"When will the time come where I don't have to eat these monster pieces again?" the boy murmured.
His voice was barely louder than the wind scraping across the dead plain, yet in this world, even whispers felt dangerous. Kim Sol He crouched behind the remains of a shattered stone pillar, his fingers slick with dark, half-dried blood. The flesh in his hands was grayish-black, fibrous like rotting bark, and it twitched faintly as if it still remembered being alive.
A Nihord.
Sol He closed his eyes and bit into it.
The taste was always the same—bitter, metallic, with a nauseating afterburn that crawled down his throat. He chewed slowly, forcing himself not to gag. Hunger was sharper than disgust, sharper than pride. In this single, suffocating dimension, refusing food was the same as begging for death.
Around him, the world stretched endlessly, flat and colorless. The sky was a pale, sickly white, with no sun, no moon—only a dull glow that never changed. There was no night, no day. Time existed only as exhaustion and fear.
Everyone is killed here and Everyone kills here.
Sol He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His clothes were ragged, stained with layers of old blood that no amount of scrubbing could remove. He had long since stopped trying. Cleanliness was a luxury for those strong enough to defend it.
He listened.
Footsteps echoed in the distance—slow, deliberate. Not a Nihord. Monsters dragged themselves, shrieked, or charged mindlessly. These steps had intent.
A human.
Sol He's body tensed. He pressed himself closer to the pillar, holding his breath. In this world, humans were worse than monsters. Nihords hunted out of instinct. Humans hunted out of choice.
He peeked through a crack in the stone.
A man passed by, tall and lean, his skin etched with glowing red lines—marks of power. A blade rested casually on his shoulder, its edge chipped and darkened. His eyes scanned the land with bored cruelty, as if hoping something—anything—would give him an excuse to kill.
Sol He remained perfectly still.
The man sniffed the air, frowned, then continued walking.
Only when the footsteps faded did Sol He allowed himself to breathe again.
Powerless.
That was what he was.
In a world where strength decided everything, Kim Sol He had none. No glowing marks, no enhanced body, no supernatural gift. Just a thin orphan who had learned early that survival depended on silence, patience, and a willingness to eat anything that wouldn't kill him first.
He remembered the first day.
The day the sky turned white.
The day screams replaced sunlight.
People had woken up here without warning—children, adults, criminals, saints. There was no explanation, no godly voice, no promise of rescue. Only one rule became clear within hours:
Kill or be killed.
Those who discovered their powers early rose like kings. Those who didn't were slaughtered. Sol He had watched his temporary guardians die one by one, torn apart by both Nihords and humans alike. He had survived by hiding beneath corpses, by pretending to be dead, by crawling away while others fought.
And by eating what others wouldn't.
A distant roar shook the ground.
Sol He flinched.
Another Nihord had appeared.
He tightened his grip around a rusted knife—the only weapon he owned—and stood up. His legs trembled, but he forced himself forward. If he didn't hunt, he'd starve. If he hesitated, someone else would take the kill.
Or take his life.
As he walked toward the sound, a strange thought crossed his mind—one that frightened him more than any monster.
He wasn't just surviving anymore.
He was getting used to it.
And somewhere deep inside, beneath the fear and hunger, something cold was beginning to grow.
Something soulless.
The killings had already begun.
And Kim Sol He was part of them now.