A pile of corpses was stacked so tall that in the foggy distance, people walking past mistook it for a mountain.
The metallic smell of blood was thick.
There was a dragon in the sky, circling the pile in a clockwise motion.
Sitting at the very top of the pile with his bloodied sword on his lap was a man with long white hair that flowed majestically.
"How many days has it been?" he asked the dragon above him.
"It has been five days, eight hours, three minutes, and 37 seconds."
"That long?"
He stood up and looked out into the distance; another wave of demonic cultists was rushing at him.
Every corpse below him was slain by his sword. Most of them belonged to the Demonic Cult, while some were from other sects and clans that had decided to ally themselves with the cult in an attempt to snatch away the necklace that was on his neck.
Grabbing a pill from his pocket, he crushed it inside his palm and rubbed it on the giant slash that traveled from the top of his right chest to the bottom of his left chest.
"My last one," he muttered. "I won't last much longer. Ready to die with me?"
The dragon laughed and flew towards the man, transforming itself into another sword which the man wielded with his other hand.
"I was ready from the day I decided to follow you."
This man's name was Ryuk Yongsun, and he was the sect leader of the Red Moon Sect. Well, although it was called a sect, he was the only member.
Looking down at the necklace he was wearing, he shook his head.
"All this bloodshed because of a necklace that no one knows how to use. All they have to go off of is a goddamn myth from over a thousand years ago."
The Kingmaker.
That was the name of the necklace. Legend has it that whoever wields the necklace will one day rule the entire world.
"I've been wearing the necklace since I was born, and I've yet to become a king, let alone king of the whole world. What a sham. The only thing it's done for me is put me in danger."
As he took a large exhale, he channeled all the qi in his body and dashed forward.
"Let's make a second mountain before we leave this world," Ryuk Yongsun said with a smirk as he swung his swords, and ten heads were separated from the torso.
Ten hours passed, and the man who was considered the strongest in the world was finally on his knees.
A sword was plunged into his heart.
"To think you would give us this much trouble," the Heavenly Demon said as he grabbed his sword and twisted it. "This must be the power of the necklace."
Clenching his teeth, Ryuk Yongsun used all the strength he had left to gather spit and blood. He spat the mixture at the Heavenly Demon's face, but a wall of qi blocked it.
"Don't worry. I'll make sure you won't be alone in the afterlife. All your friends will join you very soon."
Pulling out the sword, with one motion, Ryuk Yongsun's head rolled around on the ground.
Flipping the corpse over, the Heavenly Demon was about to take the necklace off when he saw that it was gone.
"..."
Where did it go?
* * *
Ryuk Yongsun didn't expect that his death wouldn't be the end.
The necklace had spoken to him as his life came to an end and explained to him that the true purpose of the necklace wasn't to make him a king of the world he was in, but rather the king of the world the necklace came from.
Earth.
That was the name of the world that Ryuk Yongsun woke up in.
This world was much different from his old one.
It was ruled by technology, and the concept of qi wasn't a thing. Rather, the world was dominated by the concept of mana, a similar thing, but it's used to activate the ability or abilities you're given when you awaken.
Mana was a recent addition, though, because it was only ten years ago when towers began appearing all around the world.
Along with towers came smaller dungeons, dimensional gates, and the occasional outbreaks where hordes of monsters would burst out into the real world and attack civilians.
Without the rise of the first generation of awakened, now referred to as hunters, humanity would've ended by now.
Before the towers, martial arts were only used for sport or to pick a fight with someone at the bar. It wasn't truly the method of survival, as a gun was superior.
But now, if you were a hunter and didn't know martial arts, you would most likely be a dead weight.
Eighteen years later.
Ryuk Yongsun just had his eighteenth birthday a few weeks ago.
It was a shame that, despite all the knowledge he had, due to the limited qi that was in the world, he was barely able to reach the Early-Stage Foundation Establishment realm. It was only in areas where there were a ton of monsters that there was a bunch of qi. Unlike mana, which came from a source that Ryuk Yongsun had no idea about, qi was from nature itself.
But even that lack of growth already put him at the very peak of what a human is capable of before awakening.
He thought that it wouldn't be long before he would awaken as a hunter, but contrary to his expectations, he didn't. It was only the night that he blew out the candles on the cake that his second set of parents had bought for him that he felt it.
"Is today the day that I begin to make a name for myself?" he asked, clutching the necklace on his neck.
Although it lost its purpose when it brought him over to this world, he kept it with him at all times as a reminder of his previous world, as well as to give it thanks for the second chance.
"You know, I don't really want to become the king of this world. I just hope to save everyone I can."
Slice!
Ryuk Yongsun's head rolled around the floor for the second time in the span of two decades.
Stepping on the head was a teenage boy who looked only a year or two younger than Ryuk Yongsun.
"If you didn't want to become king, then you should've stuck to your words," the boy uttered as he put his sword back in its sheath. He spoke calmly, but there was a hint of sadness in it.
The two of them were standing on a cliff in what was practically the middle of nowhere.
Ryuk Yongsun came here knowing that a new tower was going to appear nearby due to this rise in qi energy, and he should've been the only one here, but it was like someone had known his location in advance.
That someone is the teenage boy named Kwon Moon.
He was what you call — a regressor.
"Don't worry, my king. I'll make the hard choices you couldn't. I'll be the villain this world needs in order to survive."