Noah delved into the heart of the forest, where the trees were no longer mere plants but colossal pillars supporting a canopy of interlacing branches that completely strangled the sky. The darkness here was not simply an absence of light; it was dense, tangible—as if it were a living entity lying in wait for his very breath.

  Despite the sudden sharpness that had afflicted his vision, seeing remained an arduous task. He walked with excessive caution, placing his foot on the ground as if testing the stability of a timed mine. Every dry twig beneath his feet represented a scream that might lure death from the furthest reaches of the woods.

  "Yesterday’s survival wasn't skill," Noah thought, holding his breath until his chest felt ready to burst. "It was a fluke of fate, and fate does not grant flukes twice."

  As he slinked along, he began to feel that strange vitality flowing through his veins. His muscles no longer felt heavy as they once had, and his senses were picking up the vibrations of the air with terrifying precision. For a moment, he felt he had the capacity to run—to pierce through these trees faster—but he ruthlessly suppressed that urge. In this world, speed without caution is the shortest path to the grave. "I want to live," he told himself with dry coldness, "and living requires me to be smarter than my instincts."

  Questions began to gnaw at his mind with agonizing slowness. "What does this 'Void' truly want from me?" The words that appeared in his consciousness, those forced quests, felt like a guidance system—but a guidance shrouded in threats. "Every time I fall into danger, it issues orders as if it’s warning me, or as if it’s pushing me to play a role in a play whose script I do not know. And what if I decide to rebel? Will it simply extinguish my life?"

  He looked around at the twisted trees and the monsters that could emerge from behind them at any moment. "In a place like this, the Void holds all the winning cards. It has the power, and I have only the will to survive."

  Noah bared his teeth in the gloom of the forest; the thought of blind obedience nauseated him even more than the raw monster flesh. "I don’t like this..."

  "I’ve been a puppet my whole life..."

  "Doing exactly what was asked of me without hesitation, just to earn a living. But that never threatened my life."

  He exhaled slowly.

  "Now, the situation is different."

  Then, he made his decision.

  "I will play the role of the follower... for now."

  "I will follow the orders until I understand the rules of the game... and until I find the loophole that allows me to take back control... That is, if I stay alive. No... I stay alive!"

  He paused for a moment, feeling his chest over the tattered fabric. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the protrusion of those black lines. He pulled the edge of his mangled shirt to glance at the branching etching. It extended from the center of his chest, crawling like sunken snakes into his skin until it settled above his navel.

  "What is this thing, really?" he wondered silently. "Is it a magical tattoo that grants me strength? I have a strange feeling it’s linked to my healing. It appeared ever since I ate the meat of those two beasts... Damn it... that was truly an agonizing pain."

  Then, a bitter thought struck him, one that made him halt his stride for a second. "What if I am the only human in this hell? How will I return? Is there a 'portal'? Is there another world waiting for me, or have I fallen into a bottomless pit?"

  He remembered the girl’s corpse he had seen yesterday. The scene of her being torn apart was horrific, but now, at the height of his despair, it represented a bleak ray of hope. Her presence meant there were others; it meant the human race had a foothold here, even if only as "prey."

  Then he pulled out the corroded knife he had found. He contemplated its weak blade and its worn edges. "This is the real mystery," he muttered. "The monster’s skin was harder than stone, and this knife is barely fit to cut bread. So how was it driven into its back with such force? Who possesses the hand that can push a blade like this through a biological armor?"

  The thought of another human possessing that kind of power was both terrifying and reassuring. "Either it’s a monster with a human’s intelligence and weaponry, or a human who has become a monstrously powerful beast." Noah let out a faint, cynical laugh. "A monster using a knife... this world is starting to resemble a crude joke written by a wrathful demon."

  He began to follow the trail of destruction: the uprooted trees and the churned-up earth left behind by the beast as it dragged him the previous day. Those tracks served as his map back from hell.

  After a long trek of apprehension, where the pulse in his veins quickened at every mysterious sound, the dense trees suddenly parted.

  A heavy silence reigned, and the stench of death and ash began to assault his senses. Noah stopped at the edge and looked ahead. He was back. There, in that ill-fated spot that had witnessed his agony. He had reached "The Circle."

  The "Circle" reappeared before his eyes like a painful memory of a night time would never erase. The trees whispered around him as if mocking his return. In its center, the three large branches—fashioned into primitive chairs—still surrounded the campfire that had turned into cold ash.

  Noah stopped, and a vivid reel of memories struck him with force. He remembered when he first saw the smoke rising into the heart of the sky; he remembered the leap his heart took in joy. "Humans! I’m not alone!" he had screamed within himself then. But the joy had been fleeting; instead of laughter and companionship, he had found a scene from hell: a monster devouring a human body atop those seats. At the time, he had only caught a glimpse of the girl. All of this had happened only yesterday, yet he felt as if an age had passed. He didn't know what had become of the others.

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  "Maybe they are alive..." he muttered, his tone dominated more by hope than certainty. He had returned here driven not just by survival, but by the need for human contact. In his heart, Noah believed that struggling alone was a guaranteed suicide, and that finding a partner might lighten the weight of this nightmarish world.

  As he walked along the edges of the circle, his gaze struck a patch of dark blood that had dried on the soil. A sudden nausea surged, and a grip tightened around his stomach; this stain was all that remained of the girl. His hands trembled as he imagined himself in her place, torn between the fangs of abominations.

