3000 years in the depths of Hell—that was his sentence. Kang Soo Jin, after his death, was a damned soul among many others, tormented within the circles of Hell in eternal suffering. Yet he retained the soul of a revolutionary. In Hell, he fought. He learned to tame pain and endure suffering, to witness atrocities that would shatter the minds of most. But amidst the horrors, he discovered, he traveled, he learned. He expanded his understanding of the world, aided by fellow damned souls and certain demons he had managed to subdue.
For demons were creatures without conscience, born of malice and deceit. They did not speak truth unless it was to twist it. They lived only to corrupt and destroy. The only way to communicate with such beings was to dominate them—to rule. And Kang Soo Jin did. Through force of will and pain-forged wisdom, he bent some of them to his cause. He learned many hidden truths about the world, including the nature of the Obelisks and the origin of the meteorites—truths he kept to himself. Knowledge, after all, was the most lethal weapon.
He realized that escape was possible—not for the masses, but for one like him. In life, Kang Soo Jin had been a thorn in the side of the demonic realm, an agent of resistance. He had allied with Sparda, a sworn enemy of Hell. That alone had marked him for special torment. Once captured, he was broken, stripped of all hope, tortured until even the demons believed he was beyond rebellion.
They were wrong.
Kang Soo Jin became a threat even in Hell. He conquered circles with the aid of followers who, over time, came to believe in him. He promised them justice. He offered redemption in exchange for absolute loyalty. With him, they found meaning even in damnation. He was no tyrant—he ruled through vision, through unshakable resolve.
Three millennia passed. Time in Hell did not flow as it did in the living world. Time did not exist. Only eternity. But Jin—madman or genius—measured time through agony. He counted it in the slow seconds of pain, in the rhythms of despair. Through suffering, he gave shape to time. And thus he knew exactly how long he had been trapped.
He was not born to rule Hell. He did not desire its throne. He wanted freedom. And freedom, eventually, came. After countless wars, betrayals, sacrifices, and victories, he and his loyal army reached the Chamber of Rifts—the portal room.
There, he faced the final battle.
His army fought like beasts. The damned and demons stood side by side under one banner. Jin's banner. The battle tore through the boundaries of infernal logic itself. And when the last guardian fell, Jin stood before the gateway to the mortal realms, his soul blazing.
But there was a problem : he had no body.
He was pure soul, an entity of will and wrath and memory. To exist in the physical realm, he needed a receptacle —a transmigration.
His spirit tore through the astral layers, pursued by a swarm of furious demons. His comrades had escaped, scattered among realms. But he was the true prize. He was the threat that Hell feared to let go.
He crossed the planes of spiritual world name Victory and others unnamed, fleeing at the speed of thought. Behind him echoed the roar of pursuit, of vengeance denied. Then, he reached it—a barrier. The wall between spirit and matter. Between soul and flesh.
Concentrating every ounce of dark energy, every shard of pain, every memory forged in agony, he struck.
The barrier shattered.
It was unprecedented. A soul without a body tearing through the veil of existence by force alone. The demons faltered, astonished. Jin slipped through. And using the last drops of his energy, he sealed the rift behind him. The way was closed.
He landed.
In the hollow of a cliff, amidst the howling of wind and the cold scent of moss-covered stone, his soul plunged into a dying body. A man who had thrown himself from the precipice only moments before.
Pain.
Agony beyond words. Jin screamed—silently, inside the cage of this failing flesh. The heart thudded faintly. The lungs gasped. Blood leaked from cracks in bone. But he was alive.
Or something like it.
Darkness took him.
And then...
Whispers.
— "After so many years you have returned."
A shadow moved before him. Not a man, but a demonic entity.
— "You crossed the line. You breached the covenant."
Jin, unable to speak, stared through broken eyes. The things leaned closer, the space around it warping.
— "But perhaps... perhaps you were meant to."
It vanished.
Jin gasped, coughing blood, gripping the earth with trembling fingers. The body was unfamiliar, but his soul now rooted within it. A storm gathered in the sky. He could feel the land rejecting him, then hesitating.
He had returned.
And the world—tainted, trembling—would soon remember his name.