Chapter 1 — SHATTERED DAWN
The sun hadn't risen yet.
The world was suspended in that eerie, breathless moment before dawn — a thin sliver of time where even the wind seemed afraid to move.
A cold stillness clung to everything, like frost on a corpse.
A lone boy sprinted through an abandoned park, breath spilling from his lips in pale, trembling clouds.
Not tall — barely 155 centimeters — but there was a sharp, almost feral tension in the way he moved.
A body shaped by hunger.
A mind shaped by fear.
Tired brown eyes.
Pale skin stretched over sharp bones.
Messy black curls bouncing with every desperate step.
Clothes too simple to hide the truth.
Yeah.
That boy was me.
My life had never resembled anything close to childhood.
No warmth.
No safety.
No comfort.
Just the constant, exhausting effort of not dying.
When I turned twelve, my family discarded me like a defective tool.
Not because they were starving.
Not because they were desperate.
But because I had stopped being "useful."
That's the kind of world this is.
You might ask, Who abandons
twelve ‑year‑old?
Here?
Anyone with a pulse and a reason.
My parents never wanted a son.
They wanted a commodity — a child they could sell to demons or humans, whichever paid more.
In this world, children are traded like livestock: slaves, workers, sacrifices.
Demons exist.
And no, humans and demons aren't allies.
They cooperate only through contracts — marks burned into your flesh, granting access to demon lands.
My parents had those marks.
I didn't.
Not because I refused.
But because I wasn't worth the ink.
Since I was five, they forced me to work on their farm.
I slept on hay.
Ate scraps barely fit for animals.
Spent my days cutting demon plants that grew teeth if you touched them wrong.
I was "lucky," I suppose.
They didn't let me form a contract yet — they wanted to sell me when I was older.
What they didn't know was that I was deceiving them from the start.
I wasn't as weak as I pretended to be.
But the moment I realized they planned to sell me, I began acting useless.
If they thought I had potential, I'd be forced into a contract or sold early.
If they thought I was trash, they'd ignore me.
So I became trash.
Pretending didn't stop the hunger, though.
Bones wrapped in skin.
Water only after finishing every task.
If I was thirsty before that?
Too bad.
Eventually, I made myself look weak enough — fragile, dying.
That's when they decided to get rid of me.
They dragged me to an ancient portal — a relic from the last war, unstable and unpredictable.
A perfect place to dispose of unwanted things.
They activated it with demon energy…
And threw me in.
Light shattered.
The world twisted.
And I landed in the heart of a ruined city.
You might wonder how I survived.
Simple.
I wasn't born in this world.
I was reincarnated here.
My old life had been painfully ordinary — peaceful, predictable, boring.
I thought I'd be some hero like in a webtoon.
Yeah.
No.
The moment I saw my "parents," I knew something was wrong.
Ten hours of labor every day.
Training at night.
Studying whatever books I could steal.
Two mattered:
Monstra Encyclopedia.
Sword Art Guide.
I memorized them.
Then I deceived my parents one last time…
And they threw me away.
The Ruined Zone was a graveyard of civilization.
Buildings sliced in half, as if some colossal blade had carved through them.
Walls devoured by black‑and‑white mold that pulsed like a parasitic organism.
Streets littered with shattered stone, twisted metal, and dried blood.
The air thick with the metallic scent of decay.
Monsters roamed everywhere.
If you made a sound, you'd die.
So naturally, I screamed.
"Fuck! Finally out of that hell!"
Brilliant.
The echo hadn't even faded when something stirred behind a fractured wall.
A Shadow Wolf emerged — two meters tall, wrapped in black fur that swallowed the light.
Its eyes glowed with predatory hunger, twin embers burning in the darkness.
Mana leaked from its body like cold smoke, distorting the air around it.
My blood froze.
My legs didn't.
I ran.
Cold air sliced into my lungs like broken glass.
Every breath burned, every step echoed through the shattered street.
The ground beneath my feet was uneven — fractured stone, twisted metal, shards of glass — but I didn't have the luxury of watching where I stepped.
Behind me, the wolf crashed through debris with terrifying momentum.
A low growl rolled across the ruins, vibrating in my bones.
The sound alone felt heavy enough to crush me.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears, fast and frantic, like a drum announcing my execution.
The ruined city blurred around me — skeletal buildings leaning like dying giants, walls devoured by mold, windows shattered into jagged teeth.
Shadows stretched across the ground, long and distorted, as if the darkness itself was reaching for me.
I risked a glance over my shoulder.
The wolf was closing in.
Too fast.
Way too fast.
Instinct took over.
I threw myself to the side, boots skidding across broken stone.
The creature shot past me, unable to halt its own momentum.
The shockwave of its passing nearly knocked me off my feet.
I staggered, caught myself, and forced my legs to move again.
Every muscle trembled, every nerve screamed, but I pushed forward — weaving between collapsed walls, ducking under fallen beams, slipping through narrow gaps where the wolf couldn't immediately follow.
I dove into a destroyed house — no roof, walls full of holes, but enough shadows to disappear into.
Then I remembered something important.
Shadow Wolves had night vision.
And a sense of smell that covered five kilometers. Perfect.
"Shit…" I muttered.
But I didn't give up.
I had food — raw demon chicken my parents gave me.
At least they weren't completely heartless.
I set up a trap.
Skewered the meat.
Lit a small fire.
Crawled into a hole in the wall.
Found a heavy stone.
Then I waited.
The wolf's aura approached — cold, suffocating.
My heartbeat hammered in my ears.
This was my first monster kill.
The wolf sniffed the air.
Stepped closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Then it lunged at the food.
I pushed the stone.
A crack.
A thud.
The wolf collapsed.
I jumped out and swung my sword — the one I'd stolen from my parents.
The blade sank into the wolf's neck.
Warm blood splashed across my hands.