ECLIPSED VEINS — Episode 6: "Blood of the Eclipse"
Yuna's arm trembled like a puppet on breaking strings. The command seal glowed molten gold, binding her wrist, shoulder, and spine in chains of radiance. Her face—wet with tears and burning light—twisted in agony.
"I… don't want to—! Seong-min, move!"
He didn't.
He knelt, breathing shallowly, shadow still smoking from his transformation. His black-silver eyes met her gold.
"Yuna. Don't run from it. If it's you… I can face it."
His voice was raw, but fearless. As if her blade was allowed to hurt him. Yuna sobbed harder, fighting waves of divine compulsion gnawing at her mind like insects.
The Lightkeeper watched without flinching.
"Do not struggle, Sunwarden. The Seal acts for the safety of all. Your feelings are irrelevant."
"Shut up!" she screamed—but the Seal only tightened, burning her insides.
Her arm jerked forward.
The golden blade plunged into Seong-min's side.
The world didn't just shake.
It screamed.
White-hot light burned through Seong-min's flesh—too bright to be holy, too hungry to be righteous. At the same time, his shadow lashed upward in a violent surge, reacting instinctively to the intrusion.
Gold collided with black.
And black devoured gold.
A beam of shadow exploded upward from his wound like a volcanic geyser. The floor cracked, reality itself bending around the eruption. Seong-min's blood sizzled into silver mist, and something impossible happened:
The light could not escape.
The shadows swallowed it whole… and changed.
Lines of molten silver and molten gold crawled across his skin, fusing, twisting, merging into pulsing veins that glowed like the corona of a dying star.
Halmeoni gasped, voice trembling with ancient fear.
"No… no, no, not that… not the Eclipse Veins…!"
The Lightkeeper took a full step back.
"That is impossible. The Eclipsed should not—cannot—retain light. Remove the blade!"
But Yuna couldn't pull it out.
The weapon was lodged deeper than steel, buried to the hilt, as if the wound itself refused to let go. Seong-min held her wrist—not to stop her, but to steady her.
He winced through sharp ragged breaths.
"It's… okay. It doesn't hurt anymore."
Her tears dripped onto his chest, glowing as they touched his skin—like dying suns.
"I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry… I never wanted—"
"It's not you," he whispered. "It never was."
The Lightkeeper's voice cracked like a whip.
"ENOUGH SENTIMENT. SUNWARDEN, RELEASE HIM!"
The Lightkeeper raised the Solar Brand and lunged.
Shadow roared.
Seong-min's darkness flooded outward—not controlled, not directed, but wild. It wasn't trying to protect him.
It was protecting her.
Tendrils of shadow formed a barrier, lashing at the Lightkeeper and forcing him back. His radiant sword clashed with them, splitting the night into violent streaks of black and gold. But every strike made the shadows stronger—feeding on the leftover light, converting it into deeper darkness.
The Lightkeeper landed beside a fallen beam, breathing harder than before. His voice thundered, but there was panic underneath it.
"The Eclipsed must never mix with the Sun's blood. This cannot be allowed!"
Halmeoni slammed the butt of her staff onto the rubble. A shockwave of midnight-blue energy blasted between them.
"You will not take him."
The Lightkeeper snarled. "Ancient crone—this is not your concern."
"It is now," she spat. "You tamper with old laws you do not understand."
Her staff glowed with lunar sigils—faded, fragile, but still potent.
"For centuries, Light and Eclipse were kept apart for a reason."
The Lightkeeper's fury broke into something unexpected:
Fear.
"Then you know what must be done. Kill him before the transformation completes."
Halmeoni planted herself between the children and the Lightkeeper, voice calm like a mother wolf facing a blade.
"I won't kill him. I will bind him."
She raised her staff toward the moonlit sky peeking through the ruins of the shattered roof. Lunar dust swirled around her feet, drawn from broken shards, burned furniture, even the ashes of old memories. The air grew cold, heavy, ancient.
Yuna cried out, voice cracking into panic.
"Halmeoni—don't! That ritual… it drains your life!"
"Everything drains life, child," Halmeoni answered softly. "Some things are worth the loss."
The runes on her staff multiplied, forming a ring of ethereal moons circling her head like a halo of frost.
Seong-min tried to stand.
"Stop! You can't—"
Blue-white chains whipped out and pinned him down—not to restrain him, but to contain the spread of the mixed power pulsing through his veins.
He convulsed as black-gold energy raged inside him.
Yuna tried to crawl toward him through the rubble.
Please, don't… you've protected us our whole lives... let us protect you for once—
But Halmeoni's voice echoed, filled with centuries of sorrow.
"I've failed too many times to stand by again."
The sky darkened.
Although clouds didn't gather, the moon slowly faded from sight, swallowed by Halmeoni's magic. She whispered an invocation older than the Sunwardens and older than the Eclipsed:
"By the Veil Between Dawn and Dusk,
by the Law of the Forgotten Eclipse,
I seal thee, Moon-Tainted Child,
until your chosen moment."
The world shuddered.
Chains of pale moonlight sank into Seong-min's veins, colliding with the black-gold storm inside him. The Eclipse Veins pulsed violently, fighting the lock. His body arched in pain—but not agony; it felt like something trying to break out.
The Lightkeeper swung his weapon to interrupt the spell—
—but Halmeoni's eyes flashed silver, and the Lightkeeper froze mid-attack.
She didn't bind his body.
She bound his shadow.
His own darkness yanked him to the ground, pinning him with the weight of suppressed centuries.
He screamed in humiliation and rage.
"You witch! That seal is forbidden!"
"So is enslaving a Sunwarden!" she shouted back.
The lunar chains faded into Seong-min's skin, leaving behind a faint moon-shaped sigil over his heart, pulsing slowly in rhythm with his breath. The golden blade dissolved from Yuna's hand as the Seal deactivated, leaving her trembling and exhausted.
Seong-min collapsed into her arms.
The Lightkeeper rose, voice seething with divine wrath.
"This is treason against celestial law. You have doomed your bloodline, old woman."
Halmeoni sagged, suddenly frail, leaning heavily on her staff. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"My bloodline was doomed the day you Sunwardens lost your humanity."
The Lightkeeper vanished in a flash of golden light—retreating, not victorious.
Silence settled over the destroyed house. Smoke drifted into the night, lit faintly by the moon resurfacing overhead. Yuna held Seong-min close, feeling the faint beat of the moon-sigil beneath his skin.
"Can you hear me?" she whispered.
His eyes opened—still dark, still silver-ringed. But softer now.
"I can. I'm… here."
Her fingers curled against the mark on his chest.
"But you're bound."
He exhaled shakily.
"Better bound… than a monster out of control."
She shook her head.
"You've never been a monster."
His gaze weakened.
"That's easy to say when you didn't see what I wanted to do to him."
Yuna's eyes widened—not with fear, but with understanding.
"That's why I need to stay with you."
He blinked, startled.
"What?"
"If you're changing… if something bigger is coming… then we face it together."
Her hand held his.
"No more hiding. Not from you. Not from them."
Halmeoni's tired voice drifted from across the ruins.
"You two… don't have much time before both sides hunt you."
The moon sigil on Seong-min's chest pulsed once.
Somewhere far beyond, a bell tolled.
The Hunt had begun.
END OF EPISODE 6