The guild headquarters never slept.
At every hour, footsteps echoed through the halls. Hunters, staff, informants and medics were busy with their own stuffs, and an unending rhythm of survival dressed as routine. Somewhere, a gate always opened. Somewhere, someone always died. Things are never stagnant.
Kai sat in the examination room, staring at the white light flickering overhead. His shirt was off, his body marked with faint bruises and scars. A scanner hummed beside him, its dull glass eye sweeping from his neck to his waist.
"Again," said the technician.
He obeyed.
The device emitted a faint pulse — mana-based bio-imaging, standard for post-raid examinations. The same kind that they used many years ago to declare his synchronization rate: zero.
The memory still tasted like rust.
The machine beeped and the screen filled with a flat line.
"No activity detected," said the technician without looking at him. "As expected."
Kai buttoned his shirt. "Guess I'm still the same disappointment."
The man grunted. "The Guild needs baselines. Even duds have their use."
Kai left without answering.
In the corridor outside, hunters streamed past — armor clinking, laughter sharp. Posters lined the walls: glowing faces of top-ranked Awakened, heroic smiles over captions like "Humanity's Shield" and "The Future Lies with the Strong."
He walked through it like a shadow, ignoring everything else.
Every few steps, he caught someone's glance — a flicker of recognition, then disdain. Zero.Lucky.Waste. Disappointment.
He ignored them. But beneath his sleeve, the Mark pulsed once — faint, as if agitated.
***
The guild cafeteria was quieter during mid-afternoon. Kai sat in the corner nursing a half-cup of bitter coffee substitute when a new voice cut through the clatter of trays.
"Porter Kai Lian, correct?"
He looked up. The woman standing before him wore the silver coat of the Bureau of Evaluations — the guild's internal intelligence branch. Her badge gleamed: Inspector Mirae Holt.
Her eyes were sharp, professional, the kind that missed nothing.
Kai stood. "Yes, ma'am."
"Sit." She pulled out the chair opposite him, tablet already active. "This won't take long."
He sat.
"I'm conducting a cross-check on all survivors of the North Cavern collapse," she said. "You were the only uninjured survivor, correct?"
He hesitated. "…Yes."
She tapped her screen. "Records show you've since participated in four E-rank raids with no recorded injuries. Yet survival rates among your assigned teams dropped by seventeen percent."
Kai blinked. "I don't—"
"I'm not accusing," she interrupted. "I'm asking if you've noticed anything unusual in these gates."
Unusual. That word again.
He shook his head. "No, ma'am. Just bad luck."
Her gaze lingered. "Bad luck seems to follow you everywhere."
He tried to smile. "Guess someone has to keep the statistics balanced."
The corner of her mouth twitched — not quite amusement. She closed the tablet. "Stay available for further interviews. Central Command is reviewing anomalies tied to resonance irregularities. If you experience anything… unusual, report it immediately."
He nodded. "Of course."
She left as suddenly as she'd arrived.
Kai stared into his coffee until the reflection blurred.
Resonance irregularities.
They were closing in.
The System must have known — the whisper from that night wasn't metaphorical.
"They are watching," it had said.
He pressed his palm to his chest, feeling the faint heartbeat of the Resonant Core within.
It pulsed once — steady.
Then again — faster.
He could almost swear it understood.
***
The glass wall of the Evaluation Bureau's observation room reflected Wei Jian's tired face back at him — sharp cheekbones, hair damp from rain, eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights. The room beyond the glass was filled with projection screens: holograms of raid logs, health charts, gate recordings, and mana fluctuation graphs.
He exhaled through his teeth. "There. Do you see that?"
Mirae Holt, the inspector Kai had met earlier, didn't look up. "See what?"
Wei Jian enlarged a clip — slow-motion footage from the sewer raid. In it, Kai stood just behind the front line. A monster lunged; Kai's body took the hit square in the shoulder — but his posture never collapsed. The timestamp showed a mana-burst reading of 0.0.
"No aura emission, no defensive field," Wei Jian said. "A blow like that should've shattered bone. He walks away with bruises."
Mirae scrolled through her tablet. "And you think he's manipulating the readings?"
"He's either hiding his synchronization level or his Mark's different from ours."
"Central Command has no record of variant Marks."
Wei Jian's jaw flexed. "Then we're looking at something they've never recorded."
She finally met his gaze. "You have personal history with him?"
He hesitated. "We served the same division once. He was… harmless. Too harmless. Then suddenly, he's surviving what kills everyone else."
