After getting up, Kus left immediately. His body was covered in wounds, and his vision was blurred. Yet that cold sensation that wrapped around him was still there.That coldness didn’t feel bad—on the contrary, it was strangely comfortable.

  It took him several minutes to process everything that had happened.Only now did he realize that he had killed someone—several people, in fact.

  But he felt no remorse. If anything, he felt satisfaction.He felt stronger.

  “Maybe there really is something wrong with me after all,” he muttered to himself. Kus shook his head and kept walking. This was neither the time nor the pce to think about it.

  “HELP!”

  That was when he heard a cry for help coming from nearby. After hearing it, he didn’t rush, nor did he walk away. Instead, he calmly headed toward the sound.

  Crossing the street, a narrow alley came into view. Inside it stood a girl, surrounded by four men who were slowly closing in on her.

  Seeing this, Kus began to wonder if it was worth helping her. He didn’t know her, and killing someone for a stranger wasn’t something he would normally do. Besides, she couldn’t possibly return the favor.

  However, when he thought about the energy he could gain from them, he decided to help.At that moment, he felt like he could do anything. He didn’t know why, but suddenly he felt a deep thirst—one he couldn’t understand.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Sarah was an ordinary girl by most standards. She was very tall, with an athletic build. Her friends thought she was boring because of the practical way she handled everything, but she was someone they could always rely on.

  She had been living abroad for several months and truly missed her family. That was why she decided to surprise them with a visit—they would surely be shocked.

  When Sarah returned home from overseas, she never imagined she would encounter hell on earth.

  Families were fleeing their homes with whatever they could carry—some by car, others on foot. She also saw people going mad and attacking one another.

  She even witnessed cannibalism. Damn it, when she saw that, she thought a zombie apocalypse had broken out.

  She walked for a while until she reached an uninhabited area. The silence there was overwhelming. For some reason, two men began following her. She didn’t know why, but fear started to creep in.

  She quickened her pace, trying to escape. But even after turning a corner, they were still following her.

  Eventually, she crossed into an alley, hoping to lose them.

  When she no longer saw them behind her, she sighed in relief. In a situation like this, one couldn’t trust other humans.

  But just as she thought she was safe, two other men appeared in front of her.

  Panicking, she turned around and ran—only for her heart to sink into an abyss when she realized the two men who had been chasing her were now blocking her escape.

  “You are a chosen one,” one of the men said in a deep voice.“If we kill you… if we do it, we will be free.”

  Surrounded on all sides, Sarah had nowhere to go. She backed away until she hit a wall. Overwhelmed by fear, she began to cry out for help.

  “HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE! ANYONE! ANYONE AT ALL!”

  “It’s useless. Today you will die. There’s nothing you can do.”“Please! Please don’t do this!”“We have no choice.”

  At that precise moment, a stone came out of nowhere and smashed into one of the men’s heads, killing him instantly.

  When the others turned, they saw a young man with a dark expression slowly approaching them. Immediately, the men exploded with fury, their faces twisting grotesquely.

  “It’s another chosen one!”“I’LL KILL YOU!”

  After the initial shock, the remaining three men lunged at him with savage abandon.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  When Kus saw them rushing toward him, an inexplicable sense of satisfaction washed over him.

  As the first man approached, he threw a punch straight at Kus’s face. Kus didn’t even flinch. He countered with a punch of his own.

  Instant knockout.

  When the second man closed in, he pulled out a knife and stabbed toward him. Before the bde could reach its target, Kus grabbed his wrist, stopping the knife just inches from his chest—then crushed it.

  Crack!“AAARGH!!”

  As his wrist shattered, the man screamed louder than he ever had in his life and dropped the knife. Before it could hit the ground, Kus caught it and drove it straight into the man’s heart.

  Thud!

  With the bde still buried in his chest, the man felt his life slipping away. Kus felt it too—flowing through him.

  That cold sensation returned. And not only that—he felt even stronger.

  Suddenly, Kus looked behind him and raised his hand, just in time to catch a steel bar swung by the st remaining attacker.

  When the man realized his final attack had been stopped so easily, fear filled his face. And when he saw the demon standing before him, fear turned into terror.

  “I-I’m sorry! Please, please don’t kill me!”

  Kus stood silently in front of him. He felt no sympathy. In fact, he had no intention of leaving any of them alive.

  Pierce.

  Without mercy, he drove the metal bar through the man’s abdomen, destroying his stomach. Then he pulled it out, leaving behind a fatal wound.

  That cold sensation wrapped around him once more.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  When Sarah found herself surrounded by four men, despair had taken hold of her.

  But in her darkest moment, a bck star appeared.

  At first, she thought of him as her savior. He had taken one man out instantly and knocked out another just as quickly. But as things continued, fear began to repce her relief.

  When he killed the third man, she was only slightly frightened—she thought it was self-defense. But then he killed the fourth, in an incredibly sadistic way.

  He didn’t stop there.

  He walked over to the second man, who was still unconscious on the ground, and stabbed him in the throat.

  After that, he turned his gaze toward her.

  In fact, that was the first time she truly noticed his eyes.

  They were bck—like a bottomless abyss of darkness, so deep it felt as if it might devour her. She feared him more than the men who had tried to harm her.

  When Kus began walking toward her, an unimaginable terror seized her. Every pore of her body screamed at her to run.

  And so she did.

  She ran with all her strength, without looking back even once, until she no longer felt death looming behind her.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Kus didn’t even look at her as she fled. His gaze was fixed on the man lying on the ground. He didn’t know why, but every time he killed someone, he grew stronger.

  So he didn’t stop.

  He kept killing.

  With each death, his strength and bloodlust grew in equal measure. He felt a strange power beginning to awaken inside him.

  Only after killing all four did he regain his sense of self.

  He knew something was wrong with him—but he didn’t understand what. He clenched his fist tightly, feeling that he was three times stronger than before.

  Then he prepared to run.

  The moment he took his first step, his speed jumped to five kilometers per hour. As the seconds passed, it kept increasing.

  10 km/h.15.30.

  When he reached thirty kilometers per hour, his speed stopped increasing. There was no need to go any faster. At that speed, it only took him a few minutes to reach home.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Even after running at high speed for several minutes without stopping, Kus didn’t feel tired at all when he reached his front door. Still, he paused for a moment.

  Although Ezra wasn’t his biological father, he had raised Kus since he was a baby. And even though their retionship wasn’t the best, Kus still cared about him in his own way.

  After thinking for a moment, Kus opened the door and walked into the living room—where his father was waiting for him, smiling.

  “I was waiting for you.”