Twelve years ago, the world ended.
Not in fire. Not in ice. But in silence—followed by the sound of a thousand screams.
It started with a fracture in the sky, a thin glowing line like a vein of lightning etched into the clouds. No one knew what it was. Satellites failed. Planes dropped. Communication blacked out in the span of minutes. And then came the tearing.
The sky split open like it had been ripped by unseen claws, and from it spilled the impossible. Creatures that defied reason. Hulking beasts made of bone and shadow. Winged horrors with eyes like searchlights and teeth like shattered glass. They fell onto cities without mercy. Seoul was the first to burn.
They called them Rifts.
No one knows if the Rifts are portals, wounds, or something worse. All we know is they don't stop opening. One by one, they cracked open our reality like eggshells, linking Earth to something far older and hungrier.
The military tried. God, they tried. Bullets, bombs, chemical warfare—it didn't matter. The monsters were immune to logic. To physics. To rules. Tanks melted like wax. Skyscrapers crumbled like toy blocks. In the chaos, entire countries fell silent.
And then, just when all hope was gone… the System arrived.
No warning. No explanation. Just a sudden series of messages, flashing in front of chosen individuals like a UI overlay in a game no one remembered starting:
> [You have been chosen.]
[Initializing Hunter Protocol.]
[Awakening: Confirmed.]
These chosen awakened with power. Real power.
Fire bending to their fingertips. Blades summoned from thin air. Strength that crushed concrete. Minds that saw seconds into the future. Each was given a rank: E to SSS. Each was assigned skills, abilities, limits.
And humanity fought back.
Out of the wreckage rose Hunters. And from them, twelve guilds formed in Korea—military, corporate, rogue, divine. Each a kingdom in its own right:
Silver Lions, armored nobility of war.
Blood Lotus, assassins who moved like ghosts.
Aegis Core, bastions of defense and science.
Thunderlight Union, lightning incarnate.
Obsidian Fang, merciless and rich.
Iron Howl, the beastmasters.
Crimson Pact, wielders of forbidden flame.
Moonveil Order, arcane and unseeable.
Titan's Reach, unstoppable juggernauts.
Black Sun Syndicate, shadows within shadows.
Ghost Jade Circle, monk-like precision killers.
Stormbreaker Front, the vanguard of destruction.
At their summit stood one man. The only SSS-rank Hunter in existence.
Choi Daehyun. The Apex Sovereign.
A god in human form. A man whose presence bends gravity. Whose sword split a Rift Beast the size of a mountain in two. Untouchable. Immortal. Worshipped and feared in equal measure.
But beneath those gods, lost in the dust and debris of a world trying to rebuild, lived Yoon Taesung.
Twenty-four. Former military conscript. Failed out of the Hunter Academy. Now a cleanup grunt scraping monster guts off pavement for minimum wage and enough ramen to stay breathing.
No friends. No guild. No future.
Taesung had no magic. No destiny. No chance.
Until the day it all went wrong.
It was supposed to be a routine cleanup job. The Rift was already cleared by higher-rank Hunters. The city block was quarantined. The readings showed no pulse activity. Just another day wiping away the blood and pretending he was okay with it.
But then the Rift pulsed again.
And this time, it chose him.
It didn't just open—it devoured. Space collapsed. Light fractured. Time screamed.
One second, he was standing. The next, he was falling.
Into something cold. Ancient. Alive.
A void that saw him.
And for the first time in twelve years… the System changed.
> [You have survived a Rift Pulse Event.]
[Initializing Emergency Awakening Protocol.]
[Error. Error.]
[Override accepted.]
[Welcome, Hunter.]
He woke with blood in his mouth, light searing behind his eyes, and a voice whispering in his skull like thunder.
His Rank: C.
His First Skill: S.
And something had been left behind inside him. Watching. Listening.
He wasn't supposed to survive. He wasn't supposed to Awaken.
But he did.
And now?
Everything changes.