In the narrow alleyway shadowed by graffities, uncleaned trash, flickering holo-lights and the soft background noise of the city's celebration, a small task force moved with precision. Four agents—two men and two women—swept through the area, their eyes sharp, their steps measured. Each wore the sleek black frame of a M.A.R.S. Suit—Muscle Augmentation & Reactive System—a cutting-edge combat exosuit that multiplied their physical strength up to sevenfold at its safest threshold. The mission was clear: verify intel about an imminent cultist attack, supposedly tied to the day's massive Radiant Day festivities. Whether the timing was coincidence or deliberate blasphemy, no one could say yet.
Agent Takeshi Armitage, a Japanese-European swordsman with an easygoing drawl that belied his lethality, rested a gloved hand over the hilt of his sheathed katana. His posture was relaxed, but his M.A.R.S. suit hummed faintly—always ready to surge with power at a moment's notice. "You'd think these cult freaks would pick any other day," he muttered, scanning the shadows. "Radiant Day, of all times… they've got a flair for bad timing."
Beside him, Janette Sanchez crouched near a wall, a faint glow flickering between her fingers—embers threatening to become fireballs. A Mana user of Hispanic descent and notorious within the agency for her impulsive temper, Janette gritted her teeth. "Or they're doing it because it's Radiant Day," she shot back. "The biggest celebration of the year, millions watching—what better way to make a statement?"
Takeshi smirked. "You always think like a pyromaniac terrorist."
"Maybe because I used to think like one," she replied, her tone half-serious, half-sarcastic. The other two agents—a cybernetically enhanced Wolf beastfolk with a gleaming left robotic arm, and a quiet sorceress calibrating her mana sensor—split off to survey deeper into the maze of the backstreets.
Somewhere beyond the alley's end, the sound of distant celebration carried through the air—music, cheering, laughter. But under it all, there was something else. A subtle vibration in the ground. A faint hum that didn't belong.
Janette stood, eyes narrowing. "You feel that?"
Takeshi's hand drifted toward his katana, his visor scanning for thermal signatures. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Something's coming up."
At the far end of the alley, the agents finally caught sight of movement—four figures cloaked in dark ceremonial robes, their faces hidden behind bone-white masks etched with spiraling sigils. Their presence alone made the air feel heavier, like the light itself recoiled from touching them. The Church of the Abyss—one of the most dangerous cults still active in the undercity—had revealed themselves. Fanatics who worshipped a so-called "Dark God" from the Hollow, they preached a doctrine of transcendence through oblivion, seen their contracted madness as divine blessing, believing that humanity could only achieve "true enlightenment" by surrendering to the darkness. To them, the Radiant Empress, humanity's symbol of hope, was nothing but a false idol shackling mankind to illusion.
"Targets confirmed," Takeshi murmured, lowering his visor as the HUD marked each hostile in red. His voice tightened. "Church of the Abyss. Damn it, these freaks never learn."
Janette clenched her fists, flames sparking faintly along her fingertips. "Guess they're here to 'enlighten' everyone again, huh?"
The cultists gathered in a rough circle, chanting in a guttural, rhythmic language that grated against the ear. One of them produced a sleek, reinforced briefcase—far too advanced to fit the primitive ritual they were performing. With a soft click, the latch opened, and the alley was bathed in a sinister violet glow.
Inside rested an object—a perfect black cube, its surface shifting like liquid metal under a thin veil of amethyst light. The air around it rippled, humming with malignant intent. Even the street's flickering neon lights seemed to dim, drawn into its hungry void.
"Contact with anomalous artifact," the Wolf beastfolk agent growled, adjusting his mechanical arm as his comms began to hiss and crackle. The team's HUDs flickered, static crawling across their visors. The artifact's pulse distorted their systems, each beat sending a burst of interference through their comm-links.
Takeshi's comm unit beeped erratically, the screen flashing warnings. "It's scrambling everything," he cursed. "This thing's bad news."
Janette's eyes locked onto the cube, her gut twisting with unease. "Whatever that is," she said, voice low, "it's not from this world."
The cultists' chanting reached a fevered pitch as their leader stepped forward—an emaciated old man, his skin pale as wax and stretched taut over his bones. His eyes were pools of black, depthless and glimmering with something inhuman. Jagged runes were carved directly into his face, glowing faintly like embers under his flesh. In his trembling hand, he held a SmartCom—a sleek, glassy device that is everyday communication smart device projecting a holographic signal while standing on an empty wooden crate.
