The voice didn't answer immediately. Moments passed, as if the entire cell was holding its breath.
Jang Hun's question—"And what do you want in return?"—hung in the darkness, unanswered, without an echo.
But he wasn't waiting for an answer that would change his fate.
He asked it because he wanted to understand… not to beg.
And then the response came, not as a sound in his ear, but as a faint shiver deep in his soul:
> "The time is not right for you to know. Just know that one day… I will ask you to repay the debt."
Jang Hun sighed slowly, eyes closed, his back resting against the cold stone wall.
He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. There was no shape, no shadow, no form.
Only a presence… a presence that made him feel like someone finally saw him—not as a caged rat, but as a being on the verge of being reborn.
> "Why me?"
> "Because you've arrived. Not at the bottom… but beyond it. Where there is nothing left. And from there… things begin."
There was no comfort, no promise in those words.
But they were real… more real than anything he had heard in his recent years.
---
[Two days later]
The iron door screeched like a claw scraping bone. Screams. Blows. Groans.
Jang Hun didn't move. His body had learned when to ignore the pain, when to pretend to be dead.
But this time, the voice was different.
> "Please! Don't take him! He'll die! My brother's sick, please!"
A young boy's voice. Broken, yet unbroken.
Then the guard's voice, mocking:
> "He'll die? Good. One less to feed."
A strike. Then silence.
Jang Hun closed his eyes, extinguishing the inside, just as he had extinguished the world around him.
But he couldn't.
"Enough."
He said it first inside himself… then it slipped out of his mouth, whispering.
Then he said it again, louder:
> "Enough."
It wasn't a scream. It wasn't an order. It was the utterance of an irreversible truth.
And in that moment, nothing ignited.
But only… a pulse.
As if his entire body was breathing from a hidden point, not following the pathways of chi, nor any familiar energy route.
A cold pulse. Heavy. Quiet… as if it didn't belong to anyone.
His breaths quickened. It wasn't pain… but awareness. As though something inside him had finally awakened.
That presence spoke again, its voice closer to the marrow of the bone:
> "It has begun."
> "What is this? Is it chi? But… my pathways are torn."
> "It's not chi. It's the birth of the Void Core… it exists only for those who accept the void.
A pulse born from the break… from the moment when you no longer scream for yourself, but for what lies beyond you."
> "Void Core? What's that? I've never heard of it before…"
There was no answer. Only silence… but it wasn't empty.
---
[Meanwhile, in the adjacent cell]
The older boy was thrown back, his bruised body hitting the ground.
The younger brother ran to him, kneeling beside him, hugging him, tears staining his face:
> "Brother! Please… wake up…"
The older brother coughed, clinging weakly to his brother's sleeve, breathing in short gasps:
> "Sorry… I tried to resist them… sorry…"
The younger brother held his older brother's head to his chest, gripping him as if the entire world were fading away around him.
Jang Hun watched the scene in silence, then turned back to his inner world.
He stared at his palms. He didn't feel strength.
But he felt the silence… and it had changed.
It was no longer heavy. It was alive, pulsing.
> "Did… this pulse just appear now?"
> "Yes. I didn't give you anything. I just whispered to what had been sleeping inside you… and you were the one who responded.
The Void Core is not given, nor taken. It is born only when you choose to rise… even though you are broken."
> "And why now?"
> "Because you no longer ask to survive… but to stop what you should never have remained silent about."
> "And how will this core make me stronger?"
> "That… you will discover for yourself."
---
[In the adjacent cell – later]
The younger boy lifted his head, pale, whispering to his sick brother:
> "I felt… something there. Like the darkness itself changed."
As for Jang Hun, he closed his eyes—not to escape… but to listen.
Not to the entity. But to the pulse he hadn't asked for, but which had become his.
And inside him, the words echoed:
"If they've broken everything inside you… then start from the break."
Then he smiled.
Not with his lips… but with another pulse, deep in the darkness.