Five Hundred Years...
Yes — five full centuries have passed since the universe decided Earth needed a bloody "factory reset." Five hundred years since the sky first split open like a suppurating wound in the belly of a rotting corpse, spewing its innards of monsters and nightmares across our quiet world.
Back then my ancestors thought the end had come. But humans are stubborn cockroaches, aren't we? We don't die quietly.
The Earth itself — or some sadistic being watching from another plane — gave us what we now call the System.
It awakened the energy called Eitra in our bodies, and we stopped being prey that cried in corners and became Hunters… well, some of us did, at least.
My name is Kyle Valtier. I'm twenty-three years old, and my Hunter rank is G.
Just to be clear: the System ranks a human's overall power — how much Eitra they can hold and their physical endurance — from J up to the top. Ranks J through H are those poor souls who have barely enough Eitra to light a cigarette; they usually end up as sanitation workers in fetid dungeons or as monster bait (a job not recommended if you like keeping all four limbs).
I'm rank G — the dull, forgettable middle.
Not weak enough to die from a ghoul's sneeze, not strong enough to get invited to elite parties.
I'm just a blue-collar employee in a world of mages and monsters.
My Eitra capacity lets me boost my body enough to run a little faster, hit a little harder, and carry sacks full of cheap monster cores for mid-tier guilds.
A boring, routine life — depressingly laughable.
The top? The top is reserved for the Seven Sāmis.
That's the title we give them. Only seven humans on this miserable planet have ever broken logic's limits and reached SS rank.
Seven people whose Eitra capacity could wipe nations off the map if they had a temper because their coffee was cold.
They rule the world now; the guilds they lead are the de facto governments.
But even those Seven Sāmis soil their expensive trousers at the mention of the "Cursed Zones."
Over the past five hundred years gates opened that never closed.
Their energy bled into our soil until entire regions became inhabited hells.
The Cursed Forest is one of those zones — a vast expanse that swallows half the old North American continent.
A forest that never sees sunlight; its trees are titanic, their bark like congealed muscle, its black leaves absorbing any brave shaft of light that tries to sneak in.
The air there is poisonous, heavy with the stench of rotten blood and iron.
They say the Cursed Forest is home to the worst nightmares a human mind can conjure.
The weakest monster there registers rank A.
But the real terror lies with the forest's masters, those of ranks S and SS.
I once read in an encrypted dark-web forum about a creature in the forest's heart called the "Vein Player" — an SS-rank monstrosity made of twisted human limbs, over twenty meters long, that doesn't kill victims outright.
It pulls their nerves and veins while they're still alive, strings them between dead trunks, and plays horrifying melodies that echo through the dark trees.
They say hearing its song makes you claw your own face off from sheer madness.
And among drunken Hunters in cheap bars, lunatic whispers circulate… whispers of SSS-rank monsters in the deepest, darkest point of that forest.
Ancient entities whose mere awakening might mean the world ending a second time.
Of course the guilds lie and claim SS is the ceiling, but I'm Kyle Valtier — morose and overthinking — and I know this universe is too nasty to limit terror.
"Ahhh… damn it… curse every ghoul in this filthy existence!"
I gasped and jolted upright in bed, clutching my chest as if to stop my heart from leaping out of my ribcage.
Cold sweat coated my whole body, clinging to the cheap shirt I bought at the discount store.
I breathed fast — panting — filling my lungs with the stale air of my apartment that smelled of instant noodles and despair.
My fingers trembled as I checked my ribs. They were intact.
No blood. No broken bones. No torn flesh.
I sat on the edge of the bed and wiped my face with my shaking hand.
I remembered everything clearly. Just hours before I'd been working as a porter in an F-rank dungeon with a team of arrogant amateurs.
Things went wrong. A hidden trap sprung, and the "Mad Blood Ghoul" appeared — a hulking beast with bulging muscles and claws the size of a butcher's daggers.
The amateurs fled like terrified chickens, leaving me behind with the heavy sacks of loot. I remember the ghoul lunging at me; I remember its breath — like a corpse left in the sun for a week — and the disgusting, horrific feeling of its claws puncturing my ribcage, tearing my flesh, crushing my ribs to reach my lungs.
I remember the pain of dying. That cold that runs through your limbs when you realize you're just another statistic in the evening news.