From the speaker, his distorted voice echoed down the alleyway, amplified by the SmartCom's resonance. The old man's tone was both calm and feverishly devout, carrying a strange rhythm that made the air feel thick and oppressive.
> "Brothers and sisters of the Hollow," he intoned, "rejoice—for the veil thins once more. The false light blinds you, its Radiant shackles you, its oppression damned you. Only in the embrace of the Hollow shall you ascend. Do not fear the dark—it is the womb of rebirth. Through our benevolent god, humanity shall enlighten, awaken... and be free."
Each word sent a tremor through the air, and even the cube seemed to react, its violet aura pulsing in time with his sermon.
Agent Takeshi Armitage exhaled through gritted teeth. "He's preaching through a damn SmartCom. Guess madness has gone digital."
The Wolf beastfolk, crouched beside him, sniffed the air warily, mechanical servos humming in his cybernetic arm. "He reeks of corruption. That thing in the case—it's feeding off his words."
"Doesn't matter if it's madness or magic," Janette muttered, sparks flaring in her palm. "Either way, it's about to ruin everyone's day."
Takeshi's gaze stayed fixed on the cult leader, who now raised the SmartCom like a holy relic, black tears running down his face as he continued his litany of doom and deliverance. "Touched by madness... or delusion," Takeshi said coldly, hand on his sword's hilt. "Maybe both. But one thing's for sure—he's not walking out of this alley."
Before the cultist could finish his sermon or activate the artifact, Takeshi's voice cut sharply through the comms.
"Section 13—move in! Flank and subdue. Stun rounds only. Go!"
The alley erupted in chaos.
From the rooftops and behind dumpsters, Section 13 agents burst into action, their M.A.R.S. suits whirring to life with a faint metallic hum. Their visors flared blue as kinetic stabilizers synced, amplifying reflexes and strength. The agents raised their electromagnetic stun rifles, firing bursts of crackling blue light that zipped through the air.
The cultists retaliated immediately, their fanatic resolve unshaken. They drew mismatched weapons—handguns, improvised SMGs, even relic-like pistols—firing live rounds wildly. The air filled with the roar of gunfire, echoing off the concrete walls. Bullets sparked against reactive armor plating as the M.A.R.S. suits absorbed the kinetic shock, while stun rounds burst against the cultists' bodies in crackling arcs of blue electricity.
Takeshi moved like a phantom, his katana unsheathed in a single smooth motion. The suit's assist motors traced afterimages as he closed the distance, deflecting a bullet mid-swing before sweeping the weapon aside with a metallic clang.
Janette, already blazing with heat, flung a compact fireball that exploded near a dumpster, cutting off one cultist's escape route. "Try running through that, you psychos!" she shouted, her voice echoing with the rush of adrenaline.
The Wolf beastfolk leapt forward next, claws bared, his cybernetic arm snapping up to deflect a bullet before driving a stun baton into a cultist's chest. The man convulsed, his gun clattering onto the pavement.
In seconds, the alley became a storm of stun flashes and gunfire smoke. The black cube still pulsed ominously in its briefcase with an eerie hum, its violet light flickering like a heartbeat—as though it hungered for the violence unfolding around it.
And then, above the noise, Takeshi shouted—his tone sharp, commanding:
"Secure the artifact! Don't let them activate it—no matter what!"
What caught them completely off guard was that the enemy wasn't just in front of them—it was all around them.
From the windows, rooftops, and shadowed corridors surrounding the alley, more cultists emerged, howling hymns of the Hollow. Gunfire rained from above; glass shattered as smoke and sparks filled the narrow corridor. Takeshi's HUD flared with red indicators—they were surrounded.
"Ambush! Second and third floors—hostiles in every window!" he barked!
The world erupted in chaos. From the rooftops above, the cultists rained bullets and spells like a storm of death.
In that split second—before anyone could even gasp—Agent Takeshi moved. His hand flashed to his side, and with a sharp, resonant shing! his katana tore from its sheath in a blur of light. The blade danced through the air with impossible speed, tracing arcs of silver that split the incoming bullets mid-flight. Each strike rang like thunder, sparks scattering like falling stars. He twisted, turned, every motion a symphony of instinct and mastery—a living storm of steel.
