The Tower's white horizon screamed as light met death.
Hae-won's chains erupted outward — twin streaks of red-black, their edges whispering through the dust like blades pulled from the void itself. They struck the ground, split the air, shattered the marble into fractal shards that hung in the lightless void.
But the Healer's radiance was not something that could be cut.
Each chain that neared him simply slowed — caught in a current that wasn't wind, wasn't gravity. His light distorted the space around him, bending cause and effect. Even death refused to land on him.
[ Modifier Conflict Detected. ]
[ Harvester of Death vs. Healer of Origin. ]
[ Narrative Clash Level: Ω ]
[ Timer: 01:00:00 – Survive. ]
The message flickered in midair, cold and mechanical, as if the System itself were afraid to intervene.
Arin stood behind Hae-won, both hands raised. The threads of her Purification (Soul) skill coiled around her wrists, shimmering faint blue. Her breath came ragged—each inhale pulled a strand of her own soul through her ribs, but she held firm.
"Hae-won—"
"I know."
He didn't look back. He didn't have to. The Tower's silence carried her heartbeat to him like an echo underwater.
He raised one hand, the chains pooling at his feet.
The Healer's light pulsed brighter, no weapon in sight. Only his presence warped the world.
"You should have stayed gone," the Healer said quietly. "Every time you come back, another story dies. How many more regressions will it take before you see it?"
Hae-won laughed — not out of amusement, but disbelief.
"Do you think I wanted to come back? I begged for an end. The Tower wouldn't let me."
The Healer's expression hardened. "You could've stopped trying to rewrite everything."
"That's what they all said," Hae-won murmured. His eyes burned silver, lightless and cold. "But they never had to watch the same people die five hundred times."
The Healer didn't answer. His silence said more than words.
A hum split the air — the sound of inevitability stretching thin.
The first strike came from the Healer.
He didn't move, but space did.
Reality folded inward, turning distance into nothing.
A line of white cut through the floor, through air, through flesh.
Arin screamed.
Hae-won staggered back, his shoulder ripped open. Not by blade — by absence. His flesh had simply been erased.
He didn't retreat. He raised his hand, chains snapping forward like divine whips, their edges bending light.
One wrapped around the Healer's arm. For a heartbeat, it looked like victory. Then the light surged — and the chain dissolved, turning to molten sparks before it could constrict.
[ Chain of Death No. 1 Severed. ]
[ Warning: Connection to Origin weakening. ]
A sound left Hae-won's throat — not pain, not anger. Grief. The chain had been with him since the second regression, bound to his soul like a friend.
The Healer stepped forward, voice low.
"Everything you bind eventually breaks. That's your curse."
"Then I'll just make new chains."
"You don't understand." The Healer's tone softened. "The world doesn't need another god of death. It needs to stop being rewritten."
For the first time, Arin shouted back. "Then why does it keep resetting?! Why are we still here?!"
The Healer turned to her. "Because he won't stop living."
Arin froze.
The words hit harder than any attack.
She looked at Hae-won — at the quiet ache in his face, the exhaustion that came from hundreds of lifetimes of loss. And in that moment, she realized the truth of the Healer's accusation.
Hae-won was the loop. His survival was the regression.
The Healer lifted his hand again, light spiraling into a sphere that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"This world can't heal while you exist."
And then — impact.
The sphere struck the ground, detonating in a ring of holy fire that erased everything it touched.
Arin's Purification flared instinctively, throwing up a barrier that shattered halfway through the blast.
Hae-won caught the rest — with his bare hands.
The blast ripped through him, carving streaks of molten silver into his arms. He stood unmoving, his shadow split in two by the light.
When the smoke cleared, he was still there — bleeding, shaking, but smiling faintly.
"Then heal me," he said. "If that's what it takes."
The Healer's light dimmed, just slightly. "You don't understand—"
But before he could finish, a voice cut through the ruin.
"—Then maybe we do."
A crimson axe slammed into the ground between them, its impact breaking the tension like glass.
Do-hyun, hair wild, face streaked with grime and fury, stood between the two forces. Behind him, Seong-wu, Jisung, and two other survivors—scarred, battle-worn, eyes hollow but alive.
