The night the cathedral burned, two children survived.
One was dragged out in his dead mother's arms.
The other stood on the altar, watching the flames devour holy stone—
red eyes reflecting fire like fresh blood.
Twelve years later, those same eyes watched Si-Hyun through a one-way viewscreen the size of a city.
Sixth Sky-Ring – Stellar Lord's Sanctum
180 km above the poisoned earth
The chamber was dark.
Only the floor glowed—
a single pane of transparent alloy looking straight down at the sick planet.
Below, the artificial sun of the Sixth Ring blazed in its orbital track.
A captive star, forced into obedience.
Stellar Lord "Nocturne" Lee Seo-Joon hovered cross-legged in empty air, thirty meters above his own sun.
He looked nineteen.
Black hair trailing to his waist, bare feet, loose white pants.
Seven black rings rotated lazily around him—
each carved from a fragment of the ring he had devoured to ascend.
His Stigma was invisible until he smiled.
When he did, the skin of his face split vertically—
not into bone, but into an endless night sky filled with moving wings.
SHHHk—THRUM—
He watched the recording of the Cleaner massacre again.
And again.
Every time the scarf tore a Cleaner apart, he rewound—
leaning inches from the image.
"Beautiful," he whispered.
His voice harmonized in layers, painful to human ears.
"Like watching a god learn how to kill."
Beside him, Captain Aria knelt on nothing.
Her new arm—regrown, steaming—hung stiff at her side.
Her uniform was ruined.
Her pride, more so.
Seo-Joon didn't look at her.
"Tell me again," he murmured, "what it felt like."
Aria swallowed.
"Like… being looked at by the thing that ate the sun, my Lord."
He laughed—soft, delighted.
Then flicked a finger.
CLICK.
The recording froze at the moment Si-Hyun whispered: Not yet.
Seo-Joon drifted down empty air until he hovered above the frozen image.
"He held it back," he said, voice trembling with fascination.
"A fragment of the Devourer itself. And he leashed it with a word."
He tilted his head.
"Do you know what that means, Aria?"
She stayed silent.
Stellar Lord questions were never questions.
"It means the failure is more perfect than the success they wanted."
He turned.
Smiled with a galaxy for a face.
"Prepare my descent craft.
I want to meet my little brother."
Aria lifted her head sharply.
"My Lord—no descent craft can survive the poison layer without—"
He was already gone.
Only the seven rings remained, spinning faster.
VrrrRRRMMM—
Surface – Cheolchi Station
One hour later
Si-Hyun felt the pressure long before the sky broke.
Children slept on the platforms, covered by the scarf like a living quilt.
He stood alone on the roof of a train car, staring upward.
The clouds tore open—
a perfect circle, edges burning violet.
Something fell through.
Not a craft.
A person.
BOOOOOOM—!!!
Lee Seo-Joon landed barefoot on the tracks fifty meters away.
The impact shattered the concrete into a mandala of spiderweb cracks.
The artificial light of the Sixth Ring dimmed by 3 % the instant he touched ground.
He smiled at Si-Hyun.
The smile split his face open.
Night sky and wings spilled outward.
"Hello, failure," he said gently.
"I've come to take you home."
Si-Hyun answered before the echo faded.
The scarf detonated outward—
FWHOOOM—!!
a black storm, two hundred meters wide.
Hundreds of mouths opened at once, shrieking in languages older than sound.
Seo-Joon didn't move.
Every ribbon of cloth that touched him simply ceased to exist.
Not cut.
Not burned.
Erased.
The scarf recoiled, screaming.
Si-Hyun's eyes flooded amber.
He stepped forward—
—and the first wing tore out of his back, massive, dripping void.
KRRRRRSH—!!
He crossed fifty meters in a heartbeat, fist driving at Seo-Joon's chest—
Two fingers caught his wrist.
Reality folded.
Si-Hyun was back where he started.
Same pose.
Same outstretched punch.
Seo-Joon tilted his head.
"Too slow."
SNAP—
Si-Hyun's left arm vanished from the shoulder down.
No blood.
Just gone.
Pain hit a second later.
He dropped to one knee.
The scarf screeched, trying to replace the missing flesh.
Seo-Joon walked forward, each step erasing a perfect circle of ground.
Ten meters away, he stopped.
"Look at you," he whispered.
"One wing.
Still fighting like a human."
He raised his hand.
The seven black rings aligned.
Temperature plummeted.
Every child in the station began bleeding from the eyes.
Si-Hyun saw the blood on Ryeo-Won's sleeping face.
Something snapped.
Not rage.
Not fear.
Something colder.
He stood.
The missing arm regrew—
threads of living night weaving into flesh.
One wing became two.
Then four.
Then—
Eight wings unfurled behind him, each the size of a building.
The scarf merged with them, becoming their membrane.
Si-Hyun spoke.
His voice came from everywhere at once.
"Get.
Away.
From.
Them."
Seo-Joon's smile faltered.
He stepped back.
Si-Hyun stepped forward.
The eighth wing was incomplete—raw, dripping, unstable—
but enough.
He raised it.
And brought it down.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!
The station blinked out of reality for 0.7 seconds.
When it returned—
Lee Seo-Joon was kneeling thirty meters away.
White pants shredded.
Blood—actual blood—dripping from his nose.
Six of his seven rings were cracked.
He looked up at Si-Hyun with shining, feverish awe.
"Beautiful," he whispered.
Then he stood, bowed—
an elegant, ancient gesture—
and stepped backward into a tear in space.
The tear sealed.
Pressure vanished.
Light returned.
Si-Hyun collapsed.
Eight wings folded inward, crushing him in a cocoon of darkness and agony.
The scarf tore itself free and wrapped him tightly, trying to hold him together.
Children screamed awake.
Ryeo-Won reached him first, hands shaking, blood drying on her cheeks.
She clawed at the wings, sobbing.
Si-Hyun forced one eye open.
"...still here..." he breathed.
He touched her cheek with the hand that had been erased minutes before.
The bleeding stopped.
All of it.
Across the station.
The wings dissolved into ash, soaking into his skin like ink.
He passed out with Ryeo-Won crying into the scarf.
Sixth Ring – Command Nexus
High above, Lee Seo-Joon wiped the blood from his lip.
He eyed the cracked rings orbiting him—
and smiled.
"Found you, little brother.
Next time, I won't hold back either."