The sky above the ruined metropolis remained stained with a dull, bruised crimson, but the apocalyptic monster wave had finally reached its bloody end. Across the devastated urban grid, golden solar flames tore through the sky as Global Rank 2 Hunter Arthur moved like a living avatar of judgment, incinerating mutated, obsidian-skinned beasts into fine ash with single swings of his blade. Beside him, Elena's sovereign frost locked down entire city blocks in glittering glacial prisons, while Ken's mana-infused strikes shattered the mutated abominations into crimson spray. Within hours, the combined absolute force of the elite hunters swept every sector clean. The city was secured, but it was a victory carved out of rubble and silence.
Deep within the sterile, quiet corridors of the Central Command Medical Facility, the atmosphere was heavy with the sharp scent of antiseptic and lingering demonic ozone. Hero lay motionless on a hospital bed, his face pale and drained, his chest rising in slow, barely perceptible breaths. He had been unconscious for two full days.
Lyra, the top-tier S-Rank Healer, stood over his bed, her brow slick with cold sweat. Soft, golden light radiated from her palms, bathing Hero's torso in potent restoration magic. Yet, the moment her healing mana touched his skin, it fizzled and dissipated like water dropped onto white-hot iron. She gasped, stumbling back half a step, her breathing ragged.
The heavy door glided open with a quiet hiss, and Elena stepped into the room. Her frost-rimmed boots clicked against the polished tile floor, her icy blue eyes scanning the quiet room before settling on the unconscious boy. The ambient temperature in the room plummeted by several degrees as she approached.
"Is this the boy?" Elena asked, her voice low, measured, and stripped of all emotion. "The one you said eliminated a high-tier vampire all by himself?"
Lyra wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her sleeve and nodded tiredly. "Yes... that's him. Hero."
Elena leaned closer, her sharp gaze tracing the faint scars on Hero's face. "It's incredible... yet there is no mistake. Ken reported to me earlier that before the blood formation was activated, this very boy defeated a Super S-Rank mutated monster in just three precise strikes."
Lyra's eyes widened in genuine disbelief. "What?! Are you serious, Elena? Who on earth is he?!"
"I ran a full background check through the Association's central database," Elena replied softly, her arms crossed over her chest. "There is nothing. No high-rank hunter registry, no noble lineage, no documented awakening above F-rank. He is an absolute nobody on paper."
Lyra stared at the unconscious youth, her mind racing. "If he isn't a high-rank hunter, then there is only one logical explanation... He must have forged a secret, high-level soul contract with a powerful ancient spell or entity. That is the only way an ordinary human could slaughter a high-tier vampire and an S-rank abomination."
Elena looked back at Lyra, noticing the pale exhaustion on the healer's face. "Can you not force him awake with your healing magic?"
Lyra shook her head helplessly, a look of deep frustration darkening her features. "I tried... but something is deeply wrong inside his body. My healing mana is being completely rejected. Ever since I attached that severed arm onto his shoulder back in the bunker... his body seems to have altered its fundamental nature. My magic simply bounces off him now."
Elena's eyes narrowed into sharp slits. A heavy silence settled over the sterile room as she pondered the implications. "A body that rejects S-Rank healing... Mysterious powers... He holds too many unanswered variables. When he wakes up, we will return and conduct a thorough interrogation. Let him rest for now."
Without another word, the two women turned and walked out of the room, leaving Hero alone in the quiet, hum-filled room.
Meanwhile, far beneath the surface of the earth, in the cavernous, pitch-black abyss where the shattered blood portal resided, the atmosphere was suffocatingly dense. Viscous black blood pooled across the jagged stone floor, and the faint, unsettling hum of lingering demonic energy vibrated through the subterranean air.
The massive silhouette of the Demonic General stood towering in the center of the cavern, his crimson eyes glowing like twin dying stars in the gloom. Vladix knelt trembling before him, his frame heavily battered and bleeding from his earlier clash with Arthur.
"Tell me everything, Vladix," the General's voice boomed, deep and guttural, causing loose pebbles to rattle off the cavern walls. "Tell me of the rules of this mortal realm, its energy laws, and the powerful entities that walk its surface."
Vladix, keeping his head bowed low, hastily explained the structure of the human world—the hunters, the rank systems, the dimensional rifts, and the key figures that governed human society.
As Vladix spoke, a dark, sinister grin spread across the General's monstrous face. "Fascinating..." he chuckled, a sound like grinding tectonic plates. "So there are strong mortals here... Good. I need no elaborate plans or subtle infiltrations. I shall launch an immediate, direct assault upon their primary cities! Let their strongest warriors come to me! I shall slaughter them all, feast upon their fresh souls, and reclaim my absolute peak power!"
Before the General could even finish his roar of mad ambition, reality itself shattered.
Without a single sound, an infinite, crushing pressure descended from the void above. The ambient air turned into solid lead. Gravity bent and collapsed under a terrifying, unseen cosmic weight that defied all physical laws.
BOOM!
In an instant, both the towering Demonic General and Vladix were brutally slammed down onto the cavern floor! Their knees shattered the solid bedrock, and their faces were pressed violently into the jagged dirt. The immense, invisible pressure locked their bodies in place, rendering them completely immobile—as if the entire weight of the universe was resting upon their spines.
