Ash fell like snow in the dying world of Berafe.
Black flakes drifted down from a sky forever choked in smoke, a sky that hadn't shown a single star in over a thousand years. The air smelled of sulfur and rot, and the land writhed with monsters that knew only hunger and war.
Standing atop a broken hill of scorched bone and twisted steel, Yi Ji-Hyuk looked down at the battlefield below him — or what remained of it. The ground had been split open like a wound. Rivers of molten rock ran through it, glowing red beneath the corpses of dragons, demons, and things no tongue could name.
Silence.
There was no enemy left to kill. No breath left to hear. Just him.
Just the last survivor.
He exhaled, long and slow. His breath shimmered, not from cold — Berafe had no such thing — but from the ancient power pulsing through his veins. Power he never wanted. Power he earned through blood and madness.
A thousand years.
He had survived here alone for a thousand years. Not because he was chosen, or fated, or special. No gods guided him. No system protected him.
He survived because he was too stubborn to die.
He remembered Earth in fragments now — hot ramen on cold nights, the flicker of a television screen, the laughter of someone he once loved. All of it faded. Fuzzy. Unreal.
Berafe was real. Too real. Every second a fight for survival. Every moment a choice between becoming prey or predator.
He chose predator.
The monsters had laughed at him when he first arrived. A weak human. No mana. No skill. Just meat.
That didn't last long.
He learned to kill fast — to burn their eyes before they saw him, to rip their limbs before they could scream. He devoured their cores, stole their power, and buried his humanity with every corpse.
Now he stood alone, not because he was hunted…
But because everything that could hunt him was already dead.
Lightning cracked in the distance, lighting up the sky with a sickly green flash. The dead lands stretched endlessly in all directions, an eternal graveyard of his own making.
And then… it appeared.
A ripple in the air. Small, quiet. A circle of golden light, no larger than a coin at first, expanding outward like the eye of God opening in the darkness.
He didn't flinch.
He just stared.
A portal.
His way out.
He had searched for it for centuries, fighting deeper into Berafe's heart, crushing every creature between him and freedom. He had almost stopped believing it existed.
And yet, here it was.
His heart didn't race. He didn't smile. He had long forgotten how.
He stepped forward. The portal glowed brighter, humming as if it recognized him. Maybe it did. Maybe the world itself was finally offering mercy.
Or maybe it was a trap.
He didn't care.
Whatever waited on the other side had to be better than this.
With a final glance at the dead world he'd conquered, Yi Ji-Hyuk walked through the portal.
He emerged into darkness again — but this time, it was warm.
Rain pattered softly on his shoulders. The air was wet and clean. Neon signs flickered overhead in pink and green. A car honked somewhere nearby. Music played from a store window.
Seoul.
He was back.
He stood on a street corner, barefoot, wearing the tattered remnants of his Berafe armor. No one screamed. No one even noticed him. Just another strange man in the rain.
He tilted his head.
The scent of cooking oil. The sound of phones buzzing. The glowing screen of a nearby ad for a new smartphone.
Earth. Unchanged. Unaware.
He took a step forward. His foot pressed against the pavement. Solid. Real.
He exhaled — and for the first time in centuries, it didn't smell like blood.
But he could still feel it.
The power inside him hadn't left. It whispered beneath his skin, a thousand voices from a thousand monsters he had slain. It was part of him now, stitched into his soul like a scar.
He closed his eyes.
"I'll hide it," he whispered.
He didn't need power here. He didn't want to fight anymore. No more monsters. No more war. Just a quiet life. A job, maybe. A small apartment. Food that didn't bite back.
He could pretend. He could blend in.
He could be normal.
But even as he stood there, letting the rain wash over him, he felt it — the crackle in the air, the subtle pressure of something… watching.
Berafe had let him go, yes.
But it hadn't forgotten him.
Something had crossed over with him.
He opened his eyes, now glowing faintly red for just a moment — and smiled for the first time in centuries.
So much for peace.
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