The black blade hovered at Ajin's throat.
Time didn't slow.
Ajin simply stopped caring.
He wasn't afraid.
He wasn't trembling.
He was furious.
The Captain's eyes behind the dragon mask narrowed in confidence, savoring the moment as if executing a pest.
Jarot lay pinned nearby under two Purifiers, struggling to breathe—bleeding, broken.
Ajin's own memories flickered like sparks on oil.
Rogo burning.
Loka reaching for him with charred hands.
Bodin's laughter turning into a scream.
Rini—whom he never met—dying under blue flame.
His bones shattering under two clashing forbidden arts.
You are not worthy.
"Maybe…" Ajin whispered.
The Captain paused. "What?"
"Maybe I'm not worthy…" Ajin lifted his head, eyes glowing with raw crimson.
"…BUT YOU'RE NOT WORTHY TO LIVE."
He didn't channel technique.
He didn't aim.
He simply—
Let go.
The seals inside his body snapped like ropes burning in wildfire.
Ajin's eyes went crimson-white.
"Tremor of Wrath—
NULL BURST!"
It wasn't a technique.
It was an explosion.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
A tidal wave of red fury erupted outward—omnidirectional, wild, merciless.
"WHAT—"
The Captain was hurled backward like a rag doll, smashing through the cracked wall of the main hall. His dragon mask fractured along the left side.
His elites didn't share his luck.
Seven Purifiers closest to Ajin vaporized instantly—reduced to clouds of red mist.
Bones, cloth, steel—gone.
Those farther away were hurled into rubble, limbs bending at impossible angles.
The earth shattered.
The courtyard cratered.
The ceiling of the underground vault collapsed entirely.
Even Jarot—who was beside Ajin—was thrown like a sack of rocks.
"GRAAARGHH—JIN!!"
This power didn't choose sides.
It annihilated everything.
Silence followed the devastation.
Smoke floated like ghosts.
Blood mist glimmered in the trembling air.
Ajin stood alone at the center of the crater—
but he wasn't Ajin.
His eyes were fully red.
No pupils.
His breath came out as red smoke.
He whispered, voice layered with something inhuman.
"Kill… kill… kill…"
He slowly turned.
Toward Jarot.
"Jin!" Jarot shouted, dragging himself upright despite a shattered thigh. "Jin! It's me! Wake up!"
Ajin raised his hand—energy gathering again in a violent swirl.
Jarot felt the air crack.
One more blast like that and he would be erased.
"RINI!" Jarot roared, voice breaking. "THINK ABOUT RINI! THINK ABOUT LOKA!"
The name—
Loka—
slipped into Ajin's dying consciousness like a needle of light.
Ajin's hand trembled.
"Lo…ka…?"
A crack ran across his hardened skin.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Reality rushed back into him all at once—
and the pain was catastrophic.
Ajin collapsed, screaming silently as his body splintered like over-forged steel. Red-and-black blood spilled from every crack on his skin.
"JIN!"
Jarot limped forward, catching him before he hit the ground fully.
Ajin's eyes rolled back.
Unconscious.
Barely alive.
Across the courtyard, buried halfway in rubble, the Captain stirred.
He spat blood and braced himself on one good arm.
"That explosion…" he muttered in disbelief. "He… detonated."
He stared at the crater.
Then at his fallen men.
Then at Ajin—slung over Jarot's massive shoulder.
Hatred burned behind the fractured mask.
"You haven't escaped," the Captain snarled. "We will return. We will tear your world apart. Both of you."
He vanished into the shadows.
Retreating.
Plotting.
Seething.
Jarot didn't look back.
He could barely walk, barely see.
But he carried Ajin—who felt light as a dying boy—through the shattered halls, past the ruins of his home, and finally out of the valley of smoke.
When they reached the mouth of the woods, the wind changed.
A thick, unnatural fog rolled out from the treeline.
Cold.
Silent.
Dense.
Halimun Forest.
A place whispered by Dahana elders—
where the living disappeared
and spirits walked in place of men.
Jarot's breath hitched.
Something—someone—moved in the fog.
Graceful.
Quick.
Balanced.
A silhouette.
Feminine.
Perched on a high branch, watching.
Not a Purifier.
Not a soldier.
Someone else.
Someone neither Ajin nor Jarot expected.