The city was loud.
Veltharion stood at the edge of a sidewalk, humans streaming past him in both directions, and wondered if erasure might actually be the more peaceful option.
Cars honked. Screens flickered with moving images on every building. Music blared from storefronts. Somewhere nearby, a street vendor shouted about discounted meat on sticks.
Fifty thousand years ago, the loudest thing in human civilization was a particularly enthusiastic war drum.
He missed those days.
"Move it, grandpa!"
A teenager shoved past him, face buried in a glowing rectangle. Veltharion watched him go, contemplating whether Decay Touch would work on rudeness. Probably not. A shame.
Elder Kim had given him directions to a place called a "motel"—temporary housing for travelers. The concept seemed straightforward enough. Pay money, receive room, sleep until the noise stopped.
Finding the motel took two hours.
Not because it was far. The distance was negligible, perhaps fifteen minutes by foot. But every few blocks, something new demanded Veltharion's attention.
A metal box that dispensed hot drinks when fed coins. Windows displaying clothes without any humans wearing them. Tiny dogs dressed in sweaters, walking alongside owners who seemed to find this normal.
And everywhere, everywhere, the phones.
Every human carried one. They stared at the glowing screens while walking, eating, talking to each other. Some held them up to capture images of food before consuming it. Others pressed buttons rapidly, their thumbs moving with a dexterity that suggested years of practice.
Veltharion did not have a phone. Elder Kim had offered one, but the old man's model was ancient by modern standards—a flip device with physical buttons that the monk used primarily as a paperweight.
Perhaps he should acquire one. Research suggested humans found phoneless individuals suspicious.
The motel, when he finally located it, was underwhelming. A narrow building squeezed between a convenience store and a shop selling fried chicken.
The lobby smelled of cigarette smoke and desperation. A woman behind the counter looked at him with the exhausted eyes of someone who had stopped caring about her job approximately three years ago.
"One room," Veltharion said. "The quietest available."
She didn't ask for how long. Didn't make small talk. Simply took his cash, handed him a key card, and returned to her own glowing rectangle.
Efficient. He appreciated that.
The room was small. Bed, bathroom, window overlooking an alley. The sheets smelled of industrial detergent, and the walls were thin enough that he could hear his neighbor's television through them.
But it was private. And horizontal surfaces existed for sleeping.
Veltharion collapsed onto the bed without removing his shoes.
'Tomorrow,' he told himself.
'Tomorrow I'll begin this ridiculous quest. Tonight, I rest.'
His eyes closed.
Three seconds later, his Divine Sense screamed.
Something was wrong. Not here—not in the motel—but nearby. Close enough that even his diminished awareness couldn't ignore it. A concentration of hostile energy, foreign and violent, pressing against the fabric of reality like a tumor about to burst.
A Gate.
And it was breaking.
Veltharion did not want to get up.
The bed was comfortable. His body was tired from the journey. Whatever was happening outside was, technically, not his problem. He had come here to gather followers, not to play hero in a world he barely understood.
But the energy kept building. Waves of wrongness crashed against his senses, each stronger than the last. Something on the other side of that Gate was pushing through, and the barrier wouldn't hold much longer.
'Ignore it. Let the Hunters handle it. That's their job.'
He rolled over, pulling a pillow over his head.
The screaming started.
Human screams—high, terrified, cut short. Not many, but enough. Two, maybe three people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Veltharion pressed the pillow harder against his ears.
'Not my responsibility. Not my problem. I don't even know these people.'
Another scream. A child this time.
"Damn it."
He was on his feet before he finished cursing. Out the door. Down the stairs. Through the lobby, past the receptionist who didn't bother looking up from her phone.
The street outside had transformed.
Where a normal intersection had existed minutes ago, now a tear in reality hung suspended in the air. Purple light pulsed from its edges. Shadows writhed within, suggesting shapes that didn't belong in any sane dimension.
A Gate. Ruptured. Monsters already pouring through.
Three of them—creatures that resembled wolves if wolves were made of shadow and hatred. Each stood nearly two meters tall, with eyes like burning coals and teeth that dripped something caustic. One had already cornered a family against a storefront. Father shielding mother. Mother clutching a child no older than five.
No Hunters in sight. No police. No one coming to help.
The lead wolf lunged.
Veltharion moved.
Not with divine speed—his vessel couldn't handle that—but fast enough. He crossed the distance in a heartbeat, positioning himself between the creature and its prey. His hand came up, palm outward, and he activated Micro Stasis.
The wolf froze mid-leap.
Not completely—he couldn't manage that anymore—but enough. Its momentum slowed to a crawl, limbs moving through air that had become thick as honey. Veltharion stepped aside, almost casually, and let the creature drift past him before releasing the effect.
It crashed into the pavement, confused and furious.
"Run," he said to the family without looking back.
"Now."
They ran. Smart humans. He appreciated that too.
The three wolves regrouped, circling him with newfound caution. They could sense it—the remnant of his divine authority pressing against their instincts. He wasn't human. He wasn't prey. He was something other, and that otherness made them hesitate.
