The year is 2040.
Technology had advanced steadily—AI assistants, smart cities, medical breakthroughs—but nothing fantastical. No flying cars. No interstellar travel. Humanity stood on the edge of major breakthroughs, but something was missing.
Then the Gates arrived.
They appeared without warning—tears in the sky that split open reality itself. From them came monsters. At first, they were small. E-rank. D-rank. Then stronger ones followed.
By the time S-rank monsters emerged, cities were erased in hours.
The day the Gates appeared is now known as The Great Catastrophe.
Millions died in the first year alone. Entire nations collapsed. Humanity would have been wiped out if not for one miracle:
The Awakening.
In moments of extreme crisis, certain humans began manifesting abilities. Some were weak. Some were extraordinary. They were later classified to have awakened with the ranks—E to SS.
They became Hunters.
The first generation of Hunters fought back the tide long enough for the world to stabilize. Ten years have passed since that day.
It is now 2050.
And then there’s me.
Draco. Age 24. About to finish my final term of college.
My family died during the Great Catastrophe. I inherited enough money to survive this long—barely. I have ten thousand dollars left. That gives me maybe five months.
The only reason I stayed in college was because my parents had saved for it. They believed education would secure my future.
But the world doesn’t run on degrees anymore.
It runs on power.
Almost everyone cares about awakening. If you awaken, you matter. If you don’t… you survive quietly in the background.
Roughly half the global population has awakened. Some did immediately during the Catastrophe. Others awakened years later. Some awaken only in moments of life-or-death crisis.
If I was meant to awaken during a crisis…
I should have awakened already.
My parents were killed by a B-rank monster called a Glassfang.
It appeared during the early chaos of the Catastrophe. I tried to help. I tried to be brave.
But bravery doesn’t matter when you’re powerless.
They held it back so I could run.
I can still hear the sounds of that fight in my nightmares.
The least I can do is graduate. For them.
But being unawakened in 2050 is almost a disability. Businesses revolve around Hunters. Guilds control industries. Even basic infrastructure relies on awakened labor.
Artifacts sell for absurd amounts of money.
An SSS-rank artifact can reach $75 million or more. And that’s the highest confirmed rank in existence.
SSS Rank.
Also known as Apex Rank.
It is widely believed to be the peak of human potential.
Only one Hunter is known to have ever reached it.
Kael Drayven — The Apex of Humanity.
Five years after the Great Catastrophe, an SSS-rank Gate appeared over the United Kingdom. The world had never seen anything like it.
Environmental disasters erupted across Europe. Communication satellites malfunctioned. Oceans churned violently as if reality itself was unstable.
At the time, Kael was still SS rank — but widely regarded as the strongest among the Sovereigns.
For the first time in history, all ten SS-rank Sovereign Hunters mobilized together.
The battle that followed would later be known as The Day of the Devourer.
The enemy:
Nullwyrm, the Devourer.
An Apex-ranked monster.
Several of the world’s strongest heroes were critically injured that day.
Roderik Weiss suffered the worst.
He lost his arm.
The details were never officially released. Rumors say he was reckless. Others claim he saved multiple Sovereigns at once.
After his recovery, Roderik refused to accept weakness.
He funded and oversaw the creation of a replacement arm using:
- SS-rank monster cores
- Advanced magical reinforcement techniques
- Modern engineering and neural interfacing
The result was an artificial limb that matches—or exceeds—his original strength. It channels energy through embedded core conduits and responds seamlessly to his thoughts.
It is classified as an SS+ rank artifact.
What I wouldn’t give for something like that.
But back to Kael
The Devourer was eventually slain — but the battle shattered the illusion that humanity was prepared for what lay beyond SS rank.
And in the years that followed, Kael withdrew from public operations.
Through relentless training, near-death bottlenecks, and repeated attempts to surpass his limits, he eventually achieved what no one else had.
SSS Rank.
From that day forward, he became known as The Apex of Humanity.
But enough daydreaming.
Today is my final exam before graduation.
As I walked toward the lecture hall, the building began to shake violently.
