Water rushed in from all sides, violently displacing the very air human beings relied on to survive.
Water never killed a person directly. It simply stripped away everything around them, occupied the entirety of their space, and used that "entirety" to drown them.
Truthfully... falling into the water was a terrible outcome.
The water in the reservoir was murky... a sickly mix of earthy yellow and algae green. Even in the middle of a vast ocean, you wouldn't see the sparkling, sunlit surface from beneath the waves.
The only thing that accompanied him was the suffocating, inescapable dread as the currents dragged him down toward the muddy bottom...
No matter how resolute a mind was, it eventually needed a physical anchor to manifest its will.
And right now, Shu was dying.
The air in his lungs had been almost entirely expelled the moment he hit the water.
The freezing water leached away his body heat, his consciousness, his memories, his exhaustion, his yearning, his pain...
It was trying to take everything.
It was trying to lull this exhausted, battered, bullet-riddled young man into an eternal sleep.
Sleep...
Sleep...
Once you fall asleep, everything will be over...
...
Splash.
At the edge of the reservoir, Shu finally dragged himself onto the muddy bank, his movements as stiff and disjointed as a reanimated corpse.
"Cough, cough..." He wretched, vomiting up a massive mouthful of foul, fishy-smelling water. His breathing and heart rate had plummeted to a dangerously low level.
Not far away from where Shu had crawled ashore, another figure had already dragged himself out of the water. But this figure was currently staring at Shu with a profound, indelible terror etched onto his face.
Shu's eyes were mere slits. Only his final, primal instinct was keeping him conscious.
If he closed his eyes, he would instantly black out.
But he didn't. He had already refused so many things today.
Pull your limbs from the mud. Stand up again. Walk. Ignore the crushing burden on your body.
Get up.
Creak...
It sounded as if his very bones and joints were protesting. When his lacerated hand pressed against the dirt to push himself up, gravel bit deep into the raw flesh, creating a bizarre, agonizing sensation in the already numb wounds.
But Shu truly was like a living corpse. He could feel everything, yet he cared about none of it.
He staggered to his feet beneath the dying light of the sunset. Arms hanging limply at his sides, body hunched, he walked toward the hoodie-wearing man. Step... by step... by step... Relentless and unwavering.
He's not human...
Every step Shu took felt like a boot coming down hard on the thief's heart, grinding it into dust.
Even though the entity approaching him was essentially a walking corpse, the thief couldn't muster a single shred of will to fight back.
Run!
I have to run!
He couldn't tell if the wetness on his face was reservoir water, tears of sheer terror, or a mixture of snot and blood from his lacerated ear.
He had even lost the basic human ability to walk upright on two legs. Scrambling on all fours, he tried desperately to force his limbs to obey, scuttling away in a pathetic, crooked sprint until he blindly ducked into a narrow alleyway.
It was a dead end. The moment the thief entered the alley, he regretted it. The high walls on three sides cast deep, oppressive shadows. He turned around to flee, but the moment he looked back, Shu's silhouette was already blocking the entrance.
The alley was narrow. Shu's body eclipsed the last remnants of the fading light, leaving the thief to stare at a pitch-black, looming silhouette dripping with an indistinguishable mixture of blood and water.
The sun was finally sinking below the horizon. Its dying rays stretched Shu's shadow, twisting it into a monstrous, predatory shape against the alley walls.
It bared its fangs and brandished its claws. It was the absolute embodiment of the Grim Reaper.
"Ah..." The suffocating pressure caused the thief's legs to completely give out. He collapsed into the filthy puddles of the moss-covered alleyway, trapped inside what felt like a concrete coffin.
A sudden, wet warmth spread across his crotch. The bizarre sensation finally managed to draw a fraction of the thief's terrified gaze downward.
He saw the heavy black canvas bag still clutched tightly in his arms.
In that instant, his mind raced. His sluggish, greedy brain had never fired its synapses so quickly.
"I don't want it!!" he screamed hoarsely. With a violent shove, he hurled the heavy canvas bag into the far corner of the alley.
Shu's advancing footsteps suddenly stopped. The thief thought he had found his salvation.
"I don't want it! I don't want it anymore!" he repeated, babbling pointlessly, as if screaming the words could somehow prove his sincerity. "Take it! Let me go! Please let me go!!
"I just wanted to make some money! I just wanted a better life!! I have it hard too! I didn't want to do this!!
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was wrong... Please, just let me go—URGH!"
