The stench of burnt mana and rotting dungeon meat clung to the air like fog.
Sung Aron leaned against the jagged wall of the gate's interior, his breaths ragged and sharp. His vision blurred, blood dripping from a deep gash on his chest.
> "They're not coming back."
He knew it.
The team had vanished into the portal's retreat path moments after the boss appeared — a four-meter demon-beast with horns wrapped in flame and skin like molten obsidian.
His communicator crackled with one last whisper:
> "He won't make it out. Let him die."
Then silence.
He wasn't surprised.
Low-rank hunters like him were cannon fodder. Disposables. People who never awakened any abilities but registered just high enough to swing a blade and carry loot.
He wasn't "unawakened."
He was "unworthy."
---
The boss moved again. A rumble shook the dungeon as it lumbered forward, its eyes glowing with eerie hunger. Aron raised his rusted short sword — hands trembling, energy drained.
The beast roared, and the sound felt like thunder ripping his lungs apart.
> This is it.
He didn't close his eyes.
He stared back, furious.
And then the world shattered.
---
🕳️ [SYSTEM ERROR.]
> [Fatal Damage Detected.]
[Reconstructing Core Integrity...]
[Searching for alternate server...]
[Connection found: Black Server [CLASSIFIED]]
[Unauthorized Access Accepted.]
[ERROR-HOST: SUNG ARON – ACTIVATION PENDING]
---
Darkness.
Pitch black. Silent. Agonizing.
Then — a pulse.
Like a heartbeat.
Suddenly, he was standing.
No pain. No wounds. No monster.
Just a void stretching endlessly around him — a groundless abyss beneath his feet, lit only by faint blue circuits that shimmered like digital veins.
A voice echoed — synthetic, inhuman, ancient.
> [Do you accept the Ascension Protocol?]
[This path is irreversible.]
[Y / N]
Sung Aron stared at the glowing prompt floating before him. He could feel something waiting behind it — power. Something cold. Something hungry.
He remembered the mocking laughs. The eyes that looked past him. The betrayal.
And that voice in his mind whispered:
> You were never weak. They just never let you grow.
He raised his hand… and tapped Y.
---
⚫ [Shadowbound Protocol: Activated.]
> [Initializing Soul Fusion...]
[Transferring Death Data...]
[Assigning First Core...]
The floor below cracked open. A black claw reached up and grabbed his leg — but instead of pulling him down, it merged into him.
A pain unlike anything he'd ever known tore through his body — as if he