(Act l )Strange night

 Baekno Nuri locked up the convenience store, the metallic click of the deadbolt echoing in the oppressive silence of the street. He yawned, a long, jaw-cracking stretch that felt like it was trying to shake off the exhaustion of a twelve-hour shift. *God, I just want to crawl into bed and forget this day ever happened.*

 As he stepped out, the neon sign overhead flickered—a dying buzz of electric pink and blue that cast long, twitching shadows across the asphalt. Then he saw it. A glow, jagged and wrong, bleeding out of the alleyway. It wasn't a light; it was a tear in the atmosphere, humming with a frequency that made his teeth ache.

 *Curiosity killed the cat, Nuri. Turn around. Go home.*

 But he didn't. He stepped forward, drawn by a gravitational pull that felt less like magic and more like a predatory instinct. The moment he crossed the threshold, the world didn't just fade—it shattered. A blinding, sterile white erased the city, the smell of ozone and burnt sugar filling his lungs until everything collapsed into a suffocating void.

 [You have crossed the Veil.]

[Welcome to the Unseen Realm, Baekno Nuri.]

 When the darkness retreated, the first thing he felt was the heat. A dry, baking sun that scorched the back of his neck. The second thing he felt was the weight of a thousand eyes.

 "Are you fucking kidding me?" he muttered, staring at his hands. Still pale. Still calloused from late-night gaming. But the world around him was a fever dream of scales and fur. He was standing in a bustling plaza, a sea of towering beastmen whose presence felt like a physical pressure against his chest. They didn't look at him with curiosity; they looked at him like a glitch in the system.

 *What the hell is this? Is this a prank? A hallucination?*

 A low murmur rippled through the crowd, a guttural language that twisted in his ears like half-remembered dreams. One word kept repeating, spat out with a mixture of disgust and awe: *Zha'Thik*.

 He stood there, paralyzed, your legs feeling like lead pipes. He could feel the atmosphere shift, the air growing thick with a sudden, sharp killing intent. This isn't a fantasy novel. This is a slaughterhouse, and he was the only thing that seemed on the menu.

 A broad-shouldered wolfman with silver-tipped fur stepped forward, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air. He didn't see a man; he saw a void. "No scent of magic," the creature growled, his voice a tectonic shift of gravel and hate.

 Nuri’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. He tried to back away, but the crowd closed in, their eyes gleaming with an otherworldly intensity that stripped him bare. He wanted to scream, to fight, to demand an explanation, but the sheer pragmatism of the situation hit him: he was a soft-skinned human in a world of predators. He had zero leverage. Zero power.

 *Damn it, I can't even move. Why can't I fucking move?*

 As the beastmen converged, their shadows swallowing him whole, a voice whispered directly into the marrow of his bones, cold and possessive:

 "Welcome, Azrael. I've waited so long, so.. So long."

 The world tilted. The Light vanished. And as the darkness dragged him under, as if the ground were made of soft footing Nuri felt a terrifying, electric thrill.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***