The boy's shadow stretched.
Not toward the sun. Toward me.
It peeled off the ground like a second skin. Darker than dark. Thicker than smoke. It rose up, took shape—shoulders, arms, a face with empty eyes where the boy's had been.
A soldier made of night.
The shadow knelt.
"Shadow Soldier summoned."
The voice in my head wasn't mine. It was his. The boy's. But hollowed out. Obedient.
I looked at the other bodies.
The man with the locket. The archer with an arrow through his chest. The woman in torn peasant clothes, her hand still clutching a kitchen knife. She'd tried to fight back.
They all tried.
I raised my hand.
Not a dramatic gesture. Just an open palm.
The shadows answered.
They rose from every corpse. From the mud. From the cracks in the earth. Dozens at first. Then more. The field turned black. Not with night—with them.
"Shadow Soldier summoned."
"Shadow Soldier summoned."
"Shadow Soldier summoned."
The system pinged each time. I stopped counting after fifty.
They formed ranks behind me. No sound. No breathing. Just the soft rustle of darkness moving against darkness. Spears made of shade. Swords that drank the light.
The boy stood at the front. He was taller now. Not in height—in presence. His empty eyes faced the burning village.
I felt them. Just like the omnipotent bastard said.
The boy's last memory: watching his father take an axe to the chest. The man's memory: handing his daughter the locket before the cavalry charge. The woman's memory: a knight laughing as he kicked down her door.
The rage hit me like a wave.
I didn't push it away. I used it.
"You know what they did," I said. Not to the shadows. To myself.
The village screamed again. Louder now. Closer.
I turned toward the sound. The shadow army turned with me. Perfect sync. No orders spoken.
This is how Sung Jinwoo felt.
No. That wasn't right. He was a character. I was here. In the mud. With the blood drying on my boots.
"Let's go," I said.
The boy-shadow raised his spear.
And we walked toward the fire.