The transition from the Red Gate back to the physical world was like being dunked in a bucket of ice water. One moment, I was standing on a pier of obsidian beneath a sky of crimson lightning; the next, the salty, smog-filled air of Incheon Harbor rushed into my lungs.
The silence was deafening.
Around me, the elite vanguard of the Yoo-Hwa Guild collapsed. These were A-rank veterans, people who had spent their lives conquering the impossible, yet they were currently curled on the wet asphalt, trembling as the "Stasis Field" from the Vanguard finally evaporated from their systems.
I stood in the center of them, the only one still upright. My black hoodie was shredded, and my left hand—the one that had crushed a precursor's heart—was still glowing with a faint, receding gold.
[Warning: Physical form is emitting 'Void Radiation'.]
[Detection Risk: 99.9% if Association Scanners are active.]
[Emergency Protocol: Suppress Synchronization to 1.5% baseline?]
Do it, I thought, my jaw clenched. Now.
The sensation was agonizing. It felt like trying to shove an ocean back into a thimble. The roaring power of the [Eternal Solar Core]—which had just hit 6.1%—was forcefully throttled. The gold veins in my neck retreated, the heat in my blood cooled to a simmer, and my vision, which had been seeing the world in strings of Aether, returned to the dull, gray reality of a 12th-grade student.
I slumped my shoulders, letting my knees buckle just as the first Association floodlights hit us.
"Medics! Move, move, move!"
The perimeter was a swarm of activity. I saw Director Song standing atop a command vehicle, his silhouette sharp against the dawn. He looked stunned. To him, a Red Gate hadn't just closed; it had imploded, releasing a mana-spike that had likely tripped every sensor in the northern hemisphere.
"Jin-woo?"
A hand grabbed my shoulder. It was Sae-rin. She looked terrible—her crystalline armor was shattered, and her face was streaked with soot—but her eyes were sharp, searching mine. She had seen it all. She had seen the "Porter" command the monsters. She had seen the Dragon.
"We're alive," she whispered, her voice shaking. "You... you actually did it."
"I didn't do anything, Sae-rin," I said, my voice low and raspy. I looked her dead in the eye, letting the '1.5% Dud' mask settle firmly into place. "You had a Triple Awakening. Your ice reached Absolute Zero and froze the Gate-Spirit. That's the story. If you tell them the truth, the Association won't study me—they'll dissect me."
Sae-rin opened her mouth to argue, but then she looked at the Association tactical teams closing in with mana-handcuffs and scanners. She understood. In this world, an S-rank genius is a hero. A Sovereign is a threat.
"I... I understand," she said, her grip on my arm tightening. "I'll handle the Director."
The Debrief: Association Mobile Command
The interior of the command bus smelled of burnt coffee and high-end electronics. I sat on a metal bench, wrapped in a shock blanket, while a robotic arm moved a mana-scanner over my chest for the third time.
[Scan Result: 1.51 Units.]
[Status: Extreme Mana Burnout.]
Director Song stood across from me, his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't looking at the scanner. He was looking at my boots—the soles were still slightly melted from the obsidian pier.
"An F-rank porter," Song said, his voice a low rumble. "In a Red Gate that consumed three A-rank scouts and nearly wiped out the Yoo-Hwa vanguard. And yet, here you are. Not a scratch on you besides a few singed hairs."
"I hid under a shipping container, sir," I said, staring at the floor. "The Vice-Guild Leader... she froze everything. It was like a blizzard hit the sun. I just stayed in the cold spot and prayed."
"A blizzard," Song repeated. He turned to the technician. "And the energy readings? The Void signature we picked up?"
"It's... it's inconclusive, Director," the tech said, sounding nervous. "The Vice-Guild Leader's ice magic reached such a low temperature that it caused a localized molecular collapse. It might have mimicked the Void signature. It's a documented phenomenon in Tier-1 Ice Awakeners."
Song walked closer to me. The pressure he exuded was immense—the weight of a man who had seen the world break and fixed it himself. "You've had a lot of luck lately, Jin-woo. A scavenger gate in the Academy, a B-rank dive with the Ice Queen, and now a Red Gate. Some might say you're a magnet for trouble."
"Or maybe I'm just bad at picking part-time jobs, sir," I replied, managing a weak, self-deprecating smile.
For a long moment, the Director didn't speak. He just stared, looking for the crack in the mask. But the System's suppression was perfect. To his sensors, I was just a boy whose soul had been fried by a Limit Break.
"Go home, Jin-woo," Song said finally. "But don't leave the city. The Association will have more questions once the Vice-Guild Leader is finished with her medical eval."
