The map wasn't a map.
It was a dream fractal—a living thread pattern burned into Ji-Hyuk's mind during the collapse in Busan. It pulsed when he closed his eyes, drawing him south. Not to another city. Not to another sleeper block.
But to Jeju Island.
Where Berafe's blood still stained the soil.
Where he'd buried a god.
Maeryn didn't speak as they flew low over the ocean. She didn't have to.
The air was wrong.
Not corrupted like Fold zones before—but reverent. As if the entire island had bent down in prayer.
Ji-Hyuk tightened his grip on the ship's console.
"They're building something," he said. "But not to control. Not to dream."
He looked at her, eyes colder than ice.
"They're trying to resurrect."
The ritual site was buried inside Mount Halla — beneath layers of ash, salt, and memory.
Ji-Hyuk had sealed the cave himself twelve years ago, after slaying the God of Stillness in Berafe's final civil war.
Its name had no translation.
It wasn't a god of death or chaos.
It was a god of surrender.
A being that made armies kneel. Made kings forget their names. Made hope dissolve.
Ji-Hyuk had killed it once.
Now it was stirring again.
He entered the cave alone.
The glyph-warded seal was intact, but the air was humid with folded thought.
The Fold hadn't broken the barrier.
It had infected it.
Maeryn remained outside, her form visibly weakening from proximity.
"Don't touch anything," she warned. "You might finish what they started."
He nodded and pressed forward.
The descent was familiar. Too familiar.
Twisting stone. Stale air. A pulsing weight against his spine.
Then—
He saw them.
Not people.
Not monsters.
But echoes.
Thousands of spectral figures standing silently in the dark.
All the people he'd killed.
Berafean warlords. Mages. Children. Priests. Beasts.
They stood in rows. Silent. Eyes glowing faint blue.
The Fold wasn't summoning the god from itself.
It was rebuilding it from him.
In the center of the cavern stood a massive tree of bone and silence—wrapped in spirit threads, humming with Fold runes.
This was the altar.
Not to worship.
To harvest.
Ji-Hyuk fell to one knee, not from weakness—but to brace against the psychic wave.
He felt every memory trying to push through.
A child's last scream.
A blade slipping into a neck.
A promise broken.
"Your regrets have roots," the Fold whispered. "And we've fed them long enough."
The god stirred.
Not a voice. Not a presence.
A feeling.
The desire to stop moving. To stop trying. To rest forever.
Even Ji-Hyuk's limbs trembled.
But he grinned.
Because the Fold still didn't understand.
He didn't move through the world in spite of pain.
He moved because of it.
He bit his lip until blood spilled—and used the iron taste as an anchor.
Then he raised his blade—
And drove it into his own shadow.
The echo-world cracked.
Because it wasn't just physical resurrection.
It was symbolic.
The Fold needed him to accept what he'd done—to believe he'd become the thing he fought.
So he rejected it.
He carved a new glyph—one he hadn't used since the final night in Berafe.
The Denial Sigil.
A rejection of godhood.
A curse against surrender.
The altar burst into flame.
The echoes screamed—
And the god's spirit howled.
But it couldn't come back.
Because its last anchor had just told it to die again.
Ji-Hyuk staggered from the cavern as Maeryn caught him, his skin steaming, eyes bloodshot.
"It's done?" she asked.
"No," he rasped. "Just delayed."
She looked toward the horizon.
"You think it'll try again?"
He nodded slowly.
"They're not trying to kill me anymore. Or convert me. They're trying to replace me."
Maeryn touched his shoulder gently.
"Then we'll burn every copy they make."
He looked down at his hand.
Still trembling.
Still real.
And whispered:
"Let them try."
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