The first thing Lee Juwon felt was cold.
Not the pleasant bite of morning air—
No.
This was the kind of cold that crawled under the skin (SFX: shrrrk), burrowed into the marrow, and nested there like something alive.
The stone floor of the ruined cathedral pressed into his spine like teeth.
Rain leaked through the shattered rose window far above, falling in slow, deliberate rhythm onto his cheek.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
He knew that rhythm.
Seven hundred years ago, those same drops had fallen on this same spot the moment he first opened his eyes in this world.
So.
It happened.
His fingers twitched—thin, pale, powerless. The body of a nineteen-year-old boy who had never held anything heavier than a kitchen knife.
The body everyone would laugh at for the next three hours.
The body the ghouls would tear apart by evening.
Perfect.
Juwon kept his eyes closed and listened.
A thousand panicked heartbeats.
Ten thousand frantic thoughts.
One hundred thousand new souls dragged screaming from Earth and a dozen other worlds, dumped here like cattle.
The air stank of fear, vomit, and ozone—the signature scent of the Abyssal Crucible's arrival gate.
Somewhere to his left, a girl was crying.
To his right, a man prayed in a language that would be dead in fifty years.
And above it all, the instructor's voice; bored, cruel, eternal.
"Next."
Boots crunched closer (SFX: crrk-step, crrk-step).
Someone was yanked upright.
A glowing altar the size of a truck hummed, runes spinning like circular saws (SFX: whrrr—CHNK-CHNK-CHNK).
The Brand Evaluation.
The single moment that decided whether you became a hero—or feed.
Juwon counted heartbeats the way other people counted sheep.
One hundred and twelve until his turn.
He finally opened his eyes.
The cathedral was exactly as he remembered: black marble veins cracked by centuries of divine tantrums, saints with melted faces staring from the fractured stained glass, and at the far end, the colossal statue of the Forgotten God; faceless, armless, yet somehow smiling.
He loved that statue.
He had killed the god it depicted. Twice.
"Move it, pretty boy."
Rough hands grabbed his collar and dragged him upright. His legs almost buckled—good. Weakness had to look authentic in the first act.
The instructor was new. Some rising B-rank chosen to shepherd the cattle this cycle. Square jaw. Lip scar. The swagger of a man who believed that surviving a few rounds made him important.
He shoved Juwon toward the altar.
"Name."
"Lee Juwon," he answered—soft, hoarse, perfectly broken.
The altar flared white.
Runes spun faster (SFX: WHRRRRR-snap-crackle).
A thousand invisible needles pierced his soul—reading, measuring, judging.
Ten seconds of silence.
Then the laughter began.
First one soldier.
Then a second.
Then the entire cathedral.
Even several new Seeds joined in—nervous, desperate, laughing at the bottom feeder so the monsters wouldn't laugh at them.
The instructor read the floating golden script with delighted contempt.
"Brand: [Echo of Nothingness]
Rank: F
Flaw: [Cannot inflict direct harm upon any living entity]
Aspect: None
Potential: Zero."
He turned to the crowd like a circus performer.
"Congratulations, Seed Zero! You are officially the most useless human being in the past forty cycles. Even the cripples from Batch 312 could stab something."
More laughter.
Juwon lowered his head, letting wet black hair curtain his eyes. Shoulders trembling—just enough.
He had practiced that tremble.
The instructor grabbed his chin and forced it up.
"Look at this. Pretty enough for the inner-district concubines. Shame nobody pays for damaged goods."
He shoved Juwon backward.
Straight into the rejection line—fifty souls already marked for immediate death in the outer district.
A little girl with burn scars caught him. She looked twelve. She would die in nine hours when the ghouls smelled her blood.
Juwon gave her a tiny, gentle smile.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Her eyes widened.
Something old—older than this world—looked out from behind the harmless boy's face.
She let go quickly, as if burned.
"Trash will be escorted to Gate 7. The rest of you—congratulations, you might live a week. Dismissed."
Chains clinked.
Soldiers herded the rejects.
Juwon shuffled along with them, head down, counting steps.
Twenty-three until the side corridor.
Forty-one until the blind spot behind the fallen seraph.
Sixty until the hidden Nightmare Trial opened for the first—and only—time this cycle.
He passed beneath the Forgotten God's statue.
For a single heartbeat, its empty sockets flared crimson—recognizing him.
Welcome home, Sovereign.
The soldiers didn't notice the temperature drop ten degrees.
They didn't notice the shadows at Juwon's feet ripple like living oil.
And they certainly didn't notice the black tear sliding from his eye—not sadness, not pain.
Just memory.
Seven hundred years ago, in this exact place, he had cried for real.
Now?
Now the Crucible had made a mistake.
It gave the monster his weakness back…
…but forgot to take away everything he learned while wearing it.
The outer gate loomed ahead.
Night.
Rain.
The howling of things that had once been human.
The instructor slapped Juwon's back hard enough to stagger him.
"Try not to scream too loud, pretty boy. Some of us are trying to sleep."
Juwon stumbled through the gate.
The iron portcullis slammed shut behind the last reject (SFX: CLANG—KRNNNNN).
Darkness swallowed them.
And in that darkness, Lee Juwon finally smiled with his real face.
A small, tired, gentle smile.
The smile of a man who had just been handed the keys to the universe a second time.
"Again, huh," he murmured to the rain.
The shadows under his feet answered with a thousand hungry voices.
Yes, Master.
Let's begin.
Somewhere far above, in the viewing galleries of the gods, a single crimson notification blinked across every divine screen.
[Anomaly Detected]
[Nightmare Seed Recognized]
[First Trial: "The Night That Remembers Your Name"; Activated]
None of the gods understood what it meant.
They would.
Soon.