A few days passed after the destruction of the College’s Main hall.
A steady curtain of rain had settled over the city.
Inside a modest apartment, Mihui hummed softly to herself.
She stood in the kitchen wearing a simple apron, her pink hair tied loosely behind her head as she stirred a pot on the stove.
The smell of curry filled the apartment.
She glanced toward the living room.
"Eden?"
No answer.
Mihui sighed.
"Probably sleeping."
She turned back toward the stove.
She had gotten used to it over the past few days.
Eden had been acting strangely these past weeks.
Not that he had ever been normal.
But even by Eden’s standards, he had been spending more time disappearing without explanation, coming home exhausted, and occasionally staring at his hands like they had personally offended him.
Mihui had asked him about it several times.
His answers had ranged from
"Training."
To
"Walking."
And, once, rather suspiciously
"Existential crisis."
She still hadn’t figured out which one was a joke.
Outside the apartment, however, two figures stood on the rooftop of the neighboring building.
Both wore dark hooded coats.
Rain slid down their clothing, but neither seemed bothered.
One of them held a struggling-looking man by the back of his jacket.
The man was unconscious.
His Association uniform was torn and soaked with rain, blood staining one side of his clothing.
The hooded assassin carrying him looked rough.
There were several bruises across his face, and one of his arms was held awkwardly against his body.
The second assassin looked perfectly fine.
He crouched near the edge of the roof, staring through the apartment window.
"That’s her."
The injured assassin looked over.
"The bastards family?"
"Yeah."
The second man watched her move around the kitchen.
"Non-Awakened. Easy Prey."
The injured assassin shifted the unconscious Association Awakened over his shoulder.
"Then we move now."
The other assassin nodded.
They had already taken care of the guard.
There shouldn’t have been any surprises.
They had been sent by Abrius himself.
The message had been simple.
"Find Eden."
"If He isn’t there, take the person closest to him."
"If resistance occurs, eliminate it."
The two assassins exchanged a glance.
Then the healthy assassin stood.
His foot moved forward—
—and something red wrapped around his ankle.
He didn’t even have time to look down.
"What—?"
His entire body was yanked sideways.
He flew off the rooftop like a discarded doll.
The assassin slammed through the rain-filled air and crashed into the street below.
The impact cracked the pavement.
A car alarm immediately began screaming.
The assassin twitched once.
Then went still.
The injured assassin froze.
His eyes widened.
"What...?"
Something red slowly disappeared from the edge of the rooftop.
Crimson Essence.
The assassin spun around.
Nothing.
The rooftop was empty.
His instincts screamed.
He tightened his grip around the unconscious Association Awakened and prepared to attack.
’Too late.’
An invisible force seized him by the throat.
His feet left the ground.
"Ghk—!"
His hands immediately went to his neck.
He couldn’t see anything.
But he could feel fingers around his throat.
Strong fingers.
Far stronger than they had any right to be.
Then something began appearing in front of him.
First, the faint outline of a body.
Then black hair.
Silver eyes.
A face.
Eden slowly emerged from Stealth.
"Gotcha."
The assassin’s eyes widened.
"You—!"
Eden looked almost bored.
The assassin swung his free hand toward Eden’s face.
Eden tilted his head slightly.
The punch passed by.
Then the assassin’s body suddenly locked.
His muscles stopped responding.
His eyes widened in horror.
"What... did you...?"
Eden looked down at his own hand.
"Ah."
He flexed his fingers.
"So it worked."
The assassin’s body trembled uselessly.
Eden had already noticed the change during the last few days.
His Paralysis skill had ranked up to C-Rank.
It wasn’t some ridiculous ability that could instantly shut down anyone he wanted. Stronger opponents could resist it, and even weaker ones weren’t necessarily immobilized forever.
But the upgraded version was noticeably more effective.
"Not bad."
He looked back at the assassin.
The man tried desperately to move.
Eden sighed.
"You’re making this awkward."
Then he threw him.
The assassin flew over the rooftop.
Crash!
Eden turned away.
"Problem solved."
He walked toward the edge and looked down.
Both assassins were unconscious.
The Association Awakened was still alive, barely.
Eden’s eyes narrowed.
"Choi was right."
He had warned him.
The Association had stationed an Awakened nearby because Abrius wouldn’t simply sit around after his son’s defeat.
Apparently, Choi’s paranoia had been justified.
Eden pulled out his phone.
Before making the call, however, he glanced at his hand again.
Paralysis wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
There was also [Heir’s Pride].
The skill he had gained after devouring Luvian.
An A-Rank skill.
Eden still wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it.
He had expected something more.
Luvian had possessed an absurdly powerful skill.
An S-Rank fire skill.
And then there had been that terrifying Flame Heart, an SS-Rank ability that had nearly burned Luvian alive from the inside.
Eden had devoured him.
And what had he gotten?
A buff.
A very good buff.
But still.
"A little underwhelming."
He opened his status window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Eden
Level: 58 [D-Rank]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 237
Agility: 209
Vitality: 147
Essence: 111
Perception: 54
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skills & Authorities
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Devour [A]
Phase Shift [C]
Paralysis [C]
Stealth [D]
Heir’s Pride [A]
[Effect: Increases all Attributes by 20%.
Increases Essence Output by 30%.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eden stared at it.
Then sighed.
"Okay."
He closed the window.
"Maybe not that underwhelming."
Twenty percent to every attribute was enormous.
And a thirty-percent increase to Essence output could dramatically improve the power of his skills.
It wasn’t flashy.
It wasn’t some world-ending attack.
But combined with Phase Shift, it could create a terrifying buff.
Still...
"I wanted the fire."
He couldn’t help himself.
Eden finally snapped out of it and called Choi.
The response came quickly.
"Eden?"
"Two assassins."
A pause.
