The slums bristled with anxious life as the edge of night faded into bruised violet dawn. Above the training yard, the canvas roofs trembled in a restless wind. Small clusters of hunters huddled close, steam from their morning soup swirling in the air heavy with the layered scents of fried garlic, cheap tobacco, and wet earth.
Mira moved among her charges, tightening a ragged bandage on Min-ho's forearm. His eyes, glassy with fatigue but still bright, darted among their group. "Do the monsters ever sleep?" he whispered, voice muffled as he blew on the soup to cool it, hands chapped from the cold.
Ka-jin, looming as always, gave a rare, faint smile. "Only when fed. Like us." He took a bite from cured meat that snapped between his teeth, its grease sharp and comforting—food that reminded everyone they were still here, still alive.
Thunder clapped in the distance. Jae-sung arrived at a limp, his cheeks fresh with the sting of early wind and antiseptic, carrying a battered map flecked with dried blood and grease stains. "Northern rift's worse. Guild scouts say the monsters there move in packs now—ambushes, not random attacks. They're learning. We've lost three teams. Only two bodies found."
A hush fell. In the periphery, even the clattering of tin pans and the hiss from the community pot lowered, as if the camp itself listened.
A call for all hunters echoed out. Ka-jin, Mira, Song-yi, Jin, and Min-ho joined others near the outskirts, where the ground had turned to clay from last night's rain. Their boots squelched with every step, a dull percussion beside the hum of anxious voices.
They glimpsed it then: the rift pulsing between two ruined buildings, its light flickering blue and gold, casting shadows that danced like animal shapes on nearby walls. The air here tasted tangy—ozone rich, coppery, a shock on the tongue that made each breath electric.
Out of the rift, not one but two monsters emerged together—strange, moving as if tethered mind-to-mind. Their hides were oily, slick as fish scales, broken in places to reveal muscle that shifted under pale, translucent skin.
Ka-jin led the charge, hammer swinging in an arc, its thunk a satisfying answer to the monsters' screech. Mira's staff cracked bone; Song-yi's axes flashed. Beside her, Min-ho barely dodged a tail swipe—the beast's scales catching the weak sunlight in an iridescent flash—before lunging to jab at its vulnerable underbelly.
As claws tore through Ka-jin's cloak, cold air hit his sweat-soaked shirt, shocking his senses awake. Mud spatters dotted Mira's legs; the sharp, clean sweat of fear stung her eyes. Min-ho's lungs burned with each shout and he tasted blood as a monster's tail grazed his lip.
But coordinated as the beasts were, the hunters' long training held—the group pressed forward, Song-yi landing the killing blow with a crunch that echoed off the corrugated fences. Monster blood painted the mud in strange, shimmering colors—smelling not just foul, but oddly sweet, as if sugar had rotted with animal fat.
In victory, Ka-jin rallied the team. "Check wounds, regroup, be ready for another wave." His words cut through the static, stirring focus even as the exhaustion bit deep.
Back in the cramped dimness of Ji-hye's tent, Min-jun washed monster ichor off his hands, amazed how the stuff clung—the texture gritty, slick, and sticky all at once, hard to scrub out even with sand. Ji-hye pressed a warm rag against a cut on his cheek, cooing softly, the cloth's steam bringing a comfort that sent prickles of safety running down his spine.
Yoo watched closely, senses overwhelmed by the new rift's wild energy, every crackle of it throbbing in his skull. Akasha Archive streamed battle odds and healing rates, numbers swirling—he shut them out, clinging instead to the lullaby and the hush of rain beading on old plastic overhead.
Outside, the slums crawled with tension. The monsters' corpses steamed in the cool air as the weak sun broke through. Ka-jin and Mira led cleanup—ordering supplies, patching wounds. A shared meal followed, where even the thin stew felt like a banquet: the snap of fried batter, the grainy pop of millet, the faint lemon tang of foraged greens.
As dusk settled, the rift's glow faded, replaced by lanterns swinging from ropes overhead, flickering shadows far and wide. Min-ho curled against his blanket, Mira and Ka-jin catalogued the day's lessons, and Yoo reached for sleep, mind spinning with the sense of something inside him stirring—closer, hungrier, more determined than ever.