Hero of the reverse worl.., p.1
Hero of the Reverse World, page 1
Hero of the Reverse World
Morrow
Copyright © ‘Hero of the Reverse World’ by A. Morrow rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Edition: 2026
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Book Blurb
In a world where monsters circle the cities and women outnumber men fifty to one, James Kim should have died the moment he woke up outside the walls.
Instead, the monsters failed—and Aegis City gained a miracle.
Dragged in from the wilderness half-dead, James discovers a world turned upside down: rune-lit walls holding back bio-engineered horrors, rival “hero” and “villain” brands fighting under strict rules, and an entire legal system built around protecting and managing rare men like him. He’s offered luxury housing, a generous stipend, and a carefully scripted life as a treasured, sheltered citizen.
James says no.
When his latent power Awakens, the city’s interest explodes. James can see the math of reality—vectors, force, probability—and nudge it. A step that crosses impossible distance. A single move that shatters a monster formation. A glowing lattice of equations that holds a failing wall together while thousands scream below.
To heroes, he’s a symbol of hope.
To villain syndicates, he’s the ultimate brand opportunity.
To one ruthless PR queen, he’s the missing half of a power couple and the prize in a very public relationship contract.
James just wants three things: his freedom, a chance to actually help people, and the space to enjoy the dizzying attention of a world where every second woman wants his time, his smile… maybe more.
But beyond the giant walls, something is wrong. Monsters attack at suspiciously convenient moments. A deadly expedition reveals devices that lure the creatures instead of repelling them. And the deeper James looks, the more it seems that someone prefers humanity scared and penned inside their mega-cities.
In a city of brands and factions, James chooses the impossible path: an unbranded, independent hero who won’t be owned—by the government, by a syndicate, or even by the most dangerous woman in Aegis.
He’s the rarest man alive.
He can rewrite the math of the battlefield.
And he’s just starting to question who really built these walls… and why.
Perfect for readers who enjoy superpowered worlds, reverse-ratio societies, flirty tension with fade-to-black romance, and a clever MC who wins with brains as much as raw power.
Contents
Chapter 1 — Wilderness Wake
Chapter 2 — River Logic
Chapter 3 — “Night Patrol Eyes”
Chapter 4 — The Gate Shock
Chapter 5 — Cleaned Up, Turned Up
Chapter 6 — Stipend Problem
Chapter 7 — Sponsored Interest
Chapter 8 — Awakening Lag
Chapter 9 — Calculation: First Proof
Chapter 10 — Male Network Whispers
Chapter 11 — Festival of Walls
Chapter 12 — Midpoint Spike
Chapter 13 — Brand Interview War
Chapter 14 — “Contract Trap Attempt”
Chapter 15 — Thrown Into Mission
Chapter 16 — “Monster Stampede Night”
Chapter 17 — “Temptation Tax”
Chapter 18 — “Mentor Truths”
Chapter 19 — “Expedition Offer”
Chapter 20 — “Beyond the Second Wall”
Chapter 21 — “Expedition Goes Wrong”
Chapter 22 — “Contract Choice, New Normal”
Chapter 1 — Wilderness Wake
James Kim came awake the way a man surfaced from drowning—lungs clawing for air, heart hammering, hands scrabbling at dirt that didn’t belong to any familiar place.
He rolled onto his side and coughed hard enough that his ribs complained. The taste in his mouth was metallic and stale, like he’d bitten his tongue sometime during whatever had happened before this. His head throbbed in pulses that didn’t match his breathing, as if his skull had its own angry heartbeat.
For a moment, he lay there with his cheek pressed to cold ground, listening.
Wind moved through something above him—branches, maybe, or the hollow ribs of a broken structure. Far off, there was a sound like grinding stone, then silence, then an answering cry that raised the hair on his arms.
James pushed himself up on his elbows.
The world around him was wrong in the quietest, most unsettling ways. Not just unfamiliar—wrong, like a picture hung slightly crooked so you couldn’t stop staring at it.
He was in the middle of a ruin that used to be something orderly. The earth beneath him wasn’t pure soil; it was soil on top of crushed concrete and tangled rebar. Jagged slabs lay at angles like teeth. A half-collapsed wall jutted from the ground nearby, stained black with age and streaked with moss. A tree had grown straight through it, splitting it like paper.
Dusk tinted everything with a bruised purple light. The sun was low, barely visible through a haze that made the horizon look dirty. Shadows stretched long and sharp across the debris field, turning every broken doorway into a mouth.
James swallowed and tasted more blood.
He sat up fully and did the first thing his mind always did when panic tried to take the steering wheel: inventory.
Clothes: torn. The shirt he wore—if it had ever been a shirt—was shredded across his shoulder and down one side. His pants were ripped at one knee. Shoes… he had shoes, thank God, but the soles felt thin and gritty, like they’d been dragged across gravel for hours.
Gear: none. No bag. No jacket. No knife.
