Seo Eui-woo responded curtly.
“I haven’t killed them yet. Not a single one.”
His desolate voice, as barren as a wasteland, carried an unsettling chill, making even his peaceful response sound like a threat. I haven’t killed them felt more like I’m going to kill them all.
“Yet…?”
“What else am I supposed to do? It’s all over now.”
With every word Seo Eui-woo spoke, the pressure intensified. It was as if a gate had opened right there, drawing vast and malevolent power toward him as its focal point. The swirling, invisible force crushed even the air itself. From the eye of this raging storm, Seo Eui-woo cast a merciless gaze at the special operations unit forming a circular encirclement around him.
If he used this power to pierce through their defenses, they would all die.
The sheer weight of his bloodlust turned the vision of the kneeling Awakeners hazy, as if their consciousness was slipping away. It was no longer just a metaphor—death felt imminent. One by one, they began foaming at the mouth and collapsing into unconsciousness. The only ones still holding on, barely managing to endure, were Major Mateo—an A-rank defense-type Awakener—Lieutenant Colonel Jang Tae-san—an A-rank reinforcement-type Awakener—and a few others.
“I understand that you don’t want to kill, Jae-jin. But there’s no other way. Not a single one of them can be left alive. If we let them go, they’ll track us down again.”
“…Seo Eui-woo. No.”
“This time, it’s not just you, Jae-jin. I’ll be hunted too. I’ve shown them what I am—an uncontrollable Esper. That means immediate termination.”
“…….”
“We agreed to run away. You and I, leaving everything behind, just the two of us, hiding and surviving together. But now… we can’t even do that anymore.”
Seo Eui-woo let out a small, hollow laugh.
His cold gray eyes held no trace of light. He was cornered, like a man driven to the edge of a cliff with nowhere left to go. No matter how much he thought about it, only one path remained.
“Ah… I should have just taken care of him from the start.”
Seo Eui-woo turned his piercing gaze to Major Mateo, one of the few still standing. His stare alone seemed like it could bore a hole straight through his skull. The moment their eyes met, the protective barrier surrounding the major warped violently. Like a cracking eggshell, its convex surface began to shatter from the edges inward.
“If I had, this would’ve all ended with just one.”
As the collapsing barrier crumbled, Mateo was slammed into the ground. The sheer force of it left a deep dent in the earth, the pressure intensifying as debris scattered around him. Blood trickled from his nose.
“Kuugh!”
Gritting his teeth, he desperately mustered every ounce of his power to reinforce his barrier. He knew—if he didn’t give it everything he had, he was going to die.
“Stop! Are you really planning to kill him?”
Kwon Jae-jin grabbed Seo Eui-woo’s arm with all his strength, forcing him to look at him. Seo Eui-woo let out a fierce growl, as if he was ready to devour him whole.
“Then what? If I don’t?”
The shockwaves of his raging power became unbearable. Even the last remaining defense and reinforcement-type Awakeners couldn’t endure it anymore. Blood streamed from their eyes, noses, and ears as they collapsed, unconscious. No one remained standing.
“This time, it’s different from before. Back then, you wanted to kill. But now… you have to.”
No matter how much he thought about it, Seo Eui-woo couldn’t find an answer other than murder.
“If we don’t kill them, we can’t resolve this!”
The only reason he had been holding back—barely—was because Kwon Jae-jin had once told him that if he massacred the Awakeners, they wouldn’t be able to live peacefully, let alone be together. That single statement had kept his bloodlust at bay, but even that restraint was beginning to crumble.
If they didn’t kill them all and flee, if he didn’t force the issue even if Kwon Jae-jin resisted, they would both be in danger.
Not just Jae-jin—Seo Eui-woo, too.
If these people were allowed to leave alive, they wouldn’t just be hunted in the Sixth Residential Zone. No matter where they fled, even to the general population, they would be tracked. Even if they ran to the frontier zones, the situation would be the same.
If they wanted to disappear, they would have to escape to a completely untouched, uninhabited region—an undeveloped wasteland ruled by creatures, beyond humanity’s reach. But was that even a viable option?
This wasn’t just about capturing a single mutant anymore. Seo Eui-woo, an S-rank Esper, had been exposed as a rebel. Worse, he had revealed every ounce of the power he had kept buried deep within the Abyss.
There were no hidden cards left.
If they were pursued now, there would be no avoiding an all-out war. And no matter how powerful Seo Eui-woo was, he still hadn’t fully resolved his internal instability. He had weaknesses. If his core was shattered, he was finished.
