When Raven opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a strange place. A vast expanse stretched out before him, the blue sky above, and crystal clear water beneath his feet reflecting the sky, as if he were walking on clouds.
This place was so quiet... yet it evoked a bone-chilling sense of dread.
From a distance, a figure appeared that took Raven's breath away. The figure was himself. Only different. His eyes burned red like hellfire, a thick black aura swirling around him like living mist. The thin smile on his face held something terrifying a power that was almost limitless.
"So... you're that voice?" Raven asked. His voice was calm, as if he immediately realized that this figure was the one who had been screaming orders in his head to kill.
The figure laughed, a low, heavy laugh that broke the silence. "How funny to hear someone who doesn't even recognize who he is." The sound of his laughter instantly made the surrounding room shake.
"What the hell?" Raven's voice sounded panicked at the figure's reaction.
"Finally, we can talk," said the figure, ignoring Raven's words.
Raven narrowed his eyes, staring intently. "What are you exactly? Why do you look just like me? And where am I now?"
"Calm down. You just fainted... temporarily. This is your subconscious." The figure replied without haste.
He stepped closer.
Each step created dark ripples on the surface of the black water where they stood, as if the space itself reacted to its presence.
Raven tensed. "Subconscious mind...?" he muttered.
The figure finally stood exactly one step in front of him. Its form was still vague, like a reflection in a foggy mirror. "And you ask who I am, and why I look like you..."
He looked straight at Raven, his voice soft but cutting like a knife.
"I am you. Not the you that you are now... but the real you."
"What do you mean?" Raven hissed.
"Don't play games with me," Raven said firmly, his eyes burning with restrained anger.
The figure smiled even wider. With a voice that was almost like a whisper, he leaned closer to Raven's ear.
"You should remember... that sensation," he said slowly, like poison creeping into the soul.
"When you killed them. When you saw the fear in their eyes. When their blood stained your hands. Tell me... didn't you enjoy it?"
The figure gently patted Raven's shoulder, but each touch felt like a shackle.
Raven's eyes widened.
He wanted to deny it, to say that it wasn't true. But… he fell silent. Because, deep down in his heart, the figure's words weren't lies. He truly felt it. That sensation was real, and it was more terrifying than anything else.
Raven clenched her fists, the blood still staining her fingers felt real even though this place was just a strange, nonsensical room.
"I... I was just protecting myself!" she said in a tone full of denial.
"Protecting yourself?" The figure chuckled, its laughter echoing in the air, causing the previously calm surface of the water to tremble.
"Then what about before? When you went berserk for someone who didn't even know who you really were? When you destroyed them... one by one... just because they dared to touch those closest to you."
The clear room began to shake as if the thin layer covering it was breaking from within. Instantly, the surface collapsed like a torn curtain, revealing a familiar scene behind it. A classroom appeared, its glass shattered and scattered, chairs overturned, tables broken. Bodies lay on the floor, moaning in pain, some motionless.
And in the midst of the chaos, Raven stood with heavy breathing, his face covered in shadows.
Suddenly, the classroom door burst open. Hana appeared with several friends who stared in horror. Their eyes froze when they saw Raven, standing above the pile of broken bodies. Hana stepped forward, her face pale but her eyes burning with emotion. Without hesitation, she slapped Raven's face.
SMACK...
The slap echoed, breaking the silence like thunder in the small room.
"Did you see that?" the figure's voice sounded again, accompanying the dark scene.
"How you lost control... and ended up hurting them.
And what's even more terrifying..." his voice dropped to a whisper that pierced the ears.
"Is the fact that when she slapped you, it wasn't because she hated you... but because she saw the look of enjoyment on your face as you finished them off."
Raven clutched his head, his breathing growing heavier. "That… wasn't me…" his voice trembled, sounding like someone forcing themselves to deny reality.
"Not you?" The figure stepped closer, moving like a shadow gliding across the water's surface. He pressed his fingertip to his own chest, then pointed at Raven. His voice was cold, like a whisper of death.
"That is your true self… so accept it."
"Stop...!" Raven shouted, her voice cracking with rage. But the room gave no answer.
Only the echoes bounced endlessly, slapping her ears, screaming with her.
"Haha... hahahahaha..."
The figure laughed.
A low, heavy laugh, trembling like a vortex dragging souls into darkness.
"And you think that's just your little past? No... It's just a shadow. An old habit of who you really are."
