The air in Seoul had changed. It no longer smelled of exhaust and city life; it smelled of ancient dust and the metallic tang of blood. The sky, once a pale blue, had bruised into a deep, sickly violet, swirling with the energy of the Abyssal Colossus.
Hae Seong stood at the mouth of the Myeong-dong station, his breath coming in slow, rhythmic hitches. Every time he exhaled, a faint white mist escaped his lips—not from the cold, but from the necrotic energy now circulating through his lungs. The [Heart of the Lich] didn't just sit in his inventory; it pulsed in tandem with his own heart, sending ripples of "The Void" through his nervous system.
He looked at his hands. The black, obsidian veins had climbed past his elbows, disappearing under the sleeves of his reinforced gear. He felt… distant. The fear that used to prickle at the back of his neck during the Goblin fight was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating void.
"Hae Seong?"
He turned. Kang-ho and his "Heavens' Guard" were standing ten paces back, their weapons lowered. They looked at him not as a leader, but as a monster they were forced to follow. Kang-ho's face was pale. He had seen high-level players in the beta tests of the VR game, but he had never seen anyone transform like this.
"The military is retreating," Kang-ho stammered, pointing toward the line of humvees that were frantically backing away from the plaza. "The shells… they didn't even scratch it. The Colossus has a Physical Immunity shield. We have to go. Now."
Hae Seong looked toward the Gwanghwamun Plaza. The Abyssal Colossus was now fully emerged. It was a skyscraper-sized titan made of fused bone, rusted iron, and the weeping souls of those it had consumed during the breach. Its "head" was a cage of ribs containing a swirling sun of violet fire. Every time it stepped, the seismic shockwave shattered the windows of the surrounding office buildings.
"Go if you want," Hae Seong said, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "But the System doesn't allow cowards to survive the end of a Tutorial. If that thing isn't dead in sixty minutes, the 'Deletion' protocol begins. There will be no Seoul to run to. No Korea. Just a blank spot on the map."
Hae Seong stepped forward, away from the safety of the subway entrance. He raised his Rune-Sword, but he didn't point it at the Colossus. He pointed it at the ground.
"I told you," Hae Seong whispered, his voice rising in power until it echoed off the skyscrapers. "Everyone who died today… Stand. Up."
The Forbidden Rite: Mass Resurrection
The System window exploded in a flurry of gold and crimson warnings.
[ULTIMATE SKILL ACTIVATED: MASS RESURRECTION (TUTORIAL VERSION)] [COST: 90% MANA, 50% HEALTH, 10% HUMANITY] [RANGE: 5 KM RADIUS]
For a moment, there was a deafening silence. Then, the ground began to tremble—not from the Colossus, but from the thousands of points of impact where life had been extinguished over the last few hours.
In the streets, the fallen soldiers who had been torn apart by Orcs began to stitch back together. Their wounds didn't heal; they were filled with blue spectral flame. Their eyes snapped open, glowing with the icy light of Hae Seong's will.
The Orcs, the Wolves, the Tunnel Creepers—every monster Hae Seong had slain in his "Solo Grind"—shuddered and rose. But they were different now. Their flesh was grey, their armor was coated in frost, and they moved with the eerie, synchronized grace of a hive mind.
From the subway behind them, the thousands of Tunnel Creepers he had just massacred poured out like a black tide, swarming over the wreckage of cars, waiting for his command.
Kang-ho fell to his knees, his mace clattering to the asphalt. "You're… you're a Necromancer? No… this isn't Necromancy. This is a King."
[TOTAL SUMMONS: 4,249 UNITS] [ARMY RANK: UNDEAD LEGION (GRADE C+)]
Hae Seong felt the drain. His health bar plummeted into the red, flickering dangerously. His vision blurred, edges turning grey as the "Humanity" stat took its toll. He felt a sudden, sharp warmth on his arm.
Chae-won had run up from the rear of the convoy. She didn't look at the army of monsters. She looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears. She grabbed his hand, and for a second, the black veins retreated a fraction of an inch.
"Hae Seong, stop," she sobbed. "You're fading. I can see it. You're not looking at me anymore. You're looking through me."
Hae Seong looked down at her. For a fleeting second, the cold void in his chest cracked. He remembered the calculus lecture. He remembered the dull pencil. He remembered being just a kid with mediocre grades.
"I'm still here, Chae-won," he said, his voice softening for a heartbeat. "But I have to finish the game. If I don't, there's no tomorrow for you to be mad at me in."
He gently pulled his hand away and turned toward the Colossus. He pointed his sword toward the titan.
"CHARGE."
The Battle for the Soul of Seoul
The sound was like a thunderclap that wouldn't end. Four thousand undead—a mix of modern soldiers with spectral rifles and ancient monsters with soul-blades—hit the base of the Abyssal Colossus.
The Colossus roared, a sound that felt like a physical weight pressing down on the city. It swept its massive arm, a limb made of fused concrete and bone, through a line of spectral soldiers. They were crushed into dust, but Hae Seong simply flicked his wrist, and the dust swirled, reforming the soldiers seconds later.
As long as Hae Seong had Mana, his army was immortal.
