The flickering torchlight cast long, dancing shadows across the blood-soaked floor of the sanctuary. The air, thick with the stench of sulfur and fear, vibrated with the guttural roars of Trangul, a Class 5 demon. Its serpentine limbs lashed out, each strike a symphony of pain and death.

Kurogami, his body wracked with pain, watched helplessly as the demon methodically dispatched his friends, their screams echoing through the cavernous space.

Each fallen comrade was a fresh wound on his soul, a testament to the demon's merciless cruelty. Blood, crimson and thick, oozed from the gaping wounds on his own body, a grim reminder of his own mortality.

His gaze then fell upon his parents, their faces contorted in agony, their bodies shielding his younger sister, Lily. Despair threatened to consume him, but a fierce rage, born from grief and the impotent fury of a witness to such atrocities, ignited within him.

"If I had another chance," he hissed, his voice hoarse, "I would use it to make Trangul pay. I would hunt it, I would torment it, I would make it suffer a thousand times more than it has made me suffer."

And then, darkness.

"Kurogami, wake up," a familiar yet distant voice echoed through the void, pulling him back from the abyss.