The sun had barely risen over the skyline when the world fractured.
Coffee brewed, toast popped, school bells rang—and in the same moment, across cities, ten million people vanished.
A mother turned to hand her son a lunchpack, only to watch it fall to the floor, his hands no longer there to catch it. A train rolled into the station, its crowd gone in a blink. Children disappeared mid-sentence. Soldiers, teachers, elders—gone.
Panic surged.
News stations scrambled, flooded by live calls and camera feeds of half-filled rooms, abandoned vehicles, and mass confusion. Emergency lines collapsed. Traffic stopped. Screams replaced conversations. The world held its breath.
And then every screen—TVs, phones, advertisement panels, street projectors—shifted.
They turned blood red.
A stage appeared. Black marble. Harsh lighting. A dark figure covered in shadows stepped forward.
His voice was deep and warped.
"Hello everybody... welcome."
Gasps echoed across every home.
"Ten million of us have been selected to participate in a grand experiment—what I call: the Nightmare Drop."
People froze, cried.
Others simply stared.
"These Players now reside in a separate space. It's disconnected from your laws, unreachable by your hands. There is no rescue. There is no exit."
"Their task is simple: survive. Progress through the floors of the dungeon. Overcome the enemies within. And eventually… reach the end."
"But be aware…"
The camera zoomed in on him. One eye glowing in a yellow shade.
"Death here is final."
A moment of silence stretched like wire.
"And now... let the games begin."
The screen went black—and was replaced by a live feed from the Dungeon.
The Dungeon was a maze of stone and silence.
Torches flickered unnaturally. The air was heavy, wet with something unspeakable.
Ketsu stood alone. Not far off, people ran, screamed, sobbed, clung to walls.
He didn't.
He moved forward.
Ahead, a creature emerged from the shadows—twisted skin, malformed limbs, teeth where eyes should be.
Someone screamed. The thing lunged.
Ketsu didn't blink.
A wave of blood swirled from his forearm, hardened in mid-air into a jagged crimson blade.
One clean slice. Silence.
The creature turned into dust.
Ketsu stared at the place where it had stood, unimpressed.
"Are these attempts to achieve similar results like Akechi's Demi-Human's?"
He glanced back at the chaos—the noise, the fear, the scrambling.
"No."
Then turned and walked forward, steps steady, unshaken.
"If this place has an end… I'll carve my way to it."
"This is my atonement."
Meanwhile, in the real world…
N-D (Nightmare Drop) LIVE was everywhere.
Cafés. Apartments. Hospitals. Laptops. Phones.
Commentators began hosting 24/7 streams, analyzing the movements of participants. Streamers called it "the event of the century." Betting pools formed on dark web forums. TikTok clips went viral.
And one name surged across hashtags and headlines:
"Crimson Devil Hunter"
A man walking alone.
Whose gaze didn't shake.
Who fought like he had nothing left to lose.
Ketsu.
Unfeeling. Precise. Cold. Efficient. Unrelenting.
He wasn't a hunter anymore—but to the world, he had become something else entirely.
At the Hunter Association HQ, four figures stared in silence at the monitor.
Yuusuke's fists were clenched.
Kouji's eyes were sharp, yet distant. Unmoving.
Ryo stood up and left the room.
Sora stood still, as if her breath was stolen.
Ketsu was alive. The broadcast showed him in action—slicing down demi after demi, red light from the torches washing over his pale skin.
"He's fighting alone…" Sora whispered, her voice trembling. "Again."
Kouji didn't respond.
But no one could be sure.
The feed shifted again—Ketsu stepping into another corridor, his blood trailing faintly behind him.
And then silence.