Hyun-Jae's eyes flickered open.
The cold asphalt was gone, replaced by a strange, tingling warmth that pulsed through his limbs. He gasped, bracing for the agony of shattered bones, but the pain never came.
An older man was kneeling over him, his face etched with a look of profound relief.
"Easy there," the man said, his voice deep and steady. "You're lucky. A few more minutes and that internal bleeding would have been permanent."
Hyun-Jae sat up slowly, his hands trembling as he checked his arms and legs. They were whole. Not even a bruise remained where the D-Ranks had kicked him. He looked at the man's neck.
Three glowing marks.
A C-Rank. And a Healer, at that.
"I'm Ejun," the man said, offering a small, tired smile. "I managed to close up your wounds, but you'll still be exhausted for a while. What exactly happened here?"
Hyun-Jae took a shaky breath and recounted the events, the woman, the rock, and the realization that he was hopelessly outmatched. As he spoke, his gaze drifted past Ejun to the back of the alley.
The girl from the rooftop was there.
She was moving with a terrifying, silent efficiency, using reinforced zip-ties to bind the unconscious thugs. When she turned slightly, the light caught her neck.
Four marks.
B-Rank. Hyun-Jae's heart skipped a beat. He knew that face. He had seen it on news broadcasts and recruitment posters.
"Is that supposed to be Sena..." he whispered.
"So you've heard of her," Ejun remarked, standing up. "Not surprising. She's one of the highest-ranked awakened in Earth after all. A bit of a prodigy, though she doesn't talk much."
Sena didn't acknowledge the introduction. She tightened a final restraint and stood up, her expression as cold and distant as the stars.
Ejun sighed, his eyes darkening as he looked down at the two unconscious men.
"We were tasked with bringing these two in," Ejun explained. "They've been using their status to prey on civilians for weeks."
Hyun-Jae looked at the bound thugs, expecting to hear they were going to prison. But Ejun's next words felt like a douse of ice water.
"They won't be facing a cell, though," Ejun said, his jaw tightening. "They're being brought in to be prepared for the tournament. Every Awakened, no matter how much of a piece of trash they are, is required to participate. The Celestials don't care about our laws so the government can't either. They just want soldiers."
He looked at Hyun-Jae with a mix of pity and grim reality.
"In this world, even monsters are kept alive if they can fight."
Hyun-Jae's chest tightened. The injustice of it burned worse than the broken bones had.
"Prepared for the tournament?" he stammered, his voice rising. "They almost killed me! They were going to-"
"Are you an awakened?"
The voice was sharp and cold, cutting through his protest like a blade. Sena hadn't even turned around. She remained crouched over the two thugs, her back to him.
"What?" Hyun-Jae blinked, caught off guard.
"You left a mark on a D-Rank," she said, finally glancing over her shoulder. Her eyes were piercing, analyzing him with a clinical intensity. "An unawakened human shouldn't be able to touch them, let alone draw blood. Where is your marking?"
Ejun's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, really?"
He stepped closer, his eyes scanning Hyun-Jae's neck, his arms, and his forehead. He looked for even the smallest sliver of a line, but found only bare skin.
"No," Hyun-Jae said, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "I'm not."
Ejun let out a long, heavy sigh. The excitement that had briefly lit up his face vanished, replaced by a weary disappointment.
"That's a shame," Ejun muttered, shaking his head. "To have that kind of grit and skill without the Etherea to back it up... we could have really used more people like you for what's coming."
Sena didn't respond. She didn't need to.
With a movement so fluid it defied physics, she grabbed both thugs by their collars. Despite their weight, she handled them as if they were made of paper. She bent her knees and launched upward, soaring ten feet into the air and landing silently on the edge of a rooftop.
Without looking back, she began to move, leaping from building to building until she was nothing more than a shadow against the city lights.
Ejun watched her go, then turned back to Hyun-Jae. He reached out and patted the boy's shoulder, a gesture that felt more like a farewell than a comfort.
"That's my cue," Ejun said quietly.
He looked up at the sky, his gaze lingering on the translucent timer that continued its relentless countdown toward the end of the world.
"You know, Hyun-Jae," Ejun said, his voice dropping to a somber whisper. "Looking at that clock... maybe not being an Awakened is a blessing of its own. At least you won't be forced into that meat grinder."
He gave Hyun-Jae's shoulder one last pat, his expression unreadable, and then turned to follow Sena's path on foot, vanishing into the night.
Hyun-Jae stood alone in the silence of the alleyway.
He was healed. He was safe.
So he walked the rest of the way home in a daze.
The weight of the day, the exhaustion, the beating, and the pitying words of the Awakened, finally pushed him to a breaking point. As he turned down his street, he looked at his hands. They were clean of blood, thanks to Ejun, but the memory of the asphalt pressing against his face was still fresh.
