Kairo didn't know where he was. One moment, he was walking across a street in his city. The next, he was standing on cracked obsidian, the air filled with screams he couldn't place.
The HUD appeared before he could even breathe.
[Welcome, Trainee Judge.]
System Registered: "Unchained Heart" (F-Tier – Self-Created)Classification: Combat-type. Evaluation: Unknown Potential.
F-tier?
That was all anyone around him seemed to notice once the system registered.
Trainees with glowing eyes, spectral horns, and inherited legacies sneered at him as they passed. Most of them were born into this world. He wasn't. He had no family in Hell. No legacy. Just whatever this so-called self-made system was, and the voice that whispered when he woke:
"This is not a failure. This is the root of judgment."
He didn't understand what the system truly meant. Only that it marked him as the weakest. That he didn't belong here, at least not yet.
When the group assignments were posted, he spotted his name last on the list. As he stepped closer, someone was already staring at it. A girl. Tall, statuesque, with black hair like falling ash and crimson eyes that glowed like embers. She radiated danger—not from posture or words, but from the kind of presence that felt like standing too close to a drawn blade.
She turned to him and frowned.
"You're Kairo?"
He gave a hesitant nod. "Yeah. That's me."
She didn't smile.
"You better stay alive," she said coolly. "You're in my way, but I'll deal with that later."
She walked past him like he wasn't worth a second thought. The others in his team barely spared him a glance.
He was starting to feel like the joke of this realm. But something inside him—some flicker of defiance—refused to bow.
If Hell wanted to test him, fine.
He'd survive.
He'd grow.
And maybe, one day, he'd find someone here worth staying alive for.