The silence didn't last long.
A low snarl echoed from the treeline ahead. Guttural. Warped. Like something choking on its own rage. Damian's fingers twitched, and his mouth went dry.
Shit. Not yet. He wasn't ready.
His eyes locked onto the shifting shadows between the pine trunks. Heart hammering. The Pack Leader had arrived. Three weeks early.
Last timeline, this bastard tore through seventeen people before anyone knew what hit them. Kids. Mothers. Some old guy trying to shield his granddaughter.
Damian could still hear their screams.
He couldn't hesitate. Not again. One misstep and the streets would drown in blood. Just like before.
Movement flickered—
Then it lunged.
Jeez.
Nearly three meters tall. Bone-white fur caked with blood and ash that stank like sulfur and rotting meat. Its face was wrong—jagged horns jutting from a cracked skull, flesh stripped down to raw muscle. Eyes that burned with something that wasn't quite animal.
But the rune made his blood freeze. Glowing on its forehead. Carved into skin like a brand. Pulsing.
This wasn't just a monster.
Someone was controlling it.
Damian slid back, boots scraping pavement. A swipe missed him by inches, cracking asphalt like cardboard. The Pack Leader landed where he'd been standing, snarling. Steam rose from its breath.
The smell hit him. His stomach lurched.
Focus. Fucking lock in.
"Come on then," he muttered. Voice steadier than his hands. "Let's dance."
He vanished.
Shadow Step kicked in. The world blurred gray and black. Beast's claws sliced empty air with a sound like tearing metal.
Damian reappeared behind it. Boots skidding on gravel. His legs nearly buckled—the strain was worse than he remembered. No time to waste. He slammed his palm into the creature's spine. Felt coarse fur and burning skin.
Void responded. A pulse of pressure rippled out like a shockwave.
The creature roared. Car windows rattled. Birds exploded from trees. It stumbled forward like it got hit by a truck, claws gouging concrete.
Damian stepped again. Vision swam. Too much, too fast.
Another impact. Another Void burst.
The Pack Leader's shoulder caved in with a wet grinding sound.
But it was learning.
[You have leveled up.]
[Level: 3]
A faint ding echoed in his skull, cut off by the creature's next roar. He barely registered it.
One level. One step closer. It wasn't enough.
He was reaching his limits.
Fuck.
Third time Damian shifted, the thing twisted midair. Inhuman flexibility. Backhanded the space he was about to occupy. Damian gritted his teeth, canceled mid-cast. Reality snapped back like a rubber band. He flickered farther away, tasting copper.
"Smart bastard." He wiped blood from his mouth. Hand came away red. The hit hadn't landed but the strain was building. Pressure behind his eyes. Shadow Step took a toll. Void even more.
Vision blurred at the edges. Hands shook.
Not now. Not now dammit.
But he had no choice. Civilians watched through broken windows, behind overturned cars. Faces pale with terror. Phones pointed at him like accusations. Eyes wide with the kind of fear that came before screaming.
He couldn't let them see him fail.
Not again.
He clenched his fists. Drew a slow breath that tasted of ash and blood. Wind shifted, carrying sulfur stronger now. Something was building. Not from the Pack Leader.
From inside.
His chest tightened. The mark beneath his collarbone pulsed hot as a brand.
No. No, no, no—
[First Flame Ignition — QUEST COMPLETE]
The world stopped.
One impossible second. Everything went silent. The Pack Leader's roar cut off. Wind died. Even his heartbeat seemed to pause.
Then a tremor passed through the air. Not physical. Not magical. Something deeper. Older. A spark that touched every living thing like the moment before lightning strikes.
Damian's blood turned to ice.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
Then—
[System Initialization: Complete]
[Status Tab Unlocked for All Users]
Every soul on Earth heard it.
The voice that wasn't a voice. Speaking directly into minds with absolute authority.
Phones dropped. Someone screamed—high, piercing. Sanity snapping. Then another. Another. Panic erupted through the crowd.
"What the hell—"
"Did you hear that?"
"Oh God, what's happening?"
Damian stood in the middle of it all. Eyes fixed on the Pack Leader. Mind spinning.
He didn't activate the system before. Not in the last timeline.
So who the fuck did?
He remembered that day. Every scream. Every drop of blood. Sky torn open like a wound. People dying while monsters poured through gates. No quests. No guidance. No helpful messages.
