[Old Industrial Zone – Midnight]
The black car's tires shrieked as they skidded across the gravel, coming to a violent halt in the center of an abandoned factory's vast courtyard. Looming rusted steel skeletons rose into the pitch-black sky like the ribs of monsters dead for centuries. The wind howled through the gaps in the decaying walls—sounds like the wails of ghosts.
I stopped ten meters behind them. My shoes carved a trench into the dirt from the sheer force of my sudden deceleration. Everything froze. A heavy, viscous, and suspicious silence settled. The car doors remained shut. The engine died. The darkness was absolute, pierced only by the sound of my ragged, furious breathing—rising like white steam in the cold—and the blood roaring in my ears like a waterfall.
"Get out..." I growled in a voice I didn't recognize. A demonic, gravelly voice crawling from the depths of hell. "Get out so I can tear you apart, piece by piece."
Suddenly—CLACK! The sound of a massive industrial breaker being flipped.
BZZZZZT! In a split second, the midnight dark turned into a blinding, painful artificial noon. Dozens of massive floodlights mounted on cranes and rooftops focused on me at once. I raised my arm to shield my glowing eyes from the white circle that trapped me.
From the shadows, the earth began to tremble. There weren't just three. From behind rusted containers, from the broken factory gates, and from the high roofs, they emerged. An entire army of filth. Gangsters with tattooed faces, mercenaries in filthy fatigues, hitmen wielding gleaming machetes, iron pipes, and crude firearms. I couldn't count them. Hundreds... maybe more. A sea of faces distorted by hate and greed, eyes gleaming like hyenas surrounding a wounded prey.
The ranks parted in the center, and Kang stepped forward. He wore a fresh bandage on his nose, swaggering amidst his guards. He stood behind a human wall of behemoths, a triumphant grin splitting his face.
"Welcome to the real party, Ray!" Kang shouted, his voice intoxicated with power as he spread his arms. "Did you really think you could hunt us, hit us, and just go home to sleep? Did you think you were a hero in a movie?" He pointed a finger at the filthy ground beneath my feet. "This is your new home... this is your grave!"
I slowly lowered my arm. I ignored the blinding lights. I ignored the numbers. I looked at them. I remembered my father's charred hand holding my mother's. I remembered the house that echoed with laughter hours ago, now a heap of ash. The voice in my head rose to a deafening roar that shook my very being: (Kill them... all of them... leave no witness... erase them from history!)
I opened my eyes wide. They were unaffected by the floodlights. Instead, they radiated their own crimson light, leaving a trail of blood-red energy in the air with every movement of my head. "Grave?" I smiled. It was a terrifying smile, cutting across my face like a wound, baring my teeth. "Yes... it is a grave." I took one step forward. "But not for me."
Kang's expression flickered. He felt the pressure. He screamed at the top of his lungs: "Kill him!! Whoever brings me his head gets double the pay!"
"CHARGE!" hundreds of men screamed in unison, and the human flood surged toward me. Weapons gleamed; savage roars filled the air.
I didn't retreat. I didn't take a defensive stance. I exploded toward them.
[THE MASSACRE BEGINS]
It wasn't a fight. It was a butchery. The first man to reach me swung a rusted machete. Before his hand could fall, I lunged, driving my open right hand into the center of his chest. My fingers pierced through flesh and ribcage, tearing out the other side. I ripped his heart out before his brain could realize he was dead. I used his corpse as a human shield to block an iron pipe, then hurled the body with monstrous strength, crushing three men behind him into a heap of broken bones.
I moved with a speed invisible to the human eye. I was a red ghost in the dark. I grabbed a head and, with a simple flick of my wrist, shattered it against the concrete floor like an egg. I seized an arm holding a knife, ripped it from the shoulder, and beat the owner with it until he fell. Blood sprayed like fountains, staining the dirt floor deep crimson, coating my face, my hair, and my shredded clothes.
"Open fire! Kill the monster!" The thunder of gunfire erupted. RATATATATATA! Bullets tore into my body. I felt them shredding my flesh, piercing my shoulder, my thigh, my stomach. But... I didn't stop. The pain was there, but it was distant, as if happening to someone else. I looked at a wound on my arm. The bullet didn't stay inside. My muscles moved on their own, pushing the lead out, before the wound sealed shut with a hiss of white steam. [INSTANT REGENERATION: ACTIVE]
The killers began to scream in terror. They recoiled as they saw bullets falling from my body like raindrops. "He won't die! He's a devil!" "Run!"
