The castle shook with it. Stones rattled in their ancient foundations. Loose rubble slid from the ceiling and pattered against the floor.

  Park Taegun didn’t even look up. Seo MinHyun, however, froze mid-swing and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

  “Oh, fantastic,” he muttered, lowering his weapon. “Guess who just finished the final boss before we even found the map room? That’s right. Mr. ‘Don’t Slack Off’ himself.”

  Less than fifteen minutes after they’d stepped into the A-rank dungeon, Lee Aseok and Mu Yichen strolled out of the shadows.

  Strolled.

  Not a speck of blood on them. Not a hair out of place. Aseok’s iron rod rested on his shoulder like it weighed nothing at all.

  Mu Yichen’s sword was sheathed, his expression calm, bordering on bored.

  Meanwhile, Seo MinHyun still had dust in his hair from blowing up half the castle’s west wing.

  The gate rippled as they stepped through, and the team emerged back into daylight. The smell of fresh air replaced the musty stench of the dungeon.

  Standing just outside the gate was He Ziqin, eyes wide.

  “You’re… done already?” he asked, disbelief dripping from every syllable. “That was an A-rank dungeon. Normally it takes two, maybe one hour…”

  Seo MinHyun clicked his tongue. “Maze-type dungeon.”

  The words landed like a short, explosive explanation.

  Ziqin’s eyes widened a little further, and then the understanding hit. “…Ah. You just went on a rampage.”

  “Obviously,” MinHyun said, as if there could be no other approach.

  Lee Aseok didn’t join the conversation.

  Without a word, he walked past them, eyes scanning the rows of active gates displayed on a nearby holographic board. His focus was already elsewhere, on the next target, the next mess to tear apart.

  The others stayed where they were.

  They knew better than to hover near him. Not because of his personality, although that was reason enough, but because of the pressure.

  High-ranking hunters carried an oppressive weight in the air around them. The more mana you had, the heavier it pressed on those nearby.

  Even standing within a few meters could make an ordinary person’s chest tighten, their breath come shallow.

  That was why no staff member or ordinary person dared to approach them immediately after a raid.

  For the average onlooker, it wasn’t just intimidation, it was survival. Walking up to someone radiating that much mana right after a battle was like trying to hold a conversation in the middle of a thunderstorm.

  So, in other words, there was always a moment of quiet after clearing a gate.

  A second of peace, bought by sheer atmospheric suffocation.

  Lee Aseok used his peace wisely.

  While the others lingered, he tapped through holographic maps and global gate reports, calmly marking the next location.

  His finger hovered over a red-marked zone halfway across the continent.

  Mu Yichen, standing beside him, pulled out his phone and checked the time.

  Then, without missing a beat, he opened a food delivery app.

  “What are you doing?” Seo MinHyun asked, frowning.

  “Ordering lunch,” Mu Yichen said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Fifteen minutes to clear an A-rank means we’re ahead of schedule.”

  Seo MinHyun stared. “Ahead of… schedule? What schedule? He’s already looking for the next gate!”

  Mu Yichen simply shrugged. “Food first.”

  Park Taegun stood off to the side, cleaning monster blood off his shield with a piece of cloth.

  Kang Juwon leaned against a nearby post, watching with quiet amusement.

  And Seo MinHyun, ignored yet again, crossed his arms and muttered, “We’re not a hunter team. We’re… a disaster response unit with no actual plan except to break everything in sight.”

  “Sounds accurate,” Kang Juwon said mildly.

  Lee Aseok didn’t look back.

  Somewhere far away, a new dungeon gate was waiting.

  And somewhere closer, Mu Yichen was scrolling through menu options like the fate of the world depended on picking the right side dish.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Peaceful moments like this never lasted long, but for now, no one was breathing down their necks. The weight of mana in the air ensured it.

  Fifteen minutes in, one dungeon down, and lunch on the way.

  As Mu Yichen began scrolling through menus with the precision of a man who had ordered the same spicy chicken bowl a hundred times, Seo MinHyun turned to He Ziqin with an aggrieved expression.

  “You know, I still can’t believe how unfairly I was treated there,” Seo MinHyun muttered. “Like, who gets stuck dealing with trap monsters while Lee Aseok just waltzes through destroying everything?”

  He Ziqin, who had been quietly cleaning his gear, looked at Seo MinHyun and raised an eyebrow as if silently asking, Are you really going to complain again?

  But before the conversation could digress further, Seo MinHyun’s gaze shifted sharply to Lee Aseok’s chest.

  “Hey,” he blurted out suddenly, pointing with exaggerated emphasis, “What are those golden marks on your chest?”

  What Seo MinHyun didn’t notice, though, was that Mu Yichen and the others shared the same concern about those golden marks on Lee Aseok’s chest.

  Especially Mu Yichen.

  The feeling that rose inside him wasn’t just concern, it was panic, cold and creeping like ice running through his veins. But no one could see it.

  He kept his face steady, the practiced mask of a calm leader, and went about the routine of checking gate details and preparing for the next raid.

  Because Mu Yichen knew something very important: Lee Aseok hated it when anyone crossed the line.

  The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the holographic globe spinning in Lee Aseok’s hands.

  He was deeply focused on the next gate, eyes tracing lines of data, when he suddenly stopped.

  Without a word, he turned and looked directly at Seo MinHyun.

  The calm in his reddish-brown eyes was unsettling—like a storm waiting to break in a frozen lake.

