Before the Fall: Rise of the Apocalypse King
Chapter 35: The First Avatar

Chapter 35: The First Avatar

The air was warm.

Not burning, not frozen—just... warm.

Ivan blinked against the soft sunlight filtering through the curtains of a room that shouldn’t exist. He shot up, his body drenched in sweat, and his eyes darted across the familiar walls. A poster of a half-naked anime girl grinned at him from the corner, while the smell of old books and deodorant wafted through the cramped dorm room.

"No... this can’t be," he whispered.

His hands trembled. He looked down at them—no blood, no broken nails, no chains digging into his wrists. He wasn’t starving. His bones weren’t cracked. His mouth wasn’t dry from days without water. He was... normal.

Ivan scrambled out of bed and stumbled to the cracked mirror near the bathroom door.

A nineteen-year-old boy with short brown hair and sharp grey eyes stared back. His skin was clear, his body thin but not malnourished. The bags under his eyes were from sleepless study nights, not from the screams of the dying.

"This is... my old body," he whispered.

He reached for his phone, half-expecting it to crumble into radioactive dust, but instead it lit up:

Date: March 13, 2029.

That was three years before the apocalypse. Before the bombs. Before the infection. Before hell.

Before the day everything died.

---

In his first life, Ivan had been a third-year engineering student in Moscow. Smart, but quiet. Friendly, but forgettable. When the world fell into chaos, he managed to drag his family into one of the government shelters. At first, they were lucky. But luck never lasts.

The rules were brutal. Sixteen hours of labor a day in exchange for food and protection. Ivan worked like a dog—sewer cleaning, corpse disposal, furnace duty—just so his elderly parents and younger sister Lena could live a little longer.

But Lena... she was too beautiful.

Too soft for a world like that.

---

The shelter boss, a fat bastard named Viktor Malin, noticed her. He started offering Ivan "deals."

"Let her serve me for a night," Viktor had said, licking his lips. "You’ll get double food for a week."

Ivan refused. Again and again. Even when his own mother begged him to consider it, hungry and crying, he said no.

He thought he could protect her.

Until Viktor got tired of asking.

---

One night, his men ambushed Ivan. They held him down while Viktor dragged Lena by the hair. She screamed. Cried. Begged.

"Ivan! Help me, please! Please!"

But he couldn’t move. They’d shattered his knees with a steel pipes. All he could do was watch. Watch as she cried out, kicking and screaming, but no one helped. She begged him to stop. Her voice shook with fear, but he just laughed.

He tore her clothes in front of him

Lena looked at him. Her eyes were full of pain, pleading for help. But he stood there—helpless.

Viktor did what he wanted. Her screams filled the room, then slowly faded. She didn’t even cry by the end. She just stared at the ceiling, empty and broken.

When Viktor was done, he threw her aside like trash. Then he called his men. One by one, they took turns. They laughed. Joked. Treated her like she wasn’t even human.

Lena didn’t fight anymore. She didn’t cry. She just lay there, silent.

When it was over, they left her on the floor. Bleeding. Broken.

He sat next to her, eyes wet, heart burning. Guilt tore him apart. He hated himself more than he hated them.

And then, as Ivan lay sobbing and bleeding, Viktor threw his parents out of the shelter.

Right into the jaws of the waiting infected.

Ivan screamed as the zombies swarmed his parents, dragging them to the ground like hungry animals.

His mother’s cries echoed in his ears—sharp, panicked, full of terror. His father fought back, punching and kicking, but there were too many. Teeth sank into flesh. Bones cracked. Blood sprayed across the walls like paint.

Their screams turned into gurgles. Their limbs twitched, then fell still. Ivan couldn’t look away. The sounds—the tearing, the crunching, the wet, awful chewing—seared into his memory. His legs wouldn’t move. His voice broke into a sob.

That moment carved itself deep into his soul. He would never forget the way they looked at him in their final seconds—begging for help he couldn’t give.

-----------

Then came his turn.

They didn’t kill him right away. That would’ve been too easy.

Instead, they tortured him—slowly, cruelly. They beat him until he couldn’t move. Broke his fingers one by one. Burned his skin. Laughed while he screamed. They wanted to see him suffer, to hear him beg.

His body was shaking, covered in blood and pain. But worse than the pain was the feeling of helplessness. Of knowing no one would come.