At first, everyone assumed it was an earthquake.
Then the sky split open.
A Gate.
But this one was different.
Everyone within the immediate radius was forcibly pulled inside.
As the Gate expanded, I caught a glimpse of its color.
Crimson red.
There has only ever been one recorded crimson Gate.
The Devourer’s Gate.
My heart dropped.
The Devourer appeared five years after the Great Catastrophe.
It is now 2050.
Five years after the Day of the Devourer.
Is it possible these crimson Gates appear every five years?
If so…
We’re in trouble.
Most of the students and staff here are unawakened. The few who are awakened range from E-rank to B-rank.
There is no scenario where they survive an Apex-level dungeon.
But when I landed inside the Gate…
What I saw didn’t make sense.
Elf-like beings moved through the chaos with unnatural precision.
They weren’t slaughtering people.
They were capturing them.
Humans were being chained together and marched deeper into the forested interior of the dungeon.
Normally, monsters attack on sight.
These creatures were organizing.
Strategic.
Purposeful.
Enslaving humans.
But for what?
I crouched behind shattered stone and tried to steady my breathing.
Stay calm.
Observe.
Survive.
Chapter 1 — Part 2 The Crimson Jungle
They looked like elves.
At least, that was my first thought.
Tall. Slender. Long ears that tapered elegantly behind sharp jawlines. Their movements were fluid, almost graceful—like something out of old fantasy novels.
But nothing about them felt noble.
Their skin carried a faint grey undertone, almost corpse-like beneath the crimson glow of the sky. Their eyes shimmered with a pale, predatory light. When one turned its head and smiled—
I saw teeth.
Not flat, civilized teeth.
Sharp. Layered. Serrated.
These were not guardians of forests.
These were hunters.
They moved through the campus ruins with frightening coordination, binding students and staff in metal restraints that looked forged from bone and black iron. No wasted motion. No shouting. No chaos.
Just efficiency.
I forced myself to stay still behind a collapsed stone pillar. They scanned the area briefly… then stopped searching.
My chest tightened.
They think they got everyone.
After a few more minutes, their posture relaxed. A few began conversing in a language I couldn’t understand—soft, melodic, but wrong somehow. The syllables curled unnaturally at the end, like blades scraping glass.
When they finally began marching the captured humans deeper into the forested interior of the dungeon, I followed.
Carefully. Quietly.
Staying downwind.
Every snapped twig felt like a gunshot in my ears. But none of them turned around. None of them reacted.
Maybe they really did think they had everyone.
I stayed far enough back to avoid being noticed, but close enough to keep them in sight. The crimson sky above filtered through twisted black trees that arched inward like skeletal hands. The deeper we went, the quieter it became.
No insects.
No animals.
No other monsters.
Which was strange.
Every dungeon I’d ever seen footage of was filled with creatures—beasts, aberrations, roaming threats.
This forest was empty.
Eventually the trees opened into a clearing.
And that’s when my stomach dropped.
There were dozens of them.
Roughly a hundred of the elf-like creatures stood within a massive encampment constructed from dark timber and spiked barricades. Large iron cages lined one side of the clearing, already filling with captured humans.
Fires roared in enormous suspended cauldrons.
The smell of boiling meat hung in the air.
I tried to gauge their strength.
It was impossible to know exactly how strong they were, but the Gate’s color told me everything.
Crimson.
SSS.
Stolen story; please report.
This wasn’t a dungeon built around one overwhelming entity.
This was something else.
One of them stood apart from the rest, draped in layered black and crimson armor etched with symbols that glowed faintly beneath the surface.
Even from a distance, I could feel the pressure radiating from him.
SS rank, at minimum.
The captured humans were shoved into cages. Some cried. Some screamed. Some of the low-rank Hunters among them attempted to fight back—only to be effortlessly subdued.
Then the fires were stoked higher.
Massive black pots were lowered.
The creatures sharpened tools that looked disturbingly like butcher’s instruments.
My pulse pounded in my ears.
They weren’t imprisoning us.