"How did I get back here? Did I sleep? Was I in a coma? Am I a ghost now? If I'm a ghost, it's extremely unfair I'm still stuck in this filthy apartment I can't pay rent for."
I said it in a hoarse voice, practicing my favorite hobby: black comedy in the face of trauma.
But before I could drown in self-pity, time stopped.
Literally. I felt the air in my room freeze. A bead of sweat falling from my chin stalled mid-air.
A cold, mechanical voice — genderless and emotionless — echoed inside my skull, causing an instant headache.
[System Alert]
[Hidden impossible conditions met: Survival from confirmed fatality with 99% vital organ failure + absolute and insane will to live + body saturated with pure Eitra from an unknown source.]
My eyes widened. "Unknown source? Hidden conditions? What the hell is this cursed machine rambling about?"
[Reawakening host… 10%… 50%… 100%.]
[Body restored to optimal condition. Traumatic tissue memories erased.]
A transparent blue screen appeared, floating in the air before me, lighting my dark room.
But it didn't stay blue.
Within seconds the screen cracked and gold lines of light leaked out, then the whole thing turned into a blinding, legendary gold.
I had never seen that color in my life — not even in the Seven Sāmis' livestreams.
[Congratulations, host Kyle Valtier. You have been granted a unique Skill directly linked to your soul.]
I stared at the golden screen, my jaw almost hitting the floor.
Here I need to clarify something important. As I said, Hunter rank (Eitra capacity) is completely different from Skill rank.
Skills are your magic or signature attacks.
Most Hunters in my tier have skills like "Spark Ignite" or "Muscle Boost for 5 seconds" — average G or F tier. Even the best Hunters might possess A or S-rank skills. The Skill is what makes you lethal, regardless of your Eitra capacity.
I read the words on the golden screen and felt my mind about to explode.
[Status Window]
Name: Kyle Valtier.
Overall Rank (Eitra Capacity): G (capable of unlimited growth).
Acquired Skill: [Future Sight].
Skill Rank: SSS (exceeds human evaluation standards).
Detailed Description: This Skill grants the host absolute ability to perceive a future event of great significance, catastrophic in nature, or threatening the world's balance. The host does not "watch" the event like a movie; their consciousness is fully pulled into that time.
They will experience the event with all five senses. They will feel the wounds, smell the blood, taste the despair as if it were happening in real time.
The vision may occur tomorrow, in a month, or in years… the future is a dark ocean, and you now possess sight that pierces its waves.
Strict Limitation (Cooldown): This Skill cannot be voluntarily activated more than once every 168 hours (7 full days).
"SSS?"
I whispered, the word burning my tongue. "SSS rank? Nothing like that has been proven to exist in modern human history… and me? The man who eats expired canned food because it's cheaper has a Skill the Seven Sāmis never dreamed of? If bad luck had a face, it would be my rent bill, but it looks like fate finally decided to toss me a bone… or a nuclear bomb."
I laughed softly — a tight, hysterical laugh teetering on the edge of madness.
My hand hovered as I approached the golden screen. A flashing button glowed at the bottom:
[Would you like to activate the Skill "Future Sight" now for the upcoming catastrophic event? (Yes / No)]
"Would I like to see how the world ends while I'm sitting in my torn underwear? Why not? I've got no other plans tonight."
I pressed "Yes."
In the fraction of a second after my click, I regretted every decision I'd ever made.
The world didn't fade — it shattered.
It felt like an enormous, invisible hook had been driven into the back of my skull and ripped my consciousness out of my body with brutal force.
The room, the bed, the rotten smell… everything vanished.
I was flung through a tunnel of absolute darkness and flashing lights at a speed that made my mind retch, then violently thrown onto a hard, rough surface.
I hit the ground; the asphalt skinned my knees and palms. I lifted my head, panting, my eyes struggling to focus on the scene around me.
I was on Avalon Street. The heart of Elysium — the pride capital of the new world.
Skyscrapers of glass pierced the clouds along the avenue, and the Dawnblood Guild headquarters stood there — one of the world's most powerful guilds led by the legendary S-rank Hunter Lucas Vance.
But the street… it was not the street I knew.
The sky was bleeding.
Literally. There were no clouds — only a massive gash, crimson and suppurating at the edges, stretching across the horizon like a deep wound in a Sāmi's body.
The sky didn't rain water; it rained chunks of torn flesh and thick, sticky black blood that clung to everything it touched.
