The battlefield looked like the gods themselves had declared war—and lost.
Bodies lay scattered like broken dolls across scorched earth, their armor charred and weapons useless in the dirt. Once-mighty battleships now stood like twisted sculptures, burning wreckage groaning as if mourning the warriors they'd failed. The sun dipped behind the horizon, its fading light casting long shadows through the smoke.
Flames clawed at the sky, rising higher with each gust of wind.
Above this graveyard of chaos, a man hovered silently in mid-air—expression unreadable, posture relaxed. Opposite him, suspended just above the blood-soaked ground, floated a monstrous figure wrapped in an aura of malevolence. A demon.
Its head blazed with cold, white-blue flames, and its eyes glowed with an ancient, endless hunger.
Smoke curled around the man's body, making him seem less like a person and more like an idea—half-formed, half-faded, but utterly real.
The demon stretched out a hand toward him, fingers long and jagged like rusted hooks. It moved with the certainty of death itself—slow, deliberate, inevitable.
And then—
In one impossible instant, the man moved.
A blur.
A whisper of motion.
And the demon's spine—still burning—was suddenly in his hand.
No scream. No struggle. The demon didn't even have time to realize it was dead.
One moment it loomed like the end of days. The next, it crumpled to the ground like discarded trash.
Silent. Final. Gone.
Far away, someone watched the whole thing, frozen in place. Their hearts thudded in betrayal, legs refusing to obey.
Then—
He woke up.
---
With a sharp gasp, he shot upright in bed. Sweat clung to his back like a second shirt.
Sunlight crept through the curtains, painting soft stripes on the wall.
"Damn it," he muttered, rubbing his face with both hands. "What the hell kind of dream was that?!"
His voice cracked somewhere between frustration and disbelief. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table. The screen lit up.
July 17th. Monday.
"Figures…" he sighed.
Another Monday. Another dream involving flaming demons and mysterious airborne ass-kickers.
Must be all the late-night bingeing. Web novels, anime, isekai series… it all blended into one weird subconscious soup.
"Being an otaku is ruining my sleep schedule and my sense of reality," he mumbled, dragging himself to the bathroom.
After a cold splash of water and a plain black T-shirt paired with equally plain black pants, he settled for breakfast: instant noodles and a half-hearted slice of toast. Gourmet.
He stepped out of his apartment and into the chaos of the city, merging with the crowd of office zombies dragging themselves to their 9-to-5 graves.
Just as he reached the halfway point on his walk—bam.
A voice.
Not loud, not sudden. Just... calm. Cold.
"It is time to start over everything."
He stopped mid-step.
Eyes wide.
Heart racing.
"…What?"
He spun around. No one looked back. Everyone else just kept walking, too busy chasing deadlines and lattes to notice him standing there like he'd just seen a ghost.
"Did... someone say that?" he muttered. "No one's reacting. So either I'm crazy, or someone's pranking me with a Bluetooth speaker."
He shook his head and kept walking. The voice echoed in his mind like a memory that didn't belong to him.
---
When he reached the zebra crossing just outside his office building, the streets were packed. An endless tide of commuters waited for the signal to change.
Green light.
He moved with the crowd, swallowed by the flow of motion.
He stepped into the building, nodded at the receptionist, and made his way toward the elevator.
But something was off.
That voice lingered. Like it had sunk its claws into his thoughts.
He didn't get far.
BOOM.
An explosion ripped through the upper floors. The shockwave hit like a slap from a giant. Glass shattered. Screams filled the air. Alarms blared in frantic, shrill tones.
He barely had time to think.
He looked up—just in time to see a chunk of something massive—a slab of wall, or maybe the building's air conditioning unit—plummeting toward him.
And then—
Crack.
That was it. No dramatic slow motion. No inner monologue about regrets or lost love.
Just: the world goes dark.
He hit the ground like a dropped sack of potatoes.
Silence.
People gasped. Someone screamed.
A guy pulled out his phone and muttered, "Bro just clocked out of the story like it was a side quest…"
Another said, "Didn't he just walk in? Damn. That's Monday for you."
And just like that—he was gone.
A single soul swallowed by the chaos.
But far beyond the panic, the sirens, the tragedy—beyond all comprehension—
He heard it again.
That voice.
Cool. Certain.
"Now it begins."