...….☆...…..
The sleep Shi Yoon eventually succumbed to wasn't the restorative rest of a victor; it was a heavy, forced unconsciousness brought on by the massive soul-depletion of his recent fights. His apartment was silent, the Aether Watch on his nightstand glowing with a faint, rhythmic blue pulse the heartbeat of the Chronos Needle fabrication. Disappeared and appears on his left wrist .
But inside his mind, the silence was replaced by the sound of shifting sand and ancient, rhythmic chanting.
Shi Yoon found himself standing in a place that didn't exist in the modern records of the dimensional rifts. The sky was a bruised purple, and the ground beneath his feet was made of fine, crushed red glass. There were no skyscrapers here, only the ruins of stone pillars that looked like they had been carved before the concept of time was born.
He wasn't wearing his tactical gear. He was in his civilian clothes, feeling strangely exposed without the weight of the Reaper's Blade in his hand.
Then, he saw him.
A child stood amidst the ruins. It was Seo Jun, but not the boy from eleven years ago, and certainly not the student from the library. This child was dressed in a heavy, silk historical gown a hanbok of deep, ink-black fabric embroidered with silver thread that seemed to writhe like living snakes. His small, pale feet were bare against the red glass.
"Seo Jun?" Shi Yoon's voice echoed, sounding hollow.
the child turned. He was holding a tattered, ancient-looking teddy bear by one arm, the toy's button eyes missing. But it was the boy's face that froze the air in ShiYoon's lungs.
SeoJun's eyes weren't brown. They were the brilliant, predatory crimson ShiYoon had glimpsed in the safe house. But here, the transformation was complete. The pupils were no longer human; they were jet-black vertical slits, sharp as needles, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic light.
The child smiled. It was a sweet, innocent expression that felt utterly wrong on a face with eyes like those.
Suddenly, the historical gown began to unravel. As the silk fell away, ShiYoon saw the "protection" he had provided. The Reaper's Mark on the child's chest wasn't a scar anymore; it was a gateway. Thick, translucent tentacles darker than the void and slick with a shimmering, oily substance were coiled around the boy's small, naked form. They didn't look like they were attacking him; they looked like they were part of him, a living shield that pulsated in time with the boy's heartbeat.
The tentacles rose, swaying in the windless air, their tips glowing with the same "blind spot" energy ShiYoon had been unable to track. One of the appendages reached out, stroking the boy's cheek with a terrifying, alien tenderness.
The child took a step forward, the red glass crunching beneath his feet. He looked strangely dangerous not like a monster that wanted to kill, but like a god that had forgotten it was supposed to be human.
He looked at Shi-Yoon, his head tilting to the side. He raised a small, pale finger to his lips.
"Shhh," the boy whispered.
The word didn't just reach Shi Yoon's ears; it vibrated through his very soul, a command of absolute silence that felt like a weight of a thousand dimensions.
The tentacles suddenly lashed out, not at Shi Yoon, but toward the sky, tearing the bruised purple firmament into shreds of blackness. The child's smile widened, his vertical pupils narrowing to razor-thin lines.
"Don't wake up yet, Lighthouse Keeper," the child's voice resonated from everywhere and nowhere. "The show hasn't even started."
Shi Yoon bolted upright in bed, his breath hitching in a jagged sob. He was drenched in a cold, viscous sweat that felt far too much like the oil on the tentacles in his dream.
He sat there in the dark for a long time, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The feeling was... weird. It wasn't just fear. It was a lingering, sickening sense of intimacy. He felt as if he had seen something he was never meant to see the true face of the "variable" he had spent eleven years trying to manage.
He looked at his left wrist. The Aether Watch was flashing a notification.
FABRICATION COMPLETE: CHRONOS NEEDLE LOADED.
Usually, the sight of his completed weapon would bring a sense of cold satisfaction. But as he stared at the digital display, all he could see were those vertical, crimson slits. The dream hadn't felt like a dream; it had felt like a transmission.
He reached up, touching the obsidian pendant around his neck. It was ice cold.
"Chimera," he whispered, his voice trembling slightly.
"Yes, Reaper Designate?"
"Run a psychological scan on my current neural patterns. Search for 'Extra Dimensional Encroachment' or 'Dream State Manipulation'."
"Scanning... No external anomalies detected, Shi Yoon. Your heart rate is elevated, but your brainwaves are within standard post REM recovery parameters."
Shi yoon didn't believe the system. For the first time in his career, he felt that his technology was blind to the most dangerous truth. He got out of bed, his legs feeling strangely heavy. He walked to the window, looking out at the city. Somewhere out there, in a "safe" house he had built, sat a boy with a teddy bear and a fate that was currently rewriting the laws of the universe.
He realized then that he wasn't just fighting to protect SeoJun from the monsters. He was fighting to protect the world from whatever Seo Jun was becoming.
"The lighthouse keeper," Shi yoon muttered, the dream phrase tasting like copper in his mouth.
He grabbed his trench coat and the freshly loaded Chronos Needle. The twelve hour window was over. It was time to find out if the "shh" from the child was a warning, or a promise of the end.