Slap… Slap… Slap…
It was the only sound left in the world.
The monotonous, soulless rhythm of gray waves striking the wooden hull of the boat.
The cursed shores of Greenhollow had vanished behind a thick, milk-white fog. No more growls from the forest creatures. No more alarms from Vargo's mansion. Not even the terrible silence of the Eraser remained.
There was only the sea.
There was no horizon. The sky and the ocean merged into an endless gray void.
Deniz had stopped rowing. His massive shoulders had slumped, Goliath's Fists resting motionless in his lap. Like a captain who no longer knew his destination, he had surrendered to the current.
On the floor of the boat, curled between supply sacks, Lypin was crying silently. Her sobs were muffled, as if she were ashamed even of her own voice. She was the heart of the team, the one who healed everyone, who gave hope to everyone.
But now she had no spell to heal the hollow in her own chest.
First Mina. Now Yaat.
Her innocence had taken blow after blow.
Hope sat at the very front of the boat, facing the wind.
His legs dangled over the edge. His eyes were fixed on a point in the distance, but he saw nothing.
Mira rested on his shoulder. The small creature had turned pitch black, reflecting her master's emotional state like a mirror. Her fur had dulled. Her tail drooped. She clung to Hope's neck, trembling.
Hope raised a hand to his cheek.
Wet.
He looked up at the sky.
It wasn't raining.
The fog was thick, but not enough to soak him.
He examined the moisture on his fingertips.
"Salt water," Hope muttered.
His mind, that damn analytical mind, tried to activate.
Fluid secretion from tear ducts. Why? No physical injury. No dust in my eye. No biological necessity. This is fluid loss. Inefficient. Why? Why are tears flowing?
He wiped the tear away.
Another replaced it.
They wouldn't stop.
In the center of his chest, exactly where Yaat had been struck, there was a weight that wasn't physical. As if tons of concrete had been poured there, and still the hollow remained.
"This…" Hope said, not recognizing his own voice. "This isn't a mistake."
He stroked Mira's head.
"Is this… the price of being human?"
For the first time, Hope didn't understand loss as a concept.
He felt it.
Yaat's final look.
"I didn't see it."
The words looped in his mind endlessly.
It was Bianca who broke the silence.
She sat at the back of the boat, knees pulled to her chest. The usual sarcastic, sharp assassin was gone. Her eyes were distant.
"That man…" Hope said without turning. His voice carried over the sea. "What was he, Bianca? You said something about him at the harbor."
Everyone's attention shifted to her.
Bianca took a deep breath. Her hands trembled. She tried to hide it by fiddling with her dagger, but her fingers wouldn't obey.
"They call him The Eraser," she said quietly. "One of the Collector's most loyal dogs. That dog doesn't bark. Doesn't bite. He just… erases. Whatever stands in his way."
"The Collector's man?" Kai asked, frowning. "Like Vargo?"
Bianca let out a bitter laugh.
"Vargo? Vargo was just a loud merchant. Look at the town the Collector left under his care. A small, useless place. Eraser is different. Eraser… is a catastrophe."
She stared at the sea, as if watching memories surface.
"I've heard stories. He has no face. No personality. He only follows orders. He erases everything in front of him. People. Evidence. Even entire towns."
"Towns?" Lypin lifted her head, eyes wide with fear.
"Yes," Bianca said. "Five years ago, near the western border, there was a quiet farming town called San Lola. The race living there was rare. The Collector tried to gather them all. They resisted. They thought they had won."
She paused.
"The next morning… the town was gone. Erased from the map. No ruins. No bodies. No ash. Just flat, empty land."
"The Eraser visited."
A deathly silence fell over the boat.
Kai rubbed his chin.
"This doesn't make sense."
"What doesn't?" Deniz asked.
"Vargo," Kai replied. "He was just a pawn. Greenhollow isn't even a speck of dust in the Collector's empire. Why send someone with nuclear-level power for this place? Sending someone like Eraser here… it's not worth the cost."
Hope looked at Mira.
Then at his hands.
"Maybe he wasn't protecting Greenhollow," Hope said quietly. "Or Vargo. Maybe they were looking for something Vargo didn't even know about."
He paused.
"Or someone."
The thought lingered in the air.
They had unknowingly stepped into a much larger game.
There was no turning back.
The gloom became unbearable.
Lypin looked ready to cry again.
Bianca, as if trying to cut through the weight in the air, dumped the loot bag from Vargo's vault and Yaat's belongings onto the center of the boat.
