Days passed.
Nothing changed in the cell... The walls still confined him, and silence still breathed across his skin. But Jang Hoon was no longer the same.
His movements had grown quieter, his eyes sharper. He observed… memorized… counted the steps, the keys, the number of times the guard opened the door to toss in food. Nothing slipped past his memory anymore.
On the fifth night, when one of the guards came a bit too close, and turned his head for just a second toward a distant scream… Jang Hoon reached through the slit in the door, pulled a small thread he had fashioned from torn cloth, tied it swiftly, and in one smooth motion, slipped off the key ring without a sound.
The guard heard nothing.
Jang Hoon returned to his corner, sitting for a long time, the keys in his hand like a second heartbeat. Then, with a tense calm, he tried one of them on the metal shackle around his wrist. The joint was rusted, but it gave way after two attempts. He did the same with the other chain, and finally, it slid off his cracked skin.
At last… his hands were free.
At first, he planned to escape alone. There was no room for burdens on a path with no known end.
But the next day, as he neared the iron bars, he saw the two children sitting on the cold floor — their bodies frail, their eyes vacant, staring at nothing. He remembered himself… when it all began… when everything was ripped from him.
That night, he made his decision.
As darkness fell and the guards' footsteps grew distant above the cells, he slowly turned the key in the lock. A faint click, like the sigh of an old wall.
The door opened. No creak. Only a heavy silence.
He moved like a shadow, slipping into the cell across from his. He slid in the key and pushed the lock open. The door opened slowly.
The two children were awake, staring at him in a mix of awe and fear.
He approached, knelt, extended his hand, and unshackled their wrists, whispering:
"If you want to live… follow me."
The older child hesitated, looked at his brother, then at Jang Hoon — as if every choice was worse than death. But finally… he nodded.
The three moved like ghosts through the stone alleys. Jang Hoon no longer moved as he did before. His feet knew the ground, and his eyes knew the dark.
They passed near the weapons storeroom. He stopped for a moment, staring at the door, but then he understood:
"Swords are useless… when you don't know how to wield them."
They moved on.
At a bend, they heard a guard approaching, speaking to another.
They froze.
Jang Hoon's heart pounded. But inside… something stirred.
The Void Core did not pulse—it rippled. A strange sensation spread through his chest, as if it pulled the sounds toward him… and then denied them.
Silence.
The footsteps faded, or perhaps drifted away on their own.
He looked at the children and nodded. They moved again.
They reached a decaying back gate. He pulled out the right key, turned it, and the door creaked loud enough to pierce the night. But a sudden gust of wind swept through—covering the sound, as if nature itself was helping him.
They stepped outside.
The air hit their faces like a slap. Cold, damp… alive.
They pushed forward through tall grass, past silent trees, then the rocky path that marked the boundary of the sect.
Before them… a wall.
Tall, rough, built as if to stop even dreams from passing through.
Jang Hoon took a deep breath, planted his feet into a crevice, and slowly lifted the first child… then the second. Every step tore at his palms. The jagged edges scraped his fingers. His knee slipped once, but he held on—he'd have done it with his teeth if he had to.
He reached the top.
He stood there, panting, eyes on the horizon… and then he saw it.
The sun.
Pale… as if ashamed to look at him after all this time.
But it was there.
Its light touched his face.
His face… gaunt, eyes sunken, his skin pale as if darkness had poured itself over him. But he was standing.
And in his eyes… a fire that made no sound.
He breathed slowly.
"The air… it's different."
He climbed down the wall, helped the children down, and looked back at the sect—the place that had torn everything from him.
He muttered hoarsely:
"I will return… and I'll make them wish I died in that cell."
Then they ran.