The crosswalk faded behind him. Ethan wasn't really watching where he was going — not anymore.
He'd gotten so lost in his frustrated monologue about Tang San, about plot armor and soul bones and divine favoritism, that he didn't even notice he'd turned right instead of left.
His coffee was half-finished, the plastic cup cold in his fingers. His cracked phone, still glowing with the latest chapter of Douluo Dalu, remained in his other hand as if demanding he keep reading, keep raging.
The crowd behind him thinned out. The street ahead was quieter, narrower — more like a service road that wound along the side of the main avenue. He barely registered the shift.
Until he heard the bounce.
A rubbery, hollow thump. The unmistakable sound of a ball hitting pavement.
Then came the child's footsteps. Light, quick, frantic.
Ethan blinked and looked up, snapping out of his mental spiral.
Just a few feet ahead, a small boy, maybe nine years old, was chasing a red ball that had rolled out into the road.
His arms flailed as he darted after it with the blind instinct of a kid whose entire world had shrunk down to one bouncing toy.
And then Ethan saw it.
The truck.
It wasn't a small one either. A massive delivery vehicle, already too close, barreling forward with terrifying momentum. The driver's face behind the glass was one of dawning horror — he'd seen the kid, but the brakes weren't going to be fast enough.
Ethan didn't think.
His phone slipped from his hand. The iced coffee shattered as it hit the pavement, cold liquid spraying across the asphalt.
He lunged.
The boy had just reached his ball when Ethan's arms wrapped around him in a blur of motion.
With a shout that tore from his throat without thinking, Ethan threw the kid sideways, away from the road, just as the truck roared past the line of parked cars.
He didn't have time to move.
Didn't have time to brace.
There was only the brutal sound of metal meeting flesh.
Impact.
White-hot pain exploded in his chest. He felt his ribs scream. His breath left him. The world tilted, spun, blurred.
He hit the ground hard, a strange silence ringing in his ears — like the city had stopped breathing with him.
He couldn't feel his legs.
His vision flickered.
Everything... everything hurt.
"So this is it," Ethan thought bitterly, as blood pooled in his mouth and dripped down the corner of his chin. "This is how I go out? Really?"
His thoughts were slowing, scattered, but not gone.Not yet.
Some part of his brain, the one that still had room for sarcasm even in the face of death, whispered with a strange kind of clarity:
"Is this how it works in those damn isekai novels?"
"Some unlucky bastard gets mowed down by a truck trying to save a kid, and then boom—reincarnation, cheat powers, and a system menu..."
"Am I seriously the target of The All Mighty Truck Kun ?"
He almost laughed. But the pain made that impossible. The best he could do was twitch.
He could faintly hear voices — people shouting, rushing over. The child was crying. Someone was calling 911. But it was all growing distant now, like echoes in a long hallway.
His body felt like it was being pulled downward, down through the pavement, through the street, through the very fabric of the world.
And then...
Nothing.
Just darkness.
Endless, painless dark.