The air in the back of the Yoo-Hwa Guild transport van was thick with the smell of high-grade ozone and leather.
Across from me, Yoo Sae-rin was checking the seals on her Rank-A frost-weave gauntlets. She looked calm, but the way her mana was flickering—small snowflakes manifesting and melting on her fingertips—told me she was on edge.
"You're wearing the Academy uniform," she noted, looking at my black hoodie. "If we're spotted, you're going to be expelled before we even reach the boss room."
"The uniform is the best camouflage," I replied, leaning my head against the vibrating metal wall of the van. "Who suspects a 12th-grade student of raiding a restricted B-Rank Gate? To anyone watching, I'm just a gofer or a scout you dragged along."
[Notice: 'Universal Deception' is syncing with your environment.]
[Status: Invisible to Low-Level Mana Scanners.]
"Just make sure you stay behind me until we're past the Association checkpoint," she warned. "My father's guild has a permit for this Gate, but it's only for a 'High-Rank Research Team.' If they see an F-ranker on the manifest, the alarms will trigger."
I didn't answer. I was busy looking at a screen only I could see.
[The Sovereign's Vault (Shop)]
[Available Credits: 500]
[Dragon's Breath Elixir] (500 Credits): Temporarily boosts Aether Density by 50% for 10 minutes.
[Passive: Heart of the Chimera](800 Credits): Increased mana regeneration.
I needed the density. If the "Outsiders" Sae-rin mentioned were actually tracking the Dragon's trail, I couldn't afford to be weak.
Purchase [Dragon's Breath Elixir].
[Transaction Complete. Item stored in 'Void Inventory'.]
A small, vial-shaped icon appeared in the corner of my vision. I felt a strange sense of security. It was the first time since drinking the Marrow that I felt I had a "Plan B."
The Gate: Gwanak Mountain – Restricted Zone 4
The Gate was a towering, jagged vertical slit in the side of a cliff. Unlike the subway gate, this one didn't glow green; it pulsed with a deep, bruised purple. This was a 'Stagnant Gate'—one that had been open for too long and had begun to "leak" its environment into our world. The trees around the entrance were turned to glass, their leaves frozen in a state of crystalline death.
"Yoo-Hwa Guild, Team Azure," Sae-rin said, flashing her ID at the armored guards.
The guards scanned her, their devices chirping with 'Rank-A' confirmation. Then, the scanner turned to me.
My heart didn't skip a beat. I had manually suppressed the [Eternal Solar Core] to a dull, flickering ember.
Chirp.
"Rank-F. Porter/Scout," the guard muttered, his eyes full of pity. "Kid, stay close to the Lady. If you wander off, the mana pressure in there will liquefy your lungs before the monsters even get a turn."
"I'll be careful, sir," I said, putting on my best "nervous student" face.
We stepped through the event horizon.
The world inside was a nightmare of geometry.
The "Labyrinth of the Shattered Sky" was a series of floating islands connected by translucent bridges. Above us, three moons of different colors hung in a sky that looked like a cracked mirror.
"The gravity here is unstable," Sae-rin said, her voice echoing. She tapped her boots, activating a levitation spell. "Stay on the bridges. If you fall, you'll drop into the Void, and even I can't pull you back from that."
"I won't fall," I said.
I looked at the floating islands. My [Aether Perception] was screaming. The bridges weren't "translucent"—they were made of raw Spatial Mana. This entire Gate was a training ground for the very skills the System was giving me.
[Hidden Quest Triggered: King of the Labyrinth]
[Objective: Traverse the islands using only 'Spatial' skills.]
[Reward: Skill Evolution - 'Sovereign's Grip' -> 'Void Reach'.]
"Sae-rin," I said, my voice dropping the F-rank act. "We don't have time to walk."
"What? We have to clear the island sentries first—"
She stopped. Her eyes widened as she watched me step off the bridge.
I didn't fall.
[Skill: 'Spatial Distortion' – Active.]
The air beneath my feet rippled. I wasn't floating; I was standing on a pocket of compressed space. To Sae-rin, it looked like I was walking on invisible stairs. To me, the distance between the islands was just a suggestion.
"You... you're already using Rank-S Spatial techniques?" she whispered, her frost aura flaring in shock. "Even the 'Void Walkers' of the US National Team can only do that for a few seconds!"
"Focus," I said, looking toward the first island. "We have company."
From the shadows of the floating rocks, a swarm of Void-Winged Gargoyles erupted. These weren't the slow, clumsy rats from the subway. They were Rank-B predators with skin made of obsidian and talons that could ignore physical armor.