They were preparing a feast.
And I couldn’t just watch.
I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know if it would work.
But I had to do something.
While a cluster of them focused on securing the cages, I slipped along the perimeter of the camp and grabbed several unattended tools—rope, a small hatchet, a torch head still warm from use.
Then I ran into the forest.
Far enough to avoid suspicion.
Far enough to create a distraction.
My hands shook as I hacked at dry undergrowth, piling it into a crude mound. I struck flint against steel again and again until sparks caught.
Smoke first.
Then flame.
Then more.
Within minutes, the fire began climbing the twisted black trees, spreading unnaturally fast as if the forest itself wanted to burn.
I didn’t stay to watch.
I circled wide.
Came back from another angle.
The camp was shifting—several of the creatures moving toward the rising smoke.
Now.
I rushed to the cages.
“Stay quiet,” I whispered as I worked at the locking mechanism with stolen tools.
Metal scraped.
Chains loosened.
One by one, people slipped out.
We ran.
Into the jungle.
Behind us, I could swear I heard laughter carried through the wind.
But I didn’t look back.
Chapter 1 — Part 3 The Game Revealed
We ran until our lungs burned.
Branches tore at our skin. Smoke filled the air behind us as the fire spread wildly through the twisted crimson forest. It felt like we had actually done it.
We had escaped.
No pursuit.
No arrows.
No hunters closing in from the trees.
Just silence.
For days we wandered through the jungle searching for an exit. The environment was hostile—dense undergrowth, strange fruits we didn’t recognize, streams that shimmered faintly under the red sky. But we survived.
We rationed what little we could gather. The low-ranked Hunters among us did their best to protect the group. Even the unawakened tried to help.
And something strange kept happening.
We never once encountered another monster.
Not a single roaming beast.
Not one ambush.
Not one territorial predator.
In a dungeon.
That made no sense.
Still, hope kept us moving.
Then we saw it.
A massive structure rising beyond the trees.
A Gate.
Giant. Oval-shaped. Swirling with dim silver light instead of crimson.
An exit.
A wave of relief swept through the group. Some people collapsed to their knees crying. Others laughed hysterically.
We made our way toward it carefully, afraid it might vanish.
It didn’t.
One of the B-rank Hunters stepped forward first and reached out.
His hand passed through the surface.
He stepped fully into it.
Nothing happened.
He walked back out, confusion on his face.
“It’s not activating.”
Panic rippled through the group.
More tried.
One after another.
No one could leave.
The Gate wasn’t an exit.
It was a prop.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Clapping echoed from the treeline.
A single, slow clap.
Then another.
We froze.
From the shadows emerged one of them—the one draped in black and crimson armor.
Up close, the pressure he emitted was suffocating.
His features were sharper than the others. His skin almost pale marble. His eyes glowed faintly crimson.
He smiled.
His teeth were longer than the rest.
Behind him, the others stepped from the forest.
Not rushing.
Not hunting.
Walking.
Confident.
Organized.
He spoke.
The language was the same melodic, curling sound from before.
None of us understood it.
He tilted his head slightly, as if disappointed.
Then one of the creatures approached him and handed him a small crystalline device. It looked like a shard of fractured glass bound in metal.
He activated it.
When he spoke again—
It was English.
“Oh… how disappointing,” he said smoothly. “And yet… how delightful.”
A chill ran through my body.
“It was very entertaining,” he continued. “Watching you struggle. Watching you ration food. Watching you argue over leadership.”
He paced slowly in front of us like a lecturer addressing a classroom.
“Did none of you find it strange?” he asked. “That not once did another monster approach you?”
Silence.
A faint smile spread across his face.
“We protected you.”
The words felt wrong.
“You are our prey. No lesser creature is permitted to touch what belongs to us.”
Murmurs of horror spread through the group.
“You burned our forest,” he added, glancing toward the distant smoke with mild amusement. “A bold move. Admirable, even. We allowed it.”
My heart skipped.
Allowed it?
He turned his gaze directly toward me.
“You, especially, were fascinating.”
