Kim stopped.
He did not turn around.
He carried no intention of survival, nor even the desire for revenge in the human sense.
He walked because only one thing remained alive within him:
The Decision.
Orion. The Ruler of Continuity.
The one who did not kill Nir with his own hand…
But ensured his death would never be erased, never repeated, and never forgiven.
Kim spoke in a voice heard by no one: "A swift death… is a mercy.
And you… shall not have it."
New Skill: The Path of Constant Ash
Kim no longer traveled through space, nor through time.
He traveled through the Trace.
Every being leaves a trace in existence: a decision, a fear, a betrayal… or blood.
Orion had left a heavy trace the day he decided that Nir must be erased from continuity.
Kim extended his hand and thrust his fingers into the void.
Reality did not tear; instead, it dipped… as if the world were bowing to him.
He moved forward.
Every step incinerated the remaining "possible paths."
There were no more "what ifs."
There was only "what will be."
Orion stood before his throne, the void around him as stagnant as it had always been.
But Kim was not part of that stillness.
He stood only a single step away.
A step that would have erased any other being…
But as for him—the Erasure recoiled.
Kim raised the dagger.
The Breath of Nothingness did not gleam.
It made no sound.
But the air around it… suffocated.
Orion spoke with forced coldness: "You will not succeed.
I feel no pain.
I am an idea… a law…"
Kim interrupted him with a terrifying calm: "Nir… was the idea of a good man.
And you erased him."
And he plunged the dagger.
The First Strike: The Rift of Regret
The blade did not enter the body.
It entered the Moment.
Orion froze. Then—he shivered.
A crack appeared in the void behind him, and from within it came a voice… his own voice. An ancient scream.
Then he understood.
This was not a stab. This was a skill.
The dagger does not cut flesh; it cleaves the single moment in which the target wished they had chosen differently.
Orion fell to his knees.
Not from pain… but from weight.
He saw himself, before eternity, before continuity, at the moment he said:
"This human is unnecessary."
The moment repeated.
Then it repeated again.
Then it never stopped.
He screamed: "Stop! This is enough!"
Kim did not move. He only said: "This… is but one strike."
The Second Strike: The Altar of Accumulated Pain
Kim turned the dagger slowly. He did not withdraw it; he left it in its place.
He extended his other hand and pressed it against Orion's chest.
In that instant—every pain within the throne began to stir.
The screams of fallen worlds. Wars left unsaved. Beings erased for "balance."
All of it… was drawn in.
Kim's body became a vessel.
It did not explode. It did not empty.
Instead, it compressed the pain… and redirected it toward a single name.
Orion began to crumble.
Not his body, but his certainty.
He spoke in a broken voice: "I do this… for everyone…"
Kim leaned in, brow to brow.
He said: "And I do this… for one person."
And the pain exploded inside him. Not all at once, but in layers.
The Third Strike (The Forbidden): The Shadow's Confession
The Breath of Nothingness began to whisper.
Not to Kim, but to what was inside him.
He did not resist. He surrendered the dagger.
His grip changed. His stance changed.
Even his shadow… was no longer a single shadow.
When he moved—the throne bowed.
The attack targeted neither the body nor the consciousness, but the Name by which the entity defined itself.
Orion was stabbed in the chest.
But this time—he did not scream.
Instead, he uttered: "I… I do not know who I am."
Continuity itself cracked.
Time ceased to count.
The laws lost their order.
Orion's crown fell.
He was no longer a ruler. He was no longer an idea.
He became… a thing that suffers.
Kim leaned over him and withdrew the dagger slowly.
He spoke in a faint voice, yet heavier than universes:
"I will leave you alive.
But every moment you live…
You will feel what Nir felt when he vanished,
While you stood there…
And justified it."
He turned. He did not look back.
Behind him—the Ruler of Continuity was learning for the first time
That immortality could be the most hideous punishment of all.