Chapter 220: Chapter 220: The Throne of Chains
The plunge was endless.
Lin couldn’t tell if he was falling through water, drifting through air, or being dragged through layers of memory and marrow. Gravity meant nothing here—only the pull of resonance, a current so powerful it bypassed flesh and went straight for bone. Every beat of his heart sounded muffled, as though echoing underwater.
Min-joon’s grip on his wrist was the only thing that proved he wasn’t dissolving entirely. The abyss wanted to strip him apart, piece by piece, and scatter him into its currents. Without that hand, that tether, he knew he’d already be gone.
The deeper they sank, the darker it became. Yet the darkness wasn’t absence—it was alive, full of shifting textures, faint glimmers of skeletal silhouettes, strange creatures that vanished whenever Lin tried to focus on them.
His chains vibrated with wild energy, thrashing against him like an animal finally tasting freedom. They wanted this place. They wanted home.
Come down. Deeper. To where we began.
The voice wasn’t sound but pressure, drilling straight into the marrow of his skull. Lin flinched, clutching his head with his free hand. Min-joon immediately pulled him closer.
"Lin! Focus on me," Min-joon barked, his voice nearly drowned out by the abyss’s chorus. "Don’t listen to it!"
Lin opened his mouth to respond, but what came out was a snarl of resonance, not words. The chains lashed forward, stretching into the dark as if they were scouting ahead, eager to reach something he couldn’t yet see.
And then—suddenly—they hit ground.
But it wasn’t earth.
The floor of the abyss stretched endlessly in all directions, pale and ridged like stone but undeniably organic. As Lin’s boots touched down, the surface gave slightly, as though he was standing on calcified flesh. He looked closer.
Bones.
Colossal bones.
Everywhere, rising like monuments, fractured spines and ribcages the size of skyscrapers jutted out of the abyssal floor. Skulls as vast as stadiums lay half-buried, their eyeless sockets staring into eternity. Fossils of things that had never walked the human world, yet felt ancient, primordial.
Lin’s breath caught in his throat. He knew without knowing that this was the graveyard of giants—resonant titans that had existed long before humans could name fear.
Min-joon shivered violently beside him, his breath coming in ragged bursts. "What the hell is this place?"
Lin didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His body was trembling, not from cold but from resonance overload. The chains inside him were thrumming so hard his ribs ached as though they might burst open. His vision flickered, warping between the bones around him and something layered over them—shadows moving like echoes of titans still alive, shifting, towering, watching.
And then he saw it.
At the center of the bone-field, rising from the remains of a hundred broken spines, stood a throne.
Not carved. Not built. Grown.
A mass of living chains interwoven, links twisting and knotting together, pulsating faintly as though breathing. Every now and then, one link slipped free and slithered like a snake before rejoining the throne’s bulk. It was less a seat than a parasite, a thing that had rooted itself into the abyss and thrived.
Lin staggered forward, unable to stop himself. His body moved as if pulled by invisible hooks buried in his chest.
The closer he drew, the louder the resonance roared inside his skull. His chains stretched outward, reaching toward the throne like desperate children recognizing their parent.
Min-joon grabbed his arm, yanking him back. "Lin! Don’t! It wants you on that thing!"
Lin’s lips trembled, but when he tried to answer, the abyss spoke through him instead.
It is not want. It is inevitability.
The throne pulsed. The entire graveyard seemed to quake in rhythm. Bones cracked, dust spilled, echoes rattled through the abyssal ocean.
Min-joon squared his shoulders, dragging Lin against his chest, his voice shaking but steady. "No. He decides his own fate. Not you."
The throne shuddered as if amused. From the shifting shadows around it, a figure stepped forward. Taller than any man, swathed in chains that draped like robes, faceless save for a hollow oval where eyes should have been. Each step it took rattled the graveyard with an ancient weight.
Lin’s knees buckled. The resonance pouring off that figure was unbearable—like standing before a collapsed star. His chains obeyed it. They dropped to the ground, writhing like serpents before a master.
The figure pointed to the throne.
Sit. Become what you already are.
Lin shook his head violently, teeth clenched, tears stinging his eyes. "No... I’m not... I won’t..."
The resonance struck him like a hammer. His body folded, blood bursting from his nose and ears. He tasted iron and ash. Min-joon screamed his name, throwing himself in front of him, shielding him from the blast with his own body.
The abyssal voice rippled again, sharper this time.
He cannot protect you forever. He cannot even protect himself.
The chains lifted on their own, coiling around Lin’s arms, his chest, his throat. Half of them pulled toward the throne, the other half whipped back, straining as if resisting. The internal split was excruciating. Lin screamed, the sound shattering into resonance that echoed through the graveyard.
Min-joon seized his face with both hands, forcing him to look into his eyes. "Lin, listen to me! You’re more than this. You’re not just its vessel. You’re you. Stay with me!"
Something cracked deep inside Lin—not bone, not chain, but will. Min-joon’s words were the only thing holding him together, stitching his mind where the abyss tried to tear it apart.
But the figure only raised its hand, and with a single motion, the bone-field shifted.
A vision exploded across Lin’s mind:
Himself—sitting on the throne. Chains spilling from his shoulders like rivers, weaving into every ruin of the city above, binding every survivor, every soldier, every scavenger. Keller, Hwan, Min-joon—all of them on their knees before him. His face calm, his eyes abyssal voids.
Power beyond imagining. Control absolute. The world kneeling.
See. This is what you are meant to inherit. The throne is not a choice. It is your marrow. It is already yours.
Lin staggered back, choking on the vision. "No... that’s not me... I don’t want this!"
The abyss pulsed, chains rattling in laughter.
Want is irrelevant. You are chosen. You will sit. Or you will be dragged.
Min-joon clutched Lin’s hand tighter, shaking his head violently. "Don’t listen! That’s not your future—it’s a cage! Fight it, Lin! Fight it!"
The throne pulsed again. The figure raised both hands, and the ground itself split. From the cracks surged more chains, hundreds of them, all lunging toward Lin.
Lin’s chains erupted in response, meeting them midair. The clash was deafening—metal shrieking, resonance booming like thunder. The battlefield of bones lit up with sparks as abyss fought abyss, tearing itself apart.
Min-joon held on with everything he had, his voice breaking as he screamed over the chaos. "Lin! Choose me! Choose yourself! Not it!"
Lin’s vision blurred. He was drowning.
But through the noise, through the agony, one thing cut clear: Min-joon’s grip, unyielding.
And for the first time, Lin screamed—not in pain, not in resonance, but in defiance.