The night was too quiet.
Ji-hoon moved through the empty streets with his hood up, spear case slung over his shoulder. His breath fogged in the cold air, mingling with the faint mist rolling in from the east. But beneath the silence, his senses caught something else.
Footsteps. Five of them. Steady, careful. Too careful to be civilians.
[Dragonization: Stage I Eyes Passive Sensory Boost]
His pupils tightened to slits. The city sharpened.Somewhere past the shuttered shops and broken streetlights, a pulse throbbed a gate's heartbeat. He'd felt it once before, deep inside the trial dungeon. Once you felt it, you never mistook it for anything else.
Ji-hoon followed the sound.
The gate lay at the edge of an abandoned district, suspended over a cracked plaza like a wound stitched into the night. It wasn't fully awakened yet just breathing slowly, its red surface pulsing in time with something beyond it. Black veins spread from its edges into the stone like a spiderweb growing roots.
Around it, five figures moved with the restless energy of people about to do something reckless.
Ji-hoon stopped in the shadows, watching.
The first one he noticed was a woman with short hair, dual blades strapped to her thighs. She crouched low near the gate's perimeter, eyes sharp, movements light. She was quick. Too quick to be a civilian.Her steps barely made a sound. An Assassin.
Behind her, a taller woman held a massive shield almost as big as her body, her armor worn but solid. Her posture was steady not proud, not reckless, just anchored. She scanned their surroundings like she was used to standing between her people and the worst of the world.A Tanker.
The third was hard to miss. A broad shouldered man leaned his steel spear against his back, cracking his knuckles like someone warming up for a bar fight rather than a gate run. His grin was too confident, the kind that made most people nervous.Fighter. Frontline bruiser.
Next to him crouched a young man in a hoodie, carefully adjusting a glowing mana anchor device on the ground. Mana flowed through the sigils etched into its base like liquid light, stabilizing the ambient pressure from the gate. His movements were precise. Methodical.Mage. Or maybe support. The quiet kind who made everything around him work.
And then there was Ji-hoon.The unknown.
"Who's there?" Rina's voice cut through the plaza like a thrown knife.She had already turned toward his hiding spot, blades half-drawn.
Ji-hoon stepped out from between two crumbling walls, hands raised slightly. "Relax. If I wanted trouble, I wouldn't have announced myself."
The tension didn't drop.Rina narrowed her eyes, the red gate's glow sliding across the edge of her blade. "This area's locked down. No civilians allowed."
He tilted his head toward the five of them. "And you're government agents?"
That earned him a humorless huff from Min-jae. "We're not the government. We're Hunters."
Sori frowned, more cautious than the others. "Not official Hunters. Just people who got tired of waiting."
Woo-jin finally looked up from his anchor, his voice quiet but firm. "If we don't clear the gate before it breaks, it'll swallow half this district."
Ji-hoon walked closer, boots crunching on broken tiles. The red light from the gate bathed them all in blood colored shadows. He could feel its heartbeat more clearly now fast, impatient.
[Warning: Red Gate detected.][Activation: 58%][Estimated Break Time: 01:59:42]
"You're planning to go in," Ji-hoon said.
Rina raised an eyebrow. "You're quick."
"It's suicide," Ji-hoon replied. "You don't know what's in there."
Min-jae grinned. "And what, you do?"
He didn't answer. The image of the drake nest flashed through his head. The heat. The blood. The pain.
Woo-jin adjusted the anchor again. "We've cleared two green gates and one amber before. This one is different, yeah. But if we wait for the Association to drag their feet, people die."
Sori nodded once, steel in her voice. "Someone has to go in."
Ji-hoon almost smiled. Brave. Or stupid. Maybe both.
"Names," he said.
The four exchanged glances.
"Rina," the blade wielder said first. "Assassin."
"Sori," the woman with the shield added. "Tanker."
"Min-jae," the spear fighter grinned. "Fighter. Obviously."
"Woo-jin," the quiet mage said, tapping the glowing anchor. "Support."
Their gazes shifted back to him.
"Ji-hoon," he answered simply.
Rina crossed her arms. "You've got that look. You're not here by accident."
Ji-hoon didn't deny it. "You're not the only one who felt the gate's pulse."
"Then you're a Hunter too," Sori said carefully.
"Something like that."
Woo-jin's eyes narrowed a little. "And your build?"
Ji-hoon let the silence hang for a second. Then, quietly: "Frontline."
The grin that spread across Min-jae's face was feral. "Finally. Someone useful."
The gate pulsed again, louder this time. The wind shifted inward like the world itself was being pulled through a straw.
[Activation: 72%][Break Time: 01:18:09]
They all turned toward it.
Rina gripped her blades. "Once the anchor syncs with the pulse, we'll have one shot. Go in before it fully opens, clear the first wave, weaken whatever's inside. Red Gates are unstable before the core boss manifests I mean it was the same with the Goblins."
"And if you're wrong?" Ji-hoon asked.
Sori's shield shifted into position with a hollow clang. "Then we die fast."
Something in Ji-hoon's chest stirred the faint echo of a dragon's heartbeat. He could feel the danger pressing against the edges of the world, waiting. This wasn't going to be a simple fight.
But these people weren't ordinary either. They weren't running.
Rina smirked at him. "You in or not, stranger?"
Min-jae spun his spear with a flourish. "If he's got a weapon in that bag, I say he's in."
Woo-jin didn't look up. "The anchor won't hold forever."
Ji-hoon's hand brushed against the hilt of Grudge inside the bag. He inhaled slowly.
"Fine," he said. "But if you slow me down, I'm not saving anyone."
Sori's mouth twitched into the ghost of a smile. "Deal."
The gate's glow flared, painting their faces crimson.The plaza trembled. A sound, low and wet, came from the other side a sound too big for the space they were standing in.
[Red Gate Activation: 93%]
Rina lowered her stance, blades ready.Sori planted her shield into the ground.Min-jae rolled his neck, cracking the tension out of it.Woo-jin tightened his grip on the mana anchor, sweat beading on his forehead.
Ji-hoon closed his eyes.
[Dragonization: Stage I Eyes Activated][All stats: x2][Anchor strain: Low]
The gate screamed.
And five stepped forward.