"You two done trying to erase each other?" Do-hyun snapped. "Because we've got about five minutes before this place collapses."
The System flickered, confirming it.
[ Scenario Update: Collapse Threshold – 00:05:00 ]
[ Cause: Dual Modifier Interference ]
[ Directive: Choose Narrative Anchor. ]
The Healer's gaze hardened. "If he remains, this Tower falls."
Hae-won's chains rose again, trembling under his restraint. "Then we find another way."
"There is no other way," the Healer said. His light flared again, and the chains screamed in response.
Arin stepped between them once more, her soul light bleeding through her veins.
"Then I'll make one."
The world shook.
Light, chains, and flame erupted in one final, blinding collision — the Tower groaning under the weight of two opposite truths: that death must end, and that healing cannot begin without it.
And somewhere, beneath all that chaos, a clock began to tick louder.
One hour.
One choice.
One story left to survive.
The world refused to settle after that explosion.
The light hadn't faded — it had fractured. The air rippled like glass too long under heat, the floor warping in waves that defied gravity. The System boxes blinked in and out, unable to hold a coherent sentence.
[ Warning: Modifier Collision Active. ]
[ System Integrity: 46%… 41%… 38%… ]
[ Immediate Stabilization Required. ]
Hae-won exhaled, blood dripping from his fingertips. His left chain lay shattered, molten fragments steaming against the white stone. The other chain trembled, its end buried deep in the Tower floor. It wasn't fear — it was resistance.
The Healer had stopped attacking, his light dimming into an unsteady pulse. Even he looked unsettled. "You're tearing the whole scenario apart."
Hae-won smiled faintly. "Then let's make the tear mean something."
He lifted his remaining chain.
For a heartbeat, the world was still — as if waiting to hear the name of whatever he was about to summon.
The Tower did. The System, bleeding from its own instability, listened. And from that fragile pause came a voice that was not divine, not mechanical — but ancient.
[ You have met the criteria for Evolution. ]
[ Skill 'Chains of Regression' no longer applicable under current modifier. ]
[ Adapting… ]
[ Error detected: Excessive karmic load. ]
[ Error rerouted. Chain Protocol Rewritten. ]
The chain in his hand began to melt, threads unspooling into light.
Red became gold, gold became black, black became something unseen — the hue of law and punishment. The metal twisted in on itself until its edges hummed with resonance, vibrating at a frequency that hurt to witness.
Then the text appeared, burned into the air like scripture:
[ Skill Acquired: Chains of Judgment ]
[ Description: A conceptual weapon bound to causality. Every soul linked by this chain is weighed — not by morality, but by consequence. ]
[ Current Rank: Undefined. Evolves through verdicts delivered. ]
[ Additional Trait Unlocked: Echo of the Dead — For each judgment rendered, one truth from regression will manifest. ]
Hae-won's hair shimmered in the half-light, silver catching streaks of spectral crimson.
For a second, even the Healer took a step back.
"Judgment?" Do-hyun muttered, voice rough. "What the hell does that mean?"
Hae-won's eyes lifted — irises no longer silver but a sharp, mirrored gray that reflected everyone around him.
"It means no more regression," he said quietly. "No more resets. No more excuses."
He pulled the chain taut, and the Tower listened.
Every surviving soul within the radius — ally, enemy, narrator — felt it like a hook behind the ribs. Their breath froze; their hearts seemed to pulse not in rhythm with life, but with accountability.
The System barely managed to respond.
[ WARNING: Unauthorized Authority Invocation Detected. ]
[ Modifiers in conflict: Harvester of Death (Hae-won) | Healer of Origin (???). ]
[ Stabilizing by narrative arbitration. ]
[ Arbitrator: Yun Arin (Purification of Soul). ]
Arin stepped forward. Her blue aura rippled outward, forming a translucent circle that merged with Hae-won's golden-black field. The two forces didn't destroy each other. They balanced.
She gasped as the feedback hit her — the chain's weight dragging through her body like molten lead. "Hae-won, this isn't—"
"It's the only way," he said. "The Tower needs judgment, not healing. Not death. Just truth."
Arin's voice trembled. "And who decides what's true?"
He didn't answer. The chains did.
