The cheering of the Heavens-Gate Guild echoed through the ruined city, a hollow sound against the rusted skyscrapers. Choi Sang-min, the S-Rank Vanguard, stood triumphantly over the crater of white salt.
"Did you get that panning shot?" Sang-min shouted to one of the hovering Association drones. "Make sure they see the guild emblem on my cape! The media is going to eat this up. A flawless A-Rank clear!"
In the backline, Jinsu adjusted the straps of his heavy supply pack. He kept his eyes locked on the dirt, but his Processing [70] was already reading the shift in the air. The heavy, oppressive A-Rank mana was rapidly thinning.
"Boss," Mage Park Do-hyun said, his voice trembling as he tapped the side of his glowing monocle. "Boss, something is wrong. The atmospheric mana isn't settling. It's... it's evaporating."
Sang-min scoffed, sheathing his massive broadsword. "Of course it is, Park. I just obliterated the core entity. The dungeon is stabilizing."
"No, you don't understand!" Park yelled, his panic finally breaking his professional composure. "Look up!"
The hunters raised their heads. The dark red, polygonal sky was fracturing. A deafening, mechanical groan echoed across the city, like a massive server rack buckling under pressure.
Suddenly, a fifty-story skyscraper three blocks away didn't just collapse—it ceased to exist. In its place was a towering rectangle of pure, grey static. There was no dust. No sound of falling rubble. Just a blank void in reality.
[WARNING: Sector De-Compilation at 12%]
[Atmospheric Integrity: Failing]
"What the hell is that?" an A-Rank archer named Yoon-ah screamed, stepping backward. "Where did the building go?!"
The Association drones hovering above them sparked violently, dropped out of the sky, and dissolved into grey pixels before they even hit the ground. The connection to the outside world was severed.
"The System is closing the Sector early!" Park screamed, sprinting toward Sang-min. "Without the Executioner acting as the anchor, the rendering engine is shutting down! We're being Truncated!"
"Truncated?!" Sang-min roared, his golden armor dimming as the environmental mana he constantly siphoned began to dry up. "Speak Korean, Park!"
"It means the dungeon is being deleted with us inside it!" Park grabbed the S-Rank's arm. "Find the exit portal! Now!"
Yoon-ah spun around, pointing a shaking finger toward the plaza where they had spawned. "It's gone! The blue gate... it's replaced by white noise! The coordinates have been overwritten!"
Panic, cold and absolute, ripped through the Heavens-Gate elite. These were hunters who lived and breathed by the System's rules. They were gods as long as they had a mini-map and a quest marker. Without them, they were just data waiting to be wiped.
Bae, the old scarred porter, dropped his heavy pack. He sank to his knees on the rusted pavement, his hands shaking.
"We're dead," Bae whispered, his voice cracking. "If the System deletes a Sector while you're inside, you don't go to the graveyard. You don't leave a body for your family. You just... cease."
Jinsu stood behind a rusted pillar, watching the "Heroes" lose their minds. Through his [Eyes of the Architect], he saw the world as vibrating red Logic-Lines. The deletion was spreading like rot, but there was one structure in the distance—a massive building made of black marble—that was untouched. It was a "Read-Only" zone. The Founder's Archive.
I can't reach it before the static catches me unless I use them as a shield against the stray aggro mobs, Jinsu calculated.
Jinsu took a breath, slumped his shoulders, and let a perfect, terrified tremor enter his voice.
"Wait!" Jinsu shouted.
The elite hunters snapped their heads toward him. Sang-min looked at the lowly porter with pure venom. "Shut up, Kang! Unless you have a teleportation scroll up your ass, keep your mouth shut!"
"I... I think I just had an Awakening!" Jinsu stammered, holding his hands out.
He activated his new skill: [System-Mimicry (Lv. 1)].
Instead of the terrifying, world-eating violet static of his true power, a faint, flickering blue light manifested around his fingertips. It was the color of standard, heavily restricted System Mana. It looked incredibly weak—like a dying match compared to Sang-min's raging bonfire.
"My eyes... they're burning!" Jinsu lied, rubbing his temples. "I see lines on the floor. Blue lines. They're forming a path away from the grey fog. They lead toward that black building with the stone lions!"
Park ran over, physically shoving Bae aside to grab Jinsu's wrist. He jammed his monocle against his eye, scanning the porter.
[SYSTEM WINDOW: THE HEAVENS-GATE RAID PARTY]
CHOI SANG-MIN (Rank: S)
Role: Guild Master / Vanguard
Mana Capacity: 4,200,000 / 4,200,000
Status: [PANIC] — Mana Stability dropping due to Truncation.
