The smell of blood and gunpowder saturated the night air, mixing with the smoke that rose lazily from the debris scattered across the ground.
In the middle of that devastated landscape, where bodies lay piled up like grotesque mounds of flesh and bone, a figure remained standing with an unnatural calm that defied all logic.
Marek surveyed the battlefield with his red eyes, as cold and expressionless as ever, despite the fact that his body was in a deplorable state.
His left arm hung at an impossible angle, bones protruding through torn flesh, while deep wounds gushed from his torso, staining his shredded black shirt with blood.
Each breath he took produced a wet, bubbling sound that indicated severe lung damage, and yet the nearly two-meter-tall man did not even flinch.
Three hundred and thirty-seven. That was the number of corpses surrounding him, though some still writhed weakly in their final moments of agony.
Among them were world-renowned assassins, elite mercenaries, and even a couple of figures governments considered invaluable assets.
All of them had come that night with a single objective: eliminate the man known as "The Red-Eyed Demon," the monster who for a decade had terrorized both the criminal underworld and the most powerful governmental organizations.
And they had failed.
Marek moved his right hand, the only one that still functioned with some semblance of normality, toward the pocket of his pants.
His fingers, stained with both his own blood and that of others, pulled out a crushed and twisted cigarette that had miraculously survived the battle.
With a swift motion, he brought it to his lips while, with his ruined hand—completely ignoring the pain that should have made him scream—he took the silver lighter from his other hand.
The metallic click echoed in the sepulchral silence, followed by the soft crackle of the tobacco igniting.
Marek inhaled deeply, letting the smoke fill his damaged lungs before exhaling a grayish cloud that disappeared into the darkness.
His legs began to move out of sheer inertia, carrying him away from the field of slaughter while leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
Each step he took was heavier than the last, yet his expression remained unchanged, as if he were taking an evening stroll instead of dragging himself toward an inevitable death.
'Pathetic,' he thought as he glanced sideways at the bodies he left behind. 'So much effort to gather this group of incompetents, and in the end not a single one of them truly made me sweat. Maybe old Kozlov, with that knife of his... that was entertaining for a few seconds.'
A barely perceptible smile curved his cracked lips as he recalled how he had crushed the skull of that veteran Russian assassin with his own knee.
He had been the only opponent that night who managed to draw something resembling satisfaction from him, though even that had lasted only a few moments before disappointment flooded him once more.
'This world has nothing left to offer me,' he continued reflecting as the cigarette burned between his lips. 'No worthy rivals, no real challenges. Just trash that thinks it can touch me.'
His knees gave out without warning, and Marek suddenly found his face pressed against the cold asphalt.
The cigarette rolled a few centimeters before extinguishing in a puddle of his own blood.
His body had finally reached its limit. The willpower that had kept him standing during the last two hours of brutal combat could no longer compensate for the obscene amount of blood he had lost, nor the perforated organs that barely functioned.
'So this is dying,' he thought with an absolute calm that would have disturbed anyone who knew him. 'Boring.'
There were no regrets in his mind, nor hidden fears surfacing in his final moments.
Marek had lived exactly as he wished: pursuing absolute strength, crushing those who stood in his way, and experiencing those brief instants of ecstasy when he found someone worthy of making him fight seriously.
The fact that those moments had been so scarce was his only real complaint against existence.
His red eyes slowly closed as darkness enveloped him, and the last thing he felt was the cold asphalt against his cheek before all sensation disappeared completely.
-x- -X- -x-
The absence of pain was the first thing his mind registered upon regaining consciousness.
Marek opened his eyes expecting to find nothingness, or perhaps some cliché version of hell he undoubtedly deserved, but instead he was greeted by a bright blue sky.
His body felt... light. Whole. Without the constant murmur of pain that had been his companion for years of brutal battles.
Before he could process this information, his combat instincts, honed over decades, alerted him to imminent danger.
A figure was lunging toward him at high speed, wielding what appeared to be an iron sword with surprisingly refined technique.
It was a young girl, probably in her late teenage years, with a considerable height for a woman, perhaps one meter seventy-four, and silver hair that whipped wildly as she executed her downward strike.
Due to the violence of the impact and the inertia of the blow, her breasts bounced forcefully beneath her clothing, while her huge ass vibrated provocatively as she landed, outlining her curves in a way that was inevitably arousing to anyone watching her.
Behind her, Marek managed to make out an enormous mansion of ancient architecture, with towers rising toward the sky and impeccably maintained gardens.
Several figures watched from the balconies and windows, though their faces were difficult to distinguish at that distance.
The place where he stood seemed to be some kind of training courtyard, with combat marks engraved into the stone floor.
'Huh?'
That was the only thought that crossed his mind before his body reacted out of pure muscle memory.
In a fluid movement that would have been imperceptible to a normal observer, Marek slid to the girl's side, caught her wrist with precise timing, and used her own momentum against her.
A second later, she was face down against the stone floor with her arm twisted into a painful lock while her sword rolled uselessly several meters away.
That forced position caused her breasts to be crushed against the cold pavement, spreading to the sides under the pressure, while her enormous ass remained raised, offering such a shameless view to Marek.
A muffled groan escaped the girl's throat at the brutality of the hold, but he barely registered the sound as his red eyes examined her face from above, taking pleasure in the way her curves trembled slightly as she tried, unsuccessfully, to break free from his grip.
She had porcelain-pale skin along with intense violet eyes that shone with a mixture of surprise and anger.
Aristocratic features that exuded arrogance even in that humiliating position. And that silver hair, so distinctive it could only belong to one person.
'Seraphine Blackwell,' Marek recognized, a flicker of something akin to disbelief crossing his usually impassive expression. 'The first villainess of "Destined to End the SSS Villainesses." But that's impossible... that novel...'
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a translucent screen appeared before his eyes, floating in the air as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The letters glowed with a golden hue that contrasted against the semi-transparent background, and the content made his pupils contract almost imperceptibly.
[Villainess System]
[Transmigration complete.]
[Destination World: "Destined to End the SSS Villainesses"]
[Host: Marek Nighthollow]
Beneath him, Seraphine Blackwell struggled uselessly while muttering threats that promised a slow and painful death.
In the distance, the figures in the mansion began moving urgently, likely alerted by the unexpected situation.
And Marek, the man who had died as one of the most dangerous monsters in his world, simply stared at that floating screen with an expression that for the first time in years showed something other than coldness.
'...What the hell.'