**The hospital monitors beeped** a steady rhythm as Soo-ah slept, her fingers laced with Min-jun's. Moonlight through the blinds painted stripes across her belly—across the *thing* growing inside her that wasn't entirely human.
The Eclipse Rot had returned, but changed. No longer whispering, it *showed* him:
- *Ji-hoon at age six, his small hands accidentally melting a playground slide to liquid.*
- *Military agents in black suits taking the boy from a screaming Soo-ah.*
- *A grown Ji-hoon in a containment chamber, his body flickering between dimensions as scientists took samples.*
The vision shifted:
- *The same boy laughing as he chased fireflies, perfectly normal.*
- *Soo-ah alive at fifty, gray-haired but smiling, serving tea to grandchildren.*
- *No gates. No Void. Just peace.*
The choice was clear.
*Kill the child. Save the world.*
Min-jun's hand trembled as he reached for the pillow.
---
**"I wondered which path you'd choose."**
Xia stood in the doorway—but not the younger, broken scientist from this time. This was the *other* Xia, silver-haired and black-eyed, her missing arm now replaced by writhing Void tendrils.
Min-jun moved between her and Soo-ah. "You don't touch them."
The future Xia smiled sadly. "Too late for that." She nodded to Soo-ah's belly. "The connection was made the moment the experiment succeeded. He belongs to the Void now, just like you."
The younger Xia appeared behind her future self, a syringe glinting in her hand. "Don't listen to her! She's not me anymore!"
The two Xias locked eyes—one still human, one something *else*.
The future Xia sighed. "Oh, little self. You still think this is about saving the world?" She raised her Void-arm. "It's about *becoming*."
Min-jun moved.
His fist connected—not with Xia, but with the hospital window. Glass shattered as he grabbed Soo-ah and *jumped*.
---
**Cold night air** rushed past as they fell three stories into a delivery truck's awning. Soo-ah woke screaming, her hands instinctively cradling her belly.
"Min-jun?! What's—"
"Run!" He dragged her into the alley as the hospital window above *imploded*, a vortex of black energy sucking in debris.
Soo-ah stumbled. "I don't understand!"
Neither did he. Not fully. But the Rot showed him one last truth:
Ji-hoon wasn't the lock.
*He was the keyhole.*
And somewhere in the future, something was trying to *turn* him.
---
**The alley dead-ended** at a brick wall. Behind them, the two Xias fought—blasts of blue science and black Void energy lighting the night.
Soo-ah grabbed Min-jun's face. "Tell me what's happening!"
He had no words that wouldn't destroy her. Instead, he placed a hand on her belly and *pushed* chi through the Eclipse Rot—not to harm, but to *see*.
The child's energy signature flared:
*Human.*
*Void.*
And something *else*—a spark neither of darkness nor light, but pure potential.
Soo-ah gasped as the baby kicked violently. "He *knows* you..."
A shadow fell over them.
The future Xia floated above the alley, her body half-consumed by the Void. "Last chance, Gatekeeper. Give him to me willingly, or I take him from her corpse."
Min-jun stepped forward, the Rot coiling around his bones.
He'd made his choice.
---
**The fight lasted seven seconds.**
Future Xia moved like liquid night, her Void-arm lashing out with impossible speed. Min-jun countered with the Third Form—but she knew every move before he made it.
"You can't win," she whispered as her fingers pierced his chest. "I remember this moment."
Min-jun grabbed her wrist, the Rot surging into her. "Then you remember *this*."
He *pulled*.
Not attacking her—but *opening* her.
The Void energy sustaining future Xia *rippled*, revealing glimpses of the being beneath:
Not a woman.
Not even a traitor.
A *prisoner*.
The true Xia screamed as something *else* moved inside her skin, a presence vast and hungry. "Kill me!" she begged. "Before it gets—"
Her body *twisted* inside out, reforming into a
towering mass of eyes and teeth.
The first true Void Lord had arrived.
---
**TO BE CONTINUED...**