  "Rest in peace. The cursed freak that destroyed your life is now a thing of the past."

  He moved cautiously, trying to ignore the terror that threatened to paralyze his limbs. The enhancements that had permeated his body after consuming the meat of the two beasts were beginning to show their effect; the insight that had once been clouded by fear and hunger was now sharper. He noticed signs of a violent struggle: tree trunks deeply gashed, massive boulders overturned as if they were small pebbles, and remnants of claw marks etched into the surrounding wood.

  Suddenly, his heart hammered against his ribs. Footprints. They weren't tracks of monsters, but clear human boot prints on the dry mud. They led away from the center, toward the depths of the forest. "They survived!" Noah whispered excitedly. "Perhaps they fled while the monster was occupied with the girl."

  That thought, despite its cruelty, gave him a surge of na?ve hope. He began to follow the tracks with eyes full of anticipation, completely oblivious to his surroundings, until he crossed the boundaries of the Circle without realizing it. In that instant, a chill swept through his chest, and a thought was driven into his consciousness like a needle of ice:

  [Target Detected]

  

  [Forced Mission Initiated]

  

  [Remain inside the Circle for 10 minutes]

  

  Reward: Information.

  

  Failure: Death.

  

  [Surveillance Activated]

  Noah froze in his tracks, his breath quickening. He looked at the dark forest beyond the boundary line, then stumbled back toward the center. "Ten minutes? Information?" he questioned with a trembling voice. The irony in his tone didn't stem from strength, but from sheer terror. Staying here, where the scent of blood still lured every predator, was a nightmare. But the word "Death" alongside "Penalty" left him no room to maneuver.

  Noah hesitated, his nerves fraying under the pressure. "What do I do?! Should I stay? It's too dangerous; staying here makes me an easy prey!"

  Then, Noah turned toward the darkness looming behind the trees and muttered, "If I refuse and leave, a monster might attack me anyway. And from what I’ve noticed, the Void doesn't issue quests in vain. Besides, the reward could be information about the other humans... Hmm..."

  The first three minutes passed like hours of torture. Noah was trembling, turning around at the rustle of every branch, his eyes overflowing with terror. "What do I do if a monster comes?! I don't even know what kind of creatures live here!" he asked himself bitterly, clutching his fang-spear tightly to his chest.

  After five minutes, anxiety took its toll. He wanted to feel safe, even if it was a false sense of security. He climbed a high branch of a tree within the Circle and took a position, trying to be comfortable, to monitor the ground from above. Exhaustion was gnawing at his strength, and in a moment of weakness, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a second to take a deep breath to calm his racing heart.

  When he opened his eyes... he wished he hadn't.

  At a very short distance, three eyes were staring at him with terrifying stillness. Two side eyes, and a third slitted in the middle of the forehead, wide open as if it didn't see his body but was reading his deep-seated dread.

  It was a monster resembling a monkey, covered in thick golden fur, with limbs disproportionately massive like those of a professional wrestler. It was clinging to the tree trunk in absolute silence, had been watching Noah for a long time.

  Noah froze; he couldn't scream, couldn't even breathe. Terror completely paralyzed his vocal cords. In the next moment, the beast moved with lightning speed. A single kick, precise and brutal, struck Noah’s chest.

  His body flew through the air, slamming into the ground with a violence that made the world turn black before his eyes. His shoulder impacted hard, and he felt a sharp sting as if a knife had been driven into his ribs. He rolled twice, moaning, with tears streaming from the pain and shock.

  Before he could regain his balance, he glimpsed the beast landing gracefully. Without the slightest interest in Noah, it reached out its long arm, snatched the leather pouch containing the wolf meat, and leaped a few paces away.

  "No... no... no," Noah muttered in a broken voice as he rose staggeringly, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He raised his trembling spear with hands that were utterly helpless. He didn't know whether to attack or plead; his heart was screaming with a sense of injustice and despair.

  The monster sat not far away, tore the pouch open with its teeth, and began to devour the meat ravenously, indifferent to Noah’s presence, as if he were mere wreckage posing no threat.

  Seconds passed like burning embers searing Noah’s nerves, until the text reappeared:

  [Quest Accomplished]

  

  [Reward: Information]

  [Weak Point of the Raging Ape: The third eye on the forehead]

  

  [Recorded]

  Noah’s eyes widened in bewilderment mixed with indignation. "This is the reward?" he screamed internally. "Information about the monster that is about to claim my life right now?" He didn't think of fighting; the instinct to flee was dominant. He turned and ran toward the edge of the Circle with all his remaining strength.

  But before he could take a single step outside—he felt something explode across his face. A long, powerful tail lashed out like a whip, striking him with such force that it sent his head spinning violently, slamming him to the ground once more. The metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth, his breath hitched, and his teeth clattered together so hard he thought they would shatter.

  He raised his head with difficulty, his vision completely blurred. The beast wasn't satisfied with the meat; it was watching him coldly, beginning to advance toward him with slow, confident strides.

  In that moment, Noah realized the simple, harsh truth he had been running from: there was no one to save him, no humans, no escape. The ten minutes were up, but the true hell had only just begun. He had to choose between dying as a weeping victim, or driving his spear into that cursed third eye.

  "? If you’re enjoying the descent into the Void, a rating or follow helps more than you think."