"Even monsters bow to hunger — and man's is the deepest of all."
The supermarket was chaos wrapped in silence — the kind of silence that came after screaming stopped. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, painting broken aisles in ghostly rhythm. Blood smeared across shattered tiles. The air was thick with the smell of rot, iron, and ozone — a storm waiting to break.
Kael stood in the middle of it all, breathing slow and heavy. His knife dripped black ichor. Across from him, the Alpha watched — half human, half nightmare. Its muscles rippled under torn, grayish flesh, and its eyes shimmered a sickly gold. It wasn't just strong. It was aware.
"Not like the others," Kael muttered, his voice low and steady.
The Alpha's mouth twisted into something disturbingly close to a smile. It tilted its head, bones cracking. Then it spoke — not with words, but with the wet hiss of sound that almost wanted to be language. Kael tightened his grip.
It lunged.
The floor cracked under its weight. Kael rolled sideways, slicing upward — his blade caught in the Alpha's ribs, but the monster barely flinched. Its hand smashed into a shelf, sending canned goods flying like shrapnel. Kael hit the ground, coughed, tasted blood, and forced himself up.
He circled it slowly, eyes sharp. His body remembered every battlefield — every breath, every movement. Pain meant nothing. Reaction was everything.
"You're learning," Kael said, wiping blood from his lip. "Let's see how much."
The Alpha growled — deeper this time. Its claws tore across the tiles, sparks flying. Kael ducked under the swing and countered with a precise thrust to the creature's neck. The blade sank halfway before the Alpha caught his arm and threw him through a row of freezers.
Glass shattered. Cold air hissed out. Kael slid, groaned, and spat crimson. He could feel his ribs ache. The Alpha stalked closer, its gold eyes narrowing like a predator toying with prey.
Then it stopped. Sniffed the air. Turned its head — toward something else.
A sound. Shallow breathing.
Somewhere between the aisles...
Min-Jae pressed his back to a toppled shelf, clutching his injured leg. He was seventeen, tall and broad-shouldered, but shaking like a leaf. The world had gone insane in hours. He'd come to grab painkillers and food — and instead found hell waiting.
Through a crack between cereal boxes, he saw it. The thing.
It looked like a man who'd been melted and rebuilt by a cruel god. Its claws dripped with something that hissed on the floor. And across from it — a stranger. Calm. Precise. The way he moved didn't seem human either.
Who the hell is that...?
Min-Jae's heart pounded. He remembered his coach yelling at him, "You've got power, kid. You just don't know how to use it." That was before the knee injury. Before he quit everything.
Now he could barely move — but fear had a way of fixing that.
A low growl echoed nearby. Not the Alpha — smaller. A mutated stray dog, maybe. Its body crawled on uneven legs, eyes glowing faint blue. It sniffed the air, catching Min-Jae's scent.
"Oh no…" he whispered.
The creature turned sharply and charged.
Min-Jae stumbled backward, eyes darting. His hand brushed something — a wooden bat, split but still whole. He grabbed it on instinct, swung wide. The bat cracked against the monster's head with a wet thunk. It staggered but didn't stop.
He screamed, swung again — harder this time. The bat splintered. The creature collapsed, twitching.
He fell to his knees, chest heaving. His hands were slick with blood — not all of it his. The corpse twitched once, then went still. A faint glow shimmered in its chest — a small, marble-sized orb pulsing soft blue.
Min-Jae stared. "What… is that?"
He reached out — and the world went cold.
Back to Kael...
Kael could feel it too — a shift in air pressure, the faint pulse of something dying close by. Another infected down.
The Alpha's head tilted again, eyes narrowing in that direction. It hissed low, distracted.
"Not so smart after all," Kael whispered.
He charged.
Steel met bone with a screech. Kael's knife slashed deep across its abdomen. The Alpha roared, grabbing his shoulder and throwing him back — but Kael didn't resist the motion. He rolled with it, landing on one knee, sliding across broken glass.
The creature lunged again. Kael drew his secondary blade — shorter, heavier — and met the attack head-on. The two collided, metal and flesh, predator and soldier. Kael used the freezer door as cover, kicking it into the monster's face.
The Alpha staggered, then roared again — this time, the sound shook dust from the ceiling.
Then Kael saw it — the faint shimmer of a core embedded in its chest, beating like a heart.
There you are.
He lunged, slashing across its torso, then pivoted and drove the blade into the glow. It screamed — a deep, vibrating sound that rattled the shelves. The light in its chest pulsed violently, then dimmed.
But it wasn't done yet.
