A vast silence swallowed the void.
Jin-Woo floated in the darkness, his consciousness wavering between wakefulness and oblivion. His thoughts felt distant, like echoes in a hollow space. He had experienced something similar like this before.. drifting between life and unconsciousness, caught in the limbo between what was and what would be.
But this time, something was different.
A feeling settled deep within his very being, heavier than before. Not the emptiness of death, nor the familiar power of his shadows. Something foreign clung to him, as if unseen hands were trying to mold him into something else.
He remembered war. The battlefield where stars bled and space itself fractured. The Itarim. Those cosmic invaders, eldritch monstrosities that dared to challenge him. They had tried to drown him in their abyssal will, tried to twist reality in their favor, tried to destroy his very home... Earth.
He had torn them apart. Each one of them had watched, shrieking in their unknowable tongues as he crushed them beneath his heel..
Then the Gate opened.
It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Not the rift between dungeons, not the fractures of his own making. This was different. It did not simply transport.. it consumed.
The stars had flickered out. The battlefield had crumbled. Space itself had folded inward. And Jin-Woo had been pulled into the cosmic void.
Then Suddenly...
He woke.
His eyes snapped open, and the first thing he saw was the sky.
Golden. But not in the way sunlight was golden, not with warmth or life. This was something deeper, heavier. A luminous, suffocating glow that pressed down on the world like an omnipresent gaze. It did not simply exist... it watched.
Jin-Woo inhaled. The air was thick, carrying a scent of dust, stench and decay. Beneath him, the ground was cracked stone and withered grass, a land long abandoned by time itself. He pushed himself up, his movements slow, controlled.
Nothing felt wrong... but nothing felt right either.
His power still coursed through him, dark, writhing and absolute. His shadows, most of them were intact. He could feel them waiting beneath the surface, his ever-loyal shadows... Yet there was something else. A pull. A weight. The air carried not just the scent of ruin but the whisper of an unseen presence.
Something here was trying to claim him.
Jin-Woo's expression darkened.
He had been in places governed by rules before. He had bent them. Broken them. Shattered them. Whatever authority ruled here, whatever unseen law dictated existence in this realm.. it would learn. It would fear..
Something stirred. A ripple in the shadows, familiar yet unknown.
Jin-Woo turned his head, and from the shifting darkness, they emerged.
Igris. A crimson-clad knight, his armored frame imposing, his blade gleaming under the cursed light. Silent. Absolute. Ever-vigilant.
Tank. A hulking beast of obsidian fur and steel-like muscle, his breath a quiet growl, golden eyes watching the land with primal instinct.
Beru. A chittering, monstrous form, claws twitching, mandibles clicking, his every movement a barely restrained storm of violence.
They had followed him. Even through the void.
Loyalty unwavering. Shadows unbroken.
Jin-Woo exhaled. Good.
His gaze shifted across the horizon. The land stretched before him in unsettling silence, rolling hills of dead grass and shattered ruins. It felt old, as if it had long since forgotten the passage of time.
Yet something pulsed beneath the surface.
A presence. Vast. Ancient.
The Greater Will.
Jin-Woo didn't need to be told.. he could feel it. It seeped into the air, into the very bones of the world. Not simply a force, but a law. One that dictated reality, shaped existence, demanded obedience.
It was watching him.
It had brought him here.
Jin-Woo scoffed. He had fought against the will of gods before. This was no different.
Something moved in the distance. A shambling figure, slow, methodical. Its armor was rusted, its body wrapped in ancient rags, a blade dragging behind it. Not alive. Not quite dead.
A Fallen..
Jin-Woo tilted his head. He could feel it.. something else was at work here. A force that resurrected the fallen, binding them to an endless cycle of war.
Another system. Another game.
He stepped forward. His shadow stretched unnaturally beneath him, tendrils of darkness slithering across the cracked stone. The Fallen lifted its head, hollow eyes glowing with a faint, unsettling light. It did not speak. It did not hesitate. It lunged.
Jin-Woo barely moved.
His fingers twitched. The shadows responded.
CRACK.
The Tarnished stopped mid-step. Its sword never reached him. Its body trembled, a spear of darkness impaling it from beneath. It convulsed, let out a breathless gasp.. then collapsed into dust.
Silence.
Jin-Woo barely glanced at it. His mind was elsewhere.
This world had rules.
He would have to understand them. To adapt. Not because they bound him.. but because one must learn the rules to break them.
A gust of wind carried distant whispers. Not voices, but a hum, like the echo of something greater. The Greater Will was aware of him now. Watching. Calculating.
Jin-Woo's lips curled into a smirk.
It would learn soon enough.
His path was never dictated by fate, by gods, or by unseen laws.
It was his own.
And if the Lands Between sought to control him...
Then the Lands Between would burn in a neverending darkness.
Where he alone rules supreme..