The seventh bullet is about to be fired. And Jihoon, can only wield the decayed halberd in vigil of what’s to come. He continues to assess the firearm in Jin’s hand and seeing its description all over again.

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Der Freischutz (The Freelancer)

Classification: Firearm

Rarity: Legend

ATK+: 108

An accursed firearm that changed forms numerously across history. Wrought by a promise that will only result in further misery. Seven bullets are dealt, six will fly true as its shooter’s desire and the last shot will be the devil’s.

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There was that one detail that knacked him for a while. What is it that determines the Der Freischutz’s rarity at all? Sure, it was a gun making its appearance in a well-known folklore that any video game writer loves to include or make references of when the opportunity arise. But, if that’s the case then…

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Judgment of Light (Decayed)

Classification: Polearm

Rarity: Heroic

ATK+: 35

A sacred relic halberd wrought by an order of noble paladins, now diminished to a decayed shard of its former glory amidst the tides of corruption. Perhaps in the hands of a virtuous soul, it may yet be reforged into its original splendor once more...

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Why does his Judgment of Light is graded as Heroic? What is the ranking scale that determines them? And what makes those halberds that the fallen judicator used that determine their quality as such. In fact, all of them were of a story that simply never existed in his world.

Time is slowing down again, the sign of a decisive moment draws close that requires his answer. His mind sorts of developed in this way due to the nature of his work in his previous life were.

What makes something Heroic? What makes something a legend? Jihoon thought for a little while that is being stretched to the eternity of his perception of mind. Then, he muttered an answer.

“Through action, a man becomes a Hero. Through death, a Hero becomes a Legend. Through time, a Legend becomes a Myth. And learning from Myth, a man takes action”.

Jihoon grasped the nature of how these relics are graded. His musings on heroism, legend, and the cyclical nature of myth coalesced into a profoundly simple truth:

Actions defined the worth of artifacts and relics, not the other way around. An ordinary blade could become "legendary" by the heroic deeds it enabled. Likewise, even sacred regalia succumbed to the eroding tides of time without virtuous hands to wield and maintain them.

As his gaze fell upon the decayed halberd and broken sanctuary that this final battle stood. Jihoon felt an ethereal resonance stir to life deep within his soul. This relic, this "Heroic" embodiment of faded glory, seemed to answer his own spirit's call in a way he couldn't fully articulate.

Even the brightest flames guttered if left untended. As that knightly order's righteousness waned over generations, ceding to mortal failings of greed and insularity, their relics' essence slowly dimmed in turn. The halberd had fallen into shadow, its brilliance tarnished until only a sliver of primal conviction flicked within its darkened heartwood.

Yet in Jihoon's grasp, that all-but-extinguished spark found new purchase to flare against the engulfing night once more. His own unbowed spirit called out to the relic's remnant virtues in a harmonic chorus, each feeding and amplifying the other in a symbiotic resonance.

It was the same phenomenon that had allowed Jin's depravities to intertwine so dissonantly with Der Freischutz's cursed energies. Where the firearm found perverse kinship with Jin's obsession for power at any cost, the decayed halberd saw its own distorted reflection in Jihoon's resurgent heroism - the indomitable will to protect the meek and preserve justice, no matter how the odds arrayed against him.

As Jihoon's fingers closed around the haft in a white-knuckled grip, ancient runes burned like searing brands along its length. The halberd's dreaming ember roused in answer to his soul's resounding clarion, its potent resonance cascading in glowing aura surrounding its decayed form. Yet its warm glow looked as brilliant as the heyday before.

Meeting his former friend's haunted stare with an unwavering look, Jihoon spoke in tones that carried the weight of prehistorical inevitability.

"No more, Jin. No more darkness, no more profane bargains struck at the cost of your soul..." He leveled the ancient halberd, its rusted yet shining edges burning like a newborn star. "Your desperate hunt for power ends here, where mine untrodden path begins anew. If you can't find your way back into the light..." Jihoon's grip tightened around the thrumming haft, his next words coming out in a resonant proclamation that shook the Gate's deepest foundations.

"THEN I'LL CUT A PATH FOR YOU MYSELF!"

Jin’s first expression upon hearing it was denial as he made past the hesitation to fire at his old friend. As the trigger for the seventh bullet is pulled, no one knows what will follow anymore.

