‘Damn. It feels like I’m pushing against a wall.’

Just from locking blades, he could feel the thing’s weight. That particular heaviness belonged only to beings of the upper ranks and above.

He’d thrown off a giant monster like the mantis mule without much trouble, but this time wasn’t so easy.

‘Tch!’

Go Byeonggap pulled his body back. The Craul pressed in immediately, stabbing with its blade-hand.

‘If one of those lands clean, I’ll be a pincushion. Still, it’s not like I can’t dodge.’

Go Byeonggap stepped through the sword manual’s footwork. His body moved with a supple grace, at times straight as a bamboo stalk.

Sword clashed against hand-blade on and off. His body swayed of its own accord.

‘Can’t land a hit with ordinary strikes. I need to load karma into each blow.’

He funneled karma into the blade. A faint blue sheen bloomed along the edge. Byeonggap’s attacks began to bite into the Craul.

Dodging a thrusted hand-blade, he landed one in its flank.

Weaving under a hammering kick, he drove one into its thigh.

Sidestepping a snapping jaw, he carved a deep gash across its chest.

“Grrrrr……”

After ten minutes, the Craul’s body was crosshatched with wounds. Blood streamed down, staining the floor crimson.

But Byeonggap couldn’t be satisfied.

‘I’m not cutting deep enough. Is it the karma density gap? Then—!’

He gathered every ounce of energy in his body, preparing a decisive blow.

‘Karma density, my ass. If I break it with pure force, that’s all that matters.’

Muscles tautened to the limit. From head to toe, every fiber interlocked, generating monstrous momentum.

The raw power of flesh unaided by modern tricks or karma. Byeonggap became a single predator.

Whoosh!

He closed the ten-odd meters in an instant. Too fast for an ordinary eye to even track.

“!?”

The Craul reacted half a beat late. It was the perfect opening.

‘Strike!’

The sword swung down like a thunderbolt. A blow aimed at the throat. The Craul managed to raise its guard by a hair. But—

Shunk!

Its arm was cleaved off helplessly. Byeonggap didn’t stop—he sliced clean through its neck in one motion.

Ssshhh! Blood geysered from the severed stump. The Craul crumpled.

“Haaah, haaah, haaah.”

Byeonggap dragged in ragged breaths, staring down at the dead Craul.

‘Got it. I took down a high-rank monster alone.’

But he wasn’t in peak condition either. Strength drained from him as crushing fatigue set in.

The backlash of physical overload was hitting him.

‘So I can only handle one or two like this… Still, it’s fine.’

[‘Ancient Swordsmanship – Low-Grade’ Mastery Rate: 86.98%]

[‘Ancient Body-Training Art – Low-Grade’ Mastery Rate: 91.79%]

Byeonggap grinned, studying the hologram.

‘Not long until Mid-Grade. Plenty of steps left to climb.’

He split open the Craul’s chest. The corpse, its karma fully drained in death, was no different from any lump of meat.

Soon, he tore out the magic stone lodged in its heart. A red stone—the hallmark of a high-rank monster.

“I’ll keep this as a souvenir.”

Byeonggap stuffed the magic stone into his pocket, then set his body in motion again.

* * *

Once you’ve faced a truly strong enemy, everything weaker starts to feel pathetically insignificant.

Lower-tier monsters showed their faces here and there. Go Byeonggap couldn’t detect any sense of threat from them.

To put it bluntly, they were little more than moving targets.

“Where the hell are these bastards even coming from?”

The monsters scattered around him already numbered at least ten. It felt like there were more every minute.

‘I need to get to the main road.’

Go Byeonggap slipped out of the villa neighborhood. A few minutes later, he stepped onto a wide thoroughfare.

“What a shitshow.”

The street was absolute chaos.

Cars strewn every which way, the road pitted with craters, snapped power poles leaning at crazy angles.

And on top of it all, monster carcasses littering the asphalt.

Not a single sign of people. Either they’d run or they’d died — one or the other.

‘Was this a major battleground?’

He craned his neck, searching for any possible survivors. That was when he sensed a mass of presence from between the buildings across the way. Byeonggap snapped his head around.

Crack! Boom!

“KIIIIIYAAAAAAAK!”

A colossal monster crashed hard into the ground. A chill shot down Go Byeonggap’s spine. The creature before him was an A-rank wyvern.