My blood went cold.
“You thought you were unseen. That you were clever.”
His lips curled slightly.
“We sensed you from the moment you began following us.”
The forest seemed to close in around me.
“You were the star of this performance.”
My hands trembled.
The other creatures began forming a semi-circle behind him.
Now that I saw them clearly—really saw them—I understood.
These weren’t elves.
They only resembled them.
They were something else entirely.
A tribe.
Predatory.
Refined.
They moved in synchrony, subtle glances and posture shifts communicating without words.
The leader raised one hand slightly.
“You may call us the Vaelreth.”
The name felt ancient.
Wrong in the mouth.
“We enjoy watching hope bloom,” he continued calmly. “It makes despair… so much richer.”
The low-ranked Hunters among us stepped forward instinctively, forming a defensive line.
That’s when we realized the truth.
Even the weakest Vaelreth among them radiated power comparable to an A-rank Hunter.
Every single one.
And there were nearly a hundred.
The leader alone… the pressure coming off him…
SS.
Easily.
We had miscalculated.
This wasn’t one great monster commanding lesser minions.
This was a unified tribe whose combined Combat Power forced the system to classify the dungeon as SSS.
We had never escaped.
We had been escorted.
The leader’s gaze locked onto mine again.
“And now,” he said softly, “the feast concludes.”
Chapter 1 — Part 4 The One Who Wasn’t Meant to Die
The Vaelreth moved first.
Not in a chaotic charge.
But in perfect formation.
The A-rank warriors advanced in disciplined lines. The S-rank elites stepped forward only when needed. The air itself felt heavier as their collective presence pressed down on us.
The Hunters among us fought back.
Bravely.
Foolishly.
A C-rank tried to launch a spell—he was cut down before the incantation finished forming. A B-rank rushed forward with a reinforced blade—his weapon shattered against one of the Vaelreth warriors like glass against steel.
They weren’t overpowering us with numbers.
They were dismantling us.
Methodically.
I watched classmates—people I had sat next to in lectures days ago—fall one after another. Screams echoed through the clearing. Blood darkened the roots of the forest floor.
Something inside me snapped.
I ran forward.
I didn’t think. I didn’t plan.
I just moved.
I grabbed a fallen weapon and swung at the nearest Vaelreth.
The blade never landed.
A hand closed around my wrist mid-strike.
It wasn’t one of the A-rank warriors.
It was him.
The Vaelreth King.
Up close, the pressure he emitted felt like standing at the bottom of the ocean. My knees buckled instantly.
He didn’t crush my wrist.
He didn’t strike me.
He smiled.
“Well done,” he said almost warmly. “Truly. You exceeded expectations.”
My classmates were dying behind me, and he was complimenting me.
“You made it interesting,” he continued. “You ran. You burned our forest. You freed your kind.”
His violet eyes narrowed slightly in amusement.
“You were the star.”
I tried to pull away.
He didn’t allow it.
“If you survive one attack,” he said lightly, “I will let you live.”
The battlefield slowed.
“What?” I breathed.
“One strike,” he repeated. “A simple flick.”
He raised his free hand casually.
“All you must do… is survive.”
It sounded absurd.
A flick?
That’s it?
I braced myself instinctively, though I had nothing to defend with.
He flicked his fingers against my abdomen.
It felt like being hit by a collapsing building.
There was no visible beam. No explosion.
Just force.
Pure, concentrated force.
For a split second, I didn’t feel anything.
Then I looked down.
There was a hole in my chest.
Clean.
Perfect.
Through me.
I collapsed instantly. Blood pooled beneath me, soaking into the crimson earth. My vision blurred. The sounds of battle faded into distant echoes.
Is this it?
Is this how it ends?
No awakening.
No power.
No revenge.
Just… nothing.
Darkness swallowed me.
—
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t in the forest.
I wasn’t anywhere.
The stars stretched endlessly in every direction.
The Milky Way spiraled before me, massive and impossibly distant, yet close enough to touch.
I was floating in the vacuum of space.
And yet I could breathe.
