Chapter 3: The Sovereign's Will

Chapter 3: The Sovereign's Will

The name left his lips—a layered, resonant chord that hung in the sacred silence of the archive—and the fragile illusion of Elara’s new life shattered into a million pieces. The man before her wore Jaehwan’s face, but the being looking through his eyes was an ancient abyss. Fear, cold and absolute, was a fist clenched around her heart.

Before she could scream, before she could run, a new sound cut through the tension. The squeal of tires on wet pavement outside, followed by the solid, definitive thump of multiple car doors slamming shut.

Jaehwan’s—or the thing’s—head snapped towards the entrance, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. The burning crimson of his eyes dimmed slightly, allowing a sliver of Jaehwan’s panicked silver-grey to bleed through.

“They found me,” Jaehwan’s own voice whispered, thin and strained, as if fighting its way to the surface. “Elara, you have to get out of here. Run!”

Insolent child, Kasian’s voice snarled in the confines of his mind. They are gnats. She is going nowhere.

The heavy oak doors burst open again, but this time it wasn’t one man who entered, but four. They were clad in the Circle of Dusk’s signature tactical gear—black, reinforced leather coats over body armor, designed to stop claws and blades. They moved with the chilling, synchronized efficiency of a wolf pack, fanning out to cut off all escape routes. Their faces were grim, their eyes hard. Jaehwan recognized them all. He’d trained with them. Bled with them.

The man in the lead, Ryker, a brute with a jaw that looked like it was carved from granite, holstered his sidearm and drew a long, silver-edged short sword. A faint, holy light shimmered along its blade.

“Well, well,” Ryker said, his voice a low rumble. He ignored Elara, his focus entirely on Jaehwan. “Look what the gutter coughed back up. We heard rumors, but I have to admit, I’m surprised. We were very thorough.”

Jaehwan’s body tensed, a low growl escaping his throat that was half his own defiance and half Kasian’s predatory instinct. His desire was simple and overwhelming: protect Elara. But the obstacle was insurmountable. Four elite hunters, the very men who had left him for dead. They knew his every move, every feint, every weakness.

Or at least, they knew the weaknesses of the boy he used to be.

“The ritual worked better than we hoped, it seems,” another hunter, a lithe woman named Lena with cold, calculating eyes, commented as she drew a pair of consecrated silver daggers. “A bit too well. The Elders want their asset retrieved.”

“Asset?” Jaehwan spat, the word tasting like poison. The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. The betrayal, the ambush… it wasn’t just to get rid of him. It was a calculated plan. They’d intended for this to happen. They’d wanted him to become a vessel.

“You’re a weapon now, Jaehwan,” Ryker said, taking a slow step forward. “Nothing more. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Come with us, and maybe the girl lives.”

That was all it took. The threat to Elara was a spark on a trail of gunpowder. Jaehwan lunged. His action was a blur of newfound speed, faster than any human had a right to be. He closed the distance to the nearest hunter in a heartbeat, his hand lashing out.

But raw power was no substitute for a lifetime of honed skill. The hunter met his charge, his silver blade a blur, parrying Jaehwan’s clumsy, untrained strike. The holy metal hissed as it scraped against Jaehwan’s skin, leaving a smoking, shallow cut on his forearm that healed almost as fast as it was inflicted. The other three moved in, their formation a perfect, deadly net.

Jaehwan was strong, yes. Inhumanly so. But he was fighting two battles: one against the hunters closing in, and a far more desperate one against the bored, arrogant god in his own head.

You are flailing like a newborn foal, Kasian observed with detached amusement as Jaehwan dodged a swipe from Lena’s dagger. Your technique is crude. Your instincts are buried under layers of that pathetic ‘Circle’ dogma. You are going to get us killed. More importantly, you will allow them to harm what is mine.

A silver blade sliced across Jaehwan’s back. He roared, less in pain and more in frustration, spinning around to lash out. Ryker met his fist with the flat of his sword, the impact echoing like a thunderclap. The force sent a shockwave up Jaehwan’s arm, but Ryker barely budged, his feet planted. They were prepared for this level of strength.

Cornered, outmatched, and bleeding from a dozen minor cuts that sizzled with holy energy, Jaehwan was driven back towards the ancient bookshelves. He could see Elara, her face a mask of pale terror, her hand pressed against the glowing scar on her collarbone. Her fear was a physical thing, a scent on the air that drove both the man and the monster within him into a frenzy.

