I don't know how long I've been here.
An hour? A day? A week?
I don't even care anymore.
It's still the same night — same sky, same cold air, same silence.
The moon hasn't moved an inch since that night.
Just sits there, bright and quiet, like it's watching me.
Probably enjoying the show, like it's got front-row seats.
Maybe it finds it funny, watching me run and kill like some dumb donkey chasing a carrot it'll never reach.
The stars don't even blink.
They just stare back, cold and far, like they already know I'll keep running anyway.
At first, I thought it was just me — too much blood, too much running, not enough sleep.
But then I saw it.
The trees, the grass, even the damn moonlight — all shifting, just a little, like the world was crawling forward at worm speed for no reason.
Every path curved back to where I started.
Every tree looked the same no matter how far I walked.
It wasn't spinning fast or anything… just quiet, slow — like the whole place was stuck replaying the same moment over and over.
They call it a spatial loop, right? That broken place where nothing moves no matter how far you walk.
I remember hearing something about it once — D-Night, physics breaking, getting replaced. Never cared then. Should've.
Light bends, time circles, ground folds over itself like some drunk god tried to patch it together and gave up halfway.
Yeah, I used to think that was just another dumb story teachers made up to scare newbies.
Yeah. Turns out they weren't kidding.
I stopped counting after the tenth kill.
At first it was Echo Wraiths — easy enough once you learned their fighting pattern.
What can I say? Even if they evolve, even if they grow a brain or two, they're still just otherworldly creatures.
Predictable.
And, after a while, they felt more like training dummies than threats.
Loud when they die, quiet when I devour them.
Then I met the Bone Crawlers.
Yeah, those freaks were a pain. Always came in packs, crawling out from cracks you'd swear weren't there a second ago.
They liked jumping you from behind — guess that's their hobby.
I'll admit, they gave me some trouble at first.
One wrong step, and they'd already be on your leg, chewing like it's dinner time.
And then there were those red-skinned otherworldly creature — the ones with four jaws that screamed like sirens right near your ears.
What were they called again?
Hmm… can't even remember. Probably because I kept shutting my eyes every damn time they opened those jaws.
They were annoying as hell. Every scream made the System screen blur, so half the fight I was swinging blind, trying to find their weak spot through the noise.
After that, things started to drag.
Each fight took longer than the one before.
Every damn time, I came out more tired, more cut up than I went in.
It wasn't fast anymore — not like before.
That's when I realized it — the jump between F-5 and F-6 isn't just one rank. It's a whole damn wall.
The difference hit harder than any claw. Figures — even power's got a class system.
F-5s were warm-up toys now, but F-6s? Every one of them was a damn nightmare.
Every swing took more out of me. Even killing them started feeling pointless.
And the F-7s… yeah, don't even get me started.
Three of those things nearly ripped me apart.
I had to run, patch myself up, come back swinging, again and again.
Two nights without sleep and that endless fight that wouldn't die.
But I didn't stop. I hunted them.
Didn't matter if one F-6 took hours or an F-7 took days.
I tracked them down, one after another — until there was nothing left of them.
I killed them.
I devoured them.
Not because I had to.
Because I wanted to. Not for mercy, not out of duty — because that pull in my chest wanted it, because it proved I was still here.
Every time I felt that pull — that deep drag in my chest — it was like something inside me whispered "more."
And I listened.
Because that pull… that heat crawling up my spine… that was the only thing that made me feel alive anymore.
I don't even know how many days passed after that.
Could've been three, could've been ten — I stopped counting.
Everything just started to blur together — the fights, the screams, the blood.
All the same noise, same heat, same silence after.
I don't even remember when I stopped sleeping. Maybe sometime between the seventh kill and the next sunrise that never came.
Then one night, I smelled it, it was the different scent.
I knew it the moment I smelled them.
Not otherworldly creature this time — humans.
Two, sometimes three. Moving too clean, breathing too steady to be hunters.
