I stood in the middle of a red desert, staring at the horizon. There, reaching all the way to the blood-colored sky, rose a wall of dust. It wasn't just approaching—it was hurtling toward us, spitting out fragments of snarls and the screech of claws in every direction.

  Aya jumped up, her tail lashing nervously from side to side. Alastor tensed, his four hands convulsively clenching into fists.

  To my left, I felt a prickly, hungry gaze. Some mangy corpse, looking more like a walking skeleton wrapped in dry parchment, lunged at me with its maw hanging open. I didn't even turn. I simply held out my palm in its direction.

  POOF.

  A pillar of flame erupted from my fingers, instantly turning the dead thing into a pile of gray ash. But that was only the beginning.

  The sky overhead suddenly darkened. A massive, bluish hand emerged from the clouds and attempted to slam me into the red earth.

  POP.

  Teleport five meters to the side. While the hand’s inertia sent it crashing into the rocks, I used one short sweep of mana to slice through space right at its wrist. The limb fell off with a dull, wet thud and lay still, oozing something black.

  "What is this garbage?" I muttered. "They just keep coming."

  "That is Hell," Alastor responded hollowly, fending off the crowding shadows. "Here, you either eat or you are eaten, and it never ends."

  The dust storm covered us in a second. We found ourselves in the center of a living vortex. Hundreds of small creatures flickered around us—toothed, clawed, eyeless, but driven by pure killing instinct. They tried to get to my skin, gnawing at my clothes.

  I reached out into the gray haze, felt a throat, and squeezed.

  CRUNCH.

  The sweet sound of snapping vertebrae resonated within me with a strange vibration. Inside, somewhere at the very center of my Void, something stretched pleasantly and woke up.

  "You know what?" I felt my lips stretch into a predatory grin. "I’m starting to like this world."

  My eyes flared scarlet, pushing out the last remnants of human calm.

  "HA-HA-HA! YES! THIS WORLD IS SIMPLY MAGNIFICENT!"

  I took a step and simply vanished. I materialized ten meters above the ground, teleporting a massive black carcass—a cross between a rat and a hyena—to my position.

  STRIKE!

  I put the entire weight of my body into a knee strike. The creature's spine snapped; it let out a pathetic squeak, and without letting go, I sent a stream of fire directly into its vitals. It exploded from the inside, showering the sand with burning tatters.

  "HA-HA-HA-HA! YES! YES! MORE!"

  Dozens of monsters began to converge on me from all sides. Big ones, small ones, winged ones, and crawling ones—they felt me.

  "YES! COME ON! ATTACK ALL AT ONCE!" I roared, throwing my arms wide. "Show me everything you're capable of!"

  The creatures climbed from every direction in an endless, swarming flow. YES! YES! YES!

  I grabbed a giant centipede by the tail. It writhed and tried to inject venom into me, but I just started swinging it over my head, using it like living nunchucks.

  CRACK! BAM! BAM!

  I cleared a space for myself, smearing the lesser imps with the carcass of their kinsman. When the caterpillar finally went limp, I slammed it onto the ground. My palm heated up to a white glow. I pressed my hand against its chitin, searing a brand into it.

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  "SPREAD MY NAME ACROSS THESE LANDS!" I screamed. "ZENHALD!"

  I kicked the remains of the creature, sending them on a long flight over the horizon. Let them know who has come to visit.

  Perhaps this madness lasted a month. Or maybe a whole century.

  "HA-HA-HA! YES!"

  With one blow, I shattered a being made of liquid darkness. My body. It was burning. It was radiant from the overflowing mana. I was a living torch in this realm of shadows.

  At some point, I stopped and looked around.

  Emptiness.

  There was no one around. Only red dust and fragments of rock.

  "WHAT THE...? WHERE IS EVERYONE?! WHERE ARE MY OPPONENTS?!"

  Silence was the answer. Silence.

  And then, like a blunt, rusty nail, a question pierced my brain:

  Where am I? How did I get here?

  I began to walk forward slowly. My thoughts were tangled, scattering like sparks. In my skull, like a stuck record, only one word spun:

  Death. Death. Death...

  I walked on foot, not following any path. My boots crunched over bones that had once been demons. Every time anything living appeared in my field of vision, I lunged into an attack.

  But for some reason, everyone ran away.

