The Silver Lions guild briefing room buzzed with a faint undercurrent of tension.
The screen at the front displayed Rift activity levels—fluctuating colors bleeding across the map of a newly opened zone on the outskirts of Pyeongtaek. Class B Rift. Unstable. Multiple mana spikes. No immediate boss signature.
Nam Doohyuk stood at the head of the assembled group, arm in a sling—his face tighter than usual, voice rougher.
"Squad A will enter first. Yerim, Gilsoo, Hyejin, you're with me. Taesung, you're coming too."
Taesung looked up from where he leaned against the wall, black jacket zipped to the throat. No expression. Just a small nod.
Doohyuk's jaw worked as if he wanted to say something more. Then he didn't. Just turned back to the map. "We move in fifteen."
They geared up, weapons checked, suits sealed, blades glinting under pale light. Yerim slid her twin daggers into the sheaths at her back, gaze distant. Gilsoo loaded mana rounds into his rifle, muttering to himself.
No jokes this time.
No cocky smirks.
The last mission had changed that.
They moved through the portal in formation.
The Rift bloomed open with a lurch, like stepping through liquid air. On the other side, the world was frozen in twilight—warped skyscrapers like jagged teeth, roads half-submerged in black sand, clouds above swirling too fast, too wrong.
The city had been devoured by the Rift.
They spread out, sensors up. Silence. Not even wind.
Then a tremor.
Far off.
Thoom.
Another. Closer.
Gilsoo raised his weapon. "Contact incoming—northwest quadrant."
They moved, weapons raised, toward the collapsed avenue.
The first creature emerged like a mountain peeling itself from the street.
A giant.
Easily fifteen meters tall. Its skin was dark steel, eyes glowing red from beneath a broken helm fused into its skull. It carried no weapon. It didn't need one.
Yerim cursed, backing off. "What the hell—? That's not in the report."
"Focus fire!" Doohyuk barked. "Eyes and knees!"
They moved fast, trained—Gilsoo's rifle spat mana bullets, Yerim flashed past with a slice to the tendon, Taesung moved low under its arm, driving his knife into the joint.
It roared but did not fall.
Then it turned—and keeled backward, head snapping to the side as if struck by an invisible hammer.
Silence followed.
They froze.
Not because the giant was dead.
But because something had entered the Rift.
Taesung felt it first.
A pressure.
Not physical. Not magical. Just… presence.
Like the sky had leaned too close to the ground.
Everyone turned.
He stood at the far end of the broken street. The same dark armor. The same expressionless mask. Blue eyes glowing beneath the helm. His steps made no sound. But with each one, the ground trembled.
Virex.
No—he was different.
Stronger. Sharper. As if the Rift had refined him.
"Targets—" Yerim tried to raise her blades, but her arms trembled. "Shit—can't move—"
Gilsoo's gun dropped to his side.
Doohyuk managed a step forward, breathing hard, mana crackling along his arms. "Fall back. Fall—"
He didn't finish.
Virex moved.
One moment he was a hundred meters away.
The next—
Doohyuk's arm flew off in a clean slice.
A scream tore the air.
Gilsoo shouted, firing wildly—but the shots passed through smoke. Virex was already somewhere else.
A flash of black.
A grunt.
Yerim hit the ground, blood blooming from a slash across her side.
Taesung moved.
Blade out. Eyes narrowed. Instinct burning in his chest like wildfire.
He met Virex head-on.
Steel sang.
Taesung's knife scraped across the mask—didn't even scratch it—then a fist drove into his stomach like a battering ram. His breath vanished. He stumbled back, the world spinning.
"Taesung—!"
He couldn't hear them.
Only the hum of that unholy power. That will.
He forced himself up, legs shaking. Blood in his mouth.
Virex didn't speak. Just turned away, as if none of them were worth the effort.
And still—no one could move.
Then—
Crkk— The comms sputtered.
"...ba—ck… up… is… coming…"
Then—
BOOM.
The air split.
From above—light streaked down like a meteor, smashing into the Rift ground with a shockwave that threw everyone off their feet.
Dust. Screams. Concrete ripping.
Taesung shielded his eyes.
When he looked up—
Another figure stood between them and Virex.
Armored. Cloaked in silver-white. Backlit by Rift light.
He hadn't seen this one before.
But something in Virex's stance shifted.
For the first time—
He stopped moving forward.