Assassins.
And every single one of them carried that same faint scent — hers.
Like she'd touched them once before sending them here, just to remind me who owned the knife aimed at my back.
At first I wanted answers. I pictured grabbing one by the collar, forcing the reason out of him. Why send F-5s to a newbie zone? Why my blood? Why Mei Lin?
But every time I opened my mouth, there was nothing left to ask.
They were gone before my first word landed — swallowed clean. No corpse, no core, no proof. Just emptiness where a body used to be.
Questions died with them.
By the seventh, I stopped wasting breath.
By the tenth, I stopped pretending it mattered.
What mattered was the look in their eyes when it happened. That flash — panic, the tiny stupid hope that maybe they'd get out of it. Watching that stupid hope snap like a twig, watching them realize they picked the wrong target — that was the point.
Make them see they were wrong to come for me. Make them feel every second of it.
So I stopped asking why. I made them pay instead.
I took their lives slow when I could — let the fear stretch, let the pleading get louder, let the last light leave their faces while my veins filled back up.
That rush when a life drains out and everything tightens inside me — that's what I chased. That's how I kept climbing.
F-5.
F-6.
F-7.
F-8.
F-9.
F-10.
Each one slower, harder, heavier.
But I kept moving.
Because what else was there to do but keep climbing?
I didn't even notice when it happened.
One second I was standing, the next the system screen popped up in front of me.
[ Rank Up: E-1 ]
[ Seed Growth: 637 ]
[ Threshold Reached — Abyssal Root Formation Initiated ]
Then it hit me — not pain like a cut or burn, no.
It was deeper.
Like something inside me woke up and decided my veins didn't belong to me anymore.
It started from the chest.
A slow crawl, hot and cold at the same time, slipping under the skin like it was alive.
I could feel it spreading — one line at a time — tearing, peeling, replacing.
My heart kicked once — hard enough to steal the air out of my lungs.
Then it stopped, hanging there in my chest like it forgot what to do next.
For a second, everything went quiet — no blood, no breath, just pressure building, swelling, like something inside me was winding up to break.
I glanced down and saw it — faint, dark line spreading under my skin, pulsing like they were alive.
Thin, black roots crawled out from the seed in my chest, digging through me like they'd been waiting for it.
I bit my tongue just to feel something human again, but all I tasted was nothing.
"Guess this is what change feels like," I muttered, half-laughing, half-shaking.
"Pain that doesn't ask for permission."
I dropped to my knees before I even realized it, fingers digging into the dirt.
Then the pain hit — sharp, crawling through every vein, like molten wire spreading from my heart outward.
I gasped, pressed my hand against my chest, and when that didn't help, I slammed my fist there — once, twice — desperate to feel it move again.
And then it did.
A single, deep thump — slower, heavier — echoing through me like it was learning how to beat all over again.
Then another window blinked open in front of my eyes.
[ Root Integration Complete — 1/9 ]
[ One vein successfully replaced by Abyss Root. ]
[ Circulatory conversion: 11% ]
[ New Authority Granted: Abyssal Silence ]
[ Effect: Creates a silent domain — all sound and vibration erased within 50m radius for 1 min. ]
[ Passive: Immune to sonic and mental interference. ]
[ Additional Effect: Targets below rank experience temporary sensory distortion and loss of balance. ]
I could feel it — that slow throb crawling under my skin, thick and heavy, like something waking up inside me.
The new vein pulsed on its own rhythm, ignoring my heart completely, moving slow… deliberate… alive.
And warm — no, cold-warm, but something deeper, darker. Like it's smiling back at you from the inside.
It climbed up my neck, behind my eyes, like something old had just woken up inside me.
Didn't even realize I said it till I heard my own voice.
"I'm awake again..."
My throat stung as I spoke.
"This world's been rotting too long… time to scrape it clean."
Arc 1 Finale — The Seed of the Abyss.