Cho Kihyun must’ve thought without Yoon Seoyul there was no one else to protect Cheon Areum, but the one who was the most protective of Cheon Areum wasn’t Yoon Seoyul or anyone else. It was Kim Sangmin.

As if he would hand over Cheon Areum’s skill to anyone. Not even Yoon Seoyul qualified to take anything that belonged to Cheon Areum. The idea of him letting Cheon Areum die was way out of the question. Lowering his eyes to Kihyun once more, he dipped his fingers into his chest, making him grunt uncontrollably. Cold sweat clung to his face as he breathed with his mouth. The most effort he made was to grab Cheon Areum’s hand that was on his chest, nails diving into the flesh.

"Should I let you in on a secret to lessen your pain?"

Cheon Areum spoke in a monotone.

"The only reason you’re still breathing isn’t really because I love to torture people. I was only planning to keep my promise to Yoon Seoyul to not ever kill anyone. That’s why I gave you so many chances."

"But you wasted all of them."

"Why are you not talking anymore? Who was it who said, ’I have to kill you to become the strongest’?"

"Try your best then! Try killing me then! Come on—kill me!"

Cheon Areum’s voice tore through the air, sharp and violent, carrying a raw edge that silenced everything around them for a brief moment. At his words, Kihyun slowly lifted his head. His eyes met Cheon Areum’s. And for the first time, something flickered across his expression something unsteady, almost disbelieving.

Not fear in the ordinary sense. But the realization that he was facing someone entirely beyond expectation. Someone who didn’t respond like a person who could be reasoned with... or predicted. Just someone he had never encountered before in his life. A true maniac. Worse than a simple monster. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"You ruined it."

Cheon Areum’s voice dropped, quieter now but far more dangerous in its stillness.

"My time to stay in bed with Yoon Seoyul. My time to get used to being pregnant. My time with Rian... my play time."

His gaze remained fixed on Kihyun, completely devoid of warmth.

"There are a lot of things you interrupted. And not a single reason I shouldn’t just kill you outright."

"Wait—Cheon Areum, listen to me!"

Kihyun’s voice broke as he tried to push himself up slightly.

"You should understand how I feel! We both suffered before becoming this strong— I... I—"

But he didn’t get to finish. Cheon Areum stared down at him without a flicker of emotion, and Kihyun’s words died in his throat as if something had physically cut them off.

"Save your sob story. I’m not listening, nor do I care about it now. If you wanted to talk to me, you should’ve joined one of my fan cafes. I visit those often. Or better yet, registered as a hunter and worked beside me."

As he spoke, his hand delved deeper into Cho Kihyun’s chest, exactly on top of his heart. Sensing the core embedded within. His gaze sharpened faintly as he leaned forward, energy surging through his arm in a controlled, overwhelming flow. The pressure built in an instant, precise and absolute, before he forced it through the core itself until it shattered cleanly.

"You just weren’t deserving of this."

Kihyun’s body jerked once, a soundless gasp caught in his throat. His mouth opened, but no voice came out, only a strained, broken breath that never fully formed into a whimper. The pain hit all at once, and his body went limp. Cho Kihyun collapsed into unconsciousness as his core disintegrated completely, the last of his resistance fading out beneath Cheon Areum’s steady hand.

The heart beneath his palm was, however, still beating, stubbornly persistent despite everything that had already been done to its owner. It was slow, uneven, and weakened by the destruction of the core, yet it continued to push blood through a body that should have already been collapsing into silence.

Cheon Areum’s expression did not change as he kept his hand firmly pressed over it, feeling the faint, erratic rhythm beneath his palm. There was no hesitation in him, no emotional interruption—only a clear, unbroken intent to finish what he had started properly, without leaving behind even the smallest possibility of recovery or retaliation.

His right hand slowly lifted, fingers curling slightly as he prepared to pierce straight through the remaining heartbeat with nothing but raw, decisive force, the kind of finality that left no room for reversal or survival.

But just as he was about to strike, his gaze shifted for the briefest fraction of a second, drawn unwillingly to something that shouldn’t have mattered in that moment.

His left arm.

It was shaking.