Ahead of me stood a figure.
Humanoid.
Featureless.
A pure white silhouette.
No face. No eyes. No hair. Just the outline of a man seated upon a throne carved from something that looked like fragments of shattered constellations.
Beneath the throne was what resembled a shrine made of drifting starlight.
The being looked down at me.
“It is a pity,” the voice echoed—not in my ears, but inside my mind. “To see one with such potential reduced to this.”
“I’m… dead?” I asked weakly.
“Not yet.”
The figure lifted a hand.
The stars shifted.
A vision unfolded before me.
A future.
I saw myself standing on battlefields I didn’t recognize. Cities torn apart by divine entities. Constellations colliding. Gods at war.
I saw myself standing at the center of it.
Apex Rank.
I was meant to awaken.
I was meant to rise.
I was meant to wage war against gods.
“The Gate you entered,” the being said calmly, “was not meant to exist.”
“What?”
“You were destined to become a threat.”
The stars shimmered violently.
“The Constellation you were meant to destroy saw your future.”
Cold understanding seeped into me.
“They interfered.”
The being’s voice hardened slightly.
“They combined their authority. Rewrote fate. Created a dungeon designed specifically to kill you before your awakening.”
My mind reeled.
“So I… died because of them?”
“Yes.”
The figure leaned forward slightly.
“And I will not allow them to win their Holy War so easily.”
The space around us trembled faintly.
“I offer you power.”
There was no dramatic music. No glow of holy light.
Just certainty.
“But power carries a price.”
I swallowed.
“When the time comes,” the being continued, “you must defend Earth from the Constellation that altered your fate. And this time—”
The stars flared.
“—you must win.”
“Why?” I asked.
Silence lingered for a moment.
“Because Earth is necessary to my design,” the being replied simply. “And I refuse to lose it.”
Honest.
Not kind.
Not noble.
Strategic.
“If you accept,” the figure said, rising slightly from the throne, “I will descend into your body. I will erase the enemies before you. I will awaken you.”
“And in doing so?”
The silhouette’s form shimmered.
“A seed of my authority will take root within you. It will accelerate your growth. In time… my power will become yours.”
I hesitated only briefly.
I had already died once.
“I accept.”
The being extended a hand.
Light swallowed everything.
—
Back in the crimson forest—
The Vaelreth King stood over my lifeless body.
He sighed faintly.
“Disappointing,” he murmured.
Then the sky cracked.
A pressure far beyond SSS descended upon the clearing.
The Vaelreth froze.
The King’s eyes widened for the first time.
Impossible.
A white radiance erupted from my corpse.
Not explosive.
Not chaotic.
Absolute.
The Vaelreth nearest me disintegrated instantly—no blood, no scream—just erased.
The King attempted to move.
He couldn’t.
The radiance condensed, warping space itself.
One by one, the tribe of Vaelreth was erased from existence as if they had never been there.
Even the King—SS-ranked sovereign of his tribe—was reduced to silence beneath that descending authority.
When the last of them vanished, the pressure faded.
The forest grew quiet.
The remaining humans—those still alive—stared in stunned silence.
The radiance softened.
Then it shifted.
Memories began to change.
Subtly.
Gently.
The survivors would remember escaping.
They would remember fighting through the jungle.
They would remember reaching the Gate.
They would remember some dying before they got there.
But they would not remember the massacre that happened after.
They would not remember the Vaelreth King.
They would not remember me dying.
The Gate activated.
This time, it was real.
The survivors stumbled through it back into the real world.
As the last of them exited, I collapsed onto the pavement outside the campus building.
Unconscious.
Bleeding no longer.
Awakened.
—
When I opened my eyes again, fluorescent lights greeted me.
A hospital ceiling.
Monitors beeping steadily beside me.
My body felt different.
Heavier.
Full.
A nurse gasped.
“You’re awake!”
Footsteps rushed into the room.
Doctors. Questions. Chaos.
But beneath it all—
I felt something new.
Something vast.
Something watching.
And deep within me…
A seed had begun to grow.