“I’m sorry, but I have to do this, no matter what.”
Lowering his gaze, Seo Eui-woo set his power into motion.
The moment was on the brink of explosion. Death was an undeniable certainty in the air.
Kwon Jae-jin slowly shook his head.
Deliberately. And resolutely.
“…No. There’s another way.”
His unwavering black eyes stared straight ahead, unflinching. There was a scent of fire in the air around him.
“We don’t have to kill them. We don’t have to run. There’s another way.”
“Another way…?”
Massacre and escape were not the only solutions.
There was a way out of this crisis—without either.
A single, absolute, inevitable path leading to the perfect conclusion.
“Yes, something else.”
Kwon Jae-jin let out a weary sigh and nodded. The relentless hardships that kept pushing them into a corner felt almost cruel, but even so, there was still an answer.
There had always been another path—one that his subconscious had pointed to time and time again.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the best option. It was a compromise at best.
If this were a story, it would be the normal ending. It wouldn’t lead to the true ending.
It meant that they wouldn’t reach a genuine happy ending.
Kwon Jae-jin forced the words out, straining against the heat in his chest. It felt like he could still hear the echoes of gunfire.
“You said it yourself, Seo Eui-woo. That we have to do everything properly. You were the one who said that.”
Seo Eui-woo and Kwon Jae-jin—both of them had always done things the right way.
They had to guide properly. Love properly. And live their lives properly. No matter what.
Now, finally, the second act of their lives had begun.
This second chance that Kwon Jae-jin had been given—it was far too precious to waste on taking an easy way out. He couldn’t afford even a shred of regret. He had no intention of squandering this miracle just to look back later and think I should have done more.
There was no room for error at this crossroads.
Kwon Jae-jin would make the right choice.
Killing them or running away—both were nothing more than stopgap measures. Neither would change anything at the core.
The brutal society.
The twisted system.
Awakeners under constant control, and mutants being slaughtered without cause.
“So, we just have to do it right…”
His voice rang out with unwavering determination as he raised his hand and pointed at the pile of fallen Awakeners.
They weren’t the enemies that needed to be killed.
There was something much larger, something far worse that needed to be stopped.
“Not these Awakeners. We should be facing something far greater—the real evil.”
His eyes shone fiercely, alight with resolve.
The truth was, he had always known.
The real problem lay within the merciless system, within the way people mindlessly upheld its brutality. He had always understood that what was truly needed was a shift in paradigms, a revolution in thought.
But he had never dared to put that knowledge into action.
Because Kwon Jae-jin was neither an ordinary human nor a true Awakener—he was an unstable hybrid, a dangerous half-breed. A mutant deemed unworthy of life.
Until now, Kwon Jae-jin had barely been able to take care of himself.
He had wanted to die. He had failed to die. And so, he had simply continued to exist.
There was never enough room in his mind to plan for a proper future, and even the thought of staying by Seo Eui-woo’s side for the rest of his life had felt overwhelming.
But then, Seo Eui-woo had illuminated the path.
The Seo Eui-woo of this second life had given Kwon Jae-jin a new future.
The Seo Eui-woo of the first life had given him an awakening.
This second-life Seo Eui-woo had pulled him toward the light, while the first-life Seo Eui-woo had remained in the darkness, serving as the contrast that made that light shine even brighter. Like yin and yang, light and shadow, day and night.
Seo Eui-woo was Kwon Jae-jin’s salvation.
“Eui-woo… Seo Eui-woo.”
Kwon Jae-jin stretched out both arms, grasping the one person who had saved him, holding him close so they could look into each other’s eyes.
Standing amidst the fallen Awakeners who had pursued him, Kwon Jae-jin met the stormy gray gaze of Seo Eui-woo. Their hair and clothes whipped wildly in all directions, caught in the raging winds of his power.
“I’ve thought about it. Throwing everything away and running… hiding somewhere for the rest of our lives. It wouldn’t be so bad. But if we do that, we’ll live as criminals forever.”
“Jae-jin…”
“And even if we kill them, it’s the same. How long can we keep escaping like this? Always anxious, always disgusted with it all. And for what? What are we even running from…?”
They didn’t need to slaughter Awakeners. They needed to awaken them.
They didn’t need to flee to the Sixth Residential District. They needed to tear down the border walls so that no one had to run in the first place.
It wasn’t uncontrolled Awakeners and ungovernable mutants that needed to be eradicated—it was the system of control itself that had to be destroyed.
Kwon Jae-jin wanted to pull the trigger.
Not on people.
But on the world.
And on the monsters who had turned it into hell.
