The sky cracked open ten years ago.
People initially believed it was just another natural disaster.
An odd earthquake.
A rare cosmic event that scientists would explain away in a matter of weeks.
The fissure in the air resembled a lightning scar, falling from the sky and touching the earth. It glowed with purple and black light, and the light behind it rippled, like looking through waves on glass.
News helicopters were circling.
Speculated on the news reporters.
Experts debated on national television.
When they emerged.
It had too many limbs, no face you could recognize, and a mouth with rings of teeth that rotating. It plummeted to street level in the heart of Seoul and sliced a man in half before the broadcast of the devastating attack could be edited.
That video was still on the internet.
Most people stayed away from it.
Some viewed it repeatedly: some even view it two or three times.
It was the time when the world fell apart.
It was also the time that the world came back to life.
Suddenly now, they came, without warning, the gates.
In cities.
In oceans.
In mountain ranges.
On the highway in the center of.
Hanging in the air like vertical gashes in reality, glowing with bizarre colours – violet, red and a Green that is just right for throwing up.
From these came beings not of this world. Bullets, barely.
Missiles amused them.
Whole platoons were annihilated in minutes.
Governments have fallen.
Borderlines were erased.
Cities burned.
Humans were losing.
Until people began to wake up.
They called them Hunters.
People ― men and women ― who had been suddenly gifted with otherworldly powers.
Some broke steel doors off their hinges with one hand.
Some called fire, lightning or ice.
"One can see mana like heat signatures."
Some recovered from gunshot wounds within seconds.
Their rank went from F to S.
The more you leveled up, the more godlike you became.
Hunters grew up to be celebrities.
Their faces were on billboards.
Their raids were livestreamed.
In their death, they were mourned as if it had been the collapse of a nation.
Corporations sponsored them.
Governments regulated them.
Guilds recruited them.
THE END Now humanity becomes the noise, and then the eco-political humanity becomes the true humanity.
Kairen was the at the rear of the dojo.
Back always.
A fireball hit a reinforced wall, shaking the air. Another trainee came forward, throwing a lightning bolt which hacked a combat dummy in half. Energy shields shimmered. Steel rang.
The hall reeked of sweat and ozone.
Tyranny reigned over all the place and ever Power was everywhere.
Except there.
Kairen gripped the wood training katana and swung.
There was little movement in the air.
"Again!" the instructor bellowed.
Kairen gulped and swung harder.
Nothing closed off from the wooden blade and swiped.
A few trainees glanced over and snickered. 27. "Why does he still show up? " one whispered.
"He failed awakening twice, right?" muttered another.
"Yeah. That's just sadness", he said.
Kairen pretended he couldn't hear them.
He always did.
He trained harder than anyone in that room.
He ran 10 kilometres around the compound every morning before sunrise.
Every night he run through forms until his hands were bleeding.
He twitched every rule.
Drank every supplement.
Took all the quizzes.
He even spent all his savings on private mana sensitivity sessions, but nothing could drain him.
And still…
Nothing.
No aura.
No glow.
No mana reaction.
The instructor's frost eyes raked the class and rested on him.
"Unregistered," he said blandly.
"Don't slow my class."
The word hit harder than any punch.
Unregistered.
It meant he was not an official entity of the Hunter system, neither showing up nor being able to inquire about himself.
Not even as an F-rank.
A few people laughed.
Kairen lowered his gaze.
If I speak, I'm weak.
If I fight back, I'm reckless.
So I stay silent.
After training, he sat alone on the concrete steps outside the facility.
Hunters passed him laughing.
Discussing raids.
Payouts.
Rank promotions.
"C-rank already? You're insane."
"My guild's offering me a signing bonus."
"That new Gate tomorrow's low-risk. Easy money."
He looked down at his hands.
They were scarred.
Calloused.
Shaking slightly from exhaustion.
The same hands he'd trained until they bled. "Why am I still nothing…?" he/?whispered.
No one answered.
His phone vibrated.
[AWAKENING ASSESSMENT RESULT]
STATUS: NO RESPONSE RECEIVED
RECOMMENDATION: CEASE TRAINING
He gazed at the screen.
Then locked it.
Then unlocked it again.
The words didn't translate.
A massive, digital display on the side of the building suddenly lit up.
[GATE ALERT — LOW-RISK CLASSIFICATION]
LOCATION: EAST RIDGE DISTRICT
DISPATCHING REGISTERED HUNTERS
Hunters near him halted.
There are smiles planted on their faces.
"Easy money."
"Low risk, huh?""Low risk, huh?"
"Drinks after."
Kairen stood slowly.
He felt his chest tighten.
Low risk…
He didn't know why.
But there was something about that word tied his stomach in knots.
End of Chapter One