Good. Hesitation he could work with.
"I'm going to be honest with you,"
Veltharion said, addressing the monsters as if they could understand. Perhaps they could.
"I really don't want to fight. I've had a long day. The city is overwhelming. All I wanted was to sleep in a mediocre bed and ignore my problems until morning."
The largest wolf snarled.
"But you're making that difficult." He sighed, a sound heavy with genuine exhaustion.
"So let's make this quick."
The wolf charged.
Veltharion didn't dodge this time. Instead, he reached out and touched its face.
Decay Touch.
The effect was immediate. Black veins spread from his fingertips, racing across the creature's skull. Its flesh withered. Its eyes dimmed. A howl of agony escaped its throat before the sound turned to dust along with the rest of it.
The other two wolves watched their leader crumble. Whatever passed for intelligence in their burning eyes calculated odds, assessed threats, reached conclusions.
They fled.
Back through the Gate, into whatever dimension had spawned them. The portal flickered, destabilized by the breach, and sealed itself moments later.
Purple light faded. Reality reasserted itself. The intersection looked almost normal again, save for the scorch marks and the pile of ash where a monster had once stood.
Veltharion looked at his hand. The fingertips were blackened, the skin raw and painful. Using divine abilities in a mortal vessel came with costs—costs he was only beginning to understand.
"What the hell was that?"
A voice. Female. Sharp with adrenaline and suspicion.
He turned.
A young woman stood behind him, having apparently emerged from an alley during the commotion. Early twenties, athletic build, dressed in practical clothes that suggested combat readiness.
Dark brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and sharp eyes the color of black coffee—intense, assessing, missing nothing. Her hands gripped a weapon—some kind of reinforced baton that crackled with faint energy.
But what caught his attention was her aura.
Faint. Underdeveloped. Like a candle flame in a world of bonfires. She had been blessed—touched by some god's power—but the connection was weak. Incomplete. A potential Hunter who had never fully awakened.
Interesting.
"You're not a registered Hunter," she continued, advancing slowly.
Her stance was trained, professional, despite the fear he could smell beneath her bravado.
"I've never seen you before. And that ability—what rank are you? A? S?"
"E, actually."
She blinked. "What?"
"E-Rank. Lowest tier. According to the test I haven't taken yet."
Veltharion examined his damaged fingers with detached curiosity. The skin was already healing, accelerated by the divine essence within his vessel.
"I assume you're a Hunter?"
"I—yes. E-Rank." She said it with a grimace, as if the classification was a personal insult.
"Kang Seo-yeon. I was responding to the Gate alert, but..."
Her eyes moved to the pile of ash.
"You already handled it."
Kang Seo-yeon. The name meant nothing to him, but her aura told a story. A blessing given without full activation. Power locked behind a door that no one had bothered to open.
She could be so much more than E-Rank—he could see the potential burning inside her like a star waiting to ignite.
And she was clearly dissatisfied with her current position.
'A potential follower?'
The thought arrived unbidden. He pushed it aside. Too soon. Too forward. He didn't even understand how modern humans formed religious attachments. Simply walking up and offering divine blessing seemed unlikely to work.
"You're staring," she said flatly.
"Apologies. I was thinking."
"About what?"
"How much paperwork this incident will generate."
That startled a laugh out of her—a short, surprised sound that transformed her face from suspicious to almost friendly. "You're weird. Most people who just killed a Gate monster would be bragging, not complaining about paperwork."
"I'm not most people."
"Clearly." She studied him with renewed interest.
"You said you haven't taken the Hunter exam yet. Are you planning to register?"
"Unfortunately."
"Why unfortunately?"
Because it meant filling out forms. Attending evaluations. Joining a system designed for humans, managed by humans, filled with rules that humans created to manage other humans.
"I dislike bureaucracy," he said instead.
Seo-yeon snorted.
"Join the club. The Association is a nightmare—all politics and favoritism. But if you can do what you just did, you won't stay E-Rank for long."
She paused, seeming to reach a decision.
"Look, I know we just met, and this is weird, but... when you register, look me up. Kang Seo-yeon. I'm trying to put together a party for low-rank Gate runs, and I could use someone who doesn't panic at the first sign of trouble."
A party. A group of Hunters working together. An opportunity to observe modern blessed humans up close, to understand how they operated, to identify potential followers.
Also, significantly more effort than Veltharion wanted to invest.
But the alternative was working alone. Figuring everything out himself. Handling every tedious detail without guidance.
"Perhaps," he said. Noncommittal. Safe.
Seo-yeon rolled her eyes.
"Wow, overwhelming enthusiasm. Fine, 'perhaps' works. I'll be at the Association building tomorrow morning for a Gate assignment. If you're there, great. If not..." She shrugged. "Your loss."
She turned and walked away, already pulling out her phone to report the incident.
Veltharion watched her go.
One thousand followers. Three hundred sixty-five days. A world that had moved on without him.
And now, possibly, his first real lead.