarot froze.
His eyes locked on something glinting among the debris.
He walked past Ajin, ignoring the new corridor, and knelt among the rubble.
He lifted something.
A small burned silver bracelet.
Jarot's breath hitched.
"This…" he croaked, his huge hands trembling as if holding the most fragile thing in the world, "This was Rini's. I—"
His voice cracked.
"I gave this to her on her tenth birthday…"
The giant warrior who had survived slaughter, exile, and the fall of a clan…
…fell to his knees.
He pressed the bracelet to his forehead.
And he wept.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
But the way a mountain collapses from within.
Soft.
Silent.
Unstoppable.
Ajin stood beside him.
He didn't comfort him.
He didn't touch him.
He simply waited—because he understood grief that carved holes in bone.
When Jarot's sobbing finally quieted, Ajin crouched beside him.
His voice was low. Cold.
"We'll find the commander with the black eyes," Ajin said. "The one who burned Dahana."
Jarot lifted his head slowly, eyes soaked with rage and sorrow.
"And we will kill him."
Jarot didn't speak.
He only nodded.
But the nod carried the weight of a vow.
Collapse
A rumble shook the chamber.
Not from Ajin this time.
GRRRRRR… DHUUMMM…
The floor trembled like something massive had punched the underside of the ground.
Jarot's eyes widened.
"Heck—your strike earlier… It must've shattered the structural anchors!"
Ajin grabbed him by the arm.
"We need to move."
Dust rained from the ceiling. Cracks raced across the stone overhead. The underground hall groaned like an old beast waking from sleep.
They sprinted—Jarot dragging his injured leg, Ajin moving with unnatural speed—toward the main tunnel leading back to the staircase.
Chunks of stone crashed behind them.
As they neared the last turn—
—Ajin heard something.
Not stone.
Not rumbling.
Footsteps.
Dozens.
Heavy armored boots.
Coming downward.
Jarot froze mid-step.
"What… what is that?"
Ajin already knew.
His ember-red eyes sharpened.
"They've come for the scroll."
From the top of the staircase—
Metal scraped.
Voices barked short commands.
Shadows gathered.
Then—
Spear tips glinted in the dark.
Helmets shaped like molten flame.
Cloaks with the crest of burning blue fire.
Ajin's jaw clenched.
Jarot's face twisted with hatred.
They weren't just soldiers.
They belonged to only one unit.
The one that burned Rogo.
The one that destroyed Dahana.
The one with eyes blacker than night.
"The Purifying Flame Battalion…" Jarot hissed, gripping his broken axe.
Ajin's aura flared red, hotter than molten metal.
"…and they walked right into their own funeral."