Der Freischutz – Seventh Bullet [Bullet of Despair]

Instead of a barrage of cerulean bullets, the magic circles cascade as they layered with one another in front of Der Freischutz’s muzzle. As if a multi-staged artillery is about to fire its entire payload toward Jihoon, the muzzle brightens with a dangerous glow as if signaling the finality that is about to come.

Jihoon took a deep breath as if he is feeling awfully calm despite the danger and crisis he is in. Yet, it felt like it will be alright to him. He wonders if this is the state of zen that so many martial masters proclaim about. And with all honesty, he accepted it.

The air seemed to still as Jin squeezed the trigger for the dreaded seventh shot. Instead of a focused projectile, a rippling shockwave of cerulean energy erupted from Der Freischutz's muzzle. The magic circles cascaded outward, their geometric matrices rapidly breaking down as the bullet's power grew exponentially. Jihoon knew this was the manifestation of Jin's final anguish, his decade-long obsession with Der Freischutz reaching its dreadful zenith.

As the beam erupted forth toward him, Jihoon felt the halberd thrum in his grasp, as if resonating with his own indomitable spirit. Something much more primal beckoned as it draws upon the last remaining essence, to let its radiance fuel his conviction. No further warning is made as the glowing runes along the shaft flared. Imparting its final technique as it imprints into Jihoon’s subconsciousness.

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In that moment, the world seemed to still as Jihoon pivoted, muscles coiling like taut springs as he channeled every fiber of his being into one earth-shattering stroke. His muscles, his mortal coil, his soul, everything that made his existence. The halberd's edge sheared through the air, trailing glow of gold contrails of holy light gathering in inverse crescendo to the onrushing cerulean demise.

Realities crashed together in a thunderous detonation that made the entire chamber quake. The despair bullet deformed against the sacred slash, its vile energies distorted and rebounded.

Judgment of Light – Breaking Dawn

With an explosive noise like the universe aflame, a recoil that threatened to tear him apart despite the harmonic blessing that played in his presence. The deflected shot rebounded upon its source. Der Freischutz buckling in Jin’s shell-shocked grip as the cursed projectile itself making its way toward Jin’s heart.

For an endless instant frozen in time, Jin's eyes registered a thousand harrowed emotions writ large. Denial at what Jihoon did, anger at himself for taking up this cursed gun, bargaining of what he could have done despite the circumstance, depression of how he shouldn’t have picked up this accursed weapon if he had known his path would eventually cross with Jihoon, and finally...acceptance, as the cursed projectile found its mark.

A strangled gasp left his lips, lifeblood blossoms from the mortal wound.

As the ethereal cerulean glow of the deflected seventh bullet faded, its path of destruction left behind still in wake. Jin fell to his knees, vitae blossoming across his tattered coat. His trembling fingers fumbled at the clasps of his guitar case, a lifetime's worth of regret and resigned longing writ large across his ashen features.

"Jihoon...my friend..." Each word came labored through gritted teeth as he finally worked the case open. There, nestled in faded velvet, lay a battered acoustic guitar, dusty and old - the very same one they had composed so many cherished melodies upon all those years ago at Arisen Studio.

Jin's calloused fingers caressed the worn wood and tarnished strings with a tenderness bordering on reverence. "This...this was all I had left of the life we once knew. Before the Gates tore everything apart..."

His breath hitched, a wet cough splattering his lips with a fresh gout of blood. Still, Jin persevered, settling the guitar into the familiar cradle of his embrace.

The guitar stroke that he played was full of melancholy. And yet with each note he played, Jin’s already deteriorating body suffered in backlash. The chord progression was melancholic, regretful as the original song that he played was an entire band’s effort yet easily replicating with only clapping of the body and strumming of the string.

Soon the incapacitated task force started to wake up as the notes of acoustic guitar continued to play.

“The price of freedom is steep, isn’t it?”. Jin said as he references the song’s original name. One that no one remembers since all of it was gone with the Gates.

The task force members treated their injury as the veteran Hunter and Jiwoon started to rise up from their brief slumber.

"I thought you were long gone, like everyone else..." he rasped. "That's why I let my pursuit of power twist me into...into this..." A tremor laced his tone as he continued the strumming of his guitar, the melody that he clung onto obsessively like he did with Der Freischutz.

