Scroll 1
The courtyard was already a storm before the first man struck the wall. Noise clashed with noise boots scuffing stone, shields rattling, the restless huff of armored men trying not to look afraid and then the wall itself split with a sharp, brutal crack. Stone dust burst into the torchlight like a sigh too heavy to hold in. The fragments skittered across the ground, and every man present flinched not just at the sound, but at the realization of the power it would take to break something that had stood for decades. The air thickened, made metallic by the mixture of scorched leather, polish rubbed into weary armor, and the fain sting of blood that seeped into breath whether you wanted it or not.
In the middle stood a man whose posture didn't match the moment. One hand buried lazily in his pocket, the other dangling a chipped practice blade that he toyed with as though it were no more than a toothpick, his entire frame radiated not readiness, but boredom. His eyes moved without urgency, trailing over the gathered fighters the way someone might drift through a night market, unimpressed, half-hungry, half-tired. And yet the chipped blade's tip rested lightly on the dirt. Every eye in the circle clung to it, fixed on it like prey frozen before a venomous serpent, knowing one wrong twitch could invite a strike that would end things before they began.
"You going to swing, or just stand there breathing?" His voice wasn't loud, but it slid like a blade through the din, cutting the noise in half. The words left no room for misunderstanding.
No one answered.
Above, a battered banner shivered in the night wind, edges frayed by fire and time. The moon brushed faint silver across his face, half-hiding him in its shadows, making it impossible to tell if the slight quirk of his mouth was a smirk or simple indifference.
On the left, a tall fighter finally broke. Armor clanged with each pounding step, a juggernaut charging to smash him outright. The man in the center didn't step away. He stepped forward. A flicker of steel sharp enough to catch torchlight for the briefest instant cut the air. Cloth tore, breath caught. The armored man froze mid-stride. His knees gave first, bending like they no longer belonged to him. The sword slipped from his grasp, clattering uselessly, and then his eyes rolled back into nothing. He collapsed with all the ceremony of a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Gasps rippled around the circle. A whisper rose at the back, thin but desperate: "That's not possible, not without"
"Without what?" The man's head tilted, his eyes landing directly on the speaker as if the voice had come from his own shoulder. His tone was so casual it erased th rest of the thought from existence.
The night air shifted. From somewhere distant, kitchen smoke drifted faintly across the courtyard, softening the metallic tang of sweat and steel. He inhaled once, let it pass, then lifted the chipped blade. "Next."
The air tightened. Knuckles whitened on spear shafts. Shields clanged against forearms. A few men slipped backward into the press, quiet in their retreat. On the balcony above, figures in embroidered robes leaned forward, their faces cloaked in shadow. Silver chains at their waists caught torchlight like lightning trapped in links. A single drumbeat rolled, low and deep, shaking the dust loose from brackets. Across the yard, a halberd bearer stomped twice, earth shuddering beneath his boots. Someone muttered, reverent and afraid: "Stone Lock Footwork."
The halberd dropped like a moon falling from the sky. Its curved blade gleamed mercilessly. But the man didn't withdraw. He leaned in. His wrist flicked, the chipped blade moving too short, too careless until the halberd simply wasn't where it should be. Its strike froze in midair, not blocked, not deflected, but arrested by something unseen. Then it tilted, fell sideways, and slipped traitorously from the wielder's grip. When it hit the ground, he nudged it with his boot.
"You dropped something."
Two warriors rushed in, one high with a spear thrust, one low with a sweeping blade. He stepped between them as if through a doorway already opened. His chipped blade threaded between their weapons with no clash, no sparks. Just silence, followed by the heavy sound of bodies slamming to dirt.
Above, one elder breathed, "You see this? Yes, that is not—" Another voice cut across: "It is he. It must be."
At that, the man in the courtyard looked up. His smile was small, and it was not friendly.
The courtyard trembled. Torch brackets rattled. The crowd parted to let more pour in dozens, then scores, until the ground itself seemed to drum with their boots. Shields interlocked. Spears leveled. Blades glinted in the cold moonlight. On the balcony, elders surged to their feet. From below came the command: "Form the Hundred Circle Formation!"
The ground shook. Boots struck in unison. Shields locked into a wall without a gap.
He rolled his shoulders, as though waking from a nap. "Finally."
The first wave came like a tide. His chipped blade rose—not fast, not heavy, but a lazy diagonal arc. It touched nothing. And yet the entire front rank jerked as one, weapons dipping toward the ground, bodies going slack like their strength had been stolen mid-motion.
The second wave faltered. He raised his free hand, curled his fingers. The torchlight twisted. Shadows stretched, tore loose, and writhed across the ground like living ropes. They slithered into the gaps of armor, curled around joints, and dragged men screaming from their feet. The cries were sharp, short-lived.
Above, an elder cried, horrified: "Impossible that's forbidden!"
He was already moving. He vaulted from the collapsing form of one soldier, ten meters in a breath, chipped blade blurring. Shields split apart. Armor peeled open like fruit skin torn by careless fingers.
When the last body dropped, silence smothered the courtyard.
The lone figure stood, one foot resting on a fallen spear. His blade dripped not blood, not light, but something unseen. He raised his head to the balcony.