As I walked out of the command bus, I felt a vibration in my pocket. It wasn't my phone. It was the System.
[Notice: New Passive 'Language of the Void' is decoding the Vanguard's final neural broadcast.]
[Translation: "The Asset is compromised. Redirecting the Butcher's Path to Sector 7-B."]
My blood ran cold. Sector 7-B wasn't a Hunter district. It was a residential zone.
It was my neighborhood.
7:00 AM: The Residential District
I didn't wait for a bus. I waited until I was clear of the Association's perimeter, then I used [Aether Step].
The world blurred into a smear of gray and black as I flickered through the city. I was moving faster than the eye could follow, a literal ghost in the machine. Each jump drained my Aether reserves, but the 6.1% synchronization meant my capacity had nearly doubled since yesterday.
I landed in the alley behind my apartment building. Everything looked normal. An old man was sweeping the sidewalk; a stray cat was picking through a bin. But as I activated [Dragon's Eye], the world changed.
The air around my building was shimmering with a faint, oily purple hue. It looked like gasoline on water.
[Warning: 'Void Corruption' detected.]
[Source: Sub-spatial anchor located in Apartment 402.]
That was my apartment.
I didn't use the stairs. I stepped through the shadows, appearing directly inside my living room.
The first thing I smelled was iron. Blood.
"Mom?" I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The living room was pristine, exactly as I'd left it. But on the kitchen table, sitting in my mother's favorite chair, was a man. He wasn't wearing obsidian armor. He was wearing a tailored black suit that looked like it cost ten thousand dollars. He was sipping a cup of tea, his movements fluid and unnaturally graceful.
He looked human, except for his eyes. They were horizontal slits, like a goat's, and they glowed with a dull, dying-star red.
"The tea is excellent, Jin-woo," the man said, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "Your mother has a very steady hand for someone whose son is a dead man walking."
I looked toward the hallway. My mother was standing by the stove, her eyes glazed and vacant. She was moving like a puppet, her mana-circles suppressed by the man's mere presence.
"Let her go," I said, my voice vibrating with the [Dragon's Fear].
The man laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "I am not here for her. She is... a courtesy. A way to ensure you don't 'Aether Step' away before we finish our transaction."
"You're a Vanguard," I said. "The Butcher."
"I am a Recruiter," he corrected, setting the teacup down with a delicate clink. "The Harvesters you met at the Harbor are beneath me. They seek the Marrow. I seek the potential. 6.1%... quite impressive for a world that hasn't even reached its first Great Gate."
He stood up. He was tall—nearly seven feet—and as he moved, the space around him seemed to warp and bend, unable to hold his weight.
"You have two choices, Sovereign," he said, walking toward me. "You can come with me to the Citadel. We will strip the 'Human' from your soul and turn you into a weapon that can survive the coming collapse. You will live as a god among the stars."
"And the second choice?"
The man smiled, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. "You can stay here. You can try to protect this rotting 'Cradle.' And when the Butcher arrives in three weeks, I will make sure he starts with the woman in the kitchen."
I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about Director Song or the Hunter Association. I called the [Aether Blade].
The white light of the sword illuminated the tiny kitchen, casting long, jagged shadows against the wallpaper. The gold veins in my neck flared, shattering the 1.5% suppression like it was glass.
"Get out of my house," I said, the [Sovereign's Presence] slamming into the room with enough force to crack the window-panes.
The man's goat-eyes widened slightly. He looked at the blade, then at me. "You would choose a single life over eternity? How... disappointing. How very human."
He raised a hand, and the oily purple mist in the air thickened. "Very well. Stay in your cage, little bird. But remember: the Butcher does not negotiate. He only consumes."
The man didn't move, but the space where he stood simply... vanished. He collapsed into a singularity, taking the purple mist with him.
My mother staggered, her eyes clearing as the mental leash snapped. She blinked, looking at me, then at the glowing white sword in my hand.
"Jin-woo?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "What... what's happening? Why are you holding that?"
I looked at the blade, then at the mother who had worked three jobs to keep me in an Academy I was too "weak" for. I let the Aether Blade dissolve, the light fading back into the Void.
"It's a school project, Mom," I said, my voice cracking. "Just... a holographic prop for the festival. I'm sorry I scared you."
I walked over and hugged her, but as I did, my eyes were fixed on the kitchen window. The sky over Seoul was blue, but through the [Dragon's Eye], I could see the cracks forming.
Three weeks.
I didn't just need stones anymore. I needed an army.