There was no horizon anymore.

  No sky.

  The world had collapsed into a single circle, only a few meters wide—and at its center stood one man.

  Beyond the boundary of that circle stretched the Sea.

  Not water, but a flood of flesh, bone, and malice.

  Endless monsters churned within it—creatures carved from forgotten nightmares. Some wore metallic scales like living armor; others bore jagged bones protruding from their bodies like blades. Countless hungry eyes glimmered in the suffocating darkness, sparks of sulfurous light. Their collective roar shook the ground—a deep, crushing sound that felt as though existence itself was slowly tearing apart.

  And in the middle of it all, amid mountains of corpses that nearly brushed the blackened clouds…

  …stood Noah.

  He stood not like a fragile reed, but like an unyielding mountain.

  His greatsword, its edge still razor-sharp despite countless battles, was embedded in the ground. He did not lean on it out of weakness—he gripped it as if anchoring the world itself in place. His heavy black armor, forged from rare alloys that knew no fracture, was drenched in layers of blood and viscera. Yet not a single scratch marred its surface.

  His chest heaved violently. Every breath tore from his lungs with a scorched rasp, as if he were inhaling molten fire. His body screamed—every muscle fiber begged him to fall, to close his eyes for just one second…

  But his gaze remained sharp, piercing the darkness like an additional blade.

  Then, the markings moved.

  Black, sunken lines slithered across his skin like living serpents—coiling around his neck, branching down his arms, sinking into the hilt of his sword. They were not mere tattoos, but both shackle and power, pulsing with a bleak violet glow. With every pulse, Noah’s face grew paler, as if those markings were devouring his very essence in exchange for each fragment of strength they granted him.

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  Despite exhaustion enough to annihilate armies, an overwhelming presence radiated from him.

  The presence of a man who had grown so familiar with annihilation that even death itself hesitated to approach.

  Suddenly, the silence before the storm shattered.

  A cold voice pierced through the air—not a sound carried by wind, but one that stabbed directly into his consciousness, bypassing the roar of the monsters entirely. A dry, emotionless voice, as if it rose from an abyss where life itself had never existed.

  【 Target Detected 】

  【 Notification from the Void 】

  [Forced Mission]

  Objective: Eliminate all hostile units.

  Reward: Survival.

  Failure: Annihilation.

  Noah stared at the words floating within his mind.

  He didn’t blink.

  There was no room for anger—anger was a luxury reserved for those not clawing at the edge of death. His face remained utterly expressionless, cold and still like a corpse’s. Only his eyes moved, hyper-focused, mechanically calculating the gaps within the advancing tide.

  “Annihilation…” he muttered, his voice hoarse, grinding like stone against stone.

  His hand tightened around the hilt—not out of pride, nor for spectacle, but because the sword was his only lifeline.

  There was no arrogance keeping him upright. He simply understood one truth:

  To bow here was to be crushed beneath countless feet.

  And he had not survived all that horror—

  only to fall now.

  He slowly raised his head and looked upon the endless sea of monsters.

  He did not see them as enemies in an epic tale—

  he saw them as vile obstacles standing between him and the next breath he desperately wanted to draw.

  A smile formed beneath Noah’s mask.

  Not a smile of pride, but a feral baring of fangs—

  the smile of a man who had nothing left to lose except his life,

  and was willing to burn the entire world just to keep it.

  “You want me dead?” he said, ripping his sword from the ground, his eyes already searching for the shortest path to slaughter.

  “Then try harder…

  let’s see who dies first.”

  The black engravings ignited—not like a sacred blessing,

  but like a parasite gnawing at his flesh to grant him power.

  And in the moment the tide surged forward,

  Noah did not step ahead to die with honor—

  He charged forward

  to pierce through death itself

  and reach the other side.

  …

  Three years earlier.

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