Just slaughter.
Only after half the population was wiped out did the system appear. Not from a flame. Not from some awakening.
From the carnage.
The realization hit him like a punch.
Was the system reacting to suffering? To death?
Or worse, did it want it?
The thought chilled him deeper than the wind. Deeper than his own death in that other timeline.
What if I'm not the hero?
What if I'm the catalyst?
But no time for doubt. No time for the horror clawing at his mind.
The Pack Leader lunged again. Faster. Desperate. Foam and blood flew from its jaws. It didn't care about the system or the chaos.
It wanted blood. His blood.
Damian dropped low. Slid under the slash. Concrete scraped his knees raw. Both palms hit the ground. Cold seeped through his gloves.
Void pulsed out in a ring. Terrain destabilized. Asphalt cracked and buckled. The beast's legs buckled with it.
Now.
He moved.
Step—behind its head. Boots slipped on gravel. Another—below its ribs. World tilted. Vision graying.
Void.
The creature shrieked. Body distorting under layered strikes. Bones cracked like gunshots. Blood sprayed in arcs, painting ground crimson.
Damian's legs nearly gave out. Blood ran from his nose, his ears. But he wasn't done.
Finish it. Fucking finish it.
He clenched his jaw and went for the kill. One last Void Pulse concentrated at the skull base where the rune pulsed.
He slammed his fist forward. Reality bent around his knuckles.
The Pack Leader's body imploded at the impact point.
It fell.
Hit the ground like broken bones and meat.
[You have leveled up.]
[Level: 4]
He didn't cheer. Didn't smile.
Just stood there, bleeding and breathing, watching steam rise from the corpse.
Silence followed. Heavy. Pregnant with the weight that comes after violence. No one spoke. Somewhere a child cried raw, terrified sobs too human for this scene painted in blood and shadow.
Damian looked up. Swaying.
People stared. Some had dropped to their knees like witnessing something religious. Others frozen, phones in trembling hands, trying to process what they'd seen.
A woman whispered, voice carrying: "Th—The Ghost..."
The rumor spread.
***
Two blocks away, Viktor Lebedev crouched behind a flipped SUV. Expensive jacket torn. Clutching his phone like it was keeping him sane. When that voice had appeared in his head, he'd thought he was having a psychotic break.
Then he saw him.
A black-coated figure moving like smoke. Fighting something from hell itself. Viktor caught everything through his cracked screen—the impossible movements, reality bending around the man's fists, the moment the monster died.
The man had no name. No face Viktor could make out.
But whispers started before the beast hit ground.
"The Ghost."
Viktor's hands shook while uploading the clip.
Five minutes later, the whole world knew.
By midnight, the world would ask: Who is the man in the shadows?
***
Damian stood among the wreckage. Breathing hard. Each breath like swallowing glass. He glanced at his arm—bloodied, burned, coat sleeve hanging in tatters.
But he didn't care.
Not about the crowd. The whispers. The phones recording.
His eyes were on the rune in the Pack Leader's skull. Still glowing faintly even in death.
He knelt beside the corpse. Knees hit blood-slick concrete. Reached out with a trembling hand and touched the mark.
Cold pulsed into his fingertips like ice water in his veins.
Controlled.
This wasn't random. Wasn't some natural disaster.
Someone—something—was pulling strings. Manipulating gates before they'd even opened.
And the system...
The system wasn't what it claimed.
For the first time since his regression, since waking in that bed with knowledge of horrors to come, Damian felt something crawl up his spine that wasn't rage.
Fear.
Cold. Primal. The kind that made your brain scream run when there was nowhere to go.
Behind it came something worse.
Suspicion.
What if this isn't a second chance?
What if I wasn't sent back by fate?
What if this is exactly what they wanted?
What if I'm not the savior?
What if I'm the apocalypse?
Maybe he hadn't been sent back by fate.
Maybe it wasn't a second chance.
Maybe it was a setup.
And maybe he'd just lit the fuse.
[Level: 4]
STR +7 | DEX +8 | INT +7
[User: Damian Voss]
[Passive ability: V̶o̶i̶d̶] (Overloaded)
[Ability: S̶h̶a̶d̶o̶w̶ ̶S̶t̶e̶p̶] (Unresponsive)
[New Quest: ???]