Raven's chest felt tight. He looked down, cold sweat dripping from his temples. Then the room changed again, but into a terrifying scene. The sound of metal clashing. The screams of thousands of people. The night sky burning with a sea of fire.
And then a scream shook the air.
"HEAVENLY DEMON!"
"LORD OF DESTRUCTION!"
"LONG LIVE THE GOD!"
"WORSHIP HIM, CONQUEROR OF THE SKIES!"
"LONG LIVE THE HEAVENLY DEMON!"
Raven was transfixed.
Before him, thousands of armed soldiers bowed down. They pressed their foreheads to the ground, worshipping the one man standing atop a mountain of corpses.
And he turned his head.
That face... the face he had seen hundreds of times in his dreams. In that quiet pavilion, that face always seemed to be drowning in loneliness. But this time was different. There was no sadness. There was no doubt.
Only emptiness...
Only cruelty...
His eyes were bright red like a pool of blood. His black robe fluttered wildly as if it were the wings of a demon. In his hand, a long sword dripped with fresh blood, and the aura emanating from him was enough to crack the sky and shake the earth.
Raven clenched his jaw.
"What does all this mean... who is he really?"
The figure beside him snorted softly as if the scene was nothing but trivial.
"Still don't understand? Or are you just pretending to be stupid?"
Before Raven could reply,
BRAGHH
A pain like thousands of blades piercing his skull. Raven fell to his knees, both hands clutching his head, his breath labored as if his lungs were being squeezed from within.
The battlefield scene shattered like glass and finally collapsed entirely.
The light returned.
They were back standing on the surface of the clear water of his subconscious, as if that terrifying flash had never happened. Only the echoes still trembled in the air.
The figure spoke again, more piercingly.
"Because you were born into a weak world, you became what you are now. Family, friends, even those closest to you…" Raven jolted, the faces of his father and mother appearing, then his closest friends, and finally Hana's face, smiling gently at him.
And that smile shattered in an instant into shards of glass that fell sparkling like dust.
Raven clutched his chest.
"What… is this…?"
The figure approached silently.
"They only make you weak."
Raven fell silent, her breath labored.
But the figure wasn't finished. It stared directly into Raven's eyes, its lips curving into a thin, delicate smile that held an indescribable horror. Then it spoke words that made Raven's blood seem to stop flowing.
"Right, isn't it... Raven?"
Raven's heart seemed to stop beating.
"...No, it's not."
Instantly, the room shook. The calm white light began to dim, dragged into darkness like an old story forced to rise from the grave. The clean walls of the room turned dim, echoing with a voice that dragged the past back before Raven.
"Yeomra Jin-Cheon. That is your name. Heavenly Demon... the figure who once shook the heavens and the earth. The walking disaster that made the entire Murim tremble."
And when that name was mentioned.
Raven froze.
The words hit his consciousness, making Raven feel as if he couldn't breathe. His body trembled, but not out of fear, but because of something vague, something he didn't want to admit.
A flood of memories came rushing back.
The sight of an ancient city in flames. Great sects kneeling in fear. Bodies scattered everywhere. A figure cloaked in darkness stood alone amid the blood and smoke, cold eyes surveying the world from a throne of stars.
It was himself.
Raven bowed his head. His hands clenched into fists. The space around him slowly trembled, mirroring the changes within him. Raven felt himself being slowly dragged into unfamiliar layers of emotion within himself.
Not the Raven of the modern world.
But himself... before he was reborn.
Silence...
Then his gaze changed little by little.
The fear faded.
The shock turned into an eerie calm.
His eyes became sharp, cold... but not frozen, more like someone who had finally awakened from a long sleep.
The figure in front of him was about to continue speaking...
But suddenly Raven moved.
With almost imperceptible speed, his hand pierced the figure's chest.
The sound of tearing flesh could be heard faintly. Thick black blood dripped, flowing slowly onto the surface of the clear water that was now stained. The figure staggered, its eyes widening for a moment, but its lips curved upward instead. A small laugh escaped, heavy and eerie.
"BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA... this is how you should be, Raven. This is your true self. And the time will come… when you must choose. Will you return to your true self… or be destroyed along with your friends?"
Raven stared at him emotionlessly.
"You talk too much… for something that claims to be me."
With one thrust, he pierced deeper. The figure just laughed softly, its body beginning to crack like glass. The cracks spread quickly in all directions, shattering this white space into black shards that fell one by one. And all that remained was the sound of his own heartbeat. Pounding loudly in his ears. Faster and faster. Louder and louder. Until darkness swallowed everything.