Chapter 5: Dante
After nearly dying a second time, Kang Soo Jin dreamed.
But it wasn’t a dream of his own.
It was a foreign memory—he had inherited the brain of the deceased, and with it, his memories.
In this dream, he saw a child—a boy with pale skin, dressed in a tattered coat, boots stained by melted snow—exploring a cave hidden beneath a steep cliff, far from a frozen hamlet.
It was a habit of his, a form of escape from the oppressive stares and harsh words of adults.
The place was damp, its walls slick with frost, and a strange violet luminescence glowed at the back of the cavern.
He loved this atmosphere. The cold that bit into the skin, the absolute solitude that became a comfort.
But that day, he ventured further than usual.
His steps brought him before a black rock, embedded in the ground as if hurled from the sky.
It was glossy black, streaked with scarlet veins that pulsed like a heart of magma.
A strange aura emanated from it—neither hot nor cold, but simply unnatural.