While the West Wing burned with emerald spite, the infirmary had become a silent, high-stakes theater of war.
Jin-Ho stood between the bed and the "Nurse." The air in the room was thick, not with smoke, but with the intent to kill. The woman—the Viper's shadow—moved with a fluid, disjointed grace, her eyes fixed on Lian's father.
"You're in my way, Mr. Jin," she whispered, her voice like dry leaves skittering on a grave.
"I get that a lot," Jin-Ho replied. The playful CEO persona was gone. In its place was the man who had built Nebula Holdings from the blood and grit of the tech underworld. He adjusted his stance, his weight centered. "But usually, the people saying it are still alive ten minutes later."
The Nurse lunged. She didn't use a knife; she used her fingernails, which were coated in a clear, paralytic resin. Jin-Ho met her mid-air. He didn't fight like a traditional martial artist. He fought like a fox—unpredictable, using his environment, and striking with a terrifying, refined brutality.
He caught her wrist, twisting it until the bone groaned, and slammed her into the reinforced glass cabinet.
"Where is Shao-Hui?" Jin-Ho growled, his hand tightening around her throat.
The Nurse laughed, a wet, choking sound. "He isn't a man you find, Mr. Jin. He is the air you breathe. And right now... the air is changing."
Before Jin-Ho could strike again, every screen in the infirmary—the heart monitors, the tablets, the security feeds—flickered to static. Then, a single image resolved.
The Revelation of the Two WorldsLian burst into the room, soot-stained and carrying the scent of green fire, just as the video feed stabilized. He froze.
The screen didn't show the modern world. it showed a high-resolution image of a traditional Eastern medical hall—the Hall of Thousand Spirits from Lian's previous life. In the center of the frame sat the Viper, Shao-Hui, looking exactly as he had three hundred years ago.
"My dear, stubborn student," the Viper's voice echoed through the room's speakers, bypassing the hospital's firewall.
Lian's breath hitched. "How... how are you showing me this? This world is dead."
"Is it?" Shao-Hui smiled, and the camera panned out. Behind him, the 'ancient' hall was filled with modern servers, blinking with the exact same blue light as Lian's Aether core. "You thought you were the only one who crossed the veil? You thought a soul as vast as mine would be extinguished by a mere execution?"
Lian stepped toward the screen, his Haphephobia forgotten in the face of this cosmic horror.
"You didn't reincarnate," Lian whispered, his voice trembling. "You bridged it."
"Correct," Shao-Hui said, leaning forward. "I didn't wait to die, Lian. I used the toxins you perfected—the ones that suspend the soul between life and death—to anchor myself. I have been here for eighty years, building the foundation of this world's shadows while you were busy being born as a 'fragile' Omega."
Jin-Ho moved to Lian's side, his hand hovering near Lian's shoulder, a silent anchor. "Lian, don't listen to him. He's trying to get inside your head."
"Oh, I'm already inside his head, Mr. Jin," the Viper chuckled. "Because I know the secret Lian hasn't told you. The reason he can't be touched. It isn't 'trauma' from a kidnapping."
The Viper's eyes locked onto Lian's through the screen.
"Tell him, Lian. Tell him that the skin you wear is a stolen garment. Tell him that every time someone touches you, the 'Old Lian'—the boy whose body you hijacked—screams in the basement of your mind. You aren't a savior. You're a parasite."
Lian's world fractured. The Extreme Loneliness hit him with the force of a supernova. He looked at his hands—the hands that had saved his father and brother—and for the first time, he saw them as foreign objects.
"Lian..." Jin-Ho said, his voice urgent.
"Is it true?" the Nurse whispered from the floor, her eyes gleaming. "Are you just a ghost playing dress-up?"
Lian backed away, hitting the wall. The green fire outside was nothing compared to the coldness spreading in his chest. He looked at Jin-Ho, the one person he had started to trust, and saw the reflection of a monster.
"I didn't... I didn't choose this," Lian gasped, his vision swimming.
"But you enjoy the throne, don't you?" Shao-Hui's voice was a velvet lash. "Enjoy it while it lasts, Little Phoenix. Because now that I've found the bridge, I'm coming to take back the body you've so graciously kept warm for me."
The screens went black.
The silence that followed was deafening. The Nurse took advantage of the distraction, shattering a smoke pellet and vanishing through the window before Jin-Ho could react.
Jin-Ho didn't chase her. He turned to Lian. Lian was on his knees, his forehead pressed against the cold floor, his entire body shaking with a primal, existential terror.
"Lian, look at me," Jin-Ho commanded, kneeling in front of him.
Lian looked up. His eyes were no longer those of a King. They were wide, terrified, and filled with a crushing guilt. "He's right. I'm a thief. The boy who was supposed to be here... I took his life."
Jin-Ho did something he had never dared to do. He reached out and cupped Lian's face with both hands, skin-to-skin.
The Haphephobia should have killed Lian. The touch should have sent him into a coma. But Jin-Ho's grip was so fierce, so grounding, that the panic couldn't find a foothold.
"I don't care who you were three hundred years ago," Jin-Ho hissed, his forehead resting against Lian's. "And I don't care whose body this was. The person I've been chasing, the person who saved those kids in the slums, and the person who just pulled his brother from a fire... that's you. You aren't a parasite. You're the only thing in this world that's real."
Lian closed his eyes, a single, hot tear falling onto Jin-Ho's thumb. The mystery of the two worlds had been revealed, and the war was no longer just about survival. It was about the soul.
"He's coming for me," Lian whispered.
"Let him come," Jin-Ho replied, his voice a low, lethal promise. "He's a god of the past. But I'm the king of the present. And I don't give up what's mine."