‘No way. A wyvern?’

He stumbled backward on pure instinct.

A wyvern was an A-rank super-massive monster. No matter how steeply Byeonggap had grown, going up against something like this was impossible for him right now.

“KYAEEEEEEK! KKYEEEK!”

‘Wait a second.’

Looking closer, something was clearly wrong with the wyvern. Its entire body was covered in wounds. Both wings — a dragonkind’s pride — had been severed clean off, and its gray hide was soaked crimson.

Go Byeonggap figured out why almost immediately.

“Breath attack! Tighten formation!”

A group of humans appeared. The man at the forefront thrust his shield forward and shouted.

A moment later, true to his words, the wyvern began spewing a torrent of crimson flame.

“HAAAAH!”

The man released his karma. In an instant, the energy transformed into a massive shield shape that blocked the fire.

The wyvern’s blaze died out.

The people who’d been holding their breath behind the shield started zeroing in on the wyvern, as if they’d been waiting for exactly this moment.

A young man hoisting a warhammer as big as himself leaped high into the air. The hammer was thickly caked with high-quality karma.

CRRRRUNCH!

The great hammer slammed into the wyvern’s shoulder joint.

“KYAAAAAAAK!”

A screech that sounded like it was tearing the air itself rang in his ears.

The wyvern thrashed its neck in fury. The young man dodged with movements bordering on divine precision. Only an innocent building suffered, collapsing in a roar of rubble.

“KUUWAAAAAK!”

The wyvern opened its maw wide again, ready to belch another wave of flame. But in an instant, the bastard’s jaw froze solid.

‘Psychic powers? There’s a psychic among them?’

This was superpower—karma as catalyst. One of those men had to be a psychic, hiding among the rest.

The great-hammer man swung upward, catching the wyvern’s snout. Ice shattered with a wet crunch, and its entire jaw tore away, sailing through the air.

‘Flawless coordination.’

The wyvern, now missing its lower jaw, swayed. Its life force was drained to the dregs.

“Seokhan! Finish it! The neck!”

“On it!”

The man who’d been hiding behind the shield-bearer shouted. He stretched both hands out and began to manipulate the karma around them.

Frost crept across the wyvern’s throat, then flash-froze solid in an instant. The hammer-wielder struck the frozen segment cleanly.

-CRACK!

“Ghk!”

The wyvern’s neck severed. Its enormous head tumbled across the ground, and a heartbeat later, the body toppled.

“Whoa …”

Go Byeonggap let out an involuntary whistle of admiration.

‘So this is high-rank combat.’

It was nothing like the lower-rank hunters who only knew how to spray bullets.

Byeonggap snapped himself back to the present and walked toward them. The three men sensed his approach and turned their heads his way.

“Hm? Hey, you! It’s dangerous to walk around out here! Get back to your home and take shelte— Wait. Are you a hunter?”

“Ah, yes. I’m a hunter.”

Tank Jo Useong eyed Byeonggap up and down and thought:

‘C-rank or D-rank, probably. But what’s he doing carrying a sword?’

Standing beside him, Na Seokhan and Cha Myeongjin seemed to feel a similar dissonance.

They could sense it instinctively—that Byeonggap was a low-rank awakener.

Byeonggap ignored their meaningful stares and spoke.

“Let me ask you one thing. Do you know what’s happening right now?”

“A monster wave.”

Jo Useong answered without hesitation. Byeonggap’s face twisted.

“A monster wave?”

A monster wave—that was the term for when monsters poured out of a rift.

Of course, it had never been a practical concern. A hypothetical scenario at best, since monsters had never actually emerged from a rift before.

It was a word scholars and security analysts debated over conference tables.

And now it had become reality.

Jo Useong kept going.

“An S-rank rift opened near Mt. Cheongnyong and blew apart thirty minutes later. Monsters poured out.”

“An … an S-rank, you said?”

“Yes. That area’s a disaster zone now. Over three hundred civilians dead, they say.”

“I heard monsters showed up near Jongno too. Is that true?”

“It is. Luckier there, though—an A-rank rift blew instead.”

Byeonggap stared blankly toward Bongcheon. Somewhere out there was an S-rank monster.