Years of training, discipline, and sheer will forged that moment into perfection.
Beside him, Janette unleashed her Mana, eyes igniting with a fierce crimson glow. Her fingers snapped up, each one flaring like the muzzle of a gun. Bang. Bang. Bang! Tiny fireballs burst from her fingertips, screaming through the air like tracer rounds, each one detonating against the cultists' perches in bursts of flame and smoke. Her hands danced in rhythm—graceful, deadly, unrelenting.
From below, the cyberized wolf beastfolk let out a snarl that echoed through the alley, his mechanical eye flaring red. He drew his stun pistol with a crackle of electricity, bolts of blue energy lancing upward to drive the ambushers into cover. Around him, other Mana agents joined in, ducking behind debris and vehicles, their weapons blazing, counterfire lighting up the narrow street like a storm of neon.
Above, the cultists howled their chants—below, the agents answered with defiance. Sparks, fire, and energy lit the dimmed alleyway as the battle roared to life.
Before the agents could reorganize, one of the dying cultists, coughing blood and laughing through cracked teeth, reached for the open briefcase on the ground. "The door… will open… for Humanity's prosperity, and enlightenment" he rasped—and slammed his hand down on the device.
The black cube inside began to tremble, emitting a deep, bone-humming resonance. Cracks of violet light ran across its surface like veins. Then, with a sharp sound like splitting glass, the cube fractured into four smaller cubes that shot skyward in a spiral of dark light.
Each cube stabilized midair, then burst outward, tearing four rifts in space—dark, jagged voids that oozed violet mist and whispered with unearthly voices.
"Breachpoints!" Janette shouted, her visor flaring with warning runes. "They're creating multiple gates!"
The rifts began to drift apart, each tearing toward a different alleyway, their gravitational pull distorting the air and dragging debris toward them.
Without hesitation, Agent Lyra, the team's secondary Mana user—a calm, silver-haired woman specializing in containment magic—snatched a compact D-Block generator from her belt. She slammed it to the ground and activated it.
The device whirred, then pulsed with a low hum—a translucent wave of shimmering energy expanding outward until it sealed the entire alleyway like a soap bubble of refracted light.
"Dimensional Blockade activated!" she yelled over the chaos. "We're cut off—no one gets in or out!"
Instantly, the world around them fell silent. Outside noise ceased; gunfire muffled to nothing. Inside the D-Block, they were trapped in a pocket dimension, locked in with the cultists, the artifact fragments, and the unstable Breachpoints.
Takeshi exhaled sharply, gripping his sword tighter. "All units—split into pairs. Each cube's a potential gate. We destroy or seal them before they stabilize. Move!"
The team scattered—M.A.R.S. servos whirring, visors glowing, as they sprinted into the branching alleys within the sealed dimensional bubble. The walls rippled faintly with violet light as one of the Breachpoint began to open, its core forming into a spiraling abyss that hissed with the promise of something monstrous clawing its way through.
=====
A few minutes earlier—before the chaos fully unfolded—Niero had already slipped into the alleyway, the crowds' cheers and carnival music fading behind him like a distant dream. He was still half-soaked from the strawberry milkshake, the sticky fabric clinging uncomfortably to his arms, but his mind was far from that now. The moment Vuldyr's voice echoed in his head, everything else ceased to matter.
> "Anomaly detected. Coordinates marked—fifty meters northeast."
He rounded a corner, his breath steady beneath the balaclava mask he'd pulled over his face. The last thing he needed was for anyone to recognize the "polite café boy" wandering into a restricted zone. But as he took another step, he hit something—a translucent ripple in the air that flashed with a brief blue shimmer. His HUD flickered, glitching for half a second before stabilizing as well as giving him an uncomfortable goosebumps.
> "Dimensional Blockade confirmed," Vuldyr reported, her voice now slightly distorted. "Dominion's anti-anomaly agents are already in the perimeter. They moved faster than expected."
"Great…" Niero muttered, scanning the shimmering wall that had just sealed behind him. "So I'm trapped in here with the professionals. Guess sneaking in's somewhat off the table."
