Elion's eyes snapped open, his body jolting awake from his second death. His breath came in ragged gasps, his heart beating fast, anger burning in his chest.
"Fuck!" Elion cursed loudly, kicking off the blanket still tangled around his body.
That Dred... that damn creature had managed to kill him in the end.
Without thinking, Elion got up from his bed, his body moving quickly towards the door of his house by the beach.
He didn't care about anything except the strong urge to vent his anger.
Once outside, his eyes fixed on the vast ocean before him. Without warning, he threw his fist forward.
"AARRGHH!" he screamed in rage, his fist striking the air.
A strong wind whistled as incredible power radiated from his punch.
The once-calm sea suddenly split in two, creating a deep cliff that divided the water from the shore to the horizon.
For a few seconds, the world fell silent. Elion remained motionless, his hand raised, and his eyes fixed on the split ocean.
[You feeling better now?] the system's voice suddenly appeared, its tone calm but with a hint of concern.
"Damn it," Elion hissed, lowering his hand and sighing heavily. "That Dred… I'm going to find that bastard now!"
Elion clenched his fists, feeling the heat of anger that continued to burn inside him.
He still remembered clearly—too clearly—the face of the Dred smiling with satisfaction after killing him. That memory seemed to be permanently inscribe in his soul, unaffected by the passage of time.
[Calm down, kid,] the system spoke again, this time more firmly.
[I set this save point 100 years ago, before you started your journey to explore the world, Although your level has returned to that time, all the skills you've gained are still there, thanks to your perfect memory.]
"H-Huh?" he startled. He looked around in confusion and finally realized it. This wasn't his old small house; this was Clearwater Beach. He didn't immediately notice it because his anger was blinding him.
He thought if he died, he'd return to the very beginning, but fortunately that's not the case.
[And do you know why you've returned to this point instead of going back to the first day of the apocalypse? Because I know something like this would happen.] The system continued with a low robotic tone, with a hint of hidden sadness.
As the system's voice faded, Elion's brows furrowed, his shoulders trembled, and thick veins bulged on his neck. For a moment, only the sound of crashing waves and the beach's gentle breeze filled the silence, until Elion finally snapped.
"What?! If you knew something like this would happen, you should've told me!"
[Listen to me first, kid.]
"Fuck it. Keep it to yourself!" Elion shouted, turning to walk away from the beach.
In his head, Elion only has one goal: to find and kill the Dred who had killed him, even if it took a long time.
"I'll find it," Elion vowed, his gaze filled with vengeance. "I'll kill every Dred in this world if I have to, until I find it."
[Hey! You only have one chance left—]
Before the system could finish, Elion muttered in a mix of anger and frustration, "What a useless system!"
Without another word, he turned back into the beachside house, leaving the system in stunned silence. Inside, he gathered what he needed, his movements quick and focused.
Finally ready, he stepped out into the open. The bright sky and fresh ocean air that usually brought him peace did nothing to calm the storm within him. With determined steps, he set off, his heart burning with fury.
And the first Dred he encountered, he killed in the most brutal way possible.
-----
[100 Years Later]
Time passed, and the world trembled under Elion's power.
BOOM!
Every time he found a Dred, the anger inside him continued to grow. One by one, these creatures were killed without mercy.
For a full hundred years, Elion spent his life with one goal: to destroy every Dred he encountered, hoping to find the creature that had killed him.
However, a hundred years passed, and the Dred he was looking for still didn't appear.
[Elion, you need to think more calmly,] the system warned after trying several times to calm Elion down.
[Your anger is blinding you. The Dred you're looking for must be smarter than the others. If you keep going like this, you might never find it.]
"Shut up!" Elion snapped. "I don't care. I'll keep searching and kill them all. One of them must be the one I'm looking for."
The system fell silent, realizing that Elion's emotions were too strong to be suppressed. A hundred years full of anger couldn't be extinguished with words.
Elion looked back at the Dreds before him. Because Elion had been chasing and killing Dreds for a full hundred years, he became their nemesis, and these creatures finally started to gather and attack him together.
And now, there were 10,000 Dreds ready to attack Elion.
These Dreds came in various forms. Some had small bodies with sharp fangs and terrible claws, while others had giant bodies with shiny skin, towering to the sky.
However, there was one thing that united them all: their hateful gazes, directed straight at Elion.
The ground shook violently as 10,000 Dreds charged forward, flattening buildings, houses, and everything in their path.
On the other side, Elion watched them with cold, disdainful eyes. He casually reached into a floating subdimension beside him and drew a sword.
"Vermin... I'll erase you all from existence," he muttered, swinging his sword in a calm, calculated motion.
SLASH!
In an instant, the slash sliced through the air, severing the necks of 5,000 Dreds in its path. Blood sprayed as thousands of Dred heads flew into the air, creating a horrifying rain of thick, dark red liquid.
But Elion wasn't finished. Calmly, he began to ascend into the sky, using the [Levitas] skill he'd learned from an ancient book on Dharma he'd once discovered. As he floated higher, his body began to radiate a blindingly brilliant light.
Elion then raised his hand high, his eyes locked on the ground below. And in a chilling whisper, he muttered,
"Die."
He activated the [Celestial Torrent] skill. The sky above him opened wide, as if the universe were responding to his call.
Bright light flooded the entire world, piercing through the clouds and raining down on the land with immense power.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The earth began to shook violently due to the explosions, and in a matter of seconds, the thousands of remaining Dreds vanished without a trace, completely burned by the unmatched power of the sky.
With a steady breath, Elion slowly descended from the sky, landing amidst the ruins of the now-silent city. Massive craters battered the ground, flames raged through the debris, and thick black smoke covered the sky.
As he gazed upon the destruction he had done, a sudden chuckle escaped his lips. Gradually, that chuckle morphed into uncontrollable, maniacal laughter.
"AHAHAHA!" Elion's laughter echoed through the desolation before it abruptly stopped.
In the silence that followed, as the crackling flames from the burning ruins filled the air, breaking the stillness, Elion tilted his head back, gazing at the sky, and shouted,
"Come out, you coward! I know you're here! Show yourself and fight me!"
His voice echoed across the landscape, his body trembling as the pupils of his eyes quivered with the madness he had bottled up for so long. Despite pouring every ounce of rage into his words until his voice cracked, his challenge went unanswered once again, as if he were merely talking to the crumbling walls around him.
[Sigh...] The system chose to remain silent, not intending to interfere. It hoped time would solve this problem.
-----
[200 Years Later]
Two hundred years passed. For two centuries, Elion never stopped. He explored every corner of the world, destroying every Dred he encountered with ever-increasing power.
Yet again, the Dred he was looking for remained unseen.
Now, anger began to turn into frustration.
In this third century of his life, Elion began to feel tired, but his determination remained strong. He still hadn't given up.
The system, which had only been able to watch silently until now, tried to speak more firmly.
[Kid, you've been searching for 300 years. If you keep using your anger, it's gonna be useless. Think about this with a cool head. The Dred you're looking for will come to you someday. But you have to be ready.]
Hearing the system's words, Elion bit his lip in frustration. On one hand, he didn't want to give up searching for the Dred, but on the other hand, after so many fruitless efforts, he was starting to feel tired. It was time for him to admit that what he was doing was completely pointless.
And the system was right all this time; he had indeed been moving based on anger alone, and it had made him lose a lot of energy and time. Although he had all the time in the world, it was still mentally exhausting for him.
Now, after three hundred years of hunting Dreds and wreaking havoc around the world, his anger began to subside, and he decided.
"You're right," Elion muttered, his breath heavy. "I'll go back to the starting point where I began this useless journey."