Chapter 42 – The Gathering Storm
The world was moving.
Not in the way ordinary people perceived—with the passing of time, the rise and fall of nations, the noise of traffic and cities—but in a deeper, more ancient way. Invisible currents were shifting beneath reality itself. Forces that had remained hidden for years were beginning to stir.
The balance was tilting.
Across continents, across oceans, across dimensions layered over one another like sheets of fragile glass, entities far beyond human comprehension had begun to move their pieces.
The forces hidden in the shadows were slowly revealing their fangs.
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America – An Unnamed Dungeon
On the American continent, far from the eyes of the public, a high-ranked dungeon trembled.
The raid team that had entered only minutes earlier had already been reduced to scattered corpses. The air inside the cavernous space was heavy—oppressive, suffocating. Even the mana within the dungeon seemed distorted, as if something had contaminated it.
A lone hunter remained alive.
He had fallen to his knees.
His sword lay several meters away, knocked from his grasp. His breathing was broken, shallow, and uneven. Sweat dripped down his face as he stared at the figure standing before him.
A being.
No—an entity.
It did not resemble any monster recorded in dungeon archives. It stood tall and motionless, draped in shadow. Its presence alone bent the air around it, warping reality like heat rising from asphalt. A cold aura radiated from its body—not the cold of ice, but the cold of extinction.
The hunter's voice trembled violently.
"Y–you… W–what… a–are you…?"
His teeth chattered as though standing naked in a blizzard.
Two glowing eyes pierced through the darkness that concealed the entity's face. They shone faintly—icy, merciless.
A low voice echoed, not loudly, but it reverberated inside the hunter's skull as if spoken directly into his soul.
"He's not one either… They're hiding cleverly…"
The entity tilted its head slightly.
"The Fragments of Brilliant Light…"
The words carried both disdain and curiosity.
Suddenly—
The space behind the entity cracked.
Like glass under pressure, reality fractured. Jagged lines of white lightning crawled across empty air before splitting open entirely. A new gate—no, something far more refined than a dungeon gate—was forcibly torn into existence.
The tear shimmered violently.
From within it emerged another figure.
The first entity slowly turned.
Its face was revealed under the flickering light—pale as snow, skin almost luminous in its unnatural whiteness. Long white hair flowed down its back like a frozen waterfall. Fine cracks of energy rippled across the air around it from the spatial distortion.
The new arrival stepped through the portal with deliberate elegance.
He wore a long, menacing cloak that seemed woven from shadows themselves. His presence was no less terrifying—yet unlike the cold aura of the first entity, his carried a suffocating weight.
The white-haired being spoke silently, yet the words carried.
"Yogumunt… what are you doing here?"
The cloaked figure—Yogumunt—smiled faintly beneath his hood.
"I'm here to deliver information regarding the territory in the East."
The white-haired entity's eyes narrowed slightly.
"That small territory… where the Shadow Monarch resides? Didn't you say you would take care of that place?"
Yogumunt's cloak fluttered despite the still air.
"It seems the rules are changing. They are going to release Legia of the South there."
A faint pause.
"I will take that place instead."
The white-haired entity's lips curved subtly.
"Then what about the Shadow Monarch?"
Yogumunt answered calmly, almost dismissively.
"There won't be a problem. Not as long as the Architect fulfills its role."
The surviving hunter, forgotten but still alive, trembled violently at the words.
Shadow Monarch.
Architect.
Legia.
None of it made sense.
None of it sounded human.
Yogumunt continued.
"One more thing. There is interesting news."
The air grew heavier.
"It has been confirmed. The greatest Fragment of Brilliant Light… is there."
A dangerous smile appeared beneath his hood.
The white-haired entity's eyes glowed brighter.
"Kukuku…"
A low laugh echoed through the dungeon.
"Interesting. You came all this way to tell me that?"
Yogumunt tilted his head.
"What will you do about it?"
The pale entity stepped forward slowly, glancing at the trembling hunter as though noticing him for the first time.
"If you are willing to yield that to me… then by all means."
Its gaze sharpened.
"But first…"
The hunter's instincts screamed.
"…let us take care of these rats."
The hunter tried to stand.
He couldn't move.
The air crushed him.
In less than a second—
The dungeon fell silent.
Not a scream.
Not a trace.
Only blood remained.
The two entities stood amidst the carnage as though it were nothing more than dust.
Then—
The portal closed.
And the dungeon trembled in silence.
---
Korea – Red Gate
In South Korea, a Red Gate had appeared.
Inside its frozen wasteland stood a single man.
Sung Jin-Woo moved calmly across the rain-covered terrain, black suit fluttering lightly behind him. Around him stretched a legion of shadows—soldiers kneeling, awaiting orders.
The battlefield was already over.
Monsters lay scattered across the icy plains—frozen beasts, armored giants, grotesque creatures native to the Red Gate's distorted ecosystem.
They had been annihilated.
Jin-Woo exhaled slowly.
"I didn't learn anything this time either…"
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"The System… it's interfering again."
Ever since the Jeju Island raid, subtle anomalies had begun appearing. Messages that cut off. Rewards that seemed selective. Information just beyond reach.
It was as though something was deliberately controlling what he could and couldn't know.
He dismissed the thought.
"…It should be fine. I'll learn everything in time."
The Shadow Army melted back into his shadow as he stood alone in the empty dungeon.
Then—
He opened his inventory.
From within his storage window, he pulled out a black key.
Cold.
Heavy.
Ancient.
His gaze sharpened.
The key from the Cursed Random Box.
He had reached Level 100 during the Jeju Island raid and finally met the requirement to use it.
A faint system window appeared before him.
---
Name: Cartenon Temple Key
Difficulty Level: ???
Item Type: Key
Description:
This key allows the user to enter the Cartenon Temple.
The gate location will be revealed after a predetermined amount of time.
Time Remaining:
417 Hours 06 Minutes 52 Seconds
---
Jin-Woo's fingers tightened slightly around the key.
"The key… to the Cartenon Temple."
His eyes darkened.
He could never forget that place.
Even when he tried.
The double dungeon.
The statues.
The massacre.
The moment everything began.
The moment he died—and was reborn.
"The System is calling me back…"
His heartbeat remained calm—but beneath that calm lay certainty.
"To where everything began."
He looked up at the crimson sky of the Red Gate.
"If this was planned from the very beginning…"
His voice lowered.
"If it was waiting for me to return…"
A cold wind swept across the frozen wasteland.
"In that case…"
His eyes burned with quiet resolve.
"Wait for me."
A faint smile appeared.
"I'm coming."
---
Somewhere Beyond
In a dimension separate from Earth—
Behind an enormous stone gate—
A colossal stone face sat embedded within an ancient temple.
Its eyes were dark.
Still.
Silent.
Then—
They glowed red.
A slow, unnatural smile spread across its carved lips.
It had been waiting.
For its toy.
For the chosen one.
For the piece placed upon the board long ago.
The game was entering its next phase.
And the storm—
Had only just begun.
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End of Chapter 42.
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