The morning sun over Seoul didn't feel warm to Han Si-woo anymore. To him, the sun was just another celestial battery, a massive fusion reactor of mana that the world was slowly bleeding dry. As he stepped out of his dilapidated apartment building, the concrete beneath his boots seemed to groan. He wasn't just walking; he was a gravitational anomaly. The "Entropy Engine" in his chest hummed with a low, predatory vibration that made the birds in the nearby trees take flight in a panicked, silent rush.
He wore a simple black hoodie, the hood pulled low to hide the violet static that occasionally flickered in the depths of his pupils. In his pocket, his hand gripped a small, jagged shard of obsidian—the remains of the S-Rank claymore he had shattered the day before. It was a souvenir of his first "meal."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[Status: Level 5 Sovereign]
[Current Satiety: 12% — Warning: Low Energy]
[Passive Skill: 'Architect's Sight' is analyzing local ley lines...]
[Detection: High-Density Mana Cache located 1.2km North-East.]
[Location: World Hunter Association Treasury.]
Si-woo began to walk. He didn't take the subway. He didn't take a taxi. He moved through the crowded streets of Gangnam, and as he passed, the world reacted. Electronic billboards glitched, showing fragments of ancient, runic code instead of skincare advertisements. People's smartphones stuttered and died. A high-ranking Hunter, an A-Rank "Flame Specialist" walking his dog, suddenly clutched his chest, gasping for air as his internal mana pool dipped by a fraction of a percent just by being within ten meters of Si-woo.
They have no idea, Si-woo thought, his gaze fixed on the massive, obsidian-glass skyscraper of the Association HQ that pierced the clouds. They think they are the masters of this world because they can throw fireballs or heal wounds. But they are just flies buzzing around a lightbulb that is about to burn out.
The Encounter: The Girl Who Remembers
As Si-woo reached the plaza in front of the Association, a figure stepped out from behind a marble pillar.
She wasn't wearing a Hunter's uniform. She wore a traditional white hanbok, stark and clean against the steel and glass of the city. She looked no older than twenty, with hair as silver as moonlight and eyes that didn't look at Si-woo—they looked through him.
"You're early," she said. Her voice didn't travel through the air; it resonated directly in Si-woo's mind.
Si-woo stopped. The Entropy Engine surged, a warning reflex. He looked at her through the Architect's Sight. Usually, people appeared as golden silhouettes of varying brightness. This girl was different. She was a blue blur, her code flickering and resetting every few seconds, like a video file that had been corrupted and repaired a thousand times.
"Who are you?" Si-woo asked, his voice a low rumble.
"My name is Yoo Seol-ah," she replied. She stepped closer, and for the first time since his awakening, Si-woo felt a chill. "And I am a Regressor. This is the 412th time I have stood in this plaza. But it is the first time I have stood here and seen a hole where a man should be."
Si-woo narrowed his eyes. "A Regressor? You've seen the future?"
"I have seen the world end 411 times, Han Si-woo," she said, her expression tragic. "Sometimes it ends in fire. Sometimes in ice. Sometimes the Vaults open and the Great Mechanical Gods descend to harvest us like wheat. But in every timeline, there was always a balance. There was always enough mana to fight back."
She pointed a trembling finger at the sky. Above the Association building, the blue sky was turning a bruised, sickly gray.
"You are the Zero-Sum," she whispered. "You are the variable I never saw coming. Every step you take toward that building, the world's 'Execution Date' moves up by a week. If you enter that Treasury, you won't just be taking their power. You'll be deleting the future I've spent four hundred lives trying to save."
[WARNING: HOSTILE INTENT DETECTED]
[TARGET: YOO SEOL-AH]
[RANK: ??? (UNMEASURABLE)]
[THE ENGINE DEMANDS CONSUMPTION]
"I don't care about your timelines," Si-woo said, his shadow beginning to stretch and liquefy on the pavement. "My sister is dying in a hospital bed because her lungs can't process the 'thin' air of this world. If your 'Future' requires her to die for the sake of balance, then your future is my enemy."
Seol-ah drew a thin, translucent rapier from her sleeve. It didn't pulse with mana—it pulsed with Time. "Then I have no choice. I have killed Kings and Gods to reach this 412th life. I will not let a scavenger erase it all in a single afternoon."
The Battle: Entropy vs. Eternity
The air exploded.
Seol-ah moved with a speed that defied physics. She wasn't running; she was skipping seconds. One moment she was ten meters away; the next, her rapier was millimeters from Si-woo's throat.
[SKILL TRIGGERED: 'REALITY DELETION']
[Cost: 5,000 Mana]
[Effect: Remove the 'Concept of Distance' between Host and Threat.]
Si-woo didn't parry. He simply "deleted" the space where the sword was supposed to land. The rapier passed through a pocket of nothingness, the blade vibrating violently as it touched the void.
Seol-ah's eyes widened. "You... you aren't just using magic. You're rewriting the rules!"
