Something violently shook his body. Uijae frowned. The nausea churned his stomach like seasickness. Uijae clicked his tongue. Damn it, just a little more sleep…

“J!”

A voice like a thunderclap pierced his ears. Uijae’s eyes snapped open. The first thing he saw was a ceiling with cracks running through it. Cracks? Dust was falling from the ceiling—it wasn’t a hallucination. Gaeul, her face as pale as a ghost, was clutching his shoulders, panting.

“Gaeul?”

“Thank God… You weren’t waking up, so I was getting worried—no, wait, there’s no time for that! We need to get out of here!”

“What?”

“The space is collapsing! Ah, watch your head!”

Boom!
With a loud crash, debris rained down from the ceiling. Uijae quickly rose and shielded himself with his arm. Through the collapsed section of the ceiling, he could see it—

Black void.

The void he had seen when he first opened the door to the Memorial Dungeon.

The entire classroom shook ominously. If the floor collapsed, would it also drop into that void?

That would be bad.

Getting trapped in an unknown void was out of the question. Gaeul wiped her cold sweat away and muttered.

“This doesn’t make sense… This space was created by Hong Yesung. It shouldn’t be shaking like this…”

Hong Yesung. Weird as he was, his skills were solid. Gaeul’s trembling voice quivered as she spoke.

“Could something have happened outside? Or… to Hong Yesung…?”

Several ominous possibilities swirled through Uijae’s mind. Clutching his throbbing temple, he stood up and grabbed Gaeul around the waist.

“Let’s get out of here first!”

“Ah, yes! But I can walk on my own—”

He didn’t listen to the rest. Uijae tightly gripped the ticket he’d stashed in his inventory. The world around them flipped in an instant.

Uijae quickly scanned his surroundings. They were in the Pado Guild’s guild master’s office—the place he considered the safest. He glanced around, then started toward Gaeul’s hiding spot—

“You can put me down now…”

“Oh, sorry. I was in a hurry.”

“J! You’re back?!”

At that moment, the door burst open. Baewon Woo’s hopeful gaze swept around the room, searching desperately. When he saw only Uijae and Gaeul, his shoulders slumped. His expression was bitter.

“I’m sorry. I met him, but I couldn’t bring him back…”

“It’s alright. I didn’t expect this to end quickly anyway. More importantly, we have a problem!”

“A problem?”

“Yes, yes. I’ll explain on the way to the conference room. You need to see it yourself. And the student should come too!”

Baewon Woo gestured for them to follow quickly. Uijae exchanged a bewildered glance with Gaeul before hurriedly following behind him. Baewon Woo took the emergency stairs two or three steps at a time, talking as he descended.

“It’s not just one or two countries—it’s the whole world!”

“Is it a monster wave? Or a mutation outbreak?”

“No, neither… Ah, we’re here!”

Baewon Woo threw open the conference room door. Inside, several Hunters had already gathered. Baewon Woo gestured them aside, leading Uijae to the large window at the far end of the room. The entire wall was glass, giving them a full view of the outside.

And Uijae was immediately hit with a strong sense of wrongness.

“……”

“…Do you see what’s different?”

“…There.”

Uijae lifted a finger to point at the sky. Since the day of the Rift, it had always been there—

“The White Hole… It’s gone.”

***

Blood as dark as rust splattered onto the dirt ground. Hong Yesung lay sprawled out, coughing up more and more blood. Next to him, Kkoko anxiously circled around him in a panic. Kkoko’s minions—six yellow chicks—spun around in a frantic circle as well.

“Kkook? Kko…”

“Ugh… Aagh…”

After what felt like an eternity of vomiting blood, Hong Yesung finally rolled away from the puddle of it and collapsed onto his back. The sharp, metallic scent of blood filled the air. He roughly wiped his mouth and nose with the back of his hand, smearing them with blood. The golden glyphs spinning in his eyes darted frantically, staring up at the blue sky.

The flow of the clouds, which had been drifting peacefully, stopped. At the same time, crack, crack, fissures began to form in the sky. Hong Yesung patted Kkoko, who was pressing its head into his side, with his clean sleeve.