Not violently, not dramatically, but in a continuous, unbridled tremor that did not match the steadiness of his thoughts or the precision of his actions, as if the limb itself was disconnected from his will in a way that felt both subtle and deeply wrong.

His right arm remained perfectly stable, his posture unchanged, his focus still locked onto the task in front of him without wavering even slightly, yet the contrast between both sides of his body was sharp enough that it registered in his awareness. The trembling did not stop, nor did it grow; it simply continued, persistent and uninvited, existing there beneath the surface of absolute control he believed he still held.

He instantly withdrew his hand from the flesh as the realization finally settled in, like a thought he had been brushing aside for too long. It wasn’t the first time he had noticed it—small inconsistencies, moments where his body reacted before his intent fully aligned with it—but this time it was clearer, harder to ignore, as if everything had been narrowing down to this exact point.

The things he couldn’t fully control were never random. They always came from one of two sources: either the overwhelming surge of negative energy that pushed him toward destruction without pause, or something quieter beneath it, something buried deeper in him—the part of Cheon Areum that resisted it, the part that hesitated, that instinctively recoiled from killing anything at all, no matter how justified it might have been.

His breathing steadied, but his expression tightened slightly as he made the distinction in his mind without fully voicing it.

To stop himself, he clenched his left hand tightly with his right, gripping it as if physically forcing the instability back under control, and in the same motion, he pushed himself up from Kihyun’s unresponsive body, rising to his feet in a single, decisive movement that separated him from the moment entirely.

He stepped backward slowly, each movement deliberate and carefully controlled, distancing himself from the thick stench of blood and the broken human body parts still lying within reach of where he had stood moments ago. His feet touched the ground with precision, as if he were ensuring even the smallest shift in balance wouldn’t pull him back into that moment again.

He refused to look down.

Instead, he kept his gaze lifted above ground level, unfocused and distant, staring vaguely into the ruined surroundings without actually seeing any one thing clearly, as though blurring the world itself would help him separate from what he had just done and what he was still capable of doing. The silence around him felt heavier than the destruction itself. Then, almost unconsciously, a memory surfaced.

Yoon Seoyul.

The way he used to steady him without words. The way his presence alone could sometimes slow the edge of that instability, grounding him without forcing anything.

Cheon Areum raised his left hand slowly and brought it up to cover his eyes completely, blocking out the visual field in front of him so he wouldn’t see anything that could trigger that shift again—no blood, no movement, no people, nothing that could pull him back toward violence.

He had been thinking about it for a while—whether he had truly ever hesitated to ask for help, or whether that was just an illusion formed from comparing himself to others.

The truth was simpler for Kim Sangmin.

He had always lived his life supported by people around him, never too proud or too guarded to reach out when he needed something. Asking for help had never been unfamiliar to him. It was normal. Natural.

But Cheon Areum was different. He had no one. From the moment he became a hunter, there had been no one he could rely on, no hand he could reach for when things became too much. Everything—every burden, every decision, every consequence—had always fallen back onto himself alone. Only himself. And that kind of isolation changed everything.

"It’s alright now, Cheon Areum. I won’t let you die... or become a murderer again."

Because the only emotions he had ever clearly seen from Cheon Areum were not cruelty or hatred, but something far more complicated—an unwavering, almost painful love for his younger brother, and a heavy, lingering regret over every life he had ever taken. It didn’t matter who it was or when it happened. That regret stayed with him. Always.

And if there had ever been a chance to go back, to undo it all, Kim Sangmin believed Cheon Areum would choose not to kill at all, if he could help it.

"You’re not alone this time, Cheon Areum."

He placed his right hand over Cheon Areum’s hand as the trembling slowly began to fade.

Due to the immense amount of energy accumulating within him without any proper outlet, it began to burn outward from his back, erupting shakily in the shape of wings.

The energy flickered and fractured as it spilled into the air, unstable at first, scattering in jagged fragments before gradually dissolving into something more fluid. Piece by piece, it transformed into countless black butterflies, each one delicate in form yet carrying a faint purple shimmer along the edges of their wings.

They poured into the sky in an endless stream, filling the air, swallowing the horizon, until the world itself seemed to blur beneath their movement.

And when the last of them finally dispersed. Cheon Areum was no longer there.

[The end of volume one.]