"Haha! Look at this!" A man sat on a bed, his posture relaxed as if mocking the tension in the room. His legs were spread apart, leaving space for the woman kneeling between them.
Across from them, her boyfriend watched the scene with bloodshot eyes, his jaw tight, body trembling with rage. He tried to move forward, but the man's bodyguard held him down easily, one hand pressing against his shoulder while the other kept him steady, forcing him to witness everything without being able to intervene.
"You bastard! Let her go, your anger is with me!" the boyfriend cried out, straining with all his strength to break free. The bed creaked as the man frowned slightly, his expression shifting from amusement to mild irritation at the noise.
"Is that so? Am I forcing you?" he asked the girl, turning his head toward her.
She instantly shook her head, her movements quick and firm, then threw her boyfriend a hateful glare, her eyes sharp and filled with disgust as she met his gaze.
"Shut up. We're not going out anymore… just mind your own business," she said sharply, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. The words hit harder than any physical blow, leaving the boyfriend frozen in disbelief. His expression fell apart completely, his thoughts scattering as he struggled to process what he'd just heard.
His eyes went blank, his mind refusing to accept the scene unfolding before him. Just yesterday, she had been his girlfriend—someone who smiled beside him, someone he thought loved him. And now, today, she was kneeling before his older brother, the very man who had made his life growing up, the same man she had said she hated... What was this? What had their relationship turned into overnight?
What followed was something that carved itself deep into his memory, scarring him for life. He could only watch as his girlfriend did things to his brother that she had never done for him. The sound of her slow, drawn-out moans filled the room, each one twisting his insides further, tearing apart what little pride he had left as his world collapsed in silence.
***
A young man with lifeless eyes awoke from his nightmare—an echo of the past that had scarred and haunted him for years. The same memory replayed again and again, each time leaving him with the same emptiness when he opened his eyes.
Dragging himself out of bed, he began to dress for the day with slow, mechanical movements. Another morning, another routine. He'd go to work, come home, and do nothing. The cycle repeated endlessly, each day bleeding into the next without meaning. Sometimes he wondered why he still bothered. Maybe he should have ended it long ago. But he couldn't—not while the people who had ruined him were still alive. The thought of them breathing while he rotted 6 feet under was enough to keep him going.
And then, there was still one person left in his life. Someone he couldn't bring himself to hurt, no matter how far he'd fallen. That small restraint was all that kept him from crossing the line completely.
Letting out a quiet sigh, he slipped on his jacket and headed out. As he walked, he pulled out his phone and began scrolling through apps, trying to find something to distract him. His favorite novel had been dropped months ago, leaving a hollow space in his small routine. Now, searching for a new story felt harder than he expected.
"What a pain," he muttered softly, scrolling through the screen without finding a single novel that caught his interest. Nothing felt right. He tried a few here and there, giving them a chance, but the more he read, the more his patience thinned. Some authors dragged things out so much it felt unbearable. How could a single day stretch into more than twenty chapters of the main character wandering around, doing meaningless things that added nothing to the plot?
He sighed and switched to another title, one he used to love. For a while, it had been perfect—the pacing, the world-building, everything. But somewhere along the line, it had lost its spark. The story started spending too much time away from the main character, to the point that the protagonist felt like a guest in his own tale.
How does the main character become a side character? How does a story go more than fifty chapters without the person it's supposed to be about? It made no sense. If readers were skipping fifty or more chapters because the focus was stuck on unimportant side characters who barely influenced the plot, then clearly something had gone wrong.
He hated romance novels. To him, love was nothing more than something that could be easily bought—a feeling that lost all meaning once money entered the picture. He knew this truth from experience. The woman who had once been his entire world had thrown him aside without hesitation, choosing his brother the very moment he was disowned by their parents.
She hadn't been like that at first. Back then, she seemed different—humble, grounded, someone who carried a quiet sense of pride and self-respect. But that image shattered the moment wealth came into play. With enough money, even she could be bought.
Love didn't exist, not in the real world. Everything had a price, and everyone had their number. Only in stories could people still dream about love, crafting fantasies where loyalty and emotion meant something. But that was all they were—dreams, written by those who still believed in things he no longer could.
Everyone had a price. People liked to pretend otherwise, claiming no amount of money or temptation could make them cheat—but that was either a lie or pure foolishness. He knew that better than anyone; he had once been that fool himself.
Would you still say no if the person of your dreams stood before you—real, tangible, and offering themselves without hesitation? Would you still refuse if everything you ever wanted, everything you ever wished for, could be yours with one choice?
Would you break the heart of the one who loved you more than life itself for those things? If you said yes, then at least you were being honest. But if you said no, then you just hadn't discovered your price yet. You were either lying to yourself… or a fool, just like he once was.
It was the year 2031. Six years ago—on September 13th, to be exact—the world ended. That was the day everything changed, when Earth collided with another universe and the two worlds began to devour each other piece by piece. Nothing had been the same since.
At that time, humanity had been hopelessly outnumbered. Earth was the only planet with living beings, while the other universe was overflowing with life, teeming with creatures and entities far greater in number. Humanity's survival seemed impossible.
In one final attempt to endure the chaos, the universe itself acted. To help humanity adapt, almost everyone received a system—a system designed to give them a chance. Some gained simple elemental systems like the Fire System, others inherited darker ones, such as the Death System, while a few were given unique and powerful systems that stood apart from the rest.
This allowed humanity to fight back, to slaughter the invading races, and to devour the foreign universe in order to strengthen their own and survive. From that point onward, humanity's growth became unstoppable. With the gifts the universe had given them, their strength surged beyond imagination, and for the first time, they began to look toward the stars not with fear—but with ambition. Humanity waited eagerly, anticipating the next universe that would one day collide with their own.
Now, in this year, humanity was ready to take the next step. They would venture into outer space for real—starting with Mars. Plans were already underway to make the red planet livable, a foundation for expanding further across the solar system once the project succeeded.
But not everyone shared in that future. The young man who now walked among them had been disowned by his family, cast aside as worthless. While nearly everyone gained a system and a place in this new world, he had received nothing.
So, he was disowned—and since his elder brother had always hated him, it eventually led to the event from his nightmare becoming reality.
"Why am I still going?" he muttered, stopping outside for a moment. The cold air brushed against his face, but it didn't wake him from the heaviness that clung to his chest. Honestly, what was the point? What did he hope to accomplish by continuing to live? Inside and out, he was already broken. There was nothing left worth fighting for.
His hands slowly clenched into fists as he stood there, motionless, lost in thought. For a brief moment, he felt the faintest spark of anger—at the world, at himself, at everything that had led him here. Then it faded just as quickly. With a quiet exhale, he forced himself to keep walking, his steps heavy as he made silent plans to end it all before the day was over.