Its hand shot out, claws raking Kael's arm. He grunted, slashing again, and this time — the Alpha fell.
It hit the ground with a thud that echoed like thunder.
Kael stood over it, breathing hard. The world narrowed to the sound of rain tapping broken glass.
Then — a sound behind him.
Min-Jae froze mid-step. The Alpha's body was enormous — he could barely comprehend it. But the man beside it… he looked human.
Kael turned slowly, eyes locking on him.
"Kid," Kael said, voice calm but heavy. "You kill that one?"
Min-Jae blinked. "W-what?"
"The small one." Kael nodded toward the blood on his hands. "You did that?"
Min-Jae swallowed hard. "Y-yeah. I think."
"Good. Means you want to live." Kael crouched beside the Alpha, studying the fading glow in its chest. He pulled out his knife again and dug it in cleanly, prying loose a crimson-violet core. The light illuminated his face — cold, unreadable.
Min-Jae stared. "What are you doing?"
"Learning," Kael said simply. He held up the core. "This is what keeps them alive. What makes them monsters. And maybe… what keeps us from dying."
Min-Jae's breath hitched. "You're saying—"
Kael cut him off. "I'm saying we don't have the luxury of waiting for someone else to fix this." He pocketed the core. "If you can walk, grab something heavy. We move before more come."
Min-Jae nodded shakily, grabbing the cracked bat. "Where are we going?"
Kael glanced toward the shattered entrance. Beyond the doors, Seoul burned quietly — distant sirens, silhouettes of twisted forms moving through firelight.
"Somewhere with walls," he said. "And maybe answers."
They stepped over the Alpha's corpse. The supermarket was eerily still now, shelves torn, signs swinging gently from broken mounts. Outside, thunder rolled.
Kael looked up at the clouds — faint glimmers of red lightning crawling across the sky.
"Those things," Min-Jae said softly, "are they… human?"
Kael didn't answer right away. His gaze stayed fixed on the horizon, where more shapes were moving.
"Some were," he finally said. "Not anymore."
Hours Later — Edge of Seoul
The rain had started again, thin and cold. Kael and Min-Jae moved through the debris-strewn streets, silent except for the crunch of glass underfoot.
Streetlights flickered, illuminating overturned cars and blood trails. The air was thick with electricity — the faint hum of cores hidden in shadows.
"You said that orb… makes you stronger?" Min-Jae asked quietly.
Kael nodded, eyes scanning rooftops. "When I killed the first one, I felt something. A pulse. Like it was trying to fuse with me. I don't know why yet. But I'm still alive because of it."
Min-Jae hesitated. "So… could anyone use it?"
Kael stopped walking. "Maybe. If they survive the first few seconds. It's not meant for humans."
He turned his gaze toward Min-Jae. "You already proved you're not the weakest link. Keep that up."
Min-Jae managed a nervous laugh. "You don't talk much, huh?"
Kael gave a ghost of a smile. "Talking doesn't keep you breathing."
For a moment, the world was just rain and silence again. Then — a roar.
They both froze.
From the fog ahead, a silhouette emerged — massive, four-legged, with a twisted humanoid torso sprouting from its back. Its core glowed deep orange — mid-rank.
Kael unsheathed his blade. "Stay behind me."
Min-Jae gripped his bat tighter, throat dry. "Y-you can take it, right?"
Kael's smirk was brief. "We'll find out."
The creature charged.
The next few minutes were chaos — steel and bone colliding in rain and firelight. Kael moved like liquid precision, every strike deliberate. Min-Jae swung clumsily but with heart, bashing at any limb that got too close.
When it was over, the creature lay twitching, its orange core flickering weakly in the puddles. Kael bent down, wiped his blade clean, and stood slowly.
"See?" he said. "You're getting the hang of it."
Min-Jae exhaled a shaky laugh. "I'm still shaking."
"That's good," Kael said. "Means you're still human."
They continued through the ruins — two survivors in a city devoured by its own evolution.
Behind them, thunder rolled again — but this time, it sounded like a growl.
Kael looked up. In the distance, barely visible through the clouds, a shape moved. Too large. Too fast.
He frowned. "That one's not like the rest."
Min-Jae followed his gaze — and felt his stomach drop.
It was tall. Far too tall.
Kael's grip tightened on the Alpha's core in his pocket. It pulsed once — as if responding.
He looked at the horizon and murmured, almost to himself,
"If that was a low-tier Alpha..."
He turned away as lightning struck, illuminating the monstrous silhouette crawling down the skyline.
"...then what's coming next will erase us all."