He quickly got up and walked toward the bathroom. Without hesitation, he took off his clothes and decided to take a shower.
Water droplets flowed down his body, washing away the dried blood that remained on his wounds.
As he slowly looked at the scar on his abdomen, the water droplets began to look like blood.
The image of Subedei's entire body being drenched in Zev's blood started to appear before his eyes.
Startled, Subedei tightly shut his eyes and then opened them again. Everything returned to normal.
At that moment, his breathing became irregular and rapid. His heart was pounding violently, and his hands trembled slightly.
Subedei closed his eyes tightly once more, took a deep breath in and out, and then opened them again.
With nothing he could do, he stood there silently.
A few minutes later, he seemed to have calmed down. He stepped out of the shower feeling like a completely new person.
He put on pants, leaving his upper body bare. Under the light, the muscles on his abdomen and arms stood out clearly.
Even the deep wound on his stomach had stopped bleeding and had stabilized.
Subedei showed no concern for the pain in his abdomen.
Seeing that the wound was no longer bleeding, he didn't pay it any mind. He slowly walked out and sat on the balcony of his house.
Remembering what his sister had said, Subedei began searching the internet for information about the tower.
From what he had heard earlier, it seemed that many people had already emerged from the tower.
In an instant, thousands of articles, news reports, and videos appeared before his eyes.
He carefully read through them one by one and came to understand several things.
Twenty-one days had passed since he entered the tower, and twenty-eight days had passed since people first began disappearing.
In this short period of time, many shocking and terrifying events had occurred across the world.
The first person to come out of the tower had emerged only eight days after people started disappearing, as if nothing had happened.
The most terrifying part was that he had cleared the tower entirely by himself.
After learning this, people began calling him "The Monster."
As more people emerged from the tower, scientists gathered enough evidence to determine that there were two ways to exit the tower.
One was to reach the sixth floor, and the other was to exit by luck through a trial area or from the first floor.
None of this interested Subedei.
He quickly checked the identity of the person called "The Monster" and found that he was Chinese.
Not only China, but Korea, Russia, and the United States had also produced true monsters.
However, none of them could match the speed and strength of that Chinese man.
Although these people gave interviews after exiting the tower and uploaded them to the internet, few believed their words.
But ten days after people began disappearing, black-hole-like phenomena started appearing all over the world without warning.
Governments rushed to secure and investigate the areas where the black holes appeared.
However, there were simply too many, far beyond their expectations, and they couldn't control them all.
Although they studied these unknown black holes, they were unable to uncover anything.
Then, suddenly, unknown monsters began emerging from them, slaughtering anyone they saw.
Strangely enough, once all the monsters emerging from a black hole were killed, the black hole itself would vanish into the air as if it had never existed.
Some black holes didn't release monsters at all. Instead, people were able to enter them.
Footage spread of dozens of soldiers cautiously entering one such black hole.
What the cameras recorded terrified everyone.
Out of the dozens of soldiers who entered, only one severely injured man crawled back out before losing consciousness.
Immediately after, monsters poured out and began killing everyone present.
In the end, the cameraman fell to the ground, the camera shattered, and the recording abruptly ended.
At first, the monsters emerging from the black holes were not very strong, so the military and police were able to maintain control.
However, once spirits and skeletons began appearing, everything changed.
Human weapons could no longer harm them.
This ultimately gave tower climbers the opportunity to prove themselves.
Across the world, incredibly fast tower climbers emerged, killing monsters from the black holes.
They began entering the black holes, slaying monsters, and destroying them entirely.
Yet something else shocked Subedei even more and shattered his confidence.
There was news that the Chinese "Monster" had already cleared the 10th floor of the tower.
What Subedei had barely survived with his life was something that man had surpassed dozens of times over.
His confidence plummeted.
Although he had never thought of himself as the protagonist, he believed he could at least be among the strong.
Subedei gave a bitter smile and continued reading.
Recently, tower climbers had begun to be ranked based on the highest floor they had reached.
The higher the floor, the stronger one was considered; lower floors meant weakness.
Depending on luck, people could exit the tower from almost any floor.
Seeing this, Subedei felt depressed about his own misfortune.
The ranking system was as follows:
• Floors 1–2: Rank 5 Hunter
• Floors 3–4: Rank 4 Hunter
• Floors 5–6: Rank 3 Hunter
• Floors 7–8: Rank 2 Hunter
• Floors 9–10: Rank 1 Hunter
However, Subedei didn't care. He thought it was nothing more than a meaningless system.
After finishing all the information, he let out a deep breath and quietly gazed at the peaceful scenery around him.
His stomach growled, and he decided to go inside to find something to eat.
A short while later, Subedei sat at the table and began eating the noodles in front of him.
He had grown tired of eating plain grilled meat without any seasoning.
"Finally, something other than grilled meat,"
he muttered, saliva dripping from his mouth.
While eating, he turned on his phone and checked the messages he had received.
After going through them one by one, he found nothing particularly important.
Subedei turned off his phone and quietly finished his meal.
Since it was already night, he went straight to bed after eating.
The name Zev would not leave his mind.
The moment of killing Zev replayed again and again, refusing to let him rest.
In desperation, he turned on his phone and looked at a picture.
The photo showed a woman beautiful and charming.
She had jet-black hair, large, expressive eyes, and a smile that could make anyone fall for her.
There was another person beside her, but it seemed the photo had been edited, leaving only part of a shoulder visible.
As Subedei stared at the picture, he fell into deep thought once more.
Lying there quietly, gazing at the image, he eventually drifted off to sleep.