"Try using more words."
"Two Assassins attacked my house."
Another pause.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Is your—?"
"She’s fine."
Choi exhaled.
"Alright stay put."
A long silence.
"I’m sending people."
"Good."
The call ended.
Eden looked toward the apartment window.
Mihui was still cooking.
Completely unaware that, less than thirty meters away, two assassins had just been thrown off a rooftop.
He smiled faintly.
At least she hadn’t noticed.
He waited.
It took only a few minutes.
Association vehicles arrived below, followed by several Awakeneds.
The unconscious guard was immediately taken away for treatment.
The two assassins were restrained and transported separately.
And then, naturally Choi arrived.
He stepped out of the vehicle with an expression that suggested he had already developed a headache.
Behind him was someone Eden recognized.
Eden’s expression immediately flattened.
"Oh no."
Choi looked at him.
"You haven’t even heard what I’m going to say."
"I don’t need to."
Kael walked toward them.
"I have returned!"
Eden closed his eyes.
’Of course.’
Kael stopped in front of him.
His dark gray hair was slightly damp from the rain, his silver eyes serious.
"I heard your name."
Eden stared.
"And?"
Kael placed a hand against his chest.
"I knew immediately that I had to come."
"Why?"
"To protect you."
"I don’t need protection."
"You’ve clearly attracted assassins."
"That doesn’t mean I need you."
Choi pinched the bridge of his nose.
"This is going wonderfully."
Eden turned to him.
"Seriously, couldn’t you send someone else?"
Choi sighed.
"I wanted to."
"Then why is he here?"
"Because he insisted."
Kael nodded solemnly.
"I insisted very strongly."
Choi sighed again.
"Kael practically begged to be assigned here after hearing your name."
Eden looked at Kael.
Kael looked proud.
"I simply felt that fate had brought us together once more."
"Fate should be investigated for harassment."
Choi fought back a laugh.
"Look, Kael is an experienced Awakened on the verge of being a B-rank. He can handle most Awakeneds Aprodius might send your way."
"He’s dramatic."
"I am not."
"You are."
"I am simply passionate."
"You have a savior complex."
"I have a strong sense of justice."
"Same thing."
Kael frowned.
Choi coughed into his fist.
"I’ll leave you two to argue."
Eden looked at him.
"You’re seriously leaving him here?"
"Only for the next few days."
Eden groaned.
"Fantastic."
"If anything happens, call me immediately."
Eden glanced at it.
"Understood."
"And Eden?"
"Yeah?"
Choi’s expression became serious.
"Don’t underestimate people just because they’re low-ranked."
Eden looked toward the unconscious assassins being loaded into an Association vehicle.
"I know."
Choi studied him for a moment.
Then nodded.
"Good."
The next few days passed relatively quietly.
The college remained closed for another two weeks because of reconstruction.
Eden didn’t mind.
He had never been particularly attached to the place.
Lucy, however, was still irritated about it.
"How come your College," she said one afternoon, "ALWAYS gives you time off?!"
Eden looked at her.
"Well someone sort of blew up our Main Hall..."
He deliberately didn’t mention that he’s the said culprit.
Lucy sighed.
They had continued training during the closure.
And their progress had accelerated.
Eden had finally crossed the threshold, reached D-Rqnk and stood at Level 62
Lucy had reached D-Rank as well.
For Lucy, it was an enormous milestone.
For Eden, it was something else.
A wall.
He stood inside an F-Rank dungeon after clearing the last creature.
A small Abyss Creature lay dead at his feet.
Eden crouched and placed his hand against it.
Red Essence spread across its corpse.
The creature vanished.
Nothing happened.
Eden frowned.
He tried another.
Nothing.
Another.
Still nothing.
He stood.
"So that’s it."
His current rank had finally caught up with him.
Low-rank Abyss Creatures no longer provided anything meaningful.
His Devour could consume them.
But there was nothing left for him to gain.
He needed stronger prey.
And stronger prey meant stronger Gates.
Unfortunately, stronger Gates meant licenses.
And licenses meant restrictions.
Eden had never been particularly fond of restrictions.
That night, after Mihui had gone to bed, Eden sat alone in the living room.
Rain tapped softly against the window.
His laptop illuminated his face.
He typed a familiar address into the browser.
The website loaded.
Black background.
Poorly designed interface.
No official logo.
No security warnings.
Just a list of usernames, locations, Gate coordinates, and raid requests.
Eden stared at the screen.
He remembered this website.
He remembered the first time he’d discovered it.
He remembered how many people used it.
Unlicensed Awakeneds.
People who couldn’t — or wouldn’t — go through the Association.
People who wanted money.
People who wanted rare materials.
And people who simply wanted to get stronger without anyone watching.
His eyes narrowed.
He had stopped using it in his first life eventually.
Not because it was illegal.
But because he had learned just how many monsters were hiding among the people using it.
Rogues.
Killers.
Scammers.
People who deliberately lured inexperienced Awakeneds into Gates and killed them for their belongings.
It was dangerous.
Which was precisely why it was useful.
Eden scrolled through the listings.
[F-Rank Gate — Cleared.]
[E-Rank Gate — Recruiting.]
[D-Rank Gate — Party Full.]
He continued scrolling.
His finger stopped.
A listing.
An undiscovered Gate.
No Association registration.
No official map.
No guarantee of safety.
Exactly what he needed.
Eden leaned back in his chair.
"Finally."
He clicked Join Raid.
A confirmation box appeared.
WARNING: Unauthorized Gate activity is punishable under Association law.
Eden clicked Confirm.
The warning disappeared.
His lips curled upward.
He didn’t care about the law.
He only cared about progression.
F-Rank creatures were useless now.
Even E-Rank creatures were becoming increasingly inefficient.
He needed stronger opponents.