The sky over Seoul didn't just turn dark; it died.
Ten Citadels, each a mountain of bone and iron, hung like jagged teeth over the city's skyline. The emergency sirens of the capital wailed in a futile, rhythmic chorus, drowned out by the thunder of the Abyss. Below, in the shattered sub-levels of the Association, Kang-woo stood amidst the falling rubble, the black key humming a funeral dirge in his hand.
"A bigger army?" Director Kim stammered, his golden mana flickering out as his core hit its limit. "Kang-woo, look around you! The Association's elite are being turned into paper dolls, and the Iron Fang is probably halfway to the border by now. There is no army left!"
"Not a human one," Kang-woo said.
He turned to the black pit beneath them—the rift the King had used to crawl into their world. It was a wound in reality, bleeding pure, unfiltered necrotic energy.
"Seol-ah," Kang-woo said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, hollow resonance. "I need you to trust me. This is going to feel like drowning."
Seol-ah, her face pale and streaked with soot, nodded slowly. She gripped his arm, her silver eyes reflecting the violet fires of the Pit. "Do it. Whatever it takes."
[Warning: Attempting 'Reverse-Summoning' into the Abyss.][Risk: Your soul may be pulled into the void.]
Kang-woo didn't just call a summon. He plunged his hand into the rift.
He didn't search for a soldier. He searched for the debt. He reached into the memories of the 'First Butcher's Record,' searching for the thousands of souls the King had discarded over the eons—the failures, the traitors, and the forgotten.
"I am the Sovereign of the Shattered Throne!" Kang-woo's roar echoed through the rift, amplified by the black key. "And I have come to collect! Rise, you who were cast aside! Rise and take your pound of flesh!"
[Skill: 'The Sovereign's Decree' (Ultimate) activated.][Mana: -150% (Exceeding limit... consuming Lifespan...)][System: Life-Debt Bond stabilizing at 2%...]
The violet fire in the pit turned a blinding, metallic gray.
From the darkness, a sound emerged. It wasn't a roar. It was the sound of millions of boots hitting stone.
The first figure to emerge wasn't a skeleton. It was a specter clad in the tattered remains of a Royal Guard's armor, its face a swirling mist of gray fire. Then came another. And another. Hundreds of spectral soldiers, knights, and archers poured out of the rift, not as mindless thralls, but as an organized, vengeful legion.
They didn't attack Kang-woo. They knelt.
[Legion Identified: The Forgotten Vanguard (Rank: Epic-Scale)][Command Authority: Kang-woo.]
"What... what have you done?" Yeon-hee whispered from the shadows. Her paper butterflies were being incinerated by the mere presence of the Vanguard. For the first time, her ecstatic grin vanished, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated awe.
"I gave them a reason to fight," Kang-woo said, his skin now so pale it was almost translucent.
He pointed the black key toward the King, who was hovering in the open sky above the ruined mountain.
"Legion! Claim the sky!"
The Forgotten Vanguard erupted into the air. Spectral horses galloped on paths of gray light, charging toward the ten Citadels. The night sky over Seoul became a battlefield of purple and gray, a war of the dead against the dead.
The King watched the ascent of the Vanguard, his missing hand beginning to regenerate into a claw of pure violet mana.
"YOU WOULD ARM THE RUBBISH OF MY EMPIRE AGAINST ME?" the King's voice shook the heavens.
"It's not rubbish," Kang-woo whispered, blood leaking from his silver eyes. "It's the interest you forgot to pay."
Suddenly, a massive explosion rocked the nearest Citadel. A streak of silver-gold light tore through the bone-walls.
It wasn't the Vanguard.
A fleet of black helicopters, bearing a logo Kang-woo didn't recognize—a serpent coiled around a sword—began to drop Hunters onto the top of the Citadels. These weren't Association guards. They moved with a clinical, lethal efficiency, wielding weapons that fired bolts of concentrated mana.
"The Serpent Guild?" Director Kim gasped. "They weren't supposed to be in the country for another month!"
"They aren't here for the city," Kang-woo realized, his Viper's Sense picking up a new, sharp scent in the air. "They're here for the Key."
A figure leaped from the lead helicopter, landing on a floating piece of the Association's roof near Kang-woo. He was a man with white hair and eyes like chips of blue ice. He carried a heavy, mechanical claymore that hummed with enough power to rival the King's Commanders.
"Nice army, kid," the man said, looking at Kang-woo's Vanguard. "But that Key belongs to the highest bidder. And right now, that's us."
[Entity Identified: Baek In-ho, 'The Ice Emperor' (Rank: S)]
Kang-woo stood between the King above and the S-Rank Hunter in front. He tightened his grip on Seol-ah.
"The world is ending," Kang-woo said, his gray mana flaring. "And you're still talking about money?"
"Money is the only thing that survives the end," In-ho replied, raising his claymore.
[Current Situation: 3-Way War.][The King / The Sovereign / The Serpent Guild.]