Go Yuri’s entire life unfolded.
“Ah.”
The first life.
Confirming that the life of a Reincarnator—the one she had told as a “story” in the real world—was being faithfully reenacted, I realized I was royally fucked.
Even that stranded man on Mars who had said, ‘Fucked and fucked again, and furthermore fucked,’ would probably pity if he saw the situation I was in now.
“So from the very start, you want to live it? To walk again through the ti you walked as a Reincarnator……?”
My head grew dizzy.
It was so absurd that laughter slipped out.
When humans face disasters so overwhelming that they can’t resist, laughter often bursts out as a defense chanism.
After all, laughter was as ancient a magic as language itself.
“…A life worth billions, tens of billions, huh. This is on a completely different level from when I lived Cheon Hwa’s life.”
“Hey, Suyeon! What are you doing there! The monsters will swarm by tomorrow! Move those sandbags, fast!”
“……”
A foreman at the final defense line barked an order, and I had no choice but to obey it.
Just like that, that foreman achieved the great feat of asserting his authority over a reincarnator and regressor at once.
“That phrase—‘Let’s beco one’—to think it ant sothing like this.”
Ti flowed.
Fast, and slow.
Destruction ca easily and swiftly.
In this true first iteration—the one that could be called the “zero-th” round before the first—the final defense line was pierced absurdly easily.
“A world where no one except the Reincarnator has awakened, huh.”
What kind of hard difficulty mode is that supposed to be?
The “monsters” that tore through the final defense line weren’t just the infinite legions of the monster wave.
Ah―――ah―aaah―――
Above the battlefield.
There, a single “witch” was singing.
She looked vaguely human, but was not human at all.
――Aah―aa―ah――ah――
What looked like a witch’s hat was actually made of living, writhing strands of hair.
Eyes and fingers blood and broke all over her body, spewing out songs stained with curses and resentnt that no human ear could properly contain.
I couldn’t help but mutter.
“Dang Seo Rin……”
“It’s Hecate! The witch! Hecate has appeared!”
But the soldiers on the battlefield, the civilians enlisted as auxiliaries, the child soldiers—they were different.
They did not know the na Dang Seo Rin.
“Hecate?”
Just as I didn’t know that monster’s na myself.
“Retreat! Retreat! Don’t listen to the song! Don’t listen to it!”
“Aah, aaaah……”
One of the soldiers who heard Dang Seo Rin’s song suddenly opened his mouth blankly.
From that mouth, Dang Seo Rin’s scream began to echo in acapella, in perfect rhythm.
Bang!
The field officer imdiately drew his pistol and shot the soldier dead.
The soldier collapsed instantly.
—Aah, ah, ah.
But only the soldier’s torso fell.
The head, still hanging midair, continued singing the acapella.
“Uwaaaah!”
The soldier beside him panicked and swung his sword, chopping down the head; only then did the song stop.
“Don’t listen! Don’t listen! Keep babbling nonsense! You bastards! Add noise! Don’t focus on the song!”
“Ah ah ah ah—ah.”
“Ah aaah aaaah ah.”
Bang! Bang!
Gunfire barked across the battlefield.
As an auxiliary support on-site, I was struck speechless.
The end of Dang Seo Rin, known by the alias Hecate, was shocking enough—but what horrified more was the detail.
“They’re using guns?!”
Chekhov’s Gun.
One of the monsters that had inflicted the greatest harm upon humankind.
Once a gun appeared, it would inevitably be used in so “decisive scene.”
And for ordinary humans, the most decisive scene was always the mont their own life was on the line.
aning, once a gun was used, the wielder’s life was forfeit.
“No… but still. In a world this ruined already, there’s no point worrying about guns anymore.”
Apparently, the soldiers knew nothing about Chekhov’s Gun.
“Their experience.”
It was hopelessly lacking.
“No strategy for the monsters. No knowledge. No awakened ones who could turn the tide of war using that knowledge… nothing.”
There was nothing at all.
—Ahahahahahahaha.
Then, unmistakably, the soldiers whose heads had just been blown off began standing back up across the battlefield.
—Ahahahaha.
—Ahahahahahaha.
—Ah ha ha ha ha.
Like zombies.
—Yu mul hon seong.
—Seon cheon ji saeng.
—Do beop ja yeon.
The resurrected zombies danced, forming circular dances.
Even with broken necks, they recited the Tao Te Ching.
Headless ones beat their own corpses with blades, syncing rhythm with the rest of the dead.
—Do beop ja yeon.
—In beop ji ji beop cheon.
—Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
Dozens of circular dances ford in an instant across the battlefield.
Strangely, the endless swarm of monsters never touched those circles.
Falling back among the soldiers, I glanced back.
“…Yo Hwa.”
At the center of one of the ever-growing circular dances—
Soone dressed like a shaman was laughing endlessly, ah ha ha ha ha, conducting the parade of corpses.
A soldier beside muttered.
“Damn necromancer……”
“……”
“Lieutenant. There’s nowhere left to retreat. Other units must be in the sa situation.”
“Evacuate at least the civilians.”
“To where?”
“Back. Just back.”
“Understood.”
The soldier grabbed my shoulder and pulled.
“Go. Hurry.”
“……”
I tried to resist, but was easily pushed away by his grip.
There was nothing I could do.
The current “” was far too weak.
As I staggered backward—splash.
“……?”
I heard the sound of water.
Looking down, I saw puddles forming, though it hadn’t rained.
No—it wasn’t puddles.
“Ah.”
The “surface of water” was rising from the ground itself.
Leviathan.
Yu Ji-won.
“……”
But the soldiers, locked in desperate battle holding the front line, and the civilians retreating while sensing death—they never noticed that water lapping at their feet.
They didn’t know.
That even this water was a monster.
“…Impossible.”
“What? Suyeon?”
The foreman moving beside asked, weary-faced, but I couldn’t answer.
He didn’t seem to expect an answer either; few civilians were even unhard enough to talk anymore.
Humanity was exhausted.
Before annihilation that showed not a trace of hope.
Aaa――aa―aa―――
From above the battlefield, that song kept tearing human reason to shreds.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
On the ground, as if the earth itself were full of holes, corpses ford circles, dancing an eternal round that mocked life itself.
Splash. Splash, splash.
Even the water that touched the ankles of the retreating humans—
That monster that mimicked “water,” the monster that mocked life, the most fundantal “origin of the Earth”—was sinking in.
There were no Awakened.
Only the Fallen. No—
Only the Outer Gods who had borrowed the bodies of the Fallen existed.
“……”
That was the first iteration.
Not an epilogue, but a prologue.
The starting point of humanity.
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