From the absolute center of the silent darkness, a voice resonated. It did not echo off the stone walls; it echoed directly inside their souls and minds—ancient, vast, cold, and utterly hollow.
"You have taken advantage of a temporary rift in the cosmic laws to slide your filthy existence into this plane..." Time's voice spoke, carrying an aura so grand that the General's demonic core quivered in pure, unadulterated terror. "Therefore, you shall bring no slaughter to this world."
The pressure intensified by a fraction, causing the bedrock beneath the General's skull to turn to fine dust.
"I shall not cast you back into the abyssal void from whence you crawled," Time continued coldly. "However... you will remain silent and hidden for exactly five years. If your existence, or the presence of your demonic legion, is exposed to the mortals of this world before those five years have passed... the consequences will transcend your fragile comprehension."
A shudder of absolute dread coursed through the Demonic General's veins. He could not even lift a finger, nor could he utter a single word of defiance. He was a mere ant crushed under the gaze of an omnipotent deity.
Just as suddenly as it had arrived, the terrifying cosmic aura vanished completely into nothingness. The crushing pressure lifted.
The cavern returned to its silent darkness.
The General slowly pushed himself up from the ground, his massive frame trembling violently. Beads of cold, dark sweat dripped from his brow. His terrifying confidence was gone, replaced by a chaotic storm of shock, embarrassment, and raw fury.
Turning his burning, crimson gaze toward Vladix, who was still gasping for air on the ground, the General erupted.
With a roar of blind rage, the General lunged forward, grabbing Vladix by his throat and slamming him violently into the cavern wall! The stone structure shattered into dust upon impact. Before Vladix could even cry out, the General unleashed a brutal, bone-crushing barrage of strikes, pounding the vampire relentlessly until Vladix lay half-dead, vomiting black blood onto the floor.
"Useless parasite!" the General roared, stepping on Vladix's bleeding chest. "I asked you for full information regarding this world! Yet you committed the ultimate failure! You failed to mention that a Supreme Entity resides on this planet!"
Vladix coughed up a clump of dark blood, his voice trembling in agony and terror. "L-Lord... forgive me! I... I had no knowledge! Could... could that truly have been a Supreme? Perhaps... perhaps it was merely an illusion—"
"SILENCE!" the General thundered, his foot crushing Vladix's ribs. "Do you take me for a fool?! A Supreme Entity in full wrath possesses the authority to erase even a Demon God with a mere thought! You think I cannot recognize an infinite, limitless existence when it crushes my very soul?!"
The General took a heavy step back, his glowing eyes flickering with deep apprehension as he pondered the horrific encounter. "If a Supreme is personally monitoring this realm... then this world is not a mere mortal feeding ground. It is his domain. Or perhaps... he has a devoted follower or an anointed vessel living among these humans."
Vladix stammered, "A... a follower? Impossible... mortals do not even possess the capacity to comprehend a Supreme's name, let alone worship one..."
"It matters not!" the General snarled, his voice laced with rare caution. "A Supreme is an existence that governs the cosmic balance of the universe itself. If he is present here, we MUST obey his ultimatum. For the next five years, our presence must remain completely hidden from the humans! If we provoke his wrath and he decides to act... he won't just erase us. He will wipe the entire Demonic Realm out of existence with a single gesture! Do not underestimate his power... Do not step out of line!"
Vladix bowed his broken body deeply into the dirt. "I... I understand, My Lord..."
Back in the sterile silence of the hospital room, the soft golden light of late afternoon filtered through the window blinds.
Hero's eyelids fluttered slightly before he slowly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry at first, taking a few moments to adjust to the white ceiling and the faint, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor beside him.
As he shifted his gaze to the side, his heart skipped a beat.
Sitting quietly on a simple wooden chair right beside his bed was a figure enveloped in an ethereal, shifting mist of deep indigo and abyssal black—the physical projection of Time. The atmospheric shadow sat with arms crossed, its eyes glowing with a faint, ancient light that seemed to pierce through reality itself.
Hero swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper. "Time...? How... how did I get here?"
Time did not move, but his cold, hollow voice resonated clearly within Hero's mind. "You have been unconscious for two full days, Hero. The fragile mortal shell you possess barely survived the recoil of the Blaster technique and the forced integration of that demonic limb."
"Two days?!" Hero exclaimed, instantly trying to sit up, a surge of panic washing over his face. "Two whole days?! Oh no... My boss is going to kill me! I missed my shifts at the warehouse! They're going to fire me... I won't even get paid for this week! How am I going to pay rent?!"
Time looked at the frantic boy, his atmospheric glow flickering with utter disdain and dry amusement. "You remain astonishingly foolish, mortal. You lie here worrying about your pathetic, meaningless copper coins... while the shadow of total extinction looms over your head."
Hero stopped panicking, blinking in confusion as he looked at the mysterious entity. "What... what do you mean by that?"
Time leaned forward slightly, the air in the room turning heavy and freezing cold.
"It means, Hero," Time said softly, his voice carrying the ominous weight of an absolute prophecy, "that you need not worry about your petty mortal livelihood... because in exactly five years, this entire world will be completely erased from existence."