"Is that all?"
The world froze.
---
Ethan stared at the cracked phone screen on his floor. The cliffhanger mocked him. Groaning, he rolled onto his back. A cup of instant noodles toppled, broth creeping dangerously close to his math notes. The ceiling bulb buzzed overhead, casting its sickly yellow glow while his phone's loading wheel spun without mercy.
"The shadow-stealing hundred-man vault cut off… are you serious?" he muttered, voice thick with exhaustion and betrayal. His phone beeped with a low-battery warning. He sighed, already defeated.
"If I were in that world… five minutes, tops," he admitted to himself. Outside, rain tapped gently against the window, a rhythm too soft for the chaos inside his chest.
Ethan was never the kind of man people wrote about. No whispered tales, no hidden legacy, no secret greatness waiting to erupt. If his life were a book, it would be the cramped side notes scrawled in the margins of someone else's story.
That didn't mean he lacked ambition. He had it. But ambition was useless when you had to measure it against your bank account. Dreams across a canyon, the bridge built from overtime shifts and cheap noodles.
His days came in tired slices: mornings at the fried chicken shop, grease sticking to his skin like a curse. Nights at the convenience store, babysitting fridges that hummed conspiracies at him. In between study sessions for a certification exam that felt less like a future and more like a mirage.
All of it was for her.
His mother.
She spent her days in the quieter half of their two-room apartment rest, medication, and dramas online. The illness had started slow, like a shadow that refused to leave, and the medicine kept it at bay, though the price tag carved Ethan raw every month. There was no "take a break." Every shift, every extra hour meant food, bills, or another month of medicine.
Still stories saved him.
Not neighborhood gossip or sports chatter, but worlds where underdogs rose, where fate wasn't blind. His obsession was Child of Destiny, a web novel he'd found by accident. Over a thousand chapters of escape, the tale of a boy who rose from nothing to legend. Right teacher, right treasures, victories that made you fist-pump alone in the dark.
The hero's greatest enemy? His own brother. A prodigy, cunning, the darling turned villain, humiliated again and again. Ethan never rooted for him, but he understood him—the weight of an unfair world pressing down until you broke.
On late-night subway rides, Ethan let himself imagine being in that world. Not hero, not villain. Just someone with a chance.
A nice thought. But thoughts didn't pay rent. And rent was due in ten days.
---
Thursday in Seoul carried its own rhythm. Drizzle since noon. Air thick with the taste of wet concrete. Ethan stepped off the bus, hood up, hunch casual the posture of someone who'd learned how to be invisible when freezing.
Mangwon Market's neon flickered ahead, promising warmth and prices that only made sense if you'd been alive twenty years earlier. His phone buzzed. A message from his mother:
Don't forget the supplement. The good one. Not the cheap one.
Which meant the stall in the middle. Which meant the old woman whose voice could sand wallpaper.
The market swallowed him. Oil hissed from snack stalls, squid batter perfuming the air. Hawkers shouted over trot music. "Dried anchovies! Fresh! Cheaper than your ex!" one cried.
"Only twenty, young man!" another vendor shoved sneakers at him. "You'll run so fast your problems can't keep up!"
"Ma'am," Ethan muttered, sidestepping, "if my problems can't keep up, they'll just take the bus."
Laughter from a nearby student. The vendor clicked her tongue. He pushed deeper. Slick pavement, neon puddles, crowded chaos. His eyes scanned for the familiar green box.
There. The supplement stall, wedged between kimchi and glittery phone cases. The herbal lady was mid-sale, shoving a bag at some poor soul who looked freshly mugged. Ethan straightened, readying his polite voice.
That's when the shadow slipped into his path.
A man or rather, the faint echo of one. Rail-thin, in a beige windbreaker that belonged to another century, hair white and wispy, steps glacial. Ethan moved to sidestep. The man adjusted, blocking him with eerie inevitability.
"Sorry, sir," Ethan murmured, trying to slide past.
Too late. Their shoulders clipped. Ethan's own momentum sent him sideways straight into someone who smelled like luxury detergent.
A woman in black sportswear stared him down. Limited Edition glared from her leggings. "Watch it!"
"I said sorry" Ethan began.
Movement behind her froze him. The boyfriend. Jawline sharp, body like an ad for gym contracts. No words, no warning. The fist landed clean on Ethan's face.
Whiplash. Ringing ears. The market shoved against him, swept him sideways. Neon and rain blurred. Then
The street.
The asphalt gleamed under drizzle like a black mirror.
Bearing down on him: a truck.
Not cabbages, not deliveries. A steel-plated monster, veins of blue light pulsing across its grill spirit-powered.
The smell hit: ozone and burning rubber, overlaying squid oil and damp wool. The sound followed: hiss of rain, roar of engine, a woman's gasp.
Ethan's thoughts fired in absurd sequence:
Should've taken the other bus.
Not a bad hook, technique-wise.
Mom's gonna kill me for forgetting the supplement.
Then the one truth that stayed:
If I'd been born in that novel's world… maybe fate would've let me win.
No epic last words. No heroic pose.
The truck filled his vision.