Time slipped by without a sound. Two full years had passed since the assassination in the collection room.
The underground Night Abyss base in Tokyo remained shrouded in a silence that would not lift.
There was no clamor, no warmth to spare, only the same cycle repeating day after day.
For Moon, life was divided into three fixed parts: carrying out missions, resting and recovering, and training. He moved between them like a precision gear, never deviating in the slightest.
Over those two years, he had taken on more missions than he could count.
He had infiltrated heavily guarded private residences, slipping through gaps in their layers of security to claim lives; he had blended into crowded streets and killed targets in full view of the public; he had ventured deep into remote mountains and fought vicious opponents to the death amid torrential rain and darkness.
Every operation carried lethal risks. Bullets grazed his flesh, blades sliced into muscle and bone, fists and feet hammered his torso. Wounds of every kind gradually left their marks on his body.
A faint old scar along the side of his neck came from an opponent's short blade during an ambush; several long, thin scars crossing the inside of his forearm came from wild slashes in a gang shootout; a sunken, healed scar on his abdomen marked a heavy blow from a bodyguard's club during another mission.
Scars old and new overlapped across the boy's body. Each one represented a brush with death.
Yet no matter how hopeless his circumstances or how severe his injuries, his determination to survive never went out, like an ember buried deep in the dark.
Even gravely wounded, even on the verge of losing consciousness, he summoned every ounce of will to hold on until he could withdraw, until