Pockets: he patted them down with shaking fingers. A wallet, scuffed and damp. A dead phone—black screen, no vibration, nothing. Keys. Not his, not anymore; the keyring held two keys and a small metal tag with numbers stamped into it. A coin with a woman’s face—too smooth, too unfamiliar. And a thin cord bracelet on his wrist that he didn’t remember putting on, braided dark and tight.
Memory: a blur. He had the impression of lights, of noise, of moving too fast—then a snap, like a rubber band breaking. The rest was fog.
James drew a slow breath through his nose.
Okay. Don’t spiral. Not yet.
He tried to stand. His legs wobbled under him, then steadied. He wasn’t injured in a way that screamed broken bones, but his body hurt in dozens of small places—scrapes, bruises, the ache of muscles used too hard for too long.
He turned in a slow circle.
Beyond the rubble, a broken forest had swallowed what used to be streets. Trees grew where roads should have been, roots twisting through old asphalt like veins. Rusted poles leaned at odd angles, their tops empty as if signs had been torn away. In the distance, rising above the treeline, there was a silhouette that made his breath catch.
Walls.
Massive, impossibly high walls cut across the horizon like a dark spine. They weren’t natural—no mountain ridge made a line that straight. Even from here, miles away, they looked deliberate. Protective.
A city behind walls. A place that understood what lived out here.
Relief flickered bright and quick, and then—right behind it—fear.
Because something out here had understood him.
A snapping sound came from the trees. Not a branch breaking in the wind—something heavier, something that knew how to move without being seen and had chosen to stop caring about stealth.
James froze.
The air changed. A scent rolled over him—wet fur and old meat and a sharp chemical tang, like disinfectant poured on rot.
Another snap. Closer.
He turned his head just enough to look.
At first he saw only shadow between trunks, then a shape detached itself from the gloom like a thought becoming real.
It was wolf-like in the same way a nightmare might borrow the idea of a wolf and then distort it for fun.
The creature was low to the ground, but not because it was small. It moved on too many limbs—six, maybe eight—each one jointed wrong, some ending in paws, some in taloned hands. Its hide was patchy with mangy fur, but plates of something hard bulged under the skin in places, like armor grown instead of worn. Its head was too big, its jaws too wide. A line of milky eyes—more than two—glimmered along the sides of its skull, catching what little light remained.
It lifted its head and sniffed.
James didn’t move. His mind screamed at his body to run, but some deeper part of him—primal, practical—held him still.
Predators noticed movement.
The creature’s nostrils flared. Its shoulders rose, and the muscles along its spine bunched like coiled springs.
It had his scent now. It had decided.
James ran.
He launched himself over a slab of concrete, nearly slipping as loose gravel rolled under his shoes. The creature’s howl tore through the trees behind him—high, ragged, triumphant—and then he heard it: the rapid drumming of too many feet.
His lungs burned fast. The world narrowed to obstacles and angles and the desperate question of where the hell he could go that wasn’t a dead end.
He vaulted a fallen beam and slammed his shoulder into a curtain of vines, pushing through into what might have once been a courtyard. Broken foundations formed a faint grid under the overgrowth—rectangles of concrete outlines where buildings used to sit. Rebar poked up like bent fingers.
The grid caught his eye even in panic, a tiny spark of recognition in the chaos. A plan, even shattered, still left patterns.
James cut left, then right, not random—never random. He moved on instinct that came from too many hours of solving problems that didn’t care if he was tired. He followed the geometry the rubble offered him: narrower paths, tighter turns, places something big and multi-limbed might hesitate.
Behind him, the creature crashed through the vines. It didn’t hesitate.
It was faster than he was.
The ruin opened into a stretch of cracked roadway, weeds pushing up in green fists. James’s foot hit a pothole and twisted. Pain lanced up his ankle, white-hot.
He stumbled, caught himself, kept going.
The creature hit the roadway and gained speed. Claws scraped stone. Its breath came in wet rasps, close enough now that James could feel it at the back of his neck.
Think. Think, James.
His brain latched onto old fragments—documentaries, articles, the kind of trivia he’d absorbed and forgotten until it mattered. Predators pursued on straight lines. They committed when the prey committed. They weren’t elegant; they were momentum.
Momentum could be used.
Ahead, half-swallowed by brush, lay the skeleton of a building: two thick concrete slabs had fallen against each other, forming a low wedge-shaped gap—wide enough for a person to squeeze through if he went sideways, but too narrow for something with a broad ribcage and extra limbs.
A choke point.
James forced himself to angle toward it.
He heard the creature surge, as if it sensed his desperation and delighted in it. The howl shifted into a gurgling bark, hungry and furious.
The gap was closer than it looked and still too far. James sprinted, pain and panic blurring into one awful rhythm. The wedge of concrete loomed. He threw himself down, slid on dirt and broken glass, and shoved his body into the opening.
Concrete scraped his shoulder. Something hard tore at his shirt. He wriggled forward, squeezing, twisting, dragging himself through with elbows and knees.
Behind him, the creature slammed into the entrance.