Clink.
Gold. Gems. Magical items they didn't recognize scattered across the wooden floor.
"Well," Bianca forced a smile. "At least we didn't leave empty-handed. We can build a proper monument for Yaat with this."
Hope didn't look at the gold.
His eyes locked onto something glowing faintly within the pile.
It hadn't come from Vargo's vault.
It had fallen from Yaat's bag.
A fist-sized crystal. Irregular. Shifting between blue and violet hues. It didn't feel solid. It looked as if liquid light had been trapped inside. It vibrated constantly, bending the air around it.
"What is this?" Hope asked, reaching toward it.
"Don't touch it!" Bianca snapped, slapping his hand away.
She carefully lifted the crystal with a cloth. There was no greed in her eyes. Only respect… and fear.
"That's an Awakening Core."
"Awakening?" Hope's attention sharpened.
"Yes," Bianca said, holding it out to him. "It's rare. Normally, people gain strength through years of training. But this… this is a pure, unprocessed fragment of the System itself. Only elite warriors and the wealthy get their hands on these."
She looked him straight in the eyes.
"You want to grow stronger, don't you? You want to avenge Yaat. Protect Lypin. Destroy that monster called Eraser."
"I do," Hope said sharply.
"Then talent isn't enough," Bianca replied. "You need to bend the rules of this world. You need full access to the System."
"What do I have to do?"
Bianca placed the crystal in his palm.
"Open your hand."
Hope did.
Without hesitation, Bianca drove the sharp tip of the crystal into the center of his palm.
"AAAH!"
Hope screamed.
It wasn't the pain of a cut.
It was burning.
But no blood flowed.
The moment the crystal touched his skin, it lost its solid form. It liquefied like mercury and seeped into the wound.
Hope grabbed his arm.
His veins…
They were glowing.
Neon blue light traveled from his wrist to his shoulder, from his shoulder to his neck. The crystal had merged with his blood.
His heart pounded violently.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
His vision went black.
Then it returned.
But he wasn't just seeing the physical world anymore.
Beyond his Architect Vision, green digital text began to flow.
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION INITIATING…]
[USER: HOPE #######]
[CLASS: ARCHITECT]
[COMPATIBILITY: 100%]
Hope stared at his hand, breathing heavily. His skin seemed almost translucent. He could see mana pathways, muscle tension coefficients, everything as data.
"This…" he whispered. "These are… codes. Everything is coded. Everything is a… structure."
"Yes," Bianca said. "I used an Awakening Core too. But no one really knows how they work. This 'System'… it's like a parasite that entered our lives later. Just like the dungeons. You know the story. 'One day the sky split open and levels, skills, monsters appeared…'"
She narrowed her eyes.
"It's not natural, Hope. It's artificial."
She stepped closer.
"You're the closest one to uncovering why this world became like this."
Hope lifted his head, green lights dancing in his pupils.
"Me? Why?"
"Because you're an Architect," Bianca said. "We see walls. You see what's behind them. You might be the only one who can read what the First Architect did to this world."
Hope looked at the sea.
The world had turned into a massive puzzle.
And Yaat's death was proof that this puzzle was lethal.
"I'll figure it out," Hope said quietly. "The System… and how it was born."
At that moment—
The boat trembled.
Not from a wave.
It felt as if the sea itself were being pulled downward.
Deniz grabbed the oars.
"Hey! The oars aren't catching! The current changed!"
Ten meters ahead, the water shifted color.
The gray vanished.
In its place, deep sapphire light shimmered.
The sea was calm, but the boat began to spin.
Slowly.
Then faster.
"A whirlpool!" Kai shouted. "Hold on!"
But this wasn't natural.
A massive circular hole opened in the ocean.
Perfect.
Just like the hole in Yaat's chest.
But its depths were not dark.
They glowed with neon blue light.
"That's not a Dungeon Gate!" Lypin shouted, clinging to the edge. "It's something else!"
"We're falling!" Deniz yelled.
Hope pulled Mira against his chest. His glowing blue veins resonated with the light below.
The System interface turned red before his eyes.
[WARNING: HIGH MANA DENSITY DETECTED.]
[WARNING: UNKNOWN RACE DETECTED.]
[LOCATION: ATLANTIS]
The boat was dragged into that enormous blue eye, pulled toward the depths of the ocean.
The fog vanished behind them.
Ahead waited dark waters…
And the secrets of the world.