From the heart of darkness ...
from the deepest womb of black ...
a single ember flared to life.
Nothing more than a trivial spark, too faint to awaken even the smallest flame.
What could such an ember hope to achieve against the majesty of the night?
Against the tyranny of the abyss?
It was like a withered leaf torn from its branch by autumn’s cold breath.
A speck of light.
A trace of warmth upon a desolate canvas of shadow.
The ember drifted downward, slow and solitary, its brief journey lasting no more than a handful of seconds—unconcerned with the vastness of the night or its suffocating horrors.
And at last... it touched the earth.
Its lonely descent ended.
Gradually, its glow began to fade.
The cold claimed it, smothering what little warmth it possessed.
Such was the law of nature.
No matter how grand a blaze, no matter how ferocious its flames ..
all fire is destined to die.
Extinguished.
Inevitable.
And yet...
Sometimes, even the smallest ember ..
the most insignificant spark ..
is enough to awaken a new fire.
A raging inferno.
Blazing.
Unyielding.
A flame powerful enough to breathe life anew—
a second spark daring to challenge the endless night.
And so ..
his fire ignited. And his journey began.
From within the flame, sharp eyes opened—burning with the light of life.
Crimson.
Scarlet-red.
His eyes.
"Hah...?"
A breath escaped Ethan’s lips as consciousness returned in fragments. His mind was like an engine that required a moment to turn over—to function again.
He was different now.
A new form.
A new vessel.
Fiery red hair crowned a sculpted face with sharp features he had only ever imagined in dreams.
His skin was pale—ashen—like a body bathed in the dust of a hundred burned corpses.
He appeared to be in his early twenties. Mature. Fully grown.
His pupils darted violently within their sockets, registering the first images of Ordeal’s dark world.
Ethan had not been reborn.
He had been transmigrated—directly—into an unfamiliar body.
There was no room.
No warmth.
No shelter.
He stood beneath the open sky.
He raised his head.
The heavens were orange .. bleeding into black.
The sun was nowhere to be seen.
The moon had devoured it entirely, leaving only a faint rim of light struggling to exist.
An eclipse.
A darkened world robbed of warmth and radiance.
He lowered his gaze.
And finally understood his surroundings.
Cold ground.
Lifeless.
No plants.
No animals.
Not even insects.
Only earth crawling with a thick, suffocating curse.
Ahead of him ..
hell revealed itself.
Withered trees clawed at the sky within a landscape of death, while grotesque, mutated crows circled above.
They had found their feast.
Fresh human flesh.
"H–heh...?"
Ethan gasped again, and this time ..
he heard it.
The cawing of crows.
The screams of humans.
The howls of beasts.
Understanding dawned upon him.
He was in the midst of a battlefield.
No ..
a massacre.
His heart beat for the first time since his arrival.
Sensation returned.
And he almost wished it hadn’t.
His vision blurred.
A viscous liquid slid down his forehead, into his eyes, across his face.
Red.
His blood.
A violent headache slammed into his skull, forcing him to grit his teeth just to remain conscious.
Corpses lay scattered everywhere.
Most of them bore the same defining traits as his new body—fiery red hair, ash-pale skin.
The only difference between him and them—
their flames had already gone out.
Ethan’s memory returned slowly.
The game had begun.
But the splitting pain in his head made coherent thought nearly impossible.
The screams intensified.
The monstrous wails pierced his ears.
And amidst the chaos ..
he heard the violent clash of steel.
Nearby—
his gaze caught sight of a fierce duel.
A humanoid beast clashed with a woman clad in silver armor, moving like a dancer across the battlefield, her blade wreathed in fire.
Her opponent wielded a colossal greatsword and a massive shield—carried effortlessly in one hand.
Though her resilience was remarkable, she was clearly struggling.
Around them, human soldiers encircled the battlefield at a cautious distance.
Everything was chaos.
Flames devoured the land.
Blood soaked the earth beyond saturation.
And then ..
there was him.
The one who worsened Ethan’s headache.
Turning his head with effort, Ethan saw him.
A strange man stood upon a slightly elevated hill, towering a few meters above the carnage below.
He wore a white mask.
And a pitch-black robe.
The madman waved his arms wildly as he shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Look around you... this is not ruin—
it is purification!!!"
He raised his fist and roared with all his strength.
"You cried for mercy! You prayed for salvation!
But your gods closed their ears!!!"
"Do not run. Do not weep. Do not beg!"
"For today... no one shall be granted deliverance!!"
"Today... we forge an ending worthy of this world!!!"
"Advance!!"
"Death awaits you ..
and I am your guide to it!!!"
With every word ..
with every syllable ..
the violent clash of steel sharpened his speech, lending it greater weight.
There was only one word capable of describing the scene before him.
Chaos.
Absolute chaos ..
as though the end of the world had arrived, and the earth itself had begun to shed its final burdens.
And Ethan...
had been cast into the heart of it all, unable even to think clearly.
"What in the name of the Creator of the heavens is happening...?
Was I thrown into hell by mistake?"
He whispered the words in a voice that was not his own .. strange, unfamiliar.
He tried to take a step ..
and a wave of agony slammed into his skull, as though someone had struck him with an iron hammer.
Blinding pain radiated from his left arm.
Instinctively, Ethan reached for it with his right hand—
but his fingers grasped nothing.
Only air.
"...Hah?"
Slowly, he turned his head to the left.
His arm was gone.
There was nothing there but his shoulder—and what little remained of a limb that had been cleanly severed. Blood still dripped from the wound, proof that the loss had been recent.
Ethan realized then ..
he had only one arm.
That realization was followed by a final surge of pain as his senses fully returned.
It struck his mind like a bolt of lightning.
His eyes reddened. Tears gathered at their edges as he collapsed to the ground, writhing like a worm, screaming like a madman.
"It hurts— it hurts— it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!!! Don’t mess with me !!! AARGHHH— damn it!!! Damn it!!!"
The pain was inhuman.
And for Ethan .. who had spent his previous life rarely leaving his room ..
this was an entirely different realm of physical torment. A level of suffering no peaceful man could endure.
The agony intensified until he began slipping hysterically between consciousness and near-blackout every few seconds.
And when it reached its peak ..
he screamed louder than ever.
"Ishizaki!!!!! You bastard!! What did you do to me?!"
When the developer had told him he would be transferred into the world of the game, Ethan had imagined countless scenarios.
Rebirth.
A calm transition into another body.
A dignified beginning fitting for any story.
Instead ..
he had been hurled straight into what looked like hell itself.
With bloodshot eyes, Ethan released a savage howl that carried every ounce of his pain and fury.
Rage.
Inhuman suffering.
And yet—for some reason—
he did not lose consciousness.
It was as though some unseen force was forcing him to remain awake.
And that only made it worse.