Chapter 1: Twenty-Eight Bullets
The sea was cold and completely black.
Han Jin-woo floated on his back with twenty-eight holes in him, blood coming out slow like smoke in water.
He counted every shot while they pulled the trigger, professional habit.
Salt stung every hole and Lungs burned. He tried to curse the five bastards who sold him, but only red bubbles left his mouth.
Then the pain just… stopped.
Everything went calm and quiet.
He started sinking.
Hatred kept him awake longer than his body had any right to.
A voice crawled inside his head, not through ears, straight into the soul.
Unique condition satisfied. Death by betrayal plus hatred strong enough to taste.
Constitution awakening… Grief Eater.
Welcome back, host.
His eyes snapped open under water. The whole ocean looked red.
He kicked once. Thirty metres of water felt like a puddle. His foot hit the bottom and he shot upward like a shark.
He broke the surface and landed on the same yacht that dumped him five minutes earlier.
Five men were still on deck, laughing, popping champagne, excited about the "clean job"...with three hundred million won now sitting in their accounts, ready to sail away.
They saw a corpse standing in front of them, dripping seawater and blood, eyes glowing like fresh wounds.
The youngest of them dropped his glass, it shattered.
"G-ghost…?"
Jin-woo smiled with no warmth at all.
"Not yet."
He moved.
The first man never finished raising his pistol, his neck twisted one-hundred and eighty degrees.
The second took two bullets in each knee and hit the deck screaming.
The third tried to run, Jin-woo caught him by the hair, slammed his face into the railings until his teeth rained on the wood.
The fourth pulled a combat knife, Jin-woo took it from him, slid it slowly through the man's abdomen into the wall.
The captain, the one who personally put three rounds in Jin-woo's back tried crawling away, Jin-woo stepped on his wrist. Bones cracked like dry twigs.
"You sold me for three hundred million won." He said, voice calm, almost gentle.
"Was that worth it?"
The captain spat blood and tried to laugh..
"You...were always...a monster..."
Jin-woo pressed harder until the laugh became gurgle.
"Good. Now I'm the monster that eats monsters."
Then he stepped on the captain's neck with every strength in him, his eyes rolled back. Dead.
In four minutes, the yacht went dead quiet again, broken only by waves and dripping blood. Five bodies lay twisted on the blood wet deck.
Jin-woo stood in the middle of the carnage and listened to his own heartbeat. It was slower, stronger.
Above each corpse floated a fist-sized black-purple ball, spinning slowly, whispering tiny screams only he could hear.
He reached out and closed his fingers around the first one.
It felt cold and wet, like holding someone's last heartbeat.
He crushed it.
Pain and pleasure slammed into him at the same time, so strong his legs shook.
Words burned across his vision in crimson letters.
Grief consumed
Skill stolen: Expert Pistol Handling (Rank A)
Body strengthened 7%
Curse Stack 1/100
The biggest bullet hole in his chest closed with a wet sucking sound.
He looked at the four remaining orbs and licked blood off his lip.
"Dinner", with a smirk.
He bit the second one clean in half like fruit.
The screams inside his skull got louder and he laughed while he chewed.
When the fifth orb was gone, his eyes weren't brown anymore.
They were the same colour as the Griefs he just ate.
He wiped his mouth, looked at the dark horizon where city lights blinked weakly.
Out there the Black Requiem Plague had already started.
Millions of people coughing blood, seven days left to live, seven days of perfect terror.
Millions of Griefs waiting.
Jin-woo tossed the empty champagne bottle over...the traitors had been drinking overboard.
It sank without a single sound.
He whispered to the night.
"Time to eat."