"Kang-ho! Heavens' Guard!" Hae Seong barked, his eyes locked on the Colossus's rib-cage head. "The physical immunity is a lie. It's a Spectral Barrier. Your 'Holy' mace can crack it. I'll provide the opening. You provide the strike. Do you want to be a coward, or do you want to be a Ranker?"
Kang-ho looked at the titan, then at the teenager commanding an army of the damned. Something shifted in him. The gamer's instinct—the desire to be part of a legendary raid—overrode his terror.
"Follow the kid!" Kang-ho yelled to his guild. "Shields up! We're going in!"
Hae Seong activated [Shadow Step]. He didn't reappear behind a monster; he appeared on the Colossus itself. He began to sprint up the creature's arm, his boots clattering against the bone-armor.
The Colossus noticed the parasite on its limb. It began to sprout smaller, skeletal defenders from its skin—Lesser Liches that hissed and cast bolts of shadow at Hae Seong.
"[Lunar Phantom]! Protect!"
The spectral wolf he had summoned earlier leaped from the shadows of the buildings, clearing thirty feet in a single bound. It landed on the Colossus's shoulder, tearing the Lesser Liches apart with jaws of blue flame, clearing a path for its master.
Hae Seong reached the chest of the beast. Up close, he could hear the screaming. This monster wasn't just a boss; it was a soul-battery, holding thousands of people in an eternal state of agony.
[ANALYZING BOSS CORE...] [WEAK POINT DETECTED: THE HEART OF AGONY]
"It's not a heart," Hae Seong realized, staring into the violet sun behind the ribs. "It's a Gate. A miniature Gate."
If he destroyed it, the Colossus would die. But if he destroyed it, the energy release would likely vaporize everything within three blocks—including Chae-won, the soldiers, and the students.
Hae Seong stood on the precipice of a choice that would define Act II. He could play it safe and lose the city, or he could do something "unhinged."
He chose unhinged.
He drove his Rune-Sword into the Colossus's skin to steady himself and opened his System Menu. He didn't look at his skills. He looked at his Friend List.
Chae-won (Level 4 - Civilian) Kang-ho (Level 14 - Paladin)
He initiated a [Party Link] with everyone in the 5km radius.
"Everyone," his voice rang out in their heads through the system link. "I'm going to drain the boss's energy directly into the Party Link. You're all going to feel like your blood is boiling. You're going to gain levels faster than the system can track. Do not stop fighting. Use the energy to shield yourselves."
"Hae Seong, no!" Chae-won screamed from below. "You can't hold that much energy! It'll burn you out!"
"I'm not holding it," Hae Seong whispered, a terrifying smile spreading across his pale face. "I'm just the conductor."
He grabbed the glowing violet ribs of the Colossus with his bare hands.
[SKILL: SOUL EXTRACTION - OVERLOAD MODE]
The world turned white.
The Aftermath: The New World Order
The explosion wasn't made of fire. It was made of information.
The Abyssal Colossus didn't blow up; it dissolved. The violet energy poured into every single person in the "Party," surging through their systems.
[GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT] [WORLD BOSS: ABYSSAL COLOSSUS DEFEATED] [CONTRIBUTOR #1: PLAYER [DELETED USERNAME]] [REWARD: TUTORIAL PHASE ENDED. REALITY INTEGRATION: 100%]
Hae Seong fell. He dropped from a height of two hundred feet as the Colossus vanished beneath him. He hit the ground hard, the asphalt cracking under the impact.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Slowly, the dust settled. The thousands of undead he had summoned were gone, returned to the earth. The sky began to turn back to a normal, midnight black.
Hae Seong lay in the center of the crater. His clothes were shredded, his skin was marble-white, and the black veins had reached his neck, forming a crown-like pattern under his jaw.
He opened his eyes.
[LEVEL UP!] [LEVEL UP!] ... [CURRENT LEVEL: 45]
He was the only Level 45 player on the planet. The next closest was Level 18.
He felt a hand on his cheek. It was Chae-won. She was glowing—a faint, golden light. Because of his "Party Link," she had jumped from Level 4 to Level 15 in a single second. She was no longer a civilian. She was a [High-Grade Healer].
She was crying, but she was smiling. "You did it. You idiot. You actually did it."
Hae Seong sat up, his movements stiff and inhumanly smooth. He looked around. The military was returning, but they weren't aiming their guns at the crater. They were saluting. Behind them, thousands of survivors were emerging from the buildings, looking at the boy in the crater with a mixture of awe and terror.
The System gave one final chime for the night.
[CONGRATULATIONS, PLAYER. YOU HAVE SURVIVED THE TUTORIAL.] [THE REAL GAME BEGINS NOW.] [NEW QUEST: ESTABLISH THE FIRST KINGDOM.]
Hae Seong looked at the notification, then at the thousands of people waiting for him to speak. He realized that "Ascension Protocol" wasn't just a game anymore. It was a new world. And he was its first, and perhaps only, sovereign.
He stood up, the [Lunar Phantom] flickering into existence at his side, its blue eyes reflecting the flickering lights of the ruined city.
"The government is gone," Hae Seong said, his voice carrying through the silent streets. "The laws are gone. From now on, your level is your life. If you want to survive, you follow the Rank 1."