  I felt their fear. The creatures that used to consider themselves masters of this place now panicked at the sight of my silhouette on the horizon, scurrying into crevices or jumping into lava rivers.

  "HA-HA-HA!" I burst out laughing, and the sound was more terrifying than any roar. "They're afraid... they're afraid of me! Yes! Run! Hide!"

  How much time had passed? A year? Ten? An eternity?

  It was crowded in my head. Thousands of voices screamed, argued, and interrupted each other.

  No, you're wrong! What do you know?! HA-HA-HA! Funny, how incredibly funny...

  I looked around. No one was near. Only red dust and silence.

  "Oops," I bared my teeth. "Seems I'm talking to myself. Although... I'm not alone here, right?"

  The voices in the back of my head fell silent in unison. No answer followed. Rude bastards.

  A shimmering centipede ran past—a bright spot in this gray world. I appeared before it before it could realize it was time to turn. One snap—and the creature popped, flying apart into thousands of glowing drops.

  In those drops, suspended in the air, I saw my reflection.

  I immediately pressed my palm to the ground, creating water to get a better look at myself.

  A monster stared back at me from the mirror-like surface.

  My hair had turned white, like freshly fallen snow. One eye was a piercing light blue, clear and empty. The other was a gruesome mess of a black abyss and blood-red veins.

  "Ha-ha!" I poked a finger at the reflection. "Who are you? What kind of monster is this?"

  Silence. The reflection didn't answer.

  "Just look at yourself... look at what you've become," a mocking voice sounded behind my back.

  I turned around. Standing a few meters away was that same kid. White hair, black eyes—the Demon of Hunger.

  "Look at what you're doing because of your hunger," he swept his hand toward the mountains of ash around us. "You're even worse than the thousands of people you devoured. You are an absolute parasite."

  I got bored. I simply waved my hand.

  BANG.

  The kid's head flew apart like a ripe watermelon. But blood didn't flow from his neck. Instead, a thick, dark liquid began to erupt, immediately starting to gather into a pulsing, formless mass.

  The living darkness rushed at me. I raised a fiery barrier, but the ground beneath my feet simply exploded. I soared upward, and at that moment, that giant hand emerged from the blood-red clouds again.

  POP.

  Teleport. I severed the limb with spatial mana, but Hunger had already appeared behind my back. His strike was fast and heavy. The shockwave knocked the air out of my lungs. I jumped through space again, materializing to the side, but his black sludge managed to touch my shoulder.

  I immediately froze that spot.

  CRACK.

  Shards of ice, along with part of his essence, showered down.

  ZIP.

  A sharp pain pierced my stomach. I looked down—a black blade was protruding from my flesh.

  "PREY..." a voice whispered somewhere in the shadows.

  I grabbed the blade with my hand, feeling the steel cut my fingers, and simply snapped it in half.

  "I've had enough of you..." I growled.

  Hunger and Shadow began to crowd me. They flickered from all sides, blocking the exits.

  "WHAT?! YOU'RE CROWDING ME?! I'LL..."

  KABOO-OO-OM!

  The earth shuddered from my scream. I landed in the center of a crater, preparing for another round. My enemies were already flying toward me, ready to finish me off, when suddenly... they froze.

  The Demon of Hunger slowly lowered his hands. His violet body trembled.

  "Oh, crap..." he whispered.

  I turned around.

  From the horizon, something was slowly advancing toward us. A massive dark cloud. A thick, dead fog that didn't just block the light—it swallowed it. Such cold emanated from this fog that it felt as if time itself within a kilometer radius was starting to slow down.

  "What's wrong with you?" I bared my teeth, looking at the demons. "Are you afraid of it? It's just fog!"

  "Death..." was all I heard in their collective whisper. "The Primordial is here... Let's get out of here!"

  They began to dissolve in space, trying to escape.

  "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! I'M NOT FINISHED!"

  My right palm glowed with a blinding white light. I lunged forward, grabbing Hunger and Shadow by the scruff of their necks. The moment I touched them, they hissed horribly—my mana was burning them.

  "HA-HA-HA!" I gripped them with a death grip, not letting them vanish. "You're not going anywhere. Since we started this party, we're going to meet the guest together!"

  I dragged them straight toward the encroaching darkness.

  White, red, black—everything blurred in my eyes.