The smell of the air… my god, the smell. It was a choking mix of sulfur, roasted meat, pus, and that rusty metallic tang of fresh blood.
I tried to hold my breath, but the odor slipped into my throat like viscous poison and made me cough violently, spitting saliva that tasted like ash.
"What… what is this hell?" I whispered, leaning against an upturned, smashed car to stand.
Around me the scene was a lunatic's slaughterhouse — a hellish tableau.
Civilians weren't running; they were scattered pieces. I saw a man in an expensive suit cut in half, his top half crawling on the asphalt, dragging his intestines while weeping blood.
I saw a mother clutching her child — both turned into statues of charred flesh by heat I couldn't see.
And then I saw them… the Dawnblood Guild.
Hunters of ranks A and B, wearing armor worth millions, being slaughtered like diseased sheep.
The monsters devouring them hadn't come from ordinary gates.
They were grotesque, gigantic, entirely flayed of skin; their red muscles pulsed in the open air, their jaws stretching ear to ear, lined with rusty nail-like teeth.
I watched an A-rank Hunter lift his magic axe and shout with courage, only for a flayed beast to grab his arm and, with a casual motion, split the Hunter's body in two like opening a bag of potato chips.
A geyser of blood and steaming innards sprayed everywhere; the Hunter's helmet tumbled and hit my foot.
I trembled; my whole body shook like leaves in a storm.
Fear wasn't just a feeling — it was a material force breaking my bones from the inside.
The Skill wasn't lying; I was living it.
I felt the warmth of blood spatter on my face; I felt the ground tremble under each step of the monsters.
Then… the change came.
A dreadful silence fell over the street.
Not a peaceful quiet — a manufactured silence, heavy, as if someone had switched the universe's volume off.
Even the flayed beasts stopped tearing flesh and bent, trembling in blind submission.
I looked at the crimson rift in the sky.
Nothing marched out of it. No army, no legendary dragon descended. Instead, something appeared.
Even now, when I try to recall it, human language fails. The mind is made to refuse comprehension of such a thing.
From the cosmic wound emerged only the right half of a giant's head, as dark as the void before stars are born.
It had no defined features; it seemed composed of living shadows writhing and dancing around it like tormented souls. There was a single eye on that dark half — an eye without a pupil, just a spiral of black that devoured light.
The moment that half-head crossed into our atmosphere, the laws of physics changed.
The Eitra pressure from its mere presence was unbearably terrifying.
It wasn't pressure that pushed you back — it was a gravity that crushed you down.
Right in front of me, a seventy-story steel and magically reinforced glass skyscraper collapsed in on itself and was crushed like an empty tin can stomped by a giant. The glass turned to dust in midair before it hit the ground.
I fell to my knees, unable to bear the pressure. I felt my eyes bulge from their sockets and my ears bleed hot blood.
The air felt heavier than lead.
Every cell in my body screamed and begged for death just to make the pain stop.
And in the center of that crushing hell, a flash of golden light appeared in the sky.
It was Lucas Vance — the strongest man in Elysium, the legendary S-rank Hunter.
He hovered, surrounded by a halo of pure Eitra that lit up the street's darkness.
He held his great sword, Dawncutter, his face a mask of holy wrath.
"You cosmic bastard!" Lucas cried, his voice booming like thunder, and he streaked like a burning meteor toward the dark half of the head in the sky.
His power was enormous, his speed supersonic, his halo enough to vaporize a whole lake.
This was humanity's champion, a symbol of strength and hope.
But the dark entity did not move. It did not fight. It did not attack.
It merely shifted that spiral black eye and looked at Lucas Vance.
Just… looked.
What happened next is etched into the dark corner of my mind forever.
Lucas halted midair as if he'd hit an invisible wall.
The great golden aura around him snuffed out in an instant, like a candle blown out by a hurricane.
His legendary sword, Dawncutter, slipped from his trembling hand, lost its luster, and shattered on the ground like cheap glass.
Lucas began to fall. Not a noble fall — he plummeted like a bag of trash.
He slammed into the asphalt ten meters from me; his bones broke on impact.
The S-rank hero tried to stand. He raised his head, our eyes met.
I didn't see anger, courage, or even pain in his eyes. I saw pure, primitive terror — the terror of an insect suddenly under a giant boot.
Lucas opened his mouth to scream, but nothing like a sound came out.