"I'll handle the swarm," Sae-rin said, stepping forward. She raised her hands, and the temperature dropped fifty degrees in a second. "Glacier... Nova!"
A massive wave of frost exploded outward, freezing the lead gargoyles mid-air. They shattered like glass as they hit the ground. But the swarm was too large. Hundreds of them were diving from the "cracked" sky, bypassing her ice walls.
"They're too fast!" she shouted, her mana flickering. "Jin-woo, get down!"
I didn't get down. I stepped in front of her.
[Notice: Aether Density is sufficient for 'Wide-Area Manipulation'.]
I opened my hand, palm toward the sky. I didn't see birds. I saw points of energy in a 3D grid. I visualized the space around the gargoyles becoming a solid block of lead.
"Fold," I whispered.
[Skill: 'Sovereign's Grip' – Multi-Target Lock.]
The air in front of us didn't just ripple—it imploded.
A sphere of darkness, a literal hole in reality about ten meters wide, manifested in the center of the gargoyle swarm. The screaming monsters were sucked into the center of the sphere, their obsidian bodies crushed together by gravitational forces they couldn't fight.
CRUNCH.
In three seconds, two hundred gargoyles were compressed into a single, dense ball of black dust. The sphere vanished, and the dust fell into the Void below.
Silence returned to the Labyrinth.
Sae-rin stood behind me, her jaw dropped. A single snowflake drifted from her hair and landed on my shoulder.
"That... that wasn't a Hunter skill," she said, her voice trembling. "That was... a Law. You just changed the Law of the Gate."
"My power is at 3.5%," I reminded her, looking at my hands. The golden veins were glowing through the fabric of my hoodie now. "If this scares you, you should probably leave now. Because the deeper we go, the less 'human' this is going to look."
"I'm not leaving," she said, her eyes snapping back to their usual cold blue resolve. "But we have a problem. That much Spatial usage... the Boss is going to notice. And in this Gate, the Boss is the Labyrinth."
As if on cue, the floating islands began to rotate. The bridges shattered into light, and the islands started to pull together, forming a giant, humanoid shape made of floating granite and Void-energy.
[Notice: Gate Boss Manifesting.]
[Entity: 'The Void-Construct Archon' (Rank: B+ / Peak).]
[Warning: The Archon uses 'Anti-Mana' fields.]
The Archon loomed over us, its "head" a spinning vortex of purple light. It raised a hand, and a wave of gray energy swept across the islands.
Sae-rin let out a cry of pain as her ice aura vanished instantly. "The Anti-Mana! My circles are breaking! Jin-woo, I can't cast!"
The Archon swung a massive stone arm toward us, a strike that would level a skyscraper.
"Anti-Mana?" I let out a low, draconic chuckle.
I reached into my [Void Inventory] and crushed the [Dragon's Breath Elixir].
[Aether Density: +50% Overload.]
[Aether is not Mana. Anti-Mana fields have no effect.]
I didn't use a shield. I didn't use Spatial magic.
I called the [Aether Blade], but this time, I didn't just manifest a dagger. With the elixir surging through my veins, the blade extended six meters, a jagged streak of white-hot starlight that cut through the gray "Anti-Mana" field like it was wet paper.
"Sae-rin, stay behind the golden line," I commanded.
I leaped.
I didn't need a bridge. I folded the space between me and the Archon's chest, appearing directly in front of its glowing core.
The Archon roared, a sound of static and thunder, but it was too slow.
"You're made of the Void," I said, my eyes burning with pure, unmasked gold. "But I am the Void."
I plunged the Aether Blade into the vortex.
The Archon didn't just break—it unraveled. The floating islands that made up its body began to spiral into my blade, the Aether consuming the very matter of the Gate.
[Absorbing Archon Core...]
[Synchronization: 3.5% -> 4.2%!]
[Hidden Quest: King of the Labyrinth – Completed.]
[Reward: Skill Evolved -> 'Void Reach' (Rank: S).]
As the boss crumbled, the purple sky of the Gate began to turn white. The "Stagnant" energy was being purified by my Core.
But as the dust settled, I saw something that made my blood run cold.
Standing on the far edge of the island, where the boss had just stood, was a man.
He was wearing the same obsidian armor Sae-rin had described. In his hand was a banner—a black silk flag with a golden dragon coiled around a broken world.
He wasn't attacking. He was kneeling.
"The scent is true," the armored man said, his voice echoing in a language that shouldn't have been human, yet I understood it perfectly. "The Sovereign has returned to the cradle. The Great Hunt is over... the Great War begins."
Before I could move, the man dissolved into shadows, leaving only a single black scale on the ground.