They moved on their own — splitting into four radiant lines that pierced the ground, extending across the battlefield. One coiled around the Healer's arm; another brushed past Do-hyun; the third circled Arin's wrist; the fourth disappeared into the void beneath the collapsing floor.
And suddenly, images began to flash before them — not illusions, but truths.
Do-hyun saw himself striking down innocents during the fourth scenario.
Arin saw the soul of the narrator she'd killed still whispering through the system's seams.
The Healer saw thousands of lives he had failed to save by refusing to fight.
And Hae-won — he saw his own hands, younger, trembling, covered in blood that wasn't someone else's but his own, from the night the bullies laughed and watched him break.
He remembered the words he'd carved into his desk before the attempt:
"Even if I die, you'll be my next victim."
The memory slammed into him like a physical blow. He dropped to his knees, chains writhing around him. The System flashed red.
[ Mental Stability: Critical. ]
[ Trauma Echo: Active. ]
[ Initiating forced confrontation with Regression Memory. ]
The Tower's walls dissolved.
The battlefield fell away, replaced by a night sky over a school rooftop. Rain slicked the concrete, neon signs blinking in the distance. Hae-won stood there — younger, smaller, his uniform torn. His reflection stared back at him from the edge of the roof — the version of himself who hadn't yet died, who hadn't yet climbed any tower.
The younger Hae-won looked up, eyes filled with despair and a twisted grin.
"So, you came back."
The older Hae-won clenched his fists. "I didn't have a choice."
"Of course you did," his past self said softly. "You always do. You just don't want to stop suffering."
The words hit like glass shards in his mind.
The younger him stepped forward, toes at the roof's edge. "You killed hundreds. You call it mercy. But this—" he gestured toward himself, the empty skyline, the fading rain— "this was the only honest thing you ever did."
The chains trembled, unable to distinguish which version was real.
Arin's voice cut faintly through the storm. "Hae-won! Remember who you are!"
He looked up — at her silhouette in the distance, light haloing her hair. Then back at his younger self, whose grin had turned to pity.
"Then judge me," the boy said. "If you think you're worthy."
The chain struck.
And the world shattered.
⸻
When Hae-won opened his eyes again, he was kneeling on the Tower floor, his breath ragged, tears mixing with the blood on his face. The younger version of him was gone — but the chain that remained was glowing gold-white, humming in quiet understanding.
[ Judgment Completed. ]
[ Verdict: Endured. ]
[ Skill Update: Chains of Judgment – Stage II Unlocked. ]
[ New Subskill Acquired: Manifest Sin – summon echoes of judged souls as allies. ]
The Healer stared, eyes wide — not in fear, but awe.
Arin fell to her knees beside him, touching his arm. "You… you judged yourself."
Hae-won exhaled shakily.
"Someone had to."
The Tower's light flickered once — as if bowing — before the System announced:
[ Scenario Timer: 00:00:00 ]
[ Survive Condition: Cleared. ]
[ Collapse Averted. ]
And far above them, the sky — which had been sealed since the first ascension — cracked open for the first time, showing faint traces of dawn.
The silence after the verdict felt almost sacred.
The chain of light still hummed, vibrating in soft pulses that resonated through the ruined Tower floor. Hae-won's hands were scorched raw; the metal — if it could be called that anymore — had fused with his skin. Every heartbeat he drew made the links tremble as though the weapon was breathing with him.
Arin reached toward it, then stopped when a second pulse rolled through the air — colder, heavier.
The chain that had shattered earlier began to re-form.
First, a single link reappeared. Then a dozen. Then hundreds — crawling like living veins through the cracks of the floor until they rose, coiling in front of him in silent defiance.
[ System Notice: Skill "Chains of Judgment" has devoured residual fragments of "Chains of Regression." ]
[ Integration result: Chain Hierarchy Detected. ]
[ Classifying derived concepts… ]
Light exploded outward in rings.
For a moment, everyone on the floor — Arin, Do-hyun, the Healer, and even the surviving narrators — could see what the System was naming.
Each chain was a different color, a different resonance.
They hung suspended in the air like constellations drawn from an ancient myth.