And when they were finally done—when there was nothing left in him to break—they threw him to the zombies like he was garbage.

He watched the monsters crawl toward him, drooling, hungry. Their eyes were empty. Their mouths open. Death was coming, slow and cruel.

But somehow... he didn’t die.

------------

And now... he was here.

In the past.

His chest tightened. He dropped to his knees, overwhelmed by the flood of memories—blood, pain, fire, screams... Lena.

Tears rolled down his face. "Why... why am I alive again?"

That’s when he heard it.

A voice. Ancient. Echoing in his head like the sound of collapsing stars.

"You have been chosen, Ivan. One of the four Avatars of the End. You have been granted rebirth to guide this world. To save it... or to rule it."

Ivan’s eyes widened. The voice was neither male nor female—just power.

"But to bring peace, you must first eliminate the other three Avatars. Only one can ascend."

His heartbeat slowed as a strange heat bloomed in his chest. The room shimmered. And before him, hovering mid-air, a ring appeared. Silver-black, embedded with a tiny red crystal. It spun slowly, waiting for him to take it.

He reached out—and the moment he touched it, knowledge flooded his mind.

Storage Ring – A space 100 cubic meters in size, sealed from time, able to store weapons, food, tools—even bodies.

Then, something else materialized beside it.

A long staff wrapped in old black cloth.

Ivan gripped it. The cloth melted away like ash.

It was a reaper’s scythe, sleek and jagged, its blade forged from some unknown obsidian material that shimmered like a dying star. Symbols in ancient script danced across the weapon. It pulsed like it was alive.

Name: Nyxfang

Type: Transferable Weapon of Calamity

Abilities:

Can absorb souls to grow stronger

Temporarily boost the user’s physical and magical stats

Can be lent or passed to another person willingly

Grants minor regenerative healing

Summons shadows to fight alongside the wielder (locked)

Ivan gasped as a dark aura briefly surrounded him before fading into his body. The weapon vanished into the storage ring as if it had never existed.

He staggered backward and sat on his bed, breathing heavily.

So this wasn’t a dream.

He had really returned.

He was alive.

And this time... he would not forgive anyone.

---

For hours, Ivan sat in silence, thinking.

He wasn’t going to play the hero. He had seen what the world was becoming. It wasn’t just bombs and zombies. It was madness, betrayal, survival of the worst.

The strong ruled.

The weak screamed.

But now, he was strong.

And those who hurt him...

Viktor. His men. The ones who laughed while his sister was destroyed... the ones who dragged his parents outside...

They would suffer.

He stood and looked into the mirror again, but this time, he didn’t see the scared college boy.

He saw the ghost of a broken man, reborn with a monster’s rage.

--------------

Ivan took a notebook from his drawer and began writing down all the critical dates he remembered from his past life.

Virus outbreak: August 17, 2031

First nuke launch: August 17, 2031

Major cities fall: August 18, 2031

Moscow lost:August 18, 2031

Viktor seizes shelter: June 2032

That gave him more than 2 months.

Two months to prepare. To gather weapons. Supplies. Power. Allies. Kill Viktor.

And then, to hunt the other three Avatars.

---

A sudden thought struck him, and he reached into the drawer.

A picture of Lena.

She was fifteen in this photo—smiling, bright-eyed, her long brown hair falling over one shoulder. She wanted to be a dancer. She wanted to visit Paris. She’d never even kissed a boy.

He clenched the photo until his knuckles turned white.

He failed her once.

This time?

He would burn the world before letting her suffer again.

---

Somewhere far away, three other souls stirred at the same time.

Each chosen.

Each reborn.

Each given a chance.

But only one could become the God of the New World.

And Ivan?

He didn’t want peace. He didn’t want power.

He wanted revenge.

And he was ready to turn this second chance into a blood-soaked path of retribution.

Let the hunt begin.

=====≠====================

Author’s Note:

Roman has chosen the dark path. The world will burn again... but under **his** rule this time.

If you’re enjoying the chaos, don’t forget to:

- 🔥 Drop a Power Stone

- ✍️ Leave a review

- 💬 Share your thoughts in the comments

Your support helps the story rise — and ensures Roman doesn’t come after *me* for stopping. 😂

See you in the next Chapter!

—Author