Mirae leaned back, her expression unreadable. "We'll put him on the irregular list. Keep it quiet. Surveillance only."
Wei Jian nodded, but his hand curled into a fist under the table. Quiet wasn't enough.
***
That evening, the Guild's top floor buzzed with administrators. News feeds flickered across the lobby screens: "Three new gates open in Eastern Quadrant.""Resonance-Level Surge Predicted.""Hero Rank A: Mara Lyn returns from Northern Campaign."
Kai noticed the last headline when he passed through the atrium. The image froze him mid-step.
She stood beside the mayor in the feed — tall, composed, eyes the same shade of pale gold he remembered from the chaos years ago. Mara Lyn. The archer who'd once commanded light in darkness.
He shook the thought away and kept walking.
Mara's boots clicked against the marble of the Guild corridor hours later as she scanned the Evaluation Bureau roster. When her eyes found the name Kai Lian, her breath hitched, only slightly.
"Transfer me his file," she told the clerk.
The man frowned. "The Zero Sync?"
"Yes."
A pause. "He's flagged for surveillance. Inspector Wei Jian's case."
Her lips curved faintly. "Then I'll assist Inspector Wei Jian."
***
The rain returned that night, tapping steady rhythms against the metal dormitory roofs. Kai lay awake, watching the faint glow from his Mark pulse through the fabric of his sleeve.
He could feel things now. Not just air vibrations — emotions. Fear from the next room. Hunger from below. A thick fog of envy drifting through the dorm halls like static.
He whispered, "Sensory Field — suppress."
The world dimmed again, but not fully. The System whispered instead:
[Suppression Partial. External resonances detected within 20 meters.]
He sat up sharply. "External what?"
The answer came not from the System, but from the hallway — two soft footsteps, pausing by his door.
Kai held his breath.
A faint click. The door slid open a few centimeters before someone knocked, deliberately this time.
"Zero," a familiar voice called. Wei Jian's. "You awake?"
Kai opened the door. "Can't sleep."
Wei Jian stood there in half-armor, rain still glistening on his shoulders. His eyes scanned Kai's room once — quick, professional, invasive.
"You train late?"
"Sometimes."
Wei Jian nodded slowly. "Good. Keep that discipline. You'll need it." He turned as if to leave, then added, almost casually, "Evaluation Bureau thinks you're lucky. I think you're something else."
Kai's pulse quickened. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
Wei Jian met his gaze. "A glitch. Systems don't like glitches."
Then he was gone, footsteps fading down the hall.
Kai shut the door and leaned against it, exhaling hard. The Mark on his wrist flared once, and the whisper returned:
[Warning — Resonant Surveillance Detected.]
He froze. The System was alive enough to warn him.
Someone — something — was watching through mana traces. Probably the Bureau. Maybe worse.
He turned off every light and sat in the dark until dawn.
***
By morning, the rumor had spread through the dorms: the Bureau had launched a secret audit on every low-sync hunter. No one said names, but Kai could feel their glances.
At breakfast, when he reached for a tray, the server hesitated before handing it over. The laughter at nearby tables dropped whenever he passed.
He ate anyway, expression blank, mind racing.
When he stepped outside, Wei Jian was waiting near the training yard, arms crossed. Mara stood beside him — silent, observing.
The sight made the air itself seem thinner.
Wei Jian gestured. "Central Command wants a field evaluation. E-rank gate. Routine check."
Kai's gut tightened. "Why me?"
"Because," Wei Jian said, "you're statistically due for a miracle."
Mara's eyes met his — calm, unreadable, but something flickered there. Recognition.
Kai adjusted his gloves, forced a neutral tone. "Then let's go see how long luck lasts."
The three of them walked toward the shimmering gate that pulsed in the courtyard's containment ring. Its surface rippled like black water under rainlight.
The sensor panels beside it glitched, readings flickering wildly between E-Rank and B-Rank before freezing on a flatline.
Wei Jian frowned. "That's not supposed to happen."
Mara's hand drifted toward her bow. "No readings?"
The technician stammered. "None. It's… absorbing the scan."
The gate pulsed once — slow, like a heartbeat.
Kai felt the Core inside his chest respond with the same rhythm. His Mark burned faintly under the glove, whispering words that only he could hear:
[Resonant Field Anomaly Detected. Do not enter.]
But Wei Jian was already stepping forward. "Let's confirm the threat level."
Kai followed, not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice.
As they crossed the threshold, the light shifted from blue to black.
The Gate of Black Water had opened.
And the System inside Kai began to hum.