[ 1. Chain of Regression — Binds the timeline of the self. ]
[ 2. Chain of Heaven — Executes divine verdicts beyond mortal perception. ]
[ 3. Chain of Hell — Devours sin and converts it into strength. ]
[ 4. Chain of the Void — Denies causality itself; severs what was never meant to exist. ]
The System paused, flickering. Then a faint additional text appeared, hesitant, as if written by something afraid.
[ 5. Chain of ??? — Unclassified. Access denied. ]
The light collapsed back into Hae-won's body.
When it was over, he was left kneeling amid faint smoke, his hair tousled silver-white streaked with black. The new chains hung around him like fragments of an impossible crown — two coiled at his wrists, one around his neck, another hovering faintly over his shadow.
He exhaled, a slow, tremulous breath.
It was power, yes. But it was not freedom.
[ Regression Attempt Detected. ]
[ Executing escape clause… ]
The words froze him.
He had triggered the command unconsciously — the same one he'd used every other life to end the cycle, to choose the next path. The one safeguard he believed he'd built through all his suffering.
But the System didn't respond as it used to.
[ Error. ]
[ Anchor chain established: "Chain of Regression." ]
[ Timeline mobility disabled. User bound to current continuity. ]
The meaning hit like a hammer to the ribs.
His safety — his way out — was gone.
He staggered to his feet, vision swimming. "No… that's not right. That command worked before."
The Healer's voice came quietly, almost pitying.
"It won't work anymore. You judged yourself, Hae-won. There's nowhere to regress from now."
Arin turned toward him, face pale. "What does that mean?"
"It means," the Healer said, "he's trapped. Permanently."
Hae-won's laugh came out hoarse, broken. He felt the chains tightening, linking not to time but to reality itself. He could feel their pull — one dragging upward (Heaven), one downward (Hell), one outward (Void), and one inward (Regression). All of them converged on him.
The System spoke again, tone warped and distorted:
[ Modifier Alignment Complete. ]
[ "Harvester of Death" bound to The Four Chains. ]
[ Regression Function: Permanently locked. ]
[ Escape potential: 0%. ]
The floor beneath him split — not from destruction, but from choice. The Tower's structure rearranged itself, corridors reappearing where none existed before. It was as if the Tower recognized its new warden.
[ Scenario Recalibration in Progress. ]
[ New Directive: Maintain equilibrium between Heaven, Hell, and Void. Failure will result in complete systemic collapse. ]
Do-hyun gritted his teeth. "So now you're the Tower's leash?"
"No," Hae-won murmured. "Its prisoner."
Arin stepped closer, placing a trembling hand against his chest. "Then we'll break you out. Together."
He met her eyes — tired, luminous silver meeting clear blue. "You don't understand. I tried breaking it. Every time. And every time, it rebuilt itself through me. The moment I became the judge… I stopped being the player."
Her grip tightened. "Then we'll judge the Tower itself."
For a moment, the idea hung in the air — absurd, beautiful, impossible.
The chains hummed faintly, as though amused by the suggestion.
Then, as if mocking them, the System's tone shifted once more:
[ Regression chain anomaly detected. ]
[ Initiating spontaneous timeline bleed. ]
[ Warning: Alternate cycle memories resurfacing. ]
The air thickened. Shadows crawled from the edges of the room, stretching like liquid mercury. Faces — hundreds, thousands — emerged within them. All of them him.
Every regression, every failure, every murder, every mercy.
They whispered in unison:
"You thought you escaped us."
The world fractured.
Arin screamed his name as the Tower bent inward, swallowing light.
Hae-won's eyes went blank white as the flood of lives re-entered his skull, a thousand simultaneous deaths replaying like overlapping film. The Chains of Heaven and Hell flared to life to keep his body from collapsing entirely, burning symbols into the ground.
And from somewhere deep inside that storm, his voice — cracked, desperate, half-mad — answered:
"Then watch me climb anyway."
[ Chain Hierarchy stabilized. ]
[ New passive unlocked: Burden of Infinity — retain awareness across all failed regressions. ]
When the light faded, Hae-won was standing, barely, his expression unreadable.
The chains hung silent, waiting.
He was alive.
But the Tower — and time itself — had closed the door behind him.
There would be no more running.
Only judgment.