NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1: Prologue: Monster!
Julian knelt as rain pounded against his armour, seeping into every nook and cranny, washing blood into the ruined streets.
The city died over ten years ago.
Skyscrapers lay in heaps of broken steel, stone and shattered glass. Fire flickered in the distance, another destroyed outpost, devouring the last hope.
Smoke curled into the stormy sky, thick with the stench of death and decay.
Scattered corpses and bones littered the ground, their twisted remains buried and eaten beneath the debris and vines. Nourishment for the new world.
The battle swift and merciless, almost brutal. His unit erased instantly.
A shadow loomed over him.
Three meters tall, disfigured and cloaked in shadow.
A walking nightmare of flesh and steel. Its sword, a massive slab of stone, dripping with rain and blood, hovered just above him.
Julian struggled to breathe, his lungs punctured, blood pooling in his throat.
His armour?
Worthless. Dented, cracked and leaking warmth from his broken body.
His sword?
Worse. Snapped in half, a useless remnant of his pathetic desire for revenge, a bitter yet worthless final stand.
Pitter-patter
Raindrops mixed with blood, staining the fracked pavement beneath him.
'Why?'
His mouth locked in place, vision blurring as time shattered, for a second, the world froze. His mind slipped, dragged unwillingly to the past.
Sena… his beloved. Dying in his arms.
Her chest torn open, her breath shallow. She gazed at him with wide, terrified eyes, searching for salvation. Yet, Julian could do nothing.
Her fingers clenched weakly at his sleeve, her lips parting to speak—shedding tears of frustration as no words followed.
Her party abandoned her, fleeing like cowards.
The black shadow, the one he fought, the one which crushed his resolve, stood over them, and laughed. A deep, grating noise that echoed within his skull.
A ferocious rage burned within. But it came too late, a worthless afterthought.
Crackle!
Thunder cracked, filling the sky with light. His vision lurched back into the present, her body gone. The sword, above his head, started falling.
It cut through the air like a guillotine, a red moon shining in Julian's misty eyes.
'I don't want to be reborn again… Let me rest.'
Crash!
Once again, he died!
Julian's mind became distant, memories, thoughts shattered like glass.
"Julian! Help me!"
"Julian I love you~ let's go on a date today, hehe."
Sena's cries for help, her loving voice.
The screams of his dying comrades, the nameless women he shared a bed with, trying to forget the years after Sena died. His shame and regrets piled like a mountain as the monster's mocking voice echoed, the devil that stole everything from him.
[◊ This is the path you chose! ◊]
A judgemental voice lingered, soft yet almost divine.
Suddenly, Julian's gasped for air, catching his breath. Rain blurred his vision, or was it the throbbing pain clawing at his skull.
'That's right…'
This wasn't the first or second time he found himself in this world.
Today, he awoke after death and found himself two weeks before everything started to change.
'She will survive this time, I will keep my promise.'
Kang Sena was Julian's lover and girlfriend in the past, but this time… he decided to break up.
The storm raged. The wind howled through the ruins, sweeping through the city like a funeral dirge.
Sena's tear-streaked face burned into his mind.
"Don't leave me!"
Her voice cracked and hoarse, raw with desperation. Her hands trembled as she reached for him.
Yet, he shook his head, and showed a faint, yet twisted smile. The love and memories he carried in the past, gone, lost when the monster took his life.
'Please don't cry like that…' A subtle pain stabbed his chest, her trembling legs stumbled as she staggered towards the darkness.
The rain swallowed her sobs as she climbed into the waiting taxi. Headlights flickered through the storm before fading into the dark fog, leaving him alone beneath the blackened sky.
Thunder rolled.
"SENA—!" Julian screamed as he dropped to his knees.
Lightning split the sky. His fingers dug into the mud, his body shaking. The weight of everything he had lost crushed him.
He bit down hard on his lip, tasting blood.
"…I never wanted this."
[◊ Hypocrite ◊]
The world pulsed around him, crushing his soul. The past, present, ghosts of his mistakes and failures all pressed down at once.
'Shut up!'
Then—silence.
Only the steady rhythm of the rain and the distant echoes of thunder.
Julian exhaled slowly, catching his breath. His body, battered and broken, shifted forward. Step by step, he moved.
No words. No hesitation.
Only the weight of what had already been lost.
The storm raged on, but he didn't look back.
Lightning split the sky in successive arcs with one last roar as if to judge his past and choice.
"Reincarnation? Rebirth? Regression?" A hollow laugh slipped past his lips. "What bullshit."
And with that, he disappeared into the rain.