Shu, who had silently closed the distance without the thief noticing, swung his arm with chilling apathy. His fist slammed directly into the man's face—smashing squarely into the open wound—and knocked him flat onto his back.
What is this guy saying?
Shu couldn't hear him anymore.
The relentless torment had finally completely erased his consciousness. But the primal instinct of his body marched on.
The only things left were the unquenchable rage and desperate yearning burning in his chest.
Shu's legs, which had carried him this entire grueling way, finally completed their mission. No longer needing to bear his weight, Shu straddled the fallen man. Amidst the thief's despairing wails, Shu raised a dead, unfeeling fist.
And then, he brought it down on the man's face with every single ounce of force he possessed.
Right until the bitter end, the thief never dared to fight back.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud...
And then another.
Every sickening thud sounded slightly different. From the sharp crack of pure bone-on-bone impact, it gradually devolved into the wet, sticky sound of flesh tearing and liquid splattering. Yet the rhythm remained eerily constant, like a loyal machine executing its final, programmed directive.
One punch.
Ten punches.
Shu didn't know how many times he had struck the man. In truth, he didn't even know what he was doing anymore.
His consciousness was buried in an ocean of primordial chaos, drifting aimlessly, completely silent and still.
Until a piercing siren tore through the fog that threatened to trap him forever.
WEE-WOO—WEE-WOO—
Police sirens.
Shu's blood-soaked fist abruptly froze in mid-air. His entire body went rigid.
Consciousness began to trickle back into his brain. Shu finally started to think again.
He forced his heavy eyelids open. The blurry, fragmented world before him slowly began to coalesce. The distorted sounds in his ears snapped back into clarity, like a cassette tape finally catching the right groove.
The wind. The water. His own ragged breathing. His pounding heart. The approaching sirens. The frantic, hurried footsteps drawing near. And the weak, threadbare gasps of the man beneath him, begging for mercy with his dying breath.
"Let... let..." The man's face was a grotesque mess of blood and pulverized meat. His facial structure was severely deformed; everything that could split was split, everything that could break was broken.
If the thief had been too terrified to resist before, he was now genuinely on the verge of death.
Perhaps all it would take was one final punch, and this fragile, worthless life would be snuffed out right here in this alley.
Shu's completely numb fist twitched.
"Stop!!" A familiar voice exploded from behind him. It was Deputy Chief Wang, shouting in absolute horror. "That's enough! Let the police handle it from here! I've already called an ambulance..."
He's trying to persuade me...
Using the smallest possible movement, Shu turned his head. He saw the middle-aged police officer rushing toward him, one hand clutching his radio at his waist, his face a fragmented blur in Shu's distorted vision.
He's right... Things have already escalated to this point. Throwing one more punch is meaningless. I should just listen to him. Stop right here. Maintain my status as the 'victim'.
...
Time seemed to stretch, slowing to an agonizing crawl. Within that dilated second, Shu's gaze slowly drifted toward the black canvas bag in the corner.
At that moment, the world in Shu's eyes had completely changed its art style. Everything was shattered into unrecognizable pieces, a grotesque collage of beauty and ugliness violently mashed together.
But that black woven bag was incredibly, painfully clear.
It was flat and empty. Whatever had been inside had seemingly woken up, torn its way out, and fled in terror.
It ran away...
Shu pulled his gaze away. The black woven bag instantly shattered back into a pile of meaningless fragments.
"Enough! Shu! That's really enough!!" Deputy Chief Wang's frantic warnings continued, but Shu's gaze had already locked back onto the bloody, fragmented mess that used to be the thief's face.
Shu knew his body had already surpassed its absolute limit. And truthfully, his frozen fist had already begun to lower naturally.
It felt as if a gentle hand was wrapping around his wrist, urging him to put his arm down.
Let it be...
Just end it here. It's enough... Everything is enough...
...
A sudden flash of light caught Shu's kaleidoscopic vision. His pupils drifted involuntarily toward the single, anomalous variable in his slow-motion world.
It was a spinning coin.
The moment Shu's eyes locked onto it, the coin stopped.
It was Heads.
——
"...Shu?"
"I found you."
——
The shattered world snapped violently back into focus!
Everything before him—the mangled flesh, the tearing agony, the freezing wind, the piercing sirens—became razor-sharp and agonizingly real!
They never belonged to me.
But right now.
I belong to ME!
I ONLY BELONG TO ME!!
Shu's lowering arm abruptly snapped back to its highest apex.
And then—
He smashed it down with everything he had!!!