Na Seokhan set down his great hammer with a heavy thud and added:

“It’s not just Seoul that’s gone to shit. Word is, Busan’s a mess too.”

“Busan as well? Ha… it’s a complete bloody chaos, isn’t it.”

“Tell me about it. What kind of damn nonsense is this.”

Na Seokhan pulled a cigarette from his pocket and put it between his lips.

Just then, Cha Myeongjin, standing beside him, glanced down at his phone and suddenly spoke, brows lifting.

“Looks like the situation’s almost over? They say the boss monster’s been taken down.”

“Of course it should be. With all the S-rank hunters sent there, if they couldn’t take it down, what the hell would that even mean?”

“Then are we good to head back soon?”

“Ah… hang on. Let me check.”

Cha Myeongjin swiped down his phone screen, his brow furrowing.

“Seems like there are still a few stragglers left. Looks like some slipped into our section too. Gonna have to make another round, huh?”

“Does it have to be us? I saw some of those Daehamun folks earlier—can’t we just leave it to them and go back?”

Na Seokhan scrunched up his face and whined like a child. Jo Useong grimaced, adjusted his grip on the shield, and reset his stance.

“Where’s a hunter gonna go when there’re monsters on the loose? Come on, no more dawdling—let’s wrap this up quick. You should head on home. Looks like the situation’s pretty much over anyway.”

“Ah… yeah, I suppose I should.”

Go Byeonggap nodded reluctantly and sheathed his sword.

The three hunters vanished in the blink of an eye.

Before leaving, Go Byeonggap glanced around. Cold corpses lay strewn across the road, abandoned without care.

‘Can they just leave them like that?’

People would be dispatched soon enough to collect the casualties, he knew, but his feet still refused to move.

‘Let me take another look. Maybe someone’s still hanging on.’

Go Byeonggap scanned the area once more for any survivors.

But every body he checked was dead—all ten of them. And each one in a truly gruesome state.

“You fuckers really made a mess of this place.”

Go Byeonggap spat the curse, his skin crawling at the monsters’ cruelty.

He decided to pack it in and head home. But then a chill crept up his spine.

He spun, already yanking his sword free. From the gaps between buildings, a horde of monsters was crawling out.

All of them were D-rank or lower—small fry.

A wave of weariness washed over him.

“Well, well. Look who walked right into it, you bastards.”

He drew his sword in a combative motion, a vicious grin tugging at his lips. He’d been itching to cut down some monsters anyway—this worked out perfectly.

The monster horde and Go Byeonggap clashed.

Soon, severed limbs flew through the air, and rain of blood fell.

* * *

The rooftop of a high-rise building. A woman stood there, her gaze devoid of emotion as she watched the scene below.

‘It’s over.’

Shing! Clack!

She slid the half-drawn sword back into its scabbard. No blood would stain her blade today.

‘So it’s finally begun, hasn’t it.’

The woman bit down hard on her lip. In eyes that had long been dead, a flicker of rage kindled.

Just then, a voice came from behind her.

“Master.”

A young voice. The one who’d spoken was a girl of no more than fifteen or sixteen.

Beside the girl stood two boys. Each carried a greatsword as tall as themselves.

“Are we going back?”

“……Yes. Let’s head back.”

“Yes.”

“Um, Master.”

This time it was one of the boys who spoke. He’d shaved his head bald like a young monk.

“Go ahead.”

“Is it starting now? What you spoke of, Master……”

“No. Not yet.”

Not yet.

No. It couldn’t be yet.

The four of them moved, leaping from skyscraper to skyscraper. Seoul, swept clean by monsters, was a scene of utter devastation.

The scent of death drifted heavy from every direction.

‘Hm?’

The woman, moving swiftly forward, stopped dead in her tracks. The three children following her halted too, question marks plain on their faces.

“What’s wrong, Master?”

“……”

She didn’t answer, only fixed her gaze downward. There, a man was locked in battle with a horde of monsters.

Her pupils dilated slightly.

‘That man…?’

A man slicing through monsters with deliberate, precise movements. His face seemed familiar.

After a moment, she dredged up his image from a corner of her memory. She swallowed unconsciously.

“Master?”

“Let’s go.”

That was all she said before moving again, swift and fluid. The children followed without a word.

‘I was right. But now isn’t the time.’

A gleam of resolve settled in her eyes.