Global Awakening: Only I Can Respawn

YuWon panted heavily. Taking out the ghouls wasn't all that easy, especially when his weapon was on the verge of breaking.

There was a little concrete left on the bloodstained weapon, but otherwise, it was as good as gone. But YuWon didn't care. His focus was on the screen before him.

[You have unlocked an achievement!]

[Ghoul Killer]

[Description: Surviving in the penalty zone is no joke. But it feels like one to you.]

[Effect: Strength +10, Endurance +10, Defense +10, Agility +10. It also increases damage dealt to humanoid monsters by 10%.]

YuWon blinked twice to ensure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. Just one title increased his stats by forty points and improved his damage by 10%.

Although he had received achievements before, this was something else. It was most likely because the penalty zone was no joke, and getting an achievement there was even harder. Danger lurked in every corner of the place and one misstep could have dire consequences.

Maybe I should get more achievements while I'm here.

His eyes shifted toward the park in the distance. The place was eerily quiet, much like the rest of the area. Since he had gone around, killing the ghouls, he knew his ticket to the world of living was inside the park.

Within minutes, YuWon stood in front of the entrance. The park was just as rundown as the buildings surrounding it. He took a deep breath and kicked open the door.

He expected the rusty door to make a lot of noise, but surprisingly, it didn't. Still, he waited for another couple of minutes to make sure that he wouldn't get ambushed as soon as he entered.

He was sure he had killed most of the ghouls outside the park, but one could never be certain about such things. Once he had cleared his mind, he stepped inside the park.

Suddenly, the air around him felt heavier than before. It was absurd to think of it like that, but it felt like the air was begging him to turn away and run. But YuWon had never listened to anyone, much to his dismay.

As he looked around the park, he realized all rides were out of order. The broken swings were dangling like a pendulum. The slide was flipped upside down. Everything inside had already broken or was on the verge of breaking.

What the hell is that...

Till then, everything was scary but manageable. But when he saw the gruesome sight, it almost made him puke.

The ground beneath him was drenched in blood. Bones were strewn all over the place, and these were no ordinary bones... they were human skeletons.

Far away, he could also see a pile of mangled corpses. As YuWon got closer, he recognized some of them. They were the corpses of people he had seen before during the tutorials and trials.

Minho... even that bastard is here. Wait, is that...

YuWon's eyes widened in fear when he saw his face among the corpses. There wasn't just one, but dozens upon dozens of them. He was seeing his own corpses there!

"This can't be..." YuWon mumbled, slowly walking towards the mountain of rotting corpses.

He couldn't believe it, but it was true. He could see his corpses there. But how could it be? He was a [Revenant], he would always respawn. Death shouldn't have a meaning for him.

Every time I died... Did I die for real?

YuWon slapped himself back to his senses. Maybe he was being played with the tricks. But it didn't matter... or so he kept telling himself.

Although he didn't want to admit it, he was scared shitless for the first time since all the weird crap started. For a moment, he thought of leaving. Not to run away, but to get stronger by finding and killing more ghouls.

But then an idea hit him. Since they were his corpses, could they have his weapons, too? Right now, the rebar was no good to him and would break at any moment, so it was better to look for something else.

After covering his nose to dispel the foul smell of rotting flesh, YuWon got to work and dragged out a corpse from it. He searched and searched, but all he found were broken weapons. Until he found the crimson blade again.

"Finally... Now I stand a chance to make it out of here... what's that?"

YuWon suddenly felt something wet drop on his shoulder. He absentmindedly touched whatever the fluid was.

The transparent liquid had a gooey texture, almost like one of those stress-reducing thingies they sold online. But the stench was horrible.

"Weird... it almost feels like," YuWon's eyes widened as he realized what it was. "Saliva."

He quickly tried to jump away, but the creature behind him was faster. With just a kick, YuWon got sent flying across the park, rolling and tumbling until he crashed against a tree.

But the force was so strong that even the tree got uprooted from its place before he stopped. Within the cloud of dust and gravel, the sound of YuWon's painful groans echoed.

He felt as if he was overrun by a truck as blood dripped down his head. His ears were ringing continuously and everything in front of his eyes was blurry apart from the notifications that just appeared.

[Domain Boss: Charred Ghoul has appeared.]

[The park has been sealed. Defeat the Charred Ghoul to secure a passage back to Earth.]

[You've been affected by the Curse of the Charred.]

[From now on, every time the Boss hits you, you'll get one stack of 'Bleed.']

[Bleed Effect: Makes the target lose 1% of their maximum HP per second for the next 10 seconds. This effect can be stacked 5 times. It has a cool-down period of 5 seconds.]

This is bad...

Just one kick shattered him, and it would have been even worse if he didn't raise the sword in time to block the attack.

"Fresh... food..." the ghoul snarled as the dust settled down.

Great! It can speak too. I felt a little lonely here since I had no one to talk to. But the system took care of that too.

The charred ghoul was unlike any ghoul he had seen so far. It was tall, standing at eight feet even with a hunched back. Its body had completely mutated to a point where it had two razor-sharp blades in place of its arms.

Its legs were also quite muscular. No wonder its kick was so strong and fast. But the thing that caught his attention the most was its dangling tongue that almost touched the ground. But it was no ordinary tongue.

Are those teeth on his tongue?

YuWon looked up, hoping to see a set of eyes staring at him. But the ghoul didn't have any eyes. Red tumors covered the place where its eyes should've been. It was no ghoul, but an abomination.

I'm about to die here, aren't I?