His scream tore his throat from the inside. Blood vessels in his eyes burst; the whites turned a deep crimson, then the eyeballs ruptured like rotten grapes.
Veins in his face and neck bulged and exploded, spurting black blood.
Then, in a scene that turned my stomach, the greatest Hunter in the city began to vomit.
Not just blood — a waterfall of black blood carrying pieces of his torn internal organs poured from his mouth.
I saw bits of his lungs, parts of his liver, clumps of dissolved stomach tissue spew from his throat and fall onto the asphalt before me.
Lucas Vance's body — the body armored against ballistic missiles — was being crushed and mashed from the inside by the sheer "presence and grandeur" of that entity.
He kept retching guts, trembling in his pool of blood and dissolved organs, until a horrific crack rang from his spine and his body folded inward unnaturally.
Lucas Vance was dead.
He had not been touched, struck, or even hit by a spell.
His mind was crushed and his body melted from within, simply because an entity from another plane glanced at him.
I stared at his twisted, open corpse as my brain seized.
Is this S rank? Is this hope? If that thing can kill an S-rank with a look, what will it do to the world? Is that what lies at the heart of the Cursed Forest? Or is this something worse?
Amid the vortex of terror and annihilation, a blood-red screen flashed before my face, its letters dripping fake blood:
[System Warning: Future event displayed. Time of occurrence unknown. The gate may open tomorrow, in a month, or in ten years. The future lurks in the dark, waiting patiently.]
"No… no… get me out of here… get me out!" I tried to scream, but my voice was a coarse whisper.
Gasp!
My consciousness was ripped back violently, as if I'd been drowning for years and suddenly surfaced.
I slammed onto my shabby wooden floor with force.
I rolled onto my side and vomited violently.
I emptied the hollow contents of my stomach, retching yellow acid until my throat burned and tears streamed down my face.
My body convulsed in strong spasms, and the smell of death, flayed blood, and sulfur still clogged my nose as if it were lodged in my hair follicles.
The ringing pressure of that entity's Eitra still pulsed in my ears like a fine needle penetrating my eardrums.
[System Alert]
[Skill used successfully. Host experienced 100% sensory synchronization.]
[Time remaining until next use: 167 hours and 59 minutes.]
I lay on the floor for several minutes, breathing hard, watching the faint strip of light that sneaked through my cheap curtains and illuminated the pool of vomit before me.
"What nonsense…" I muttered in a hoarse, broken voice, dragging myself up to press my back against the cold wall.
I looked at my hands. They still shook, but not from fear alone.
Something else boiled in my veins — a strange, twisted, sick feeling.
"Lucas Vance… the unbeatable legend. He'll die like a sick dog vomiting his liver in the street."
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and somehow, among all the terror and shock, my lips split into a grin.
It wasn't a smile of joy — it was a strained, crazed, fractured grin, utterly devoid of reason.
The smile of a man who suddenly reads the punchline of a rotten joke before everyone else.
I don't know when this hell will happen. It might be tomorrow, it might be a decade from now.
It doesn't matter when. What matters is that it will happen. That crimson gate will open.
Elysium will fall. The Dawnblood Guild will be exterminated.
And most importantly… when Lucas Vance dies and the first guild's ranks collapse… their legendary weapons, priceless armors, the terrifying magical monster cores they drop, even the Dawnblood Guild's vault abandoned in the chaos… all of it will lie in the street amid blood and gore, ownerless.
"If the end of the world is coming," I whispered to myself, the mad smile widening to reveal my teeth and my reddened eyes gleaming in the dark, "…I won't be just a spectator crying in some corner. I'll prepare. I'll raise my Eitra capacity, no matter the cost. I'll climb out of this filthy G rank to become fast, cunning, and strong enough to survive that day."
I rose slowly, ignoring the ache in my muscles. I turned to the window and drew the curtain aside to look over neon-sparkling Elysium — a city that doesn't know it's living on borrowed time.
"When that dark half devours this city… I'll be there. I'll be in the heart of hell, looting the end-of-the-world spoils from among the corpses of the Sāmis and the arrogant. That will be my one ticket out of the pit."
I began to laugh — a low, dry, hollow laugh that sounded almost like crying as it echoed off the empty walls of my apartment.
I had lived my life like a bug, but if the world was to be trampled under a cosmic nightmare… then this bug would steal the shattered crown before everything burned.