**Chapter Nine**
Running… It wasn't just escape this time, but a chase of a phantom haunting an undying memory.
Jin ran, his feet pounding the cold earth, his eyes seeing nothing but the goal ahead: the Golden Capital.
Yet he had to pass through here… through the ruins of his childhood.
A village drowned in death…
Amid a forest that had long since lost its color, the village lay like a lifeless corpse among bare trees.
No light. No warmth. Nothing but the suffocating silence and whispering shadows.
The wooden fences that once sheltered its people had rotted into brittle sticks, as if begging mercy from the wind.
The stench of old corpses, disease, decay—everything here was dead… except memory.
Jin entered, heavy silence choking the air.
All eyes turned to him—not in welcome, but as if a ghost had risen from its grave.
"He's still alive?"
"How?"
"Where's his master?"
"Everyone close to him dies… first his parents… and now his teacher."
"Cursed… cursed… cursed…"
They spoke in many voices, intertwined like a chorus of hatred, their words hammering in his skull.
Their voices throbbed slowly inside his head.
But he looked at no one… said nothing… felt nothing.
He walked toward the house that once meant "home."
The door hung off its hinges, the walls slick with damp, the roof sagging as if its collapse was only a matter of time.
Insects swarmed the corners, heirs of ruin.
He climbed to the upper floor, dragging his steps on life-weary stairs.
He entered his master's room. The smell of old books and dead dust.
He approached a wooden chest and opened it.
Inside was his identity… an ancient document bearing his name, an official seal—the last link to a world where he no longer belonged.
"This is the only way into the Golden Capital…"
he whispered, as if confessing—or saying farewell.
Suddenly, a scream shattered the village's hush.
Jin bolted.
He leaped through the window—no time to hesitate.
What met his eyes was a chaos of blood.
Ghouls…
hideous creatures gnawing villagers' bodies, tearing them at random, screaming with feral brutality.
But Jin did not draw his swords.
He knew letting loose his power here would mean more destruction…
He hadn't mastered it yet, and he refused to claim more lives.
He watched them, the air around him growing heavy.
A scream pierced the silence.
In a heartbeat, Jin vaulted from the window, no fear—only resolve.
He landed hard, dust billowing, earth cracking beneath his feet.
The ghouls turned toward him—wide, gleaming, hungry eyes.
Distorted faces, half-open maws, fangs crusted with dry blood.
Jin?
His face was impassive.
Features frozen as if carved from scorched stone.
His single eye glowed with a lethal coldness—not anger… only decision.
One ghoul lunged, mouth agape in madness.
Jin's hand rose empty.
Black shadows exploded from his arm, twisting into serrated blades.
The ghoul split in two.
In its final gaze… pure terror.
A second charged, body crawling unnaturally fast, face closer to a monstrosity—an eye on its forehead, a mouth stretching down its throat.
But Jin had vanished.
He appeared behind it.
Gripped its head, stared into its eyes.
Its horror froze its scream.
Then he squeezed.
The skull burst like a watermelon, blood splattering the ground.
Three ghouls attacked together, faces all grotesque yet alike:
thirst, rage, and something akin to pain.
Jin did not move. He merely whispered:
"You are but added chaos."
His shadow elongated.
He surged forward.
The first ghoul faltered…
looked down to see shadows pouring from its chest.
Its jaw trembled… then opened in a brief shriek.
The second split open at the flank,
its eyes rolled back, shock frozen on its dead face.
The third tried to scream,
but the fangs of Jin's shadow plunged into its throat.
Its cry turned into a gurgle.
Breaths ceased.
All the ghouls collapsed.
Corpses, blood, smoke…
Jin stood in the center, his face shrouded in shadow, the lone eye gleaming ash-gray.
His mouth set, neither anger nor triumph… only a mourning silence.
His demonic hand oozed energy, fading slowly as if devouring the last light.
The earth stilled…
the ghouls were rent, leaving only scraps of flesh and smoke.
Jin… stood amid the blood, his shadow bleeding into the dark stains on the ground.
Footsteps began to stir.
From every alley, behind every broken door, the villagers emerged.
Pale faces… eyes swollen from fear and sleepless nights…
but swiftly their astonishment turned to hatred.
A woman whispered shakily:
"It's him… he's still alive?"
A man suddenly shouted:
"Monster… you're the cause of all this!"
Then the village erupted in voices.
"Cursed!"
"Scoundrel!"
"Go! We will not die for you!"
"Everyone who stood by you died!"
"Your master… your parents… they all died because of you!"
Stones flew through the air.
One struck Jin's shoulder, another slashed his cheek.
He did not flinch. Did not cry out. Did not retreat.
He only… sighed.
A heavy sigh, as if drawn from a bottomless well within him.
He raised his eye and looked at them.
There was no hatred, no sorrow…
only silent disappointment… and extinguishment.
He turned.
The shouts continued, stones still raining, but Jin did not look back.
Step…
then another step…
and he vanished among the dead trees of the forest.
The forest swallowed him as earth swallows a grave.
A heavy silence settled behind him, as if something weightier than death had passed.
Jin…
walked alone toward the Golden Capital,
with an eye that would not look to the sky… and a heart in which nothing remained to burn.
And while the mist consumed Jin's figure deep in the dead forest…
She was there.
Hidden atop a high tree branch, among limbs stiff as bleached bones. No bird would see her… nor the forest that had forgotten life.
But her eyes saw everything.
Eyes violet—not purely violet, but like the cosmos refracted, blending blue with unknowable depth.
Her long hair fell gently, shimmering in the darkness like starlight threads.
She watched him from afar—his slight stoop, heavy steps, his silence soaked in stones and betrayal.
Then she smiled.
A quiet smile… neither mocking nor pitying.
A strange warmth… as if she alone understood the storm within him that no one else saw.
"Strange…" she whispered, "yet not dead inside as they think."
"My lady…"
came a voice from behind her.
A man in a dark cloak, stern features, hands clasped respectfully behind him.
"We must return… your father will be angry if we delay."
She glanced at him for a moment, then turned her gaze back to where Jin had disappeared.
"Did you see his eye?" she asked softly.
Her companion was silent, then replied in a steady tone:
"An eye that survived hell… but has not yet left it."
She smiled again, then rose lightly on the branch and leaped gracefully into the shadows.
She vanished as she had appeared, without a trace…
leaving behind only a question that no one would ever answer.