If you'd ask how I got into this hell whole ... literally. Okay to cut the long story short...
I wasn't born in a peaceful world.
The adults used to tell us stories about how things used to be...how long before we were born, the world was simple. Quiet. Humans powerless and weak.Then the rifts opened, and everything changed.
Demons poured into our realm. Spirit beasts from other dimensions crossed over. Cities fell in days. Mountains were split open. Entire regions turned into wastelands crawling with monsters.
People should've gone extinct.
But we didn't.
Humans awakened. Affinities—fire, water, metal, shadow, storm—burst into existence. Elemental clans formed. Cities turned into fortress-nations. Children like me were born into a world where monsters weren't fairy tales… they were neighbors outside the village walls.
Strength was the only language the world respected.
I grew up in the Crowhart Clan, small but respected. We lived deep in a forest valley, hidden behind mist and cliffs. Outsiders thought we were weak, simple, maybe even harmless.
But inside our home, the truth was different.
Every Crowhart child trained from the moment they could hold a stance. I was no exception. I learned martial arts before I learned how to write. I learned how to break bone before I learned how to count. My elders always said the same thing:
"A Crowhart survives. Even in death."
I didn't understand it then.
I was just a kid. I played with sticks. I chased fireflies. I tried to copy the techniques of the adults, even if they laughed at my tiny fists.
I thought life would stay that way forever.
But the world has a way of reminding children that it doesn't care about their dreams.
It happened at night.
I remember the smell of smoke first. Then the ground shook—heavy footsteps, like giants marching. At first, I thought it was a nightmare.
But when I ran out of my room…
The world was already burning.
Shadows in strange masks rushed into our homes. Their blades glowed with miasma. Their movements were too fast. Too precise. They were not ordinary assassins.
And behind them… demons.
Real demons. Horned, twisted, dripping with dark ichor. They tore through walls like they were made of paper. They roared so loud the air trembled.
"Kaizen! Run!"
That was the last thing my elder shouted before he pushed me away and faced a masked warrior twice his size.
I stumbled through the chaos. People I knew—neighbors, cousins, warriors—were fighting and falling. The air tasted like ash and iron. My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
I was just ten.
A child in a war he couldn't understand.
I didn't know where to run. I didn't know where my parents were. I didn't know why this was happening. The only thing I could do was run and hope—
A clawed hand grabbed my ankle.
I screamed as I was yanked backward.
A demon, taller than the others, horns curved like blades, eyes glowing with hunger. It dragged me across the dirt. My nails tore as I clawed at the ground.
"No—let me go! Let me go!" I sobbed.
The demon lifted me by the throat. Its breath smelled like burning corpses. Its claws tightened—
Then the air behind it… cracked.
Like glass breaking.
A rift split open, swirling with black energy and crimson mist. The demon snarled and stepped backward, dragging me with it. I kicked, punched, cried—none of it mattered.
The rift pulled us in.
Everything twisted. My ears rang. My vision blurred. The world stretched and folded.
Then everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes again… I wasn't in my world.
Not in my village.
Not anywhere safe.
I lay on a cracked, bleeding ground under a sky that flickered like dying fire. The air stung my skin. Shadows moved like predators.
The demon that dragged me here crawled closer, hungry.
I should have died there.
A ten-year-old child alone in hell.All I knew I had to survive, with the system guiding me I had to survive and if it meant killing this dirty bastard then I will kill till I get out this shit hole