The air was thick with dampness and the metallic tang of blood. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped from the ceiling, each drop echoing like a death knell in the silence.
Aiden Ryu pressed his back against the dungeon wall, his chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm. He had run for what felt like hours, yet the monsters kept coming. The narrow corridor was dimly lit by glowing blue torches embedded in the mossy stone, their flickering light casting long shadows that seemed almost alive.
This isn't a dream.
He had pinched himself a dozen times already. The pain was real. The bruises on his arms, the scrape across his knee—real. He wasn't in his apartment anymore, staring at manhwa panels until three in the morning. He wasn't the university student who had laughed off the idea of reincarnation tropes.
No—he was inside one.
Aiden dragged in a shaky breath. He remembered the moment it had begun: the sudden gate that had torn open in the middle of the street, the chaos as armored men and women charged in, blades and spells flashing. He had frozen like everyone else, stunned by the sight of monsters flooding into reality.
Then the pull had come. Something had yanked him inside before he could even scream.
And now here he was, in a place that looked like it had been ripped straight out of the pages of Solo Leveling.
A trembling laugh slipped past his lips."...I really did transmigrate."
The irony wasn't lost on him. Back on Earth, he had devoured the manhwa religiously, following Sung Jinwoo's rise from the weakest Hunter to the strongest existence in the world. He had even thought to himself, If I were in that world, I'd do things differently.
Now fate had called his bluff.
But there was one glaring problem.
I'm not Jinwoo.
The sound of claws scratching against stone pulled his attention down the corridor. A hunched goblin stepped into the torchlight, its crooked grin stretching unnaturally wide. Its beady eyes gleamed with malice as it raised a crude, jagged club.
Aiden's throat tightened. His instincts screamed at him to run, but where would he go? The gate behind him had long since vanished.
He had no weapon, no armor, nothing but his bare fists.
"...Shit."
The goblin shrieked and lunged. Aiden's legs locked in place, panic rooting him to the spot. The world seemed to blur, his heart hammering so loud it drowned out everything else.
And then—something shifted.
Time slowed.
The torchlight dimmed to embers, the goblin's leap dragging into an endless arc. And in that stillness, Aiden saw them.
Threads.
Thin, luminous strands stretched across the world, weaving reality together like a spider's web. They pulsed faintly, vibrating with hidden rhythm. One thread connected the goblin's swing to his skull. Another stretched from the ceiling to the stone floor. Dozens, hundreds, a tapestry of cause and effect.
A voice—alien yet familiar—whispered at the edge of his mind.
Cause. Effect. Choice.
Instinct guided his hand before fear could. He reached—not physically, but with something deeper—and brushed the glowing thread that tied the goblin's strike to his head.
It quivered.
And then—
The goblin's foot snagged on a jagged rock. Its balance faltered, the swing careened downward, and the jagged club smashed into its own temple with a sickening crack. The creature collapsed in a heap, lifeless.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Aiden's chest rose and fell in ragged gasps. His hands trembled, but not from fear.
He hadn't touched it. He hadn't even moved. Yet the goblin had killed itself.
Slowly, his wide-eyed shock gave way to something else. Awe.
The threads were still there, shimmering faintly in his vision. He reached again, his focus narrowing on a thin line connecting a loose ceiling stone to the ground. With a gentle tug—
CRACK.
The stone loosened, tumbling down and shattering into fragments at his feet.
Aiden's lips parted in a breathless laugh. Then, a grin spread across his face. It wasn't the nervous grin of a terrified student. This one was sharp, knowing, and cold.
Causality... I can manipulate cause and effect itself.
Back on Earth, he had read countless fantasy power systems. Shadows, flames, swords, healing, magic—none had ever fascinated him more than the concept of fate. Now, it was his reality.
And if he could twist the threads of destiny to his will…
He straightened slowly, the fear in his chest dissolving into something sharper. Calculation. Confidence.
"Then the board is mine," he whispered into the empty dungeon. "And every piece will move exactly where I want it to."
The dungeon did not care for his revelation.
Another shriek echoed through the halls, this time louder. Shadows shifted, and two more goblins appeared, snarling with drool dripping from their fangs. Their clubs gleamed with dried blood.
Aiden's eyes narrowed.
Test time.
The goblins rushed him.
Again, the world slowed. Threads danced across his vision, countless lines weaving together into inevitabilities. One thread linked the lead goblin's club to his ribs. Another tied the second's leap to his throat.
He didn't flinch. Instead, he reached—fingers brushing the line tied to the first goblin's swing. With a subtle pull, the thread snapped taut.
The creature's arm twisted unnaturally mid-swing, the club veering wide. It struck its ally instead, the crack of bone ringing out as the second goblin howled in pain.
Aiden tugged again, this time at a thread linking the floor to the injured goblin's ankle. The stone beneath its foot shifted, sending it sprawling to the ground.
The first goblin snarled, recovering its balance and raising its club again.
Aiden's lips curved upward."You're already dead."
He plucked the thread tied to the goblin's weapon.
The club slipped from its grip mid-swing, flying backward and slamming into the creature's face with brutal force. It collapsed, twitching once before falling still.
The second goblin scrambled up, blood dripping from its forehead. Its eyes blazed with fury as it lunged—only to have a chunk of ceiling stone crash down onto its skull, guided by the faintest tug of Aiden's will.
Silence returned to the corridor. Three corpses lay sprawled around him.
Aiden exhaled slowly, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. His pulse was racing, but not from fear anymore. From exhilaration.
This wasn't brute strength. It wasn't overwhelming magic. This was manipulation. Precision. The rewriting of inevitability.
And it was his.
He knelt by the corpses, studying them. In Solo Leveling, monsters left behind magic cores. Carefully, he reached into the first goblin's chest—and sure enough, a faintly glowing shard pulsed in his hand.
A laugh escaped him."So it really is the same."
The knowledge from the manhwa was real. Gates, monsters, Hunters, magic cores—they were all here. And now, so was he.
But unlike Sung Jinwoo, who had clawed his way up from weakness, Aiden had awakened directly as an S-rank with a power unlike any other.
I can't waste this.
Already, his mind was racing. He remembered the guilds, the politics, the Monarchs and Rulers lurking in the shadows. He remembered Jinwoo's path—the betrayals, the wars, the apocalypse looming.
He couldn't walk the same road. His very presence might already be shifting events.
But that was fine. In fact… it was perfect.
Because while Jinwoo would rise as the Shadow Monarch, Aiden would weave himself into the tapestry of destiny itself.
And when the war came, it would be fought on strings he had already tied.
The dungeon trembled as something deeper stirred.
A low growl reverberated through the stone, shaking dust loose from the ceiling. The air grew heavy, oppressive.
Aiden froze, every instinct on edge. This wasn't the shriek of a goblin. This was something stronger.
A shadow moved in the distance—massive, hulking, its eyes glowing with crimson malice. The boss.
Aiden's grin sharpened. His hands relaxed at his sides, as if welcoming it.
"Good," he murmured, eyes gleaming with cold light. Threads bloomed across his vision once more, stretching from the beast to the world itself.
"Then let's see just how far I can bend inevitability."