Despite the tension, a crooked grin pulled across his face. If they're here, it means the anomaly's serious. Serious anomaly meant danger—and danger meant potential EXP gain.
He ducked low, moving silently along the wall, his sneakers barely making a sound against the damp pavement. The faint buzz of energy pulsed through the alley, a strange rhythm that made the hair on his neck rise.
Then, from somewhere deeper inside the maze of brick and steel—a deep, concussive boom split the air. Dust rained from a fire escape above him, and the HUD on his retinas flared crimson.
> "Warning," Vuldyr chimed. *"Spatial resonance detected—pattern consistent with Breachpoint activity."
"Breachpoint?" Niero's pulse quickened, his grin widening under the mask. "Summoning-Type, Dungeon-type, or Portal-type?."
> "Unknown: unstable interdimensional breach. Probability of lethal exposure—eighty-seven percent. I recommend you to hid and let the professional do their thing."
He chuckled quietly, the thrill pulsing through him like caffeine. "Eighty-seven's just unlucky for them."
Then, tightening the gloves around his hands and shifting into a low stance, Niero whispered beneath his breath:
"Alright, Vuldyr. Let's see if we can push from level eight to ten today… assuming I don't die first."
> Unbelievable," Vuldyr sighed. "Its like you want to be killed."
With that, he sprinted toward the source of the resonance, weaving through smoke, flickering holographic ads, and the distant screams of alarm—heading straight for the heart of the Breachpoint, where destiny—or death—was waiting.
=====
Through the shimmering haze of the Dimensional Blockade, Niero followed Vuldyr's pulsing waypoint—a faint violet marker hovering at the edge of his HUD. The deeper he went, the quieter the world became; the thrum of the parade and distant chatter of agents dulled into a faint hum. The air felt thick, static, wrong.
Then he saw it.
Floating above the cracked asphalt, about two meters high, was a black cube—each surface etched with thin, crawling veins of violet light that pulsed like a heartbeat. It rotated slowly in midair, defying gravity and reason, distorting the light around it. The HUD flickered again as his system tried to scan it, but even Vuldyr's processing struggled to stabilize the readout.
> "Anomaly confirmed," Vuldyr chimed, her voice bright but edged with unease. "Resonance pattern matches Hollow-origin artifact—87.3 percent certainty. Estimated classification: potential Breachpoint seed."
Niero crouched behind a trash bin, eyes locked on the cube. His pulse quickened. "So it's the real deal, huh? Please tell me it's a Dungeon-type."
He could almost taste the excitement in the air—the possibility of diving into a pocket dimension, tearing through enemies, and finally leveling up after five long, dry years of nothing but mundane good boy café life.
But Vuldyr's next words killed that spark instantly.
> "Negative. Based on the energy signature, this one's a summoning-type variant—short-range breach designed to manifest entities directly into this plane. No internal dimensional pocket detected."
Niero sighed, dragging a hand down his masked face. "So no loot dimension, no monster grind, no EXP bonus... great."
> "Correction," Vuldyr added in a chipper tone. "There will still be monsters. Just not the kind that drop loot neatly into your pockets."
He groaned. "You really have a way of making death sound cute, you know that?"
> "Compliment accepted. Recommendation: destroy the cube before activation. Energy buildup has reached forty-seven percent saturation—time until breach: estimate four minutes, thirty-two seconds."
Niero peeked again from cover, eyes narrowing. The violet veins on the cube were brightening, and small arcs of light started to lash outward like tendrils. It was going to open soon.
"Fine. Safety first… I guess."
He raised his right hand slightly. The air shimmered—and a semi-transparent HUD burst into existence beside him, listing his inventory in floating hexagonal panels of light. He mentally navigated the menu, each item appearing with a soft ping.
"Alright… let's see what we've got."
He scrolled through the contents: a half-empty medkit, a few thermal charges, a folded combat jacket, and—most importantly—two reverse-engineered weapons. He selected them with a thought.
In a flash of blue light, an energy pistol and a compact stun baton materialized in his hands—both modeled after M.A.C.PD's standard-issue gear, though modified to his liking by his hidden genius brain and engineering skills. The pistol's design was sleek and angular, with faint crimson circuitry along the barrel; the baton hummed faintly, crackling with restrained current.