I'm done, he thought.
The grudge against the Celestials still burned in his chest like an ember that refused to die. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his uncle's smile before he vanished. It made him furious. It made him want to tear the sky down.
But he was tired of chasing a ghost.
If ten years of hellish training hadn't triggered an awakening, a month wouldn't either. He decided, right then, to stop. He would stop running. He would stop lifting. He would just... live. If the world was going to end either way, he might as well spend them as a human, not a failing soldier.
He pushed open the door to his home. The smell of home-cooked stew hit him instantly, a sharp contrast to the cold ozone of the alleyway.
"You're late," his mother said, stepping out of the kitchen. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned him. "Where have you been? You look like you've been through a war."
Hyun-Jae avoided her gaze, pulling off his shoes. He didn't want to explain the D-Ranks, or Sena, or the fact that he'd been healed from the brink of death.
"Just the gym," he muttered hoarsely. "I lost track of time."
His mother lingered, clearly unconvinced. She saw the way his shoulders slumped and the sheer, bone-deep weariness in his eyes. She opened her mouth to press further, but seeing the hollow look on his face, she sighed and softened.
"Wash up," she said quietly. "Dinner is ready."
The dining table was the one place that still felt like the world before the Celestials. Yuna was complaining about a school project, Yuri was chirping about a cartoon she liked, and his dad was quietly eating, occasionally nodding at the conversation.
Hyun-Jae sat among them, moving his spoon mechanically. He forced himself to listen to their mundane, everyday voices. This was what he was supposed to be enjoying. No more training. No more chasing power he didn't have.
"Hyun-Jae, you're really quiet today," Yuri said, poking at her side dish.
"Just tired," he replied with a small, forced smile.
After dinner, he didn't go to the floor to do his usual nightly hundred push-ups. He didn't practice his breathing. He went straight to his room and fell onto his bed.
The sheets were cool and soft. For the first time in a decade, he didn't set an alarm for a 4:00 AM run. He let his eyes close, pushing the image of the golden timer out of his head.
I'm just going to sleep, he told himself.
He drifted off, the silence of the house wrapping around him, finally letting go of the hope that had been killing him for ten years.
---
The next morning, the sun filtered through the window, but no alarm followed it.
Hyun-Jae's eyes opened slowly. For the first time in ten years, he didn't feel the immediate, crushing weight of a training schedule. His body felt strangely light, not because he was stronger, but because the mental shackles of "trying" had finally been cut.
He walked into the kitchen, moving at a relaxed pace. He didn't check his pulse. He didn't shadowbox while waiting for the toaster. He just sat down.
The silence at the table was thick with confusion.
Yuna stopped mid-chew, staring at him. His mother paused with a frying pan in her hand, her eyes wide. They were waiting for him to bolt out the door for his morning sprint or start his breathing drills.
When he reached for a second piece of toast instead, his father finally spoke.
"No morning run?"
"Not today," Hyun-Jae said simply. "I think I'm done with that."
His mother looked like she wanted to cry with relief, but she held it back, merely nodding and placing an extra egg on his plate. They didn't ask questions. They just watched him enjoy his breakfast, looking more relaxed than they had seen him since the day the sky broke.
Later that afternoon, a Discord notification popped up on his phone.
[Minseok: Yo, you actually free?]
Usually, Hyun-Jae's answer was a blunt 'Busy training.' This time, he typed back: 'Yeah. Invite me.'
"Wait, you're actually on?" Minseok's voice crackled through the headset, sounding like he'd seen a ghost. "Did you hit your head? Is the world ending?"
"The world is ending, Minseok," Hyun-Jae replied, leaning back in his chair. "That's the point. Just start the match."
For the next few hours, he didn't think about Etherea, markings, or Celestials. He just played. He laughed when they lost and cheered when they won. It was a hollow kind of fun, a distraction from the timer in the sky, but it was better than the silent agony of the gym.
The days began to blur together.
Without the grueling pressure of his routine, time seemed to move faster. He spent more time with Yuri, helped his mom with the groceries, and actually listened to his teachers' lectures instead of staring at his grip strength.
The frantic energy of the city continued to rise outside his door. People were hoarding supplies, religious cults were screaming on street corners, and the military presence gathering up the awakened grew more suffocating by the hour.
But inside his home, Hyun-Jae kept the peace. He had accepted his role as a spectator. He was a survivor of the past, not a warrior of the future.
Until the sky changed.
The translucent numbers above the city glowed a deep, ominous crimson, pulsing like a dying heart.
[ 10 Days : 00 Hours : 00 Minutes ]
The final countdown had begun. The ten-year grace period was almost over
But to Hyun-Jae, it wasn't a problem.
Not yet.