♤ A Step into Darkness ♤
I fell.
Not through space. Not through air. Through something heavier.
There was no ground to crash into, no sky to reach for, just an endless, suffocating darkness that wrapped around me like a shroud. Not night, night had stars, a moon. A ceiling to your fears.
This… this was the absence of everything.
A place where light didn't just disappear, it never existed to begin with.
I was weightless, but something pulled me down all the same. A force, deep and ancient, like gravity but colder, crueler. Each second stretched like it was daring me to lose myself.
And I was losing.
The more I tried to think, the more it all unraveled. Thoughts scattered like ashes in wind. Memories blinked out, one by one, my name, my face, the alley, the blood. Gone. My identity eroded, piece by piece, until I was just a whisper in the dark.
But the emotions stayed.
They clung to me, raw and throbbing. Rage without a name. Grief without a reason. A hollow ache, like I'd left something important behind, but couldn't remember what it was. A scream built in my throat, but even that was stolen before it could leave my lips.
Then something cracked.
Not loud but final. A tear opened in the distance. Or maybe it was close. Up? Down? Directions had no meaning anymore. But I felt it, like a hook behind my ribs, yanking me forward.
The void began to tear itself apart, and I was flung into the breach.
I hit the ground like a ragdoll tossed by a god.
The air was knocked out of me. My lungs spasmed. Pain, real pain flared through my body. I lay there, wheezing, every nerve screaming. For a moment, I was afraid to move. Afraid I'd break apart if I tried.
When I opened my eyes, I was staring up at a sky that didn't make sense.
It looked fractured, like someone had taken glass and shattered the heavens. Clouds twisted like claws. The sky bled colors that had no name.
My body trembled. Everything in me screamed to run but there was nowhere to go.
I sat up slowly, breath ragged, and took in the nightmare around me. Cracked earth. Rivers of blood pulsing through canyons like veins. Trees, dead and dry, like they'd been drained of hope centuries ago. And the air… it reeked of rot. Not just death, but decay. The kind that lingers long after everything's gone.
This wasn't Earth.
This wasn't even hell.
It was worse.
"Where… am I?" I rasped. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Someone who hadn't bled out in an alley. Someone who hadn't already died.
Then came the sound, a sharp ping, high and cold. Mechanical.
I turned my head and saw it: a screen hovering in the air, flickering in and out of existence like it didn't belong here.
And maybe it didn't.
Text began to glow across its surface:
[System Online: Demon King Candidate confirmed.]
[Welcome, Kuro, to the Underworld.]
[Objective: Claim the throne. Become the next Demon King.]
[Current Stats:]
Demonic Power: 0%
Strength: 5
Speed: 9
Skills: None
I blinked, not sure if I was hallucinating. Demon King? Candidate? I hadn't even had time to accept I was dead.
And now I was… this?
It felt absurd. A sick joke.
But the system didn't care.
The world around me pulsed with dread. My heart beat faster, harder, like it was warning me something was coming. Something hungry.
I heard it before I saw it, a rustling in the distance. Soft. Quick.
I turned slowly, every muscle tight, and then I saw it.
A creature, crawling from the edge of the dark. Small, but twisted. Like a wolf made of scorched bone and embers. Its eyes glowed sickly yellow, too bright for its size. It locked onto me instantly.
And I knew.
It wasn't curious.
It was starving.
Panic surged through me. I turned to run, but my legs didn't work right, still weak, still human. Pain lanced through them and I collapsed again, helpless, breath ripping from my throat.
It was real. The pain. The fear. The smell of blood in the dirt.
This place wasn't some afterlife dream.
It was a battlefield.
The thing darted forward. Too fast.
I threw my arms up, desperate. Its claws sliced across my ribs. A scream tore from my throat, loud, wet, broken. I hit the dirt hard, vision spinning, lungs heaving.
It was going to kill me.
Again.
Then I saw something.
A shard of stone. Jagged. Close.
I grabbed it without thinking. My hand shook. I wasn't strong, I wasn't brave. But I didn't want to die like this. Not in some forgotten hell, not without name.
It lunged again.
I screamed and swung.
Too slow and desperate.
Its claws raked deeper this time, hot pain searing through me. My skin tore. My eyes blurred. I thought I'd pass out.
But I didn't.
I stabbed upward, wild and blind. The shard hit flesh or whatever passed for flesh here. The creature twitched, gurgled, and then crumbled into ash.
Silence.
I dropped to my knees, gasping, arms soaked in blood, my blood. My side burned. My vision swam.
But I was alive.
Barely.
The screen flickered again:
[First Task Complete: Survive the Awakening Trial.]
[Failure to complete results in immediate disqualification.]
"Disqualification…?" I breathed. My voice shook. "What the hell does that even mean?"
The word echoed in my mind like a curse.
The system didn't answer.
It didn't need to.
Disqualification meant death. Not just death, erasure. Nothing left behind. No memories. No second try.
I looked around, chest heaving, ribs screaming. This world was cruel. Alien. It didn't care who or what I used to be.
The blood, the dirt, the silence, it felt like a graveyard built for forgotten gods.
And I was just one more lost soul crawling through it.
The screen pulsed again.
[Survive and become the Demon King.]
That title again.
I didn't know what it meant. Didn't know how I was supposed to become anything with wounds in my side and no power to speak of.
But one word lodged itself in my brain, deep and pulsing with every heartbeat:
Survive.
I didn't know if I could.
I didn't know if I wanted to.
But I had a choice now.
And it wasn't falling anymore.
It was crawling forward, broken and bloody, toward the throne they dared me to take.