The impact shook dust down in a gray sheet. James coughed it out as he scrambled free on the other side, rolling onto his back for a split second just to see.
The monster shoved a forelimb into the gap. Then another. Its claws scraped sparks off old metal. It snapped its jaws, teeth clacking as it tried to force its head through.
Too wide. Too many limbs. Too much body.
It snarled, the sound vibrating through the concrete into James’s bones. One of its eyes caught him through the narrow space, milky and furious.
James’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. His hands shook as he pushed himself backward, farther away from the gap.
The creature began to thrash. Its forelimbs dug in, trying to lever itself forward. One of the concrete slabs shifted a fraction with a grinding groan.
Oh no.
If it moved enough, the gap could widen. Or collapse.
James’s gaze snapped around, searching for anything—anything—that could turn this into more than a delay.
There: a length of exposed rebar arched from the ground a few feet away, still embedded in a chunk of foundation. Rusty, but thick. Like a hook.
James crawled to it, grabbed it with both hands, and yanked.
It didn’t budge at first. He planted his foot against the concrete and pulled again. His shoulder screamed. The rebar bent slightly, then tore loose with a sound like a scream of metal.
He didn’t have time to wonder how he’d managed it.
He dragged the rebar back to the gap, keeping low, keeping his profile small. The creature’s claws raked through the opening, snapping at air, its teeth slamming shut inches from his fingers.
James swallowed bile.
“Okay,” he whispered, voice raw. “Okay, okay…”
He waited for a rhythm—thrash, snap, thrash. Predators repeated. They did what worked until it didn’t.
On the next thrash, the creature shoved its limbs forward together, trying to wedge itself in.
James stabbed the curved end of the rebar down between the slabs, hooking it around one of the creature’s forelimbs at the joint where tendon met plated hide.
He pulled.
The creature shrieked. It jerked backward instinctively, and in doing so it yanked its own limb sideways against the slab.
There was a wet, cracking sound.
The monster thrashed harder, but now its limb was pinned awkwardly. It couldn’t pull straight back without tearing itself. Its claws dug gouges in concrete. It snapped at the rebar, teeth scraping metal.
James backed away immediately, hands trembling, chest heaving.
He didn’t wait to see if it would free itself. The goal wasn’t victory. The goal was distance.
He ran again, limping now, ankle hot and unstable. The ruin on this side of the wedge sloped downward toward a low basin where old buildings had collapsed into a tangle. The light was fading fast. Dusk was becoming night, and every shadow deepened into something that could hide teeth.
James pushed through brush until his lungs felt like they were full of needles.
Behind him, the creature screamed again—less close than before, but not gone.
It would get free eventually.
He needed shelter. He needed height, or cover, or a place that didn’t smell like him.
His eyes swept the darkness.
A shape emerged from the overgrowth—a hulking rectangle half-buried in vines and dirt. A vehicle. Not a car. Bigger.
A bus.
Its windows were shattered, its roof caved in near the back, but the front half looked intact enough to crawl into. The door hung crooked, frozen half-open, as if it had tried to swallow someone and died mid-bite.
James stumbled to it and ducked inside.
The interior smelled like mold and old plastic. Seats lay on their sides, torn open, their stuffing spilling out like dead cotton. The aisle was filled with debris—fallen panels, broken glass, a child’s toy dinosaur bleached nearly white.
James moved to the back, stepping carefully to avoid making noise. He lowered himself behind an overturned row of seats and forced his breathing to slow.
Outside, night settled like a lid.
The ruins became silhouettes. The forest became a black wall.
And the sounds came alive.
A distant howl, different from the wolf-thing, rose and fell like a siren. Something answered it with a clicking chatter that made James think of insects the size of dogs. Far away, something heavy moved through brush with the slow confidence of something that feared nothing.
James pressed his hands to his face and tried to control the shaking.
Panic wanted to spiral. His brain wanted to replay the monster’s teeth and the way its eyes had fixed on him like a promise.
He forced himself back to inventory again, because inventory was sanity.
He had water? No. Food? No. Shelter? Temporary. Injury? Ankle. Scrapes. Nothing fatal yet.
Goal: reach the walls.
The silhouette of the city’s defenses still burned in his mind—straight lines against a broken world. He didn’t know what waited behind them, but it was better than this.
James shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t make his ankle scream. His fingers brushed against something hard beside him. He froze, then slowly reached down.
A metal panel, half-hidden under debris. It wasn’t part of the bus. It had been carried in.
He slid it free and found it was a sign—thin sheet metal, painted once, now faded.
He angled it toward the faint light filtering in through broken windows.
Most of the paint was peeled, but the symbol was clear: a stylized figure inside a shield. Below it, words in bold block letters.
PROTECT OUR SONS
REPORT ALL MALE SURVIVOR SIGHTINGS TO AUTHORITIES
DO NOT APPROACH WITHOUT OFFICIAL ESCORT
James stared at it, the words swimming slightly as his exhausted brain tried to make them fit into reality.
