Darkness gathered like a shroud over the crumbling plateau, thick with Rift energy that writhed against the skin like something alive.
Taesung stared across the ruins, his breath slow, shallow, deliberate.
The figure—no, the thing—stood still beneath the crescent arch of shattered stone. Its mask gleamed under the Rift's flickering light, angular and monstrous. Two slits pulsed faint blue where eyes should've been, but no life stirred behind them. Not human anymore. Maybe never again.
Virex.
It was the name whispered by instinct, not logic. A name etched into the Rift's very air. Yoon Taesung didn't know how he recognized it—only that the presence was undeniable.
The silence between them hung like a blade.
Then Virex moved.
Not a step, not a lunge. Just a tilt of the head. Curious. Dissecting. And beneath that stillness, Taesung felt the slow surge of pressure. Not physical force—something worse. A pull. Like gravity, but laced with hunger.
He clenched his fists, suppressing the tremble that threatened his fingers. His Skill hummed to life beneath his skin, subtle and quiet. No burst. Not yet.
"You're not one of them," Virex said. His voice was low, ragged. Each word dragged like iron across gravel. "No crest. No chain. Yet you stand before me."
The mask tilted again. A breeze, cold as regret, moved through the ruins.
"What are you?"
Taesung didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped forward.
The ground crunched beneath his boot, ash and cracked tile crushed into dust. His shadow danced across broken stone, flickering under Riftfire that bloomed from the fissures in the earth.
"I'm the one who walked out," he said, voice calm.
The mask did not react. But something behind it… tensed.
"No one walks out."
"I did."
"Then you left something behind."
Taesung said nothing. But his pulse surged.
Virex's form blurred. Just a ripple—but fast. Too fast.
A breath later, he stood only meters away. His height was inhuman, his presence impossible to ignore. The mask loomed, but it was the silence that suffocated.
The moment hung like glass—thin, fragile, ready to break.
Then Virex raised his hand.
Taesung moved.
[Skill: Predator's Mark – Active.]
The world snapped into clarity. The air thinned, the light shifted, and time stretched. He slid sideways, momentum twisting his torso, narrowly avoiding the crack of stone where Virex's hand struck the ground.
A crater bloomed from the impact. Dust and rubble sprayed outward in a violent ring. Energy shrieked like metal torn in half.
Taesung spun low, driving a blade toward Virex's exposed side.
It hit.
Metal met resistance. But not flesh.
Sparks flew.
The blade rebounded. The surface beneath Virex's armor shimmered—not steel, but something denser, like a forged shell of Rift essence.
Virex did not flinch.
Instead, he struck with the back of his arm. A casual blow.
It sent Taesung flying.
He hit the wall of the ruined dome with enough force to shatter brick. Pain exploded in his ribs. He gasped—but rolled before he could be pinned.
The mask turned toward him again.
"You're not ready."
Taesung coughed, blood in his mouth, but he was smiling.
"I didn't say I came to win."
Virex paused.
"Then why come?"
"To see."
He rose to his feet again, slower this time. Bones ached. His back screamed. But the fire in his gaze did not dim.
"To understand what waits past the line," Taesung continued. "The point of no return."
A long silence.
Then Virex's voice dropped lower. Not anger. Something close to... recognition.
"You remind me of the ones who stayed too long."
"The ones the Rift marked."
"You carry its scent."
Taesung didn't move. The wind whispered. Faint light flickered through a chasm in the stone above.
"You've seen it, haven't you?" Virex asked. "The hunger."
Taesung didn't respond, but he didn't deny it.
Virex turned away.
"Then you will either die, or change. That is the only path forward."
"What about you?"
The masked figure paused.
Then: "I already changed."
Virex stepped back into the shadows, vanishing like smoke. His voice lingered behind.
"Return when you are no longer afraid of what you might become."
The presence vanished.
And with it, the pressure eased.
Taesung collapsed to a knee, exhaling all at once. His limbs trembled, soaked in sweat. Not just from the fight. From understanding.
That thing was no mere monster.
It was what waited for hunters too stubborn—or too curious—to leave.
---
He emerged from the Rift hours later, alone.
The sky over Seoul was painted in soft gray, the sun just rising. The city, still asleep, felt like a different world. A peaceful one. A lie.
Back at the Silver Lions Guild, the debrief was brief. The others hadn't reached the final floor. He hadn't told them what he found.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
Kang Jinho met him at the edge of the cafeteria, tossing him a bottle of water.
"You look like shit," he said.
Taesung caught it without looking. "Feel worse."
Jinho studied him for a beat. "You saw something, didn't you?"
Taesung didn't answer.
Jinho didn't press.
But in the shadows of the Guild's upper levels, behind reinforced glass and quiet hallways, others were watching.
Seong Jinhwan stood in front of a dimmed monitor, arms folded. Behind him, a younger analyst scrolled through Rift surveillance footage—most of it corrupted. Too much interference.
But one fragment remained.
Just a glimpse.
A tall figure in a mask, standing at the heart of a crater.
Watching.
Waiting.
And as the file flickered, Jinhwan muttered under his breath, too low for anyone to hear.
"…He's returned."