“There, there. Are you okay? Me? Not okay at all. Kkoko, it feels like my guts are ripped to shreds.”

“Kkook…”

“Let’s see…”

He closed his eyes and listened. All around, things were breaking, shattering, crumbling. The space he had spent so long building with his powers was falling apart.

“Looks like my stalling time’s up… Well, it held out for a while, at least.”

“Kkeeek…”

The yellow chicks trembled violently. Some couldn’t move, frozen stiff in fear. Crack. A shard of the blue sky fell away, revealing the black void beneath. The chicks’ trembling grew worse as more of the sky shattered.

Hong Yesung sniffled. Holding back the blood rising in his throat was getting harder. He pouted, muttering like a petulant child.

“Seriously, this isn’t even my fault. Isn’t that a bit unfair?”

“Kkeeek…”

The trembling chicks let out one final gasp before collapsing. Hong Yesung weakly reached out to touch their soft feathers. The warmth remained, but the life had already left them.

“Damn… Should’ve just roasted them and eaten them. Now I’ve gone and gotten attached…”

“Kkook!”

“Sorry. Should’ve handed them to J or something. He would’ve taken better care of them than me.”

Hack, Hong Yesung coughed weakly. Kkoko pressed its head into his side as if sensing something. The sky was falling apart. Hong Yesung stared at the crumbling sky. Keen instincts—the ones etched into his bones, flesh, and soul—screamed a warning.

Run.

Run away!

But he couldn’t move a finger. Hong Yesung might have been used to heat and burns, but he was powerless against raw pain. His twisted stomach tormented him. Cough, he hacked up a clot of blood, his vision blurring.

Should’ve trained a bit harder…

Shouldn’t have ignored the Public Officer or Director Ham’s advice. At least then, he might’ve toughened up. Regret surged through him too late. His vision wavered. Was the ground shaking? No. Hong Yesung soon realized—

His entire body was shaking. Cold sweat drenched his back and the nape of his neck. He gently stroked Kkoko’s head with a trembling hand.

“Kkoko…”

“Kkook…”

Kkoko whimpered pitifully, rubbing its head against him. Hong Yesung forced his voice through a clenched throat.

“Run.”

Boom.

The blue sky collapsed without a trace. Only the black void remained. In that starless darkness,

A single, stark white circle appeared.

The white circle blinked in and out of existence over the void, like an eye opening and closing. Blink, blink. It repeated, as if focusing.

Then the white circle fixed its gaze on Hong Yesung.

Hong Yesung struggled to move his stiff lips, forcing something like a smile.

“Hello.”

The giant white eye stared back at him. Inside the eye, something swirled constantly. And suddenly, Hong Yesung knew. A bolt of realization struck him like lightning.

He moved his unmoving mouth and managed to whisper. The glyphs in his eyes spun faster.

“…You.”

The moment the warden of the ruined world disappeared, the black hole in the sky had turned stark white. Those who knew the truth thought it was a hole linking worlds; those who didn’t just assumed it was another disaster. People began calling it the White Hole.

But what if it wasn’t a hole between worlds?

What if it wasn’t a hole at all…

“…You were watching, weren’t you?”

What if it was an eye?

The circle narrowed, as if smiling.

As if confirming that he was right.

Hong Yesung’s entire body trembled. He couldn’t tell if it was fear or excitement. The realization blazed through his mind like wildfire. Hong Yesung grit his teeth. With his shaking hand, he pushed Kkoko away.

“Go, Kkoko!”

“Kkook?”

“Run! Anywhere, just go!”

A desperate cry. Kkoko, shoved aside, instinctively started running. Its smooth wings flapped as it left tracks in the dirt.

At the gate, Kkoko stopped and looked back.

At that moment—

Boom!

The ground collapsed. Kkoko steadied itself and leapt through the gate.

The last thing its small black eyes saw was...

A massive, white hand crushing the dirt,

And a pool of spreading blood.