They tried to flee, but I was faster than their fear. I leaped high into the air, over their heads, and crashed into the center of the cluster. I struck the ground with my fist using every ounce of my strength. BOOM! A shockwave of dust and raw force exploded in a ten-meter radius, shattering the bones of everyone in range and tossing them aside like broken dolls.
I walked through the devastation. I reached Kang. He was crawling on the ground, trying to hide under the black car, his face covered in dirt and tears. I grabbed him by the leg and dragged him out coldly. "No! No! Please!" Kang sobbed, a wet stain spreading across his pants. "I was a fool! Take the money! Take everything! My father will pay you millions! Please don't kill me!"
I lifted him into the air by his throat with one hand, his feet kicking the air in vain. I brought my blood-stained face close to his. "My mother... and my father..." I whispered in a voice low and terrifying. "Did you give them a chance to beg? Did you listen to their screams as they burned?"
His eyes bulged; he realized the end was inevitable. I grabbed his shoulder with my other hand. I placed my foot on his chest. "Go to hell." I pulled. I heard the sound of tearing tissue and the snapping of the spine. I tore him apart in cold blood and threw his remains to the dirt.
I turned to the rest, who were frozen in horror. I didn't stop. I didn't stop until total silence reigned. Until the courtyard turned into a swamp of blood and piled corpses.
I stood amidst the dead. I was alone. The clothes I had bought for the trip were nothing but blood-soaked rags. My breath came in ragged, bloody wheezes. The massive doses of rage, the constant regeneration from hundreds of bullets, and the prolonged use of the "Eyes"... had drained every drop of energy from my body. The world began to darken and spin. My knees hit the viscous ground. I fell on my face. I could no longer move a finger.
"RAY!!"
A distant voice... familiar... filled with genuine horror. I tried to open an eye glued shut by blood. I saw rotating blue and red lights—police cars—filling the area. I saw Jin running toward me, leaping over the mangled bodies, indifferent to the blood staining his shoes. His face was pale as death. Behind him, I saw three heavily armed officers stop dead... leaning over to vomit at the sheer horror of the massacre.
Jin reached me. He slid on his knees in the blood, gently flipping me onto my back. "Ray! Oh my god! Ray!" he screamed, shaking me, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood on mine. He pressed his ear to my mangled chest. "He's... he's not breathing! The pulse is so weak! His heart stopped!" He looked up at the police and screamed in a voice that would break any heart: "AMBULANCE!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! HELP HIM!! PLEASE!!"
I looked at Jin's sobbing face. It was blurry... fading... "Jin..." I tried to move my lips. I wanted to tell him to run. To not look at me like this. That I was sorry for staining his world. But the darkness was faster. My eyelids closed. The sound stopped. The pain stopped. Time stopped. "Am I dead?" I thought with a strange peace. "Finally... I will see them."
[THE VOID]
I opened my eyes. I wasn't in a hospital. I wasn't in the factory courtyard. I was in an absolute black void. No earth, no sky, no stars, no body. Just a consciousness floating in nothingness.
"I died..." I said to myself. "This is the end."
But... suddenly... the darkness was pierced by a blinding, vertical blue light. A giant square window appeared floating before me in the void, resembling a game UI, but radiating a divine and terrifying aura.
Words were written in clear, digital white font:
[Physical Body: Completely Destroyed.][Psychological State: Compatible with Chaos Criteria.][Conditions for "The Perfect Candidate" met.]
And beneath it... a single question blinked, waiting for my answer to determine the fate of my soul:
[Do you want to start Tutorial Mode?][ YES / NO ]
I looked at the word. I remembered Jin's tears... I remembered the world that robbed me of my family... I remembered my weakness against the fire. If there was training... any training... that would give me the power to return and burn this unjust world once more... I wanted it. Even if the price was my soul.
I reached out my hand (formed from blue light) toward the word [YES].
[ACCEPTED.][TRANSFERRING TO: THE SIX GATES.][1]
[1] https://imgur.com/a/9uRTJXN