The sky was crimson. It wasn’t the gentle, orange-red of a normal evening sunset, but a dark, terrifying crimson that resembled fresh blood. It filled the atmosphere with a dense, suffocating weight.
The ground beneath was strikingly similar, covered entirely in bright crimson sand. The dried, withered canopies of dead trees scattered around the area suggested that a severe, endless drought plagued this land.
A brilliant white sun hung high in the sky, creating a beautiful but eerie complentary contrast against the blood-red horizon.
A silver-haired boy lay completely unconscious on the crimson ground. His slow, steady breathing could barely be heard in the quiet wasteland. He wasn’t physically hurt—at least, not yet—but this place was completely unknown and alien to him.
As ti passed, consciousness slowly began to claim him.
Alen hazily opened his eyes. The very first thing he saw was the bizarre crimson sky, an entirely new and shocking scenario for him. The white sun reflected a harsh glare across the red landscape. He weakly raised his hand to block the blinding light.
"Now... where the hell am I?"
He slowly stood up. His body still felt incredibly weird, as the bizarre gravitational pressure from the dark void earlier had left his balance completely out of sorts.
He looked at his surroundings. The place was nothing but an endless wasteland, with no unique landmarks in sight.
"Sigh... Is this a trial? Or sothing like that? How the hell am I going to get out of this place?"
He suddenly rembered the void and quickly closed his eyes, focusing inward. The mana flowed smoothly through his body.
"Sigh... Thankfully, I didn’t lose my physical body... and my mana core is perfectly fine. But what was that phenonon earlier? It was pretty weird..."
Alen shook his head.
"What am I even thinking? Nothing good ever happens to anyway. I am fated to suffer in this world."
"Did I earn so kind of ’tag’ from the universe? Like those disaster-magnet protagonists from the web novels I used to read in my previous life?"
"Sigh... Let’s think about what I should do now. No notification has co from the system... which can only an I am not currently in a trial. But then the question remains... Am I even in the real world? Or am I in a completely different dinsion?"
"I can’t believe I’m standing here casually guessing about the multiverse. It seems my standard for crazy situations has increased quite a bit since transmigrating to this place."
"Whatever. Let’s focus on the current situation. What should I do now... Where should I go?"
He closed his eyes, deep in thought, calmly tapping his chin.
*BOOOOOM!*
The red sand violently shifted as the ground beneath him suddenly tore open. Alen, who had just been standing there with his eyes closed, heard the deafening noise but couldn’t react in ti.
A giant worm erupted from the earth, splitting through the crimson sand and debris as its massive maw threatened to suck everything in.
It was as massive as a nobleman’s giant mansion. Standing several dozens of ters tall, it looked terrifying enough to swallow any living being whole.
Alen’s eyes snapped open, locking onto the monster.
[Bloodsand Leviathan]
[Description: An ancient predator of the crimson wastelands, this monstrous worm feeds endlessly, guided by vibrations and heat. Its imnse body tunnels beneath the earth like a living calamity. When it surfaces, the land itself splits apart. Its endless hunger and grotesque size make it a walking disaster, feared as the embodint of the wasteland’s curse.]
Alen heard the system’s voice reciting the monster’s information, but he didn’t have the luxury to actually process it.
The giant beast had already noticed his presence. It turned its massive, horrifying eyes toward Alen, making the boy’s skin prickle in sheer alarm.
Alen could feel the monster’s invisible, suffocating aura. It didn’t take long for him to gauge its strength. This monster was at least a Peak B-Rank threat.
As Alen stared up, his eyes t the monster’s.
*SCHREECH—!!!*
A deafening scream echoed through the wasteland, tearing the ground open like a sonic boom.
Alen quickly summoned his sword from his Shadow Inventory and instantly cast a Wind spell to deflect the incoming air pressure.
*BOOOOM!*
Even with his defense, the sheer air pressure created by the sonic clash threw Alen several feet backward.
He quickly thrust his sword deeply into the sand to prevent himself from sliding any further.
"Damn! What the f*ck is that monster?! Does it have an affinity for the Sound elent too?!
...
Every monster in existence has its own evolutionary advantages based on its environnt and conditions. They can awaken different kinds of powers and elental affinities. Monsters may have their own battle skills, just like humans or other intelligent organisms. The only difference is that a monster’s skills are based purely on practical survival experience in the wilderness. While their techniques may lack the refined sharpness of human training, they are still devastatingly powerful in their own right.
Monsters are also blessed with mana. Because they are creatures of nature, they can achieve an ’Awakening’, though their thods differ entirely from normal people.
For a normal human, the thod of Awakening requires deciding on a specific ’path’ and possessing a will strong enough to achieve it. When that happens, the ’laws’ of the ’world’ are attracted to the Awakener and grant them power.
To the world, every creature is equal and serves a purpose in the environnt. People often think that monsters are parasites or destroyers of the world. But in truth, humanity is no different; humans also rcilessly kill monsters on sight.
Since everyone has the right to live, no single race has the authority to judge who deserves to survive. The world itself is the only judge. There have been many historical cases where certain races refused to follow the natural cycle of the world and rejected its ’laws’. The result was always the sa: they were wiped from existence. The world does not allow anyone outside its control to survive.
Truthfully, the world itself possesses a slight, overarching consciousness—one that refuses to listen to the petty requests of people. It sets its own absolute ’rules’, and anyone who refuses to follow them is punished.
’Equality’ is just a term humans use to comfort themselves. The world does not show equal favor to all. The ’Laws’ of the world are heavily partial, favoring the beings they like the most.
But paradoxically, this partiality is the main reason for the world’s peacefulness.
If everyone received equal favor, they would all be equally strong. If a fight broke out between perfectly equal beings, the outco would lead to nothing but mutual destruction.
Because the world only favors particular individuals, those chosen people beco so overwhelmingly strong that their enemies must either admit defeat or be swiftly destroyed. The world actually doesn’t care about the loss of life; it only cares that nature’s cycle continues endlessly without anyone ssing with it.
The favor one receives from the world may co in the form of a skill, a talent, an elental ability, or any other unique trait, completely dependent on their inherent nature and capabilities.
As for the monstrous Bloodsand Leviathan standing in front of Alen? It had just used a devastating Sound attack.
It, too, had earned the favor of the world. It was a fully Awakened creature.
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