Seoul was burning. Not the controlled, aesthetic blaze of a city celebrating, but the chaotic, screaming inferno of a world devouring itself. Buildings, once monuments to steel and glass, now stood as broken teeth against a sky choked with ash and crimson energy.
Lee Ji-hoon, the last true S-Rank Hunter, coughed, the metallic taste of his own blood filling his mouth. His legendary sword, Despair's Edge, was chipped, its once vibrant aura flickering like a dying candle. Before him, the final Gate, a gaping maw of cosmic horror, pulsed, tearing reality apart. This was it. The Cataclysm. The end of everything.
He collapsed to one knee, his body a symphony of broken bones and torn muscles. He had fought for years, watched his comrades fall, seen humanity dwindle to a desperate whisper.
A spectral image flickered in the smoky air, a phantom memory sharper than any blade. He saw a face. A sneering, arrogant face.
Han Tae-oh.
The memory was like a searing brand. Han Tae-oh, the incompetent heir of the Black Blade Guild. The F-Rank trash who had somehow risen, not through strength, but through insidious manipulation. Ji-hoon remembered the casual betrayals, the twisted smiles, the way Tae-oh had subtly steered events, weakening the foundations of humanity's resistance.
He wasn't just a traitor. He was the architect of our demise. The invisible hand that guided the world to hell.
Rage, pure and undiluted, surged through Ji-hoon's battered body, momentarily eclipsing the pain. He refused to let it end like this.
With a final, desperate roar, he plunged Despair's Edge into his own chest. His blood, infused with the fragmented core of an ancient Guardian, pulsed.
[S-Rank Skill: Time Regression – Activated.]
[Warning: Success Probability – 0.0001%. Catastrophic Failure Imminent.]
Ji-hoon's vision blurred. The burning city, the gaping Gate, his own bloodied hands—all spun into a vortex of light and agony.
His last thought, burning with an infernal resolve as the world unraveled around him, was not of saving humanity, but of a single, hated face.
And the first thing I will do… is kill Han Tae-oh before he can ruin the world again.