"I'm not rewriting them," Si-woo growled, his hand snapping out to grab her wrist. "I'm deleting the ones I don't like."
As his skin touched hers, the Entropy Engine roared.
[ATTEMPTING TO DRAIN TARGET...]
[ERROR: TARGET POSSESSES 'CHRONOS PROTECTION']
[CONVERTING ATTACK: 'TEMPORAL DECAY']
Instead of sucking her mana, Si-woo's touch began to age the fabric of her sleeve. The silk turned to dust, then to atoms. Seol-ah kicked off his chest, sending a wave of temporal energy that forced Si-woo back.
The shockwave shattered the windows of the surrounding skyscrapers. Thousands of shards of glass rained down like diamonds. With a flick of his wrist, Si-woo activated 'Zero-Sum Domain'.
The falling glass stopped mid-air. Not frozen in time, but robbed of their kinetic energy. The motion was simply "subtracted." The shards fell harmlessly to the ground like dead leaves.
"You're strong," Seol-ah panted, her silver hair disheveled. "But you're a glutton. You're eating the world's life-blood just to stand still. Look around you!"
Si-woo looked. The trees in the plaza were now black husks. The fountain had stopped flowing because the electrical pumps had been drained of their potential energy. The city was dying in a circle around him.
"I know," Si-woo said, his voice devoid of emotion. "And I'm just getting started."
He turned away from her, walking toward the Association's main entrance. The automated security turrets rose from the ground, their barrels glowing with plasma.
"Han Si-woo!" Seol-ah screamed. "If you take the Clockwork Heart, you'll awaken the Architect! You aren't ready for Him!"
Si-woo didn't look back. He raised a single finger toward the 100-story tower.
[MAXIMUM OUTPUT INITIATED]
[SKILL: 'WORLD-EATER'S GRASP']
[TARGET: ASSOCIATION BARRIER SYSTEM]
A beam of pure, light-drinking blackness shot from his hand. It didn't explode against the Association's legendary S-Rank barrier. It unzipped it. The golden shield that had protected the building for a decade vanished with a sound like a dying sigh.
Si-woo walked through the shattered remains of the lobby.
The Treasury: The Heart of the Machine
The interior of the World Hunter Association was a labyrinth of high-tech security and ancient artifacts. But to Si-woo, it was just a series of rooms filled with "batteries."
He moved through the corridors like a ghost. Security guards fired specialized mana-slugs at him; he didn't even flinch. The bullets simply lost their velocity and fell to the floor before they could touch his skin. He was a walking "Null Zone."
He reached the lowest level: The Deep Vault.
There, suspended in a vat of liquid mana, was the Clockwork Heart. It was a pulsating mass of brass, gears, and glowing blue ether—the core of the first Vault ever conquered. It was what powered the entire Hunter network in Korea. It was the source of their "Pulse."
[SYSTEM ALERT!]
[TARGET ACQUIRED: THE CLOCKWORK HEART]
[ESTIMATED MANA VALUE: 1,000,000,000,000 UNITS]
[WARNING: CONSUMPTION WILL TRIGGER GLOBAL MANA-FLUCTUATION]
Si-woo stood before the vat. In the reflection of the glass, he saw his own face. He looked monstrous. His veins were glowing violet, and his skin was so pale it was almost blue. He looked less like a man and more like the monsters he used to scavenge from.
"Is this it?" he whispered. "The price of my sister's life?"
Suddenly, the room went cold. The liquid mana in the vat began to boil. From the shadows of the vault, a man stepped out. He was tall, dressed in a sharp white suit, with hair slicked back and a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
President Choi.
"You've caused quite a mess, Mr. Han," Choi said, calmly lighting a cigarette. "I must say, I've never seen a 'Dry-Cell' turn into a 'Black Hole' before. It's fascinating, really."
"Step aside," Si-woo said. "I'm taking the Heart."
"Oh, you can have it," Choi chuckled, blowing a cloud of smoke. "But you should know... that isn't a power source. It's a leash."
Choi pressed a button on a remote in his pocket.
The Clockwork Heart didn't explode. It opened.
The brass gears unfolded like the petals of a metallic flower, revealing a tiny, shriveled figure inside. It looked like a mummified child, but its eyes were twin suns of golden light.
[SCANNING...]
[IDENTITY: THE ARCHITECT'S AVATAR]
[RANK: DIVINE]
[STATUS: AWAKENING]
"The Association doesn't 'own' the magic, Si-woo," Choi said, his voice dropping to a whisper as he backed toward the exit. "We just feed the thing that provides it. And it hasn't had a proper meal in a long, long time."
The mummified figure turned its head toward Si-woo. It smiled. And for the first time, the Entropy Engine in Si-woo's chest felt afraid.
[EMERGENCY MISSION UPDATED]
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE FIRST DIVINE]
[LOOT REMAINING: THE WORLD'S SURVIVAL]