He was born in the world largest archipelagic country. The country that was known for how polite its locals were.

Many might think that if the locals were that polite, the life would also become easier. At least the number of karens who would attack you while on the road wouldn’t be that much.

But that was not true.

Life never be easy if you were not a child of a rich and powerful family. No matter wherever you live.

Sometimes, it would be way worse than anyone could imagine. And he was living proof of that.

The night wind of this country was not as freezing as sub-tropic countries. However, tonight, at this night where his life turned upside-down, the wind almost felt like it pierced through his skin.

Sighing, the man massaged his temples and sat down on a bench with a heavy thud. For others who were currently doing their own businesses on the park, he was only a regular man who had a slightly bad day with his gloomy face. However, only he knew the truth of how destroyed he was inside.

He had never cried again after his parents’ funeral. Until now.

His shoulders shook unnoticably, his sobs silent, but the pain was unbearable, breaking his very core.

​"Why...?"

​The murmur escaped his lips, barely a breath against the night air. He asked it once, twice, a hundred times—not to the strangers passing by the park, but to the people he had trusted with his life. The people who had stripped him of his dignity and abandoned him so utterly that the only thing he had left was his own shadow.

​He looked down at the pen in his hand. His fingers, trembling and cold, tightened around it. With a sudden, frantic motion, he brought it to his throat.

​Stab. Stab. Stab.

​There was no scream. Only the wet, gurgling sound of his breath failing as crimson fluid gushed over his hands, staining his clothes and the park bench. By the time someone noticed, he was gone—a limp, red heap of a man who had chosen to silence his own world.

​Then, the scene flickered. The blood vanished. The time rewound.

​He was back on the bench, the sharp object back in his hand. The pain in his heart was still fresh, the betrayal still burning. And in this hellish loop created by the Abyss, he chose the same exit.

​Again.

And again.

...

Meanwhile, at the real world.

Tizmilly lay Theo down carefully. Slowly, she stood up, the Waveblade in hand. Her eyes never leave Jahreon’s smirking face.

She approached him, taking steps forward, her back straightening with every steps taken. She channeled her mana into the bangle that was on her left wrist, giving herself an access to see the darkness world that was constructed by dark mana and miasma from the Abyss.

Her fingers were trembling, her heart raced so fast that she felt like her chest would explode the next second. Now she could see the darkness more clearly, more personally, she believed that only one word could describe it—terrifying. The center of it was hovering just above the gazebo. It looked like an eye that tearing the space itself, gazing over she and the world.

Then there was the magic circle. The dark mana was sucked into it, which attracted something from inside the tear. It was the race that once ruled over the world as the absolute supreme.

First it extended its leg out, followed by the rest of the body.

’Once upon a time, Humanity was forced to live an unfree life, shackled, and was nothing but livestock to them—those beings. Their bodies made of steel, their blood lava. No blade could scrath their skins. No warrior could handle their strength. We called them Demon. Why? Because we fear them.’

Tizmilly recalled about the ancient literature she had once read when she looked up and met eyes with the Demon. She almost couldn’t stop herself from falling. The pressure was overwhelming. Her breath stopped for a moment before she forced her lungs to continue inhaling more air. However, the act of breathing had became much more painful now, since the air had filled with sulfuric, hot air emanated from the Demon.

Seeing Tizmilly’s pale face, Jahreon extended his hand. "Now, take my hand, Tizmilly Fallburn."

Jahreon stepped forward, his hand still outstretched in a movement so calm, almost like a priest offering a blessing.

​"Take my hand, Tizmilly Fallburn," Jahreon repeated his offer, his voice now deeper, echoing over the Demon’s hot breath. "You have proven your worth. You shattered my illusions not with brute force, but with the will to face the harsh reality. That’s a rare quality in a world filled with timid sheep."

​He paused for a moment, his red eyes gleaming behind his spectacles.

"Look at yourself now. Standing trembling before the embodiment of the apocalypse just to protect a man who cannot even open his eyes. For what? For loyalty to those who discarded you? This kingdom, your family, your prince—they are all the architects of your suffering. They built walls around you only to bring them crashing down upon your head."

​Jahreon chuckled, a dry laugh devoid of any pity.

"This world has been rotten since its foundations were laid, Tizmilly. Justice is nothing more than a fairy tale told by winners to losers to keep them obedient. But with the Abyss... we can erase all those lies. We can return the world to a pure law: where the strong rule, and the honest need not be betrayed by disgusting noble protocols. Join me. We will be the hands that hold the scalpel to excise the cancer called civilization."

​Seeing Tizmilly remain unmoved, instead tightening her stance, Jahreon’s face gradually grew cold. His smile did not fade, but the false warmth within it vanished completely.

"Still refusing? Still choosing to be a tiny candle trying to fight the eternal darkness?" Jahreon pulled back his hand, letting out a long sigh as if he were a teacher disappointed in his favorite student. "What a pity. You had the potential to be a queen in the new world, yet you choose instead to become fertilizer for this withered garden."

​He turned his back on Tizmilly, pulling out the rusted brooch once more with a gesture of pure adoration.

"Then die as a hero who will never be remembered by anyone. This demon knows no mercy, and he quite enjoys the taste of fear from a pure soul like yours."

Finally, after a long silence, Tizmilly opened her lips. But what came out of her throat was not words, but laughter.

The laughter died down as the Demon took a step forward.

Tizmilly raised her sword. "Your world may be pure, Jahreon. But your world doesn’t have the smell of mushroom soup in the morning. And for that alone, you deserve to be stopped."

The air grew heavy, thick with the stench of brimstone and old blood. Tizmilly’s lungs burned; every breath felt like inhaling shards of hot glass. Before her stood a nightmare made of iron and malice—a Demon.

​It moved faster than her eyes could track. Clang!

​The impact was bone-shattering. Her Waveblade didn’t just clash with the Demon’s fist; it screamed under the pressure. Tizmilly was sent skidding across the stone-paved ground, her boots carving rills into the dirt. Her vision blurred, and a metallic taste filled her mouth.

​’I am alone,’ a voice in her head whispered. ’Just like that day at the Academy.’

​But then, she looked back at Theo’s unconscious form. No. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She wasn’t the lady waiting to be saved.

​"Theo..." she whispered.

​The Waveblade began to hum. A cold, ethereal blue light pulsed from the hilt, spreading like frost along the blade. It wasn’t the desperate mana of a victim, but the cold, sharp resolve of a woman who had finally found something worth fighting for.

...

Theo stood in the monochromatic void of his own trauma, staring at the ghost of the man he used to be. The man with the shredded throat and the empty eyes.

​"Do you really think something good will happen?" the ghost asked, its voice a wet, gurgling rasp. "You’re just a parasite in a new world, hiding behind a mask of indifference. You’re still just a coward waiting for the end."

​Theo clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white, then red as the skin broke. The debt, the betrayal, the cold bench in that lonely park—it all tried to swallow him again.

​"You’re right," Theo said, his voice flat but iron-clad. "The world is a dumpster fire. Kindness is a currency most people can’t afford. I don’t believe in karma, and I definitely don’t believe in heroes."

​He took a step forward, his shadow stretching long and dark across the void.

​"But I met someone who gave me a reason to keep the stove burning. A mother who didn’t care about the King’s wrath. A girl who was abandoned by everyone and still chose to learn how to chop garlic instead of giving up. If people like them exist... then maybe being alive isn’t such a mistake after all."