The plaza became a slaughterhouse.
Screams, tearing flesh, the metallic stink of blood—all of it bled together until the city square no longer resembled anything human.
Dozens of hounds bounded from the shadows, each one bigger than the last. Their claws cracked the concrete. Their jaws snapped bone like kindling. Their eyes glowed with alien hunger, reflecting the firelight from burning buildings.
The system didn't even pretend to care.
[Participants eliminated: 219,392.]
[Survivors remaining: 6,995,040,121.]
The number ticked down by the thousands every second, as if life itself were a stock being sold off at a crash.
And still, the hounds kept coming.
✦
At the center of it all was Kael Arathis.
He moved like a storm in human form—every step efficient, every strike absolute. His fists shattered skulls. His kicks caved ribs. The air around him shimmered faintly, as if the system itself bent to amplify his presence.
To the crowd, he was hope incarnate. A savior fallen from the sky.
To me, he was a walking cliché.
"Of course," I muttered, stabbing another hound in the throat with my newly polished pen-blade. Hot blood sprayed across my cheek as the beast collapsed. "First guy I meet in the apocalypse is a discount protagonist."
But the others didn't seem to mind. Their cries of despair shifted into desperate cheers every time Kael punched a monster into paste. For them, he was the one thread holding back the end of the world.
For me? He was competition.
✦
"Help! Someone help me!"
The voice cracked through the chaos, raw with terror.
I turned just in time to see a chubby man in a torn office shirt stumble backward, his arm bleeding freely as a hound closed in. Its teeth glistened. Its paws shredded concrete as it bounded toward him.
No one moved to help. Everyone was too busy screaming, fighting, or dying.
The man's eyes locked on mine—desperate, pleading, the kind of look that sank claws straight into your conscience.
My stomach knotted.
Not my problem, some part of me whispered. Survival came first.
But before I could turn away, the Rewrite window flickered open unbidden.
[Sentence: Dev Sharma died torn apart by the hound.]
[Rewrite? (Y/N)]
My throat tightened. The system wasn't asking if I wanted to fight. It was asking if I wanted to change the story.
I slammed Y.
The sentence shifted.
[Sentence: The hound slipped on blood and crashed into the pavement, missing its prey.]
And just like that, reality buckled.
The monster's jaws snapped shut on empty air. Its momentum carried it too far forward. Its paw slid in the pool of blood beneath another corpse. With a wet crunch, it slammed face-first into the pavement.
Dev tumbled free, gasping.
I rushed forward, grabbed his arm, and yanked him upright. "Run!"
His wide eyes locked on me like I'd descended from heaven. "Y-You saved me…"
"Don't thank me yet," I snapped, shoving him toward the crowd. "Survive first."
✦
A shadow fell across me.
Another hound, larger than the rest, barreled straight for my chest.
Too fast. Too strong. I couldn't even lift my dagger in time—
And then Kael was there.
One blow. One strike. The hound collapsed mid-leap, its skull caved in like an eggshell. Kael's cold eyes flicked toward me, unreadable.
"You're weak." His voice was low, edged with disdain. "You won't last an hour like that."
I bristled. "And what, you're the hero?"
The system answered for him.
[Kael Arathis has earned Bonus Reward: Title – Hero of the First Hour.]
The survivors cheered. People cried his name. Some even wept openly.
Kael didn't acknowledge them. He simply turned back to the battlefield, fists dripping with gore, eyes blazing with righteous fury.
I gritted my teeth.
✦
While Kael basked in unearned applause, my pen-dagger pulsed faintly. The rust was gone now, its blade gleaming faintly like it had been dipped in ink. It was feeding—evolving—with every Rewrite.
I could almost hear it whisper inside my head: Keep writing. Keep editing. Keep shaping the tale.
The temptation was intoxicating.
Because Kael fought with fists and blood. But I? I had the power to change the script itself.
And if there was one thing I knew as a failed novelist—rewrites always beat first drafts.
✦
The hounds surged again.
Bodies fell. Blood sprayed. A teenager's scream ended in a gurgle as claws tore him in half. An old woman swung her grocery bag desperately at a lunging beast before it ripped her throat out.
The plaza stank of iron and ash. The ground was slick with blood.
But in the chaos, I worked quietly. A Rewrite here. A Rewrite there.
A girl tripped over rubble— [Sentence: She fell beneath the hound's jaws.] → Y. [Sentence: The hound stumbled on debris, missing its prey.]
A man's blade snapped mid-swing— [Sentence: The weapon broke.] → Y. [Sentence: The hound's fangs shattered instead.]
Tiny edits. Quick corrections. Keeping the story from swallowing the weak whole.
Every time, my dagger—no, my weapon—grew brighter. Cleaner. Sharper. It was no longer a rusted relic. It gleamed like fresh ink on crisp paper, its surface rippling faintly as if words were waiting to be written on it.
✦
Then, the jagged text appeared again.
[Unknown Origin]: "You've opened the page, Quill. Don't let the Hero steal the story."
My chest went cold.
Unknown Origin. Again.
I whipped my head around, scanning the survivors. Nobody reacted. No one else saw it.
Only me.
Was someone watching me? Another Rewriter? Or… something worse?
The thought made my skin crawl.
✦
[First Hour: 30 minutes remaining.]
The system's message dropped like a hammer.
The ground trembled. Dust fell from shattered buildings. Survivors froze, their screams catching in their throats.
From the far end of the plaza, a deeper growl rumbled. Not the high-pitched snarls of the hounds. No. This was heavier. Older. Hungrier.
The true boss was coming.
Kael stepped forward immediately, his fists clenched, his expression sharp as steel. His entire body radiated confidence, arrogance, inevitability. Like he was born for this moment.
And the survivors looked at him with the same hope they'd shown since the first blow. Their faith was blind, desperate, absolute.
But me?
I tightened my grip on Inkslayer—the name whispered unbidden into my mind by the weapon itself—and a smirk tugged at my lips despite the fear curling in my gut.
Because I wasn't going to let the so-called Hero steal my spotlight.
Not this time.
✦
The shadows shifted.
A massive silhouette emerged. A beast larger than any hound. Its head scraped against the ruins. Its body rippled with muscle and plated bone. Its fangs dripped acid that hissed as it struck stone.
The Boss had arrived.
The First Hour wasn't over yet.
And the real story had just begun.