Days blurred together in illusion and fog.
Here, surviving wasn't living. It was postponing death.
Water was never drinkable. Dirty. Bitter. Almost toxic.
He filtered it through a knotted strip of his tunic over a bottle's mouth. It didn't remove the filth — just the chunks.
Sometimes he scraped charcoal from the burned walls of the ruins to purify it a little. Sometimes… just dry moss.
He drank anyway. Not by choice. By necessity.
The entire city was a trap.
Gutted buildings breathed open air like exposed carcasses. Rotted beams threatened to collapse with every step. One wrong move meant a fall… or death.
His muscles hardened. So did his gaze.
One day, he no longer needed to whisper "[Demon Fist]."
He didn't need to call it anymore. He felt it.
The power vibrated in his muscles, answered his will like a buried instinct.
No words. No formula. Just rage.
One night, curled up in the ruins of a collapsed shack, he noticed a piece of wood lodged in the debris.
By the glow of a dying fire, he made out shapes carved directly into the wood. Deep marks. Gouged. Furious.
A man, alone against a pack of deformed creatures. A spear in hand. One against the horde.
He placed his hand on the carving, slowly.
"You were here too…"
He brushed the engraving with his fingertips, as if it might answer him.
"You fought too. I hope you survived… unknown brother."
The fire crackled weakly. The wind slipped through the cracks in the walls, carrying sand and dust.
He stayed there a long time, staring at the carving. He wasn't the first to fight here.
And maybe not the last.
He froze. Seeing another human had become rarer than encountering a monster.
He barely slept that night.
At dawn, in his makeshift shelter, his badly weakened body opened its eyes…
He rubbed them, thinking it was a mirage.
But no.
He spotted a silhouette in the distance. Perched atop a pile of rubble.
A man. Motionless. Alone.
With a sharp gesture, the stranger brought his hand down.
The first stone flew fast and silent. It sliced through the air before smashing into the flank of the first mutant.
CRACK.
Bone gave way. The creature was torn from the ground and slammed down farther off in a cloud of dust.
The second stone followed immediately. Clean impact. Cold violence.
It pierced the second mutant's nape and burst out through its throat in a dark spray. The monster fell, convulsed in spasms, then collapsed for good.
But there was a third.
That one hadn't moved. Not a sound. Not a breath.
Crouched behind the rubble, it watched. Patient. Calculating.
Not an animal. A predator.
He tried to shout a warning — no sound came out. His throat tightened.
"Behind you!"
Too late.
A shadow leapt from the debris. No sound. No breath. Just pure violence.
The monster lunged at the man like a living bullet, fangs bared, ready to tear.
The mutant sank its teeth in and ripped the man's forearm off in a single bite.
CRRRRAK!
The scream that followed was nothing human. Atrocious. Raw. Brutal.
The arm hit the ground, drowned in a pool of blood.
The man dropped to his knees, drained in an instant, his skin already ashen.
The levitating stones fell at once, stripped of energy, crashing down like meteors.
On his knees, he tried to stanch the bleeding by gripping the stump, but it was impossible — the flow wouldn't stop.
His eyes lifted, not to beg. Just to understand why.
The beast leapt.
Its fangs closed around his throat.
The pressure was immediate. Total.
CRRRAK!
The teeth tore his throat open and everything stopped at once.
A dark torrent burst out and splashed across the ruins. No scream. No breath. Nothing.
His body collapsed face-first into the dust, emptied.
Dead.
He stood frozen.
The only human he'd seen in days had just died before his eyes.
Swallowed by this world. Erased. As if he had never existed.
He stepped back without thinking. His heel struck a stone.
CLACK.
The sound echoed far too loud in the silence. Way too loud.
The creature raised its head. Slowly.
Its yellow irises locked onto his.
Blood still dripped from its fangs.
"Shit…"
The beast didn't move an inch. Instinct on high alert.
Its head tilted slowly, revealing a feral expression.
It had just spotted new prey.
It leaned forward, muscles coiled.
It was about to charge. Not to test. To kill.
He was already wounded. Exhausted. And yet, it was still on him to survive.
Weak or not, he had no choice.
"[Demon Fist]!"
He shouted to make sure it activated — because if he hesitated for even a second, he would die. His right arm was engulfed in scarlet lightning, streaked with black veins pulsing like a living heart. Crushing heat surged up to his shoulder, aggressive, twitching.
The creature lunged.
SCHLACK.
A claw ripped open his left flank. The pain was sharp, violent. He took it head-on, teeth clenched, a growl torn from his throat.
"Tss…!"
Blood gushed out, hot, sticky. He pressed a hand to the wound and staggered back a step, his right arm still saturated with demonic energy, ready to strike. His breathing was heavy, driven by adrenaline.
He shut one eye, grimacing through the pain, and inhaled hard, forcing his body to hold despite the hemorrhage.
In a desperate assault, he charged.
A guttural cry ripped from his throat as he rushed in. His right fist cleaved the air, saturated with energy, and slammed into the creature's skull.
BOOM.
The impact echoed through the ruins — dry, violent. He was thrown backward by the force of the blow and crashed down hard, gasping, the air ripped from his lungs.
His hands trembled, slick with blood — maybe his, maybe the beast's. He didn't even know anymore.
"I… did it…"
His body, though, had gained nothing.
And he knew that in the next fight, the price would be even higher.
He was still panting, disbelieving. He had survived. Barely.
His arm shimmered with a luminous halo, and at the same instant, an inner voice echoed in his mind:
Attribute distribution activated. Allocate 5 points.