PARK DO-HYUN (Rank: A)
Role: Chief Mage / Analyst
Mana Capacity: 850,000 / 850,000
Status: [DESPERATE] — Logic-processing failing.
YOON-AH (Rank: A)
Role: Vanguard Sniper
Mana Capacity: 610,000 / 610,000
Status: [TERRIFIED] — Combat efficiency -40%.
PORTER BAE (Rank: F)
Role: Rear Guard / Logistics
Mana Capacity: 1,200 / 1,200
Status: [RESIGNED] — Awaiting Deletion.
KANG HAN-EOL (Rank: 0)
Role: The Glitch (Mimicry Active)
Mana Capacity: 0 / 0
Status: [UNTOUCHED] — Current Priority: ROOT.
"He's telling the truth," Park gasped, his jaw dropping as he looked at Sang-min. "His mana capacity is literal garbage. It's practically zero. But he's manifesting a 'Structural Intuition' skill. It's a trash-tier F-Rank support trait, but it triggers during high-stress desync events to find safe terrain!"
Sang-min marched over, his heavy golden boots clanking against the rust. He sneered at Jinsu's faint blue glow.
"A trash-tier awakening. Fitting for a rat," Sang-min spat. But as a wave of grey static consumed a rusted car just fifty yards away, he grabbed Jinsu by the collar of his jumpsuit. "If your garbage eyes can see a path through the Truncation, then lead the way. If you walk us into a dead end, I'll take your head before the static does."
"Y-yes, sir!" Jinsu bowed his head, expertly hiding the cold, predatory glint in his violet eyes.
"Kang, are you sure about this?" Bae whispered, grabbing Jinsu's sleeve as they started to sprint. "An awakening at your age... it's not normal."
"Nothing here is normal, Bae," Jinsu replied quietly, his voice dropping slightly. "Just step exactly where I step."
They sprinted through the collapsing city. It was a nightmare. The "ground" beneath them would occasionally flicker into green wireframes. Yoon-ah screamed as her boot clipped a patch of static, cleanly deleting the heel of her shoe.
Jinsu led them with surgical precision, weaving through the invisible "Safe Zones" his processing power calculated. To the Hunters, it looked like a terrified porter was getting impossibly lucky. To the System, a virus was effortlessly navigating a failing hard drive.
They finally slid to a halt before the massive, black-marble doors of the Founder's Archive. The grey static roared behind them, stopping exactly ten feet from the marble steps, unable to eat the protected data.
Sang-min shoved his way to the front and slammed his hand against the door's glowing interface.
[ACCESS DENIED]
[Required Permission: FOUNDER-CLASS OR HIGHER]
[Current User Rank: S-Rank (Authorized for Combat Only)]
"What?!" Sang-min punched the door, his 4.2 million mana causing a shockwave that rattled the Hunters' teeth, but the marble didn't even scratch. "Open! I am an S-Rank! I have maximum clearance!"
"It's not about Power Level, Boss," Park said, wiping sweat from his pale face. "Look at the console. It's an analog Logic Gate. It doesn't read mana. It wants a pre-Optimization pin-code!"
"A code?!" Sang-min kicked the stone lion statue. "How the hell am I supposed to know an analog code from thirty years ago?!"
Jinsu stepped forward, keeping his posture meek. His Processing [70] locked onto the heavy, rusted keypad hidden beneath the interface. He could see the faint, residual thermal data of a finger-pattern left there decades ago—data the System couldn't erase.
"Sir... my skill... it's pointing to the keypad," Jinsu suggested timidly. "Maybe try... 0-0-0-0?"
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Yoon-ah snapped, drawing an arrow.
"Just try it, Boss!" Park pleaded as the static outside began to hum louder.
Sang-min gritted his teeth and aggressively punched the heavy mechanical keys. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero.
CLACK. HISSSS.
The massive marble doors groaned, breaking a seal that had held for decades, and slowly slid open, revealing a pitch-black interior.
"Ha! Lucky guess, porter!" Sang-min laughed loudly, his arrogant bravado instantly returning as the danger seemingly passed. He pushed Jinsu aside and marched into the darkness. "Everyone in! Heavens-Gate claims this hidden dungeon!"
As the elite hunters rushed inside, Bae paused at the threshold. He looked at the keypad, then back at Jinsu.
"0-0-0-0?" Bae asked, his voice thick with disbelief. "Really, kid?"
Jinsu stepped into the freezing darkness of the Archive, letting the heavy doors seal shut behind them, perfectly cutting off the sound of the collapsing world outside. The fake blue mana vanished from his fingers.
"True power starts at Zero, Bae," Jinsu said, his voice shedding every ounce of weakness, echoing coldly in the dark. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"