Fourteen years ago, the sky split open.
Like a jagged scar tearing through the heavens, a rift appeared—splitting the air as if it were nothing more than a thin screen. These rifts came without warning, opening haphazardly across the world with no pattern, no reason, and no mercy.
At first, humanity looked upon them with curiosity rather than fear. They were hailed as the world's miracle, mysterious portals that defied understanding, a phenomenon for scientists to study and governments to monitor.
Believing them harmless, the world chose to observe rather than interfere.
A mistake that would cost thousands of lives.
On the seventh day after the first rift appeared, the sky screamed. From its torn edges poured creatures, winged beasts that blotted out the sun, and crawling horrors that tore their way across the earth, ravenous for blood.
That day marked the First Apocalypse, a day where all lives were put in danger, none spared from its danger.
That day, humanity learned, too late, how fatal their complacency could be.
Yet, it was not all for naught.
In the aftermath of despair, something new emerged among the dying. Those standing at the edge of death began to see a strange screen flicker before their eyes, like an illusion which came from a dream, or maybe a message from something beyond a human's realm.
[New achievement!]
[Blessed Lost Souls, would you like to "Enter" New Salvation?]
[Yes]
Those screen appeared like salvation to the humans who had lost everything, like a ray of sunlight that the Gods above them had spared.
The people who answered yes awakened to power, an evolution born from desperate cries. Their bodies strengthened beyond human limits, some even have the power to heal a lost limb for scratch, while others gained the strength to shatter steel and strike down monsters that once brought nations to their knees.
They were humanity's last chance. A salvation born from the end.
Those humans who had been awakened were then named "Hunters".
Fourteen years after, Seoul—
In a television studio, a tall white haired man had sat down beside his interviewer. A smile spread on his lips despite the fact that his eyes had been covered with a pitch black ribbon. He looked at ease with confidence, leaning backward to his chair while the interviewer eyed him with glimmering admiration.
"Thank you for the deepest of our heart for agreeing to appear to today's special interview, Sir Samuel Right! Fourteen years ago you visited Korea, how does it feel coming back here?"
Samuel Right gently offered a smile, "Feels like home."
"After the appearance of SSS+ domain you have once swore to never come back to Korea. We are all worried whether your trauma still affects your trip here."
"Indeed I was scared. A part of me didn't want to come back to Korea. It feels as if I have returned to a war zone, one where I have lost almost everything including my eyes. But when I first landed here yesterday, I could tell even withiyt my functioning eyes how Korea has became peaceful. It feels as if what I and all the four hundred and one hunters have seen was nothing more than a nightmare."
The screen continued to flicker in the phone of a young man watching the interview. His violet eyes glimmered as a single water dropped on his phone screen.
Samuel Right inside his phone had smiled but that smile came into one full of hatred the moment the interviewer began to ask further.
"Have you considered coming back into contact with S+ Hunter, Mr Won who have been missing ever since nine years ago? To ask whether he has decided to return as a Hunter?"
"Don't mention his name."
Samuel Right had always been known as the gentlest Hunter in the entire planet Earth. But the moment "Won" was named, his expression changed grimly. He began to cough, his face even paled as if a vampire had sucked out all the blood inside his body.
He clutched to his chest while the interviewer panic as blood had seeped out from underneath the black cloth that had covered Samuel's eyes.
"He will not be back. That coward isn't a Hunter anymore. He will never come back. He will never dare to show his face to us ever again! Never!" As more blood began to flow from Samuel Right's eyes, bodyguards rushed to his side, causing for the interview to be stopped almost instantly.
The young man watching Samuel Right's interview didn't seem to be bothered by what he had seen.
Sure, his comrade was just cursing him out, demanding him to never show his face to them again. Despite the fact that they had all entered SSS+ domain together, fighting through blood and tears, now he was shunned, even called as "Coward of the Century" and a shame to all Hunters.
The man who walked out of the SSS+ Domain alive.
But instead of feeling upset for being called a coward with so many people watching, all Lee TaeWon could feel was a sense of solitude.
He wiped away more water that had dropped on his phone and put aside his phone for briefly before pulling out a black umbrella to cover him and the gravestone in front of him.
The phone continued to speak, "That was the last meeting with the late Samuel Right. His body have been found two mornings ago without a wound, he seemed to have passed away peacefully and since then he had been buried in his homeland. Ever since the Great Chaos nine years ago, Nine out of Ten Hunters who survived the SSS+ domain have met with unprecedented death. Their death is still being researched for a reason without any answer so far. It is a personal request... but Mr. Won, if you could hear this news, will you please come back to us?"
Lee TaeWon let out a sigh before he shut his phone, removing his AirPods and pulling the umbrella over the gravestone which carved the name "Samuel Right".
When he closed his eyes he could remember that snake-like eyes of Samuel when he grinned while he patted his shoulders, 'Hey Won call me hyung. If you call me hyung, I promise I'll grant you one wish for your entire life. Don't worry, I've never lied! Never! Come on everyone told me that only those who became close can call each other hyung. I also want to have a younger brother. Hey quickly!'
"Samuel Hyung," Lee TaeWon called out to the gravestone. He gently pulled out his hand and from it materialized a blue flower that seemed to be crafted out of glass. "Thank you for protecting your promise. When we meet again, I'll repay you with your favorite drink again."
As he looked at the gravestone, instead of anger was a wide smile stretched from one ear to ear. Lee TaeWon had lost almost five hundred people in his life. It had been a tough long life, losing another life shouldn't hurt him as much. But to lose the very last person who remembered the people in the SSS+ domain still made him contemplate on life.
Just as TaeWon was about to speak again, he heard a voice and immediately his body disappeared out of a thin air.
A group of men appeared to surround the graveyard almost in a blink, their eyes darting all over the graveyard almost as if they were chasing after a nimble rat that had once again escaped.
"This is team A. S ranked hunter's presence had disappeared yet again, sir."
"This is team B. We have confirmed it was really Mr Won who had appeared to visit the graveyard."
'This is team C-"
The voices had disappeared when the blonde haired man shut down his earpiece. He walked closer toward the graveyard and picked the glass flower that TaeWon had left, picking it to his hand and lifting it up to the once gray sky that had began to disperse.
"Our dearest Hunter Won is so quick to run away isn't he?"
A bigger build man appeared behind him, his expression full of worries, "What should we do, Hunter JiWoo? Hunter Won have disappeared yet again. Finding him this time will be more difficult than finding a needle from a haystack. Hunter JiWoo!"
"Don't rush me," Wo JiWoo stood up from the ground, smiling as he moved his eyes far to the left, starting Lee TaeWon who had been watching them from miles away. He could almost feel their eyes met and saw as Wo JiWoo's mouth spoke up.
"No matter where he runs. Hunter Won will come back and I'll make sure he will come back straight to my arms first."