The first thing Kang Jaehyun noticed was the silence.
Three days ago the world had been loud. Sirens. Screams. The sound of buildings collapsing under mana pressure. Hunters shouting final orders over broken communicators.
Now there was nothing.
Smoke drifted through the ruins of what used to be central Seoul. The National Hunter Association building was barely recognizable, half of it torn open as if something had peeled it apart to look inside.
Jaehyun stood alone on what remained of the roof.
His right shoulder was numb. He knew the bone underneath had cracked earlier, but the pain had dulled into something distant and manageable. His mana reserves were almost gone. The System window flickered faintly at the edge of his vision, unstable.
Below him, the last evacuation transport disappeared into an underground rail tunnel.
That was it.
No more civilians.
No more hunters.
No more S Ranks.
He exhaled slowly.
Across the skyline, something descended.
It did not rush. It did not need to.
The Sovereign's presence bent the air around it. Light distorted slightly as it moved. The six cores embedded along its body rotated at uneven speeds, each one radiating a density of mana that made his lungs tighten.
He had watched it kill three S Ranks in under a minute.
He had watched his mentor disintegrate mid strike.
He had watched the strongest guild master in Asia fail to scratch its outer shield.
He already knew how this would end.
But he also knew something else.
If he could hold it here for even a few seconds longer, the transport might clear the tunnel network before collapse.
A few seconds mattered.
He flexed his fingers around the hilt of his blade. The relic was cracked along the spine, its internal core unstable from repeated overloads. One more full output strike would likely shatter it.
That was fine.
The Sovereign stopped thirty meters away.
It studied him.
That part bothered him more than the destruction.
It was observing.
Calculating.
Jaehyun moved first.
There was no speech. No challenge. No wasted breath.
He pushed what remained of his mana into his reinforcement skill and launched forward.
The impact when his blade struck the outer layer of the Sovereign's shielding tore the remaining structure of the rooftop apart. Concrete fractured. Glass burst outward across empty streets.
His strike carved through two defensive rotations before the backlash threw him sideways. He landed hard, rolled, forced himself up.
His left leg almost gave out.
He ignored it.
He aimed lower this time. The fifth core along its torso rotated slightly out of alignment whenever it shifted stance. It was subtle, but it was there.
He had been watching for that flaw since the second S Rank died.
He darted in again.
The Sovereign responded faster.
A distortion wave expanded from its frame and hit him before he could complete the swing. His left arm vanished from the elbow down.
There was no dramatic explosion.
It simply ceased to exist.
For half a second his mind refused to process it.
Then blood poured down his side.
He staggered but did not fall.
His vision blurred at the edges.
The System flickered again.
He did not need to look at it to know the numbers were critical.
The Sovereign stepped closer.
The ground around it sank under invisible pressure.
Jaehyun adjusted his stance with one arm.
He had one attempt left.
He drew every remaining drop of mana inward, compressing it into the cracked core of his blade. The relic vibrated violently in his grip. If it detonated too early, he would not even scratch the Sovereign.
He stepped forward.
The Sovereign's cores accelerated.
The air tightened.
He jumped.
This time he did not aim for a full penetration strike. He angled the blade directly into the flawed rotation point and released everything at once.
The explosion swallowed them both in white light.
For an instant, the fifth core fractured.
A crack spread across its surface.
The Sovereign recoiled.
Jaehyun felt something tear through his chest.
Not pain.
Unraveling.
His body began to disintegrate from the inside out as the backlash consumed him.
Through fading vision, he saw the crack in the core stabilize.
The rotation resumed.
He had not killed it.
He had only delayed it.
Maybe by seconds.
His consciousness thinned.
The world went dark.
Then something flickered.
Not the public System interface.
Something deeper.
Information streamed past in fragments he had never seen before. Structural logs. Authority layers. Timeline anchors.
A phrase surfaced.
Hidden Authority Detected.
He would have laughed if he still had a body.
Authority had never been part of the public hunter framework.
His vision shattered again.
The ruined skyline folded inward.
Time felt like it reversed under pressure. Ash lifted from the air. Broken towers reformed. The Sovereign's fractured core restored itself in reverse motion.
His arm reappeared.
His lungs filled.
The tearing sensation intensified until even thought became unstable.
Then everything snapped into place.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
Murmured voices surrounded him.
Jaehyun inhaled sharply.
He was standing.
Whole.
Uninjured.
Inside the National Awakening Hall.
Rows of eighteen year olds filled the room, whispering nervously as instructors prepared the evaluation platform.
A large digital display showed the date.
March 3rd.
Fifteen years earlier.
His gaze shifted slowly across the room.
Nothing burned.
Nothing screamed.
No Sovereign stood above the skyline.
His heart rate remained steady.
He lowered his eyes slightly.
Above the head of the student in front of him, faint translucent text hovered.
Not the standard rank evaluation window.
Something else.
Potential Ceiling A Rank.
Growth Suppressed.
He shifted his focus to another student.
Potential Ceiling B Rank.
Talent Locked.
His breathing did not change.
But something inside him did.
At the edge of his vision, a new interface stabilized.
Hidden Authority 1.
Detection Risk 0 percent.
No one else reacted.
No one else could see it.
The instructor called the first name for evaluation.
Applause broke out.
Jaehyun stood quietly in line.
Fifteen years ago, this had been the day his future was decided.
This time, it would be the day he rewrote it.6