> "Weapons synchronized," Vuldyr confirmed. "Energy cells at ninety-two percent. You're armed and approximately seventy-three percent ready for a fight. The rest depends on how reckless you plan to be."
"Always the optimist," Niero muttered, cocking the pistol with a smirk under his mask.
He looked up again at the cube, whose glow was intensifying by the second. For a moment, he considered waiting—to see what kind of creature would crawl out just to test his strength—but he shook the thought off.
"Alright… let's shut this thing down before it gets ugly.
The moment Niero took his first step toward the cube, the air screamed.
A deep, thrumming pulse shot through the alleyway—so sharp and sudden that even Vuldyr's holographic interface glitched out for a split second. The cube, which had been floating calmly just seconds before, began to vibrate violently, the violet veins across its surface expanding like blood vessels under glass.
> "Wha—!?" Vuldyr's voice cracked into static. "That's impossible—energy propagation just spiked from forty-nine percent to one hundred in less than a second! Niero, destroy it now!"
"Already on it!"
He lunged forward, boots pounding against the concrete. The cube's glow was blinding now, its pulse deafening. Niero raised his stun baton, electricity crackling along the shaft, and swung with all his might—
—but the cube reacted first.
It erupted in a surge of light and distortion, like a mirror shattering inward. A blast of violet energy ripped through the alley, hurling Niero backward before his baton could connect. The shockwave hit him square in the chest, the force slamming him into a pile of trash bags and broken crates.
The world spun. His HUD glitched and fizzled. Somewhere in the chaos, Vuldyr's voice screamed through the static:
> "BREACHPOINT ACTIVATION DETECTED! I REPEAT—BREACHPOINT HAS—"
Then came the sound—the hollow, reverberating howl of another dimension tearing open.
Niero coughed, spitting out the taste of dust and something foul. The alley around him bent and warped, the colors bleeding into each other as the black cube unfolded into a swirling rift of violet mist and black lightning, expanding outward like an open wound in reality itself.
"Vuldyr…" he groaned, forcing himself up, body aching. "You said four minutes…"
> "It should've been four minutes!" she snapped back, panic in her usually playful tone. "Something—or someone—accelerated the sequence! This isn't just an ordinary summoning-type—it's unstable!"
Niero's pulse spiked, fear and exhilaration tangling in his chest. "Well, guess we're skipping the warm-up…"
He cracked his neck, gripping his stun baton tight as the first Hollowborn or Hollow creatures began to crawl through the rift.
> "Niero!" Vuldyr shouted. "Get ready to run when it gets too tough!!"
But he only smirked under his mask, adrenaline surging through him like wildfire.
"Not a chance."
Niero had been hoping for something dramatic—maybe a towering demon, a scaled wyvern, or at least a mini-boss. Something worth a few levels of EXP. But as the Breachpoint finally fizzled out and the smoke thinned, what appeared before him wasn't exactly the kind of "threat" he imagined.
Three small, green-skinned creatures stumbled out of the lingering haze—barely up to his chest, with long nose and ears, crooked teeth, tattered loincloths, and rusty knives smeared with something that definitely wasn't rust. Their stench hit him a moment later, a mix of wet garbage and sewage, making him gag slightly.
"Wait, are those... goblins?" Niero muttered, blinking in disbelief.
The trio screeched and babbled in some incomprehensible language, waving their knives as if arguing among themselves. For a moment, it was almost comical—like three kids lost in the wrong neighborhood.
Curiosity got the better of him, and Niero took a cautious step forward.
> "NIERO, GET AWAY FROM THEM!" Vuldyr's voice thundered across the comms.
Before Niero could even blink, one of the goblins lunged straight at his face, knife first. The brown-stained blade missed him by inches as he twisted aside, eyes widening.
"Okay—yep! Definitely hostile!" he snapped, regaining his footing.
> "Don't underestimate them!" Vuldyr barked. "They may look stupid, but goblins are vicious in packs!"
The three goblin-like creatures lunged and shrieked, knives flashing under the flickering alley lights. Niero weaved between their strikes, ducking low and sidestepping as rusty blades whistled past his face. Trash cans toppled, dirty water splashed, and the stench of rot mixed with something far worse.
"Vuldyr, what the hell are these things?!" Niero barked, pivoting as one of the goblins tried to bite his arm.
