The air didn't just vibrate; it shattered.
The skeletal hand gripping the edges of the room was so massive that the marble walls pulverized into dust beneath its knuckles. This wasn't a manifestation or a herald. The King was using the Association's reactor as a literal anchor to drag his physical form into the heart of the city.
"Seol-ah! Wake up!" Kang-woo roared, clutching her to his chest.
Her head lolled back. Her breathing was a thin, erratic rattle. The silver-gray glow of the bond was a mere spark, flickering against the overwhelming pressure of the Abyss.
[Life-Link Stability: 14%][Warning: Total System Collapse Imminent.]
The Abyssal Knight-Commander lunged at the massive fingers, driving its ink-spear into the bone. The blow, which could have leveled a building, didn't even leave a scratch. The skeletal hand simply flexed, and the Knight-Commander was swatted away like a bothersome fly, its form dissolving into black mist as it slammed through three reinforced concrete walls.
Director Kim burst into the room, his face a mask of sweat and blood. He stopped dead, staring at the titanic limb rising from the floor.
"Get out!" Kang-woo screamed at him. "The reactor is gone! He's using the rift to feed!"
"I can't!" Kim yelled back, struggling to stand against the gravity. "The upper levels have collapsed! We're sealed in!"
"THE DEBT IS OVERDUE, USURPER."
The voice didn't come from the sky. It rose from the pit, deep and resonant, making the very marrow in Kang-woo's bones ache.
The floor didn't just crack; it fell away.
Kang-woo, Seol-ah, and Kim were plummeted into the darkness of the reactor sub-levels. They landed on a platform of cold iron and bone that had materialized in the center of the cooling vats.
Standing ten feet away was the King.
He was no longer the distant figure on the throne. He stood in the wreckage of the Association's pride, his rotted gray robes fluttering in the mana-wind. His right hand was missing—the stump still charred from the paradox explosion Kang-woo had triggered in District 5.
"YOU GAVE MY HEART TO A MORTAL PRIESTESS," the King said, his void-filled eyes locking onto the unconscious Seol-ah. "NOW, I SHALL TAKE THEIRS."
The King raised his remaining hand. The black key in Kang-woo's pocket began to burn, searing through his skin.
"Not... yet," Kang-woo gasped.
He jammed his fingers into the open wound on his chest where the Relic had once been. He didn't have mana. He didn't have lifespan. He only had the connection.
"Seol-ah, if you can hear me... give me one more second!"
He didn't pull her mana this time. He pushed his pain into the bond.
[Forced Resonance: 'Agony-Link' initiated.]
The shock of Kang-woo's suffering acted like a defibrillator to Seol-ah's soul. Her eyes snapped open, glowing with a desperate, frantic silver light. She didn't scream. She grabbed Kang-woo's hand, her fingers digging into his palm.
[Life-Link Stability: 50% (Temporary Overclock)][Skill Unlocked: 'Sovereign's Last Stand'.]
The black key flew from Kang-woo's hand, but it didn't go to the King. It stopped in mid-air, expanding into a jagged, black gate that stood between them and the god of death.
"Kim! Now!" Kang-woo yelled.
Director Kim, realizing this was the only chance, unleashed everything. He didn't use light-spheres. He burned his own A-rank mana core, turning himself into a living sun. "Heaven's Judgment!"
The pillar of golden light hit the black gate, but the gate didn't break. It acted as a lens, refracting the A-rank holy energy and mixing it with Kang-woo's necrotic desperation.
A beam of gray annihilation erupted from the gate, striking the King dead-center.
The King raised his arm to block it, but the force was so great it pushed him back across the iron platform. The bone-Citadel, still partially submerged in the floor, groaned as the foundation of the rift was shaken.
"We have to go! Now!" Seol-ah gasped, her nose bleeding from the strain.
But as they turned to flee, a wall of paper butterflies blocked the exit. Yeon-hee stood there, her porcelain skin now entirely webbed with cracks, a mad, ecstatic grin on her face.
"Don't leave yet," she whispered. "The King hasn't shown you his true face."
Behind them, the smoke cleared.
The King was standing perfectly still. The gray beam had scorched his robes, but his chest—where a heart should be—was now an open, swirling galaxy of violet souls.
"AMUSING," the King said.
He didn't attack. He stepped off the platform, walking into the air. With every step, the Association facility continued to dissolve, becoming a permanent part of the Abyss.
"IF YOU WILL NOT RETURN THE HEART, I SHALL TURN THIS CITY INTO A GRAVEYARD TO MATCH IT."
The King reached up and grabbed the ceiling. With a single tug, he ripped the entire mountainside off the facility, exposing the night sky of Seoul.
Above the city, ten more bone-citadels were descending.
Kang-woo looked at the silver-eyed girl in his arms and the crumbling world around them.
"We need a bigger army," Kang-woo said.