  But Seo MinHyun, never one to back down from a challenge or a strange glow in someone’s eyes, met Aseok’s gaze head-on.

  “Still curious,” he said with a cocky grin. “I mean, those golden marks, what are they really?”

  And then, something no one expected happened.

  Lee Aseok smiled.

  Not the usual thin, villainous smirk that made people want to run for their lives.

  No, this was a big, wide, genuine smile. Like a child who just unwrapped the perfect Christmas gift.

  The others immediately took a few cautious steps backward, instinct kicking in.

  It was an involuntary reflex.

  After all, the expressionless man smiling like this? It was breathtaking... and terrifying.

  Because no matter how warm the smile, the deadly pressure Lee Aseok exuded didn’t soften one bit.

  Seo MinHyun, standing closest to the phenomenon, didn’t just step back, he ran behind Park Taegun, practically diving into his armor like it was a life raft.

  He wrapped his arms around himself and started shivering violently as if the temperature had dropped fifty degrees.

  “I’m not curious anymore!” he announced loudly, voice shaking with a mix of fear and relief. “I want to live longer, okay? No more questions!”

  Lee Aseok’s smile vanished as quickly as it had come, as if it had never existed.

  His face was expressionless again, cold and unreadable. They could never guess the golden mark was the scar the final Boss of the hell gate left behind in his last life.

  He clicked his tongue sharply, a dry, deliberate sound that sliced through the uneasy silence.

  Without a word, he turned back to the holographic globe, his fingers tracing the lines of the next dungeon gate, studying the data as if the numbers alone could shield him from what was coming.

  The room exhaled, a slow, collective release of tension.

  He Ziqin, ever the observer with his deadpan style, gave Seo MinHyun a slow, respectful thumbs up.

  Brave man, the gesture said. Survived the disaster.

  It was a rare gesture from him, one loaded with dry respect: a brave man, indeed, to have survived that disaster of a smile.

  Seo MinHyun grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as the others chuckled softly, their laughter breaking the heavy mood like brittle glass.

  Kang Juwon, seated nearby with his usual air of detached authority, cleared his throat and leaned forward. “So,” he said, voice calm but sharp, “where is the next dungeon we’re headed to?”

  Before Lee Aseok could even open his mouth, the temperature in the room seemed to drop, as if an unseen frost swept over them.

  A sudden chill wrapped around everyone’s bones, a suffocating cold that had nothing to do with the weather.

  It wasn’t just them.

  Outside, across the city, across the world, a ripple of unease spread like a dark tide. The sky, once a familiar blue, thickened and darkened swiftly, the sun swallowed by a blanket of ominous gray clouds.

  The entire world turned gloomy as if the day itself had died.

  Birds halted their song mid-air, flapping hurriedly toward shelter. Animals scattered, fleeing instinctively from a danger they couldn’t see but deeply sensed.

  High-ranking hunters—no matter where they were—stopped in their tracks, their eyes turning instinctively toward the west, where the source of the unnatural chill lay.

  The people on the streets, those who had been minding their own business moments before, suddenly went pale.

  Phones appeared in trembling hands, dialing frantically as families were called, voices strained with fear and uncertainty.

  Everyone in the world knew what this change meant.

  The gate—the one they dreaded more than any other—was awakening.

  The Hell Gate.

  The gate that had defied closure for decades. The gate that no hero had ever returned from. The gate that held the fate of humanity in its iron grip.

  If the Hell Gate was not cleared, the world would fall.

  And only the one who wielded the holy object—the chosen hero—could enter.

  Mu Yichen’s jaw tightened. The past pressed down like a weight on his chest.

  His father, Mu Tianhai, had been the previous hero. The man who bore the same sacred burden, the same holy object, and had led a party into the Hell Gate years ago.

  No one spoke openly of what happened. Mu Tianhai’s party had returned, but the hero himself was gone, swallowed by the gate’s darkness.

  And those who came back were blank slates, their memories wiped clean of that harrowing ordeal.

  The horror, the silence around the Hell Gate had become a dark legend whispered in hunter circles.

  Now, with the sky darkening and the chill creeping across the globe, the world held its breath once more.

  Lee Aseok remained motionless, his reddish-brown eyes reflecting the bleak light of the hologram.

  Aseok’s fingers paused for the first time all day.

  The next gate was waiting.

  And so was the destiny that no one could escape.

  The room hung heavy with a silence so thick it could have been carved from stone.

  The holographic globe’s light flickered faintly, casting a dim blue glow on the faces gathered around the table.

  Outside, the sky was still smothered in that unnatural gray, the world holding its breath.

  Mu Yichen’s gaze drifted away from the globe and settled on the others around him.

  Park Taegun sat rigid, arms crossed like a statue, his military precision evident even in the smallest twitch of his jaw.

  Seo MinHyun, despite trying to appear nonchalant, kept rubbing his neck as if trying to rub away the cold creeping into his bones.

  Kang Juwon, ever the confident puppet master, leaned back with a faint smile, but his eyes betrayed a careful calculation, sharp and unreadable.

  He Ziqin stood off to the side, silent as usual, eyes like twin daggers piercing the atmosphere.

  They were all looking at one person.

  Lee Aseok.

  And the holy sword resting quietly against his side.

  Author Note:

  Every “OH MY GOD ASEOK STOP” gives me the strength to write the next disaster.

  Mon ? Wed ? Fri

  (Yes, I too question my life choices.)

  https://www.patreon.com/c/LithutheBloom

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