> Vuldyr's voice came through his earpiece, calm but edged with urgency. "According to the [Dominion Codex] I pulled from Bloom Dominion's archives, those are [Goblin Orkoids]—lesser Hollow creatures. A subspecies of an invasive race called the Orkoids. They were originally 'born' from a sludge-like mutagenic substance known as the [Primordial Green], found inside a meteor that struck an alien world."
Niero ducked another swing, driving his elbow into one creature's gut before springing back. "Alien slime people?"
> "Not exactly. Their Ork cousins are large, brutish, and terrifyingly resilient. Goblins, on the other hand, are smaller—physically weak, but dangerously fast and cunning."
"Yeah, I can see that!" Niero hissed as one goblin tried to sweep his legs while another hurled what looked suspiciously like—
"Oh come on!" he shouted, barely dodging the foul projectile.
> "Be cautious," Vuldyr continued. "They use their own fecal matter as biological weapons. A single scratch or contamination can cause infections and septic shock. Even if you kill them, do not drop your guard—they favor flanking and swarming tactics."
Niero's face twisted in disgust. "So my first Hollow encounter... is with shit-flinging gremlins? What a glorious start to my Marauder debut."
Niero danced backward, twisting his body just in time to avoid the goblin's filthy knife. The blade missed his hoodie by inches, leaving a faint smear of brown on the air instead of his sleeve. "Tch—no way I'm letting that touch me," he muttered, sidestepping another lunge that nearly caught his jeans. Every motion was careful, controlled; one wrong step and he'd be washing himself with acid later.
The three goblins surrounded him, screeching in their guttural tongue, their small, green bodies jerking with manic energy. One darted low, another went high, and the last circled behind him. Their knives flashed in erratic arcs, forcing Niero to twist and weave through the narrow alleyway like a shadow.
"Vuldyr, I swear—if I die to sewer goblins-," he hissed.
> "Then hit them already!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it!"
When one goblin lunged again, Niero stepped inside its attack and swung. His stun baton cracked across the creature's jaw, discharging with a sharp CRACK! of blue lightning. The goblin spasmed violently, smoke curling from its mouth before it dropped limp to the ground.
As the last goblin's body hit the grimy concrete, a faint digital chime echoed in Niero's ears.
> [LEVEL UP!]
> Current Level: 9
> Stat Points Gained: +1
> Instant Recovery Granted
A pulse of blue light flickered briefly across his HUD before fading. For a second, Niero just blinked at it—then his face broke into an expression of pure disbelief and joy.
"No way… I finally leveled up?!"
> "Confirmed!" Vuldyr's voice squeaked in his mind, her tone practically vibrating. "After five years of plateauing, you did it! Oh my void, Niero, The System still works!"
A grin spread beneath his balaclava, and a laugh burst out of him—raw, wild, and unrestrained. "HAHA! Finally! I knew I wasn't washed up yet!" He slammed his baton against his palm, feeling the static crackle between his fingers. "Guess the universe finally decided to throw me a bone!"
For five years since his System awaken, he wants to level up to not only get stronger but also want to see what else his system does. However, there is little he can do as a sheltered male in a society dominated by powerful women. At first, intense and painful working out from gym and exercise gears made from construction site resources was able to grant him small amount of EXP and stat points by 0.1 points. It took time to grind the experiences while hiding from his family to not worry them, nor alerting the MAC01's authoritarian-like camera security. At the time, he was able to reach to Level 08 but since then, the grinding becomes less effective by the day. If he needs to level up his System, he need to find an alternative ways or a form of catalyst to do so.
> "Niero! Don't let your guard down!" Vuldyr's tone snapped back to caution. "Two remaining targets, closing in from the left!"
"Yeah, yeah, I see them." His grin only widened, adrenaline surging through his veins like fire. "Guess I'll just have to keep the momentum going."
He pulled his energy pistol from his hip, the weapon's capacitors whining as it charged. With his baton in one hand and the pistol in the other, he stood tall amid the flickering neon haze of the alley, trash swirling in the wind.
"Alright, little gremlins," he said, his voice darkly amused. "Time to farm some EXP—and save the damn city while I'm at it."
The goblins hissed, and Niero lunged forward with a gleeful battle cry, electricity flaring in both hands.
Ready for his first fight.
<<<[ Ch 04: Party Crasher, Part 1 - End ]>>>