The first thing Kang felt was the cold.
Not the clean winter cold that bites your cheeks and makes you want to hurry home. This was a dirty cold, stuck to wet concrete, sliding under his skin like guilt. It seeped into his lungs when he breathed, into his fingers when he tried to move, into the back of his skull where panic liked to live.
He opened his eyes.
A gray sky hung above him, cut through by black wires and neon signs that buzzed and flickered like tired insects. A narrow alley squeezed between buildings. A pipe dripped steadily, the sound too loud in the quiet. A puddle shivered at the base of a trash bin, reflecting a warped slice of the city. On a fogged window, someone had traced a single word with a finger: LIVE.
Kang tried to sit up and a sharp pain shot through his chest.
His body was… too light. Too young. Too alive.
He pressed a hand to his sternum. A steady heartbeat. Warm breath. No armor. No wounds. No weight of a crown. He was wearing a cheap jacket, damp at the shoulders, and his palms were scraped as if he'd fallen hard.
And a thought, blunt as a verdict: I should be dead.
The memory came in splinters: a throne room, screams, iron, blood. A blade. A flash of fear that tasted like metal. Then darkness so complete it felt like relief.
Kael Ren.
The name slid into his mind like poison. Tyrant. Sovereign. A man who stole destinies the way other men stole money. The kind of name people didn't speak unless they wanted to spit.
Kang clenched his teeth. He wasn't that name anymore. He couldn't afford to be.
"My name is… Kang," he whispered, as if the sound could anchor him. "Kang Do-yoon."
It felt borrowed. A label stuck to him in a hurry. But it was better than the other one. The other one came with a shadow that never let go.
Something flickered at the edge of his vision. Not real light text, like a reflection on the inside of his eye, perfectly sharp no matter where he looked.
[ACTIVATION COMPLETE][USER: KANG DO-YOON][FUNCTION: DESTINY THEFT - AVAILABLE]
Kang blinked. The text stayed.
"What the hell…" he breathed.
He raised his hand and waved it in front of his face. The words didn't smear. They didn't float in the air. They were attached to his sight, like an overlay only he could see. His throat went dry.
Fast footsteps cut through the alley's silence. Voices. A laugh that wasn't laughter too loud, too pleased with itself.
Kang turned his head.
A girl was pinned against the wall a few meters away. Dark coat. Black hair tied back. Eyes bright and hard, refusing to go soft. One man gripped her arm as if she were luggage. Another rummaged through her bag, tossing items onto the wet ground.
"Come on, Mina," the one with the greasy grin said. "Don't play tough."
She spat on the concrete. "Get off me."
The other snorted. "Listen to her."
Kang froze for a heartbeat.
Not because he was a hero.
Because he'd seen this a hundred times and once, he'd been the reason scenes like this happened. Kael Ren didn't dirty his hands with small cruelty. He built worlds where small cruelty became normal. He signed orders. He made examples. He taught people that fear was efficient.
Shame rose in Kang's throat, hot and sudden.
He took a step. Then another.
"Let her go," he said.
Both men turned. The one holding her arm looked him up and down and burst out laughing. "And who the hell are you?"
Kang didn't answer. The truth burned on his tongue. If he said Kael Ren, the alley would shrink around him. If he lied, the lie might become a new prison.
Mina stared at him, suspicion sharpened into a single question: Are you another predator?
The text flashed again, overlaying the man's face like a targeting reticle.
[TARGET AVAILABLE][DESTINY: "ALWAYS STRIKES FIRST" VALUE: LOW][OPTION: STEAL]
Kang understood without explanation: it wasn't a spell. It was a lever.
Steal.
Kael Ren had pulled that lever for an entire lifetime. He knew how easy it was to start… and how hard it was to stop. He also knew what it did to you, how it made every problem look like something you could solve if you just took the right thing from the right person.
The man threw a punch without warning.
Kang didn't have time to dodge. The blow caught his cheekbone. The world rocked. Blood filled his mouth, warm and salty.
"Idiot," the man snarled. "Mind your own damn business."
The second man drew a knife. The blade caught neon light and turned it into a thin, sharp promise.
Kang's young body trembled and inside him, something old and familiar smiled: Do it. Win.
Kang hated that impulse because it wasn't fantasy. It was memory. It was Kael Ren's reflex, the quick calculation that violence was cheaper than mercy.
The text pulsed.
[CONFIRM THEFT?]
Kang didn't do it out of nobility.
He did it because Mina shouldn't have to pay, and because standing still was how people died. Because if he let this happen, he would be Kael Ren again only smaller, only weaker, only more pathetic.
"Steal," he said through clenched teeth.
The world made a small click. Not thunder. Not light. Just a moment of silence, like the city held its breath. The dripping pipe seemed to pause. Even the neon buzz thinned.
The man with the knife blinked.
His hand hesitated.
For the first time in his life, he was not the first to strike.
Kang struck first.
A punch to the nose everything he had. His knuckles burned as they met cartilage. The man shouted and staggered back, shock on his face, a wet hand flying to his face as blood started to run.
The one gripping Mina let her go and lunged at Kang.
Kang tried to dodge too slow.
Mina moved like a spring. Knee to the stomach. A sharp blow to the chin. The man hit the ground with a sickening sound and stayed there, stunned.
For a second there was only Kang's breathing and the distant hum of traffic beyond the alley mouth. The city kept moving. It always did.
Mina looked at the two men on the ground, then at Kang. "Who are you?"
Kang swallowed. His cheek throbbed, his knuckles ached, and the urge inside him twitched like a hooked fish.
"Kang," he said.
A name. Nothing else.
The text appeared, clean and cruel, as if it were proud.
[THEFT SUCCESSFUL][REWARD: +1 "INITIATIVE" (TEMP.)][COST: URGE TO REPEAT (MILD)][WARNING: OBSERVATION DETECTED]
Kang felt the cost as a brief, disgusting thirst the urge to do it again, just because it worked. Not just to survive. To feel that click. To feel the world bend.
He hated it. He hated how part of him leaned toward it.
"Observation?" he whispered, barely audible.
Mina followed his gaze.
At the far end of the alley stood a figure beneath a black umbrella. Elegant coat. Motionless. Not a passerby. Not curious. Waiting, like someone who had arrived early to a meeting.
Someone watching.
The umbrella tipped slightly, like a greeting.
Then the figure vanished around the corner as if the alley had swallowed him.
Mina clutched her bag to her chest. "He's not one of them."
Kang wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His heart was beating too fast.
Not from fear.
From a simple realization: the power had just awakened… and the world had already noticed.
And when the world noticed, it never forgot.