Jihoon decided that he can’t let his dying friend to bear more suffering than he should thus Jihoon takes out his electric guitar as he played together with the sorrowful notes that Jin is playing. Of course, its gritty sound didn’t suit at first yet as his heart comes to share Jin’s plight, even the emotion within the chord starts to reflect his own heart.

Once the crescendo came, Jihoon temporarily took Jin’s place as he played that regretful melody in his stead until the decrescendo took place and Jin resumed his acoustic guitar again.

As the familiar melodies drifted through the ruined chamber and the task force personnel became their audiences, it was as if the last decade of tragedy and damnation had simply...unraveled, leaving only two friends performing together once more.

“After so long, you finally managed to evoke your emotion into the song that you made. Regardless of the instrument that you’ve chosen. You finally know the right notes to play after so long”. Jin said as his life ebbs slowly to everyone’s mournful presence. “I wish that I could say the same with that accursed thing”.

Jin's fingers continued to move along the fretboard, each note laced with hard-won wisdom and regret. "After Arisen Studio fell, after that first harrowing encounter with Der Freischutz, I became consumed by the pursuit of power at any cost. I told myself it was the only way to survive, to avoid becoming just another casualty in this world that had become utterly mad."

His playing grew more impassioned, the melancholic chords swelling with anguished intensity. "But that obsession drove me to darker and darker means. I started taking jobs as a mercenary Hunter, throwing my lot in with anyone peddling an opportunity for greater strength, no matter how unscrupulous. If innocents had to be sacrificed to make me more powerful...well, I deluded myself into believing it was a necessity, all in the name of survival."

Jihoon's electric guitar wove a mournful counterpoint to Jin's lamentations, their combined melodies casting a nostalgic resonance throughout the chamber. The task force personnel remained solemnly transfixed, their eyes downcast as they bore witness to this gut-wrenching musical play.

"By the time I truly understood what a monster I had become, it was far too late," Jin whispered, his strumming hand trembling ever so slightly. "Der Freischutz had sunk its claws into my soul so deeply that I was trapped, doomed to an eternity of damnation if I failed to sate its hunger for greater atrocities."

A trickle of vitae leaked from the corner of his mouth, but Jin pressed on relentlessly. "When I learned you were a Hunter as well, Jihoon...some last vestige of humanity must have sparked within me. I reached out, foolishly hoping that reconnecting with my oldest friend might somehow redeem me after everything I had done."

Jin let the final, mournful chord bled out into deafening silence, his breath coming in pained rasps. "But I see now...there is no redemption for me. Not after willingly allowing myself to be twisted into such an abomination. My soul is too stained, too far gone down this path of damnation."

With a tremor of finality, Jin set the guitar aside and met Jihoon's compassionate gaze. "All I can do now is beg forgiveness from you, my brother in all but blood. I failed you in the worst way imaginable by succumbing to darkness...and I have no right to ask you to walk that same path in pursuit of saving me."

His eyes glistened with unshed tears as his life slowly drain from his features. "So promise me this, Jihoon...promise that you will never lose sight of the light, no matter how bleak the path ahead may become. Carry on the melodies and virtues that we once cherished together at Arisen Studio. And maybe, just maybe...some tiny shard of my fractured soul can find peace, knowing that the true essence of our bond endures in you."

Jin managed one last, tremulous smile, tinged with wistful acceptance.

"Thank you...for never giving up on me, my friend. Even until the bitter end."

As his eyes slid shut for the final time, a profound silence descended over the ruined chamber. Task force Hunters alike stood in solemn witness of Jin's passing, the faded notes of their impromptu composition still ringing with poignant resonance.

Jihoon gazed upon his fallen friend, the electric guitar clutched against his chest like a mournful lover's embrace.

Tears started to drip across his cheek, feelings welled up for a decade of separation, anguish. A brief reunion followed with an eternal departure. Jihoon while far from the most emotional being, let his floodgate of emotions unleashed.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

A scream of confusion and sorrow let out by Jihoon himself. All stretching out as long as it can until even his vocal cord gives up on him. Yelling it out loud to the heaven above as the sunset in the distance slowly descent for the night to come.

All until Jihoon becomes too exhausted mentally and collapses.