Fifty years ago, the first Abyss opened in the United States.

Then the rest of the world followed.

Those who survived its depths returned changed.

They became the Descenders—humans who awakened Retsu, a foreign energy carried by the monsters below.
Five colors. Five paths. Five Threads. Five kinds of power that reshaped the world itself.

Jin returned without one.

No Thread.
No power.
No future.

Only a body that leaks Retsu.

Something else bound itself to him.

A system.

It gave him a single command:

Kill one thousand monsters.

And every creature he kills brings him closer to death.

He obeyed—until the cost took someone he couldn’t afford to lose.

So he walked away from the Abyss.
From the fight.
From the fate waiting for him below.

Now he enters the strongest academy in the world, hoping to live what remains of his life as an ordinary student.

But the Abyss does not forget those who return from it.

And the system inside him was never meant to create someone like him.

Will Jin accept dying as a pawn in a game he never chose—

or become the Threadless Sovereign?

Jin's eyes looked at the same broken sky.


Thin, jagged lines splitting something that should never break.


But the smile stretched slowly. Wider. Wider.


While everything else stayed perfectly still.


Jin's body reacted before his mind did.


Like something unseen had pressed pause on him.


Chapter 40 - System Usage Restricted