Lena feinted high, and Ryker went low, his sword sweeping for Jaehwan’s legs. He leaped, his new power allowing him to clear the attack, but the fourth hunter was waiting, slamming the butt of a silver-inlaid rifle into his ribs. The blow sent him staggering, his breath leaving him in a ragged gasp. He crashed against a heavy oak table, splintering the wood.

This was it. He was going to fail. They were going to drag him away, turn him into the mindless weapon they wanted, and Elara… he couldn’t bear to think what they would do to her, a witness, a loose end.

It was in that moment of utter desperation that Kasian made his offer. It wasn’t a shout, but a calm, reasonable, and utterly seductive whisper in the core of his soul.

You cannot win this fight, little hunter. But I can. Give me the reins. Let me take control. I will not just defeat them. I will unmake them. I will protect our queen. All you have to do is… let go.

The ultimate temptation. A deal with the devil residing in his own heart. To unleash this ancient, terrifying power willingly? To give up the last vestiges of his own self? But as he looked at Ryker advancing, his silver sword held ready for a final, disabling blow, and then at Elara, her intelligent, wary eyes wide with a horror that was all too familiar, he knew he had no choice.

Do it, Jaehwan screamed into the abyss of his own mind. A final, desperate act of surrender.

A slow, cruel smile spread across Jaehwan’s lips, a contortion of his features so alien it made the approaching hunters pause for a fraction of a second. The frantic, cornered-animal look in his eyes vanished, replaced by an ancient, bottomless calm. The glowing crimson, which had been fighting for dominance, now flooded his irises completely, burning with an intelligent, possessive fire.

He—Kasian—rose from the wreckage of the table, not with a desperate scramble, but with the fluid, deliberate grace of a king ascending his throne. He brushed a splinter of wood from his jacket, his gaze sweeping over the four hunters with an air of profound disappointment.

“You have touched what is mine,” he said, his voice the pure, deep baritone of the Sovereign, no longer layered with Jaehwan’s. “A fatal error in judgment.”

Ryker’s eyes widened slightly. “What in the—”

He never finished the question. Kasian moved. It wasn’t the clumsy rush from before. He simply vanished. The air hissed where he had been standing. He reappeared behind Lena, the shadows in the corner of the room seeming to coil and stretch to welcome him. Before the hunter could even register his presence, his hand shot out, not in a punch, but with his fingers extended like a talon.

He didn't break her neck. He plunged his hand through the back of her armored coat as if it were wet paper. There was a sickening, wet crunch. Her eyes went wide with shock and pain, a single gasp escaping her lips before the light faded from them entirely. Kasian withdrew his hand, her blood dripping from his fingertips, and let her body crumple to the floor.

The remaining three hunters stared in horrified disbelief.

“Impossible…” one of them stammered.

From her place of terrified paralysis, Elara watched the massacre unfold. This was not a fight. It was an execution. The being wearing Jaehwan’s skin moved with a terrifying economy of motion. Shadows writhed at his command, tripping one hunter and solidifying into jagged spikes that impaled him against a bookshelf, ancient tomes raining down around his corpse.

Ryker, the leader, roared in fury and charged, his silver sword held high. “Abomination!”

Kasian simply raised a hand. A torrent of blood—from the two fallen hunters—ripped through the air, forming a shield that caught Ryker’s holy blade with a sickening sizzle. The blood then lashed out like a whip, wrapping around Ryker’s arm and squeezing. The sound of bone snapping was sickeningly loud in the sudden silence. Ryker screamed, dropping his sword.

Kasian walked towards him, his steps unhurried, each one an indictment. He picked up the fallen silver sword, examining it with a connoisseur’s curiosity.

“You hunt monsters with such crude little toys,” he mused, his crimson eyes locking onto Ryker’s terrified ones. “Allow me to show you what a true monster is.”

He reversed the blade and, with a single, contemptuous thrust, ended him.

Silence descended upon the archive, thick and heavy, broken only by the drip of blood onto the polished floor. Four of the Circle’s finest hunters, slaughtered in less than thirty seconds.

Elara was frozen, her mind unable to process the sheer, brutal efficiency of the violence. Her worst fears, the ones born in that rain-slicked alley two years ago, were not just confirmed; they were dwarfed by this new, horrific reality. The thing she had seen in Jaehwan’s eyes back then was just a sliver, a hint of the darkness he carried. This… this was the darkness unleashed. He wasn't just a monster. He was a god of death.

As the last echoes of the slaughter faded, the crimson eyes turned to her. The predatory calm remained, but now it was focused entirely on her. He took a step in her direction, the blood of her would-be saviors still dripping from his hand.

“Now, my queen,” Kasian’s voice echoed in the blood-soaked library, a chilling purr of possession. “Where were we?”