Purple energy exploded across the ruined street.
Cars burned nearby.
Buildings cracked from the pressure released by the corrupted knight.
And in the center of the battlefield—
Suho stood calmly surrounded by shadows.
Three shadow soldiers.
One shadow wolf.
Black smoke twisted around them like an army waiting for orders.
The corrupted knight slowly tightened its grip on the giant sword.
“…The fragment is evolving faster than predicted.”
Suho narrowed his eyes.
“Who sent you?”
The knight remained silent.
Then—
BOOOOOOM!!
Dark mana erupted from its body violently.
The pressure spread through the entire district.
Nearby hunters immediately collapsed to one knee.
“T-This mana…”
“I can’t breathe…”
Even Jinho struggled to stand.
But Suho— felt something different.
Instead of fear… his body reacted with excitement.
The system suddenly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[Special Condition Achieved]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Mana Awakening Initiated━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suho froze.
“…Mana awakening?”
Suddenly— a massive surge of energy burst from inside his chest.
“GHHH—!!”
Black smoke exploded around him.
The ground beneath his feet cracked instantly.
His shadow stretched unnaturally across the street.
The corrupted knight stepped back slightly.
“…Interesting.”
Pain rushed through Suho’s entire body.
But unlike before— this pain felt powerful.
Like chains inside him were breaking apart one by one.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Mana Circulation Expanding…━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suho could suddenly feel everything.
The mana flowing through nearby hunters.
The corrupted energy leaking from the gate.
Even the shadows moving beneath the buildings.
His senses had evolved completely.
Jinho stared at him in shock.
“…Suho?”
Purple light glowed faintly within them now.
The atmosphere around him had changed.
Even the air felt heavier.
The corrupted knight realized it immediately.
“…You crossed the boundary.”
Suho looked at his own hands silently.
Dark mana flowed naturally around his fingers.
“This power…”
“It feels alive.”
The system responded instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━New Skill Unlocked━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Mana Reinforcement Lv.1━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Information flooded Suho’s mind automatically.
He instinctively understood how to use it.
Without hesitation— he activated the skill.
BOOOOOOM!!
Dark mana wrapped around his entire body.
His speed.
Strength.
Reflexes.
Everything increased instantly.
The asphalt beneath his feet shattered from the pressure alone.
Nearby hunters looked terrified now.
“That’s not E-rank mana…”
“No…”
“That’s not even normal hunter mana…”
The corrupted knight suddenly attacked.
FULL SPEED.
Its sword sliced through the air toward Suho’s neck.
But—
WHOOSH!!
Suho vanished.
The knight’s eyes widened.
Too slow.
Suho appeared above it instantly.
Dark mana concentrated around his dagger.
SLASH!!
The attack tore through the knight’s shoulder armor completely.
Purple blood exploded outward.
The corrupted knight crashed backward across the street.
BOOOOM!!
Several cars exploded on impact.
Silence.
Every hunter nearby stared in disbelief.
“He overpowered it…”
“The corrupted monster got pushed back…”
The knight slowly stood again.
Its body regenerated slowly.
But this time—
“…Your mana resembles his.”
Suho frowned.
“His?”
The knight suddenly pointed toward Suho’s chest.
“…The Shadow King.”
The moment those words were spoken— something deep inside Suho reacted violently.
FLASH.
A sudden vision appeared inside his mind.
A giant black throne.
Infinite darkness.
An enormous army kneeling before a lone figure.
And those glowing purple eyes… identical to his own.
“—!!”
Suho staggered slightly.
The knight immediately noticed.
“…So the memories haven’t awakened yet.”
Suho looked up sharply.
“What are you talking about?!”
But the corrupted knight suddenly laughed quietly.
Cold.
Distorted.
“…When the king fully awakens…”
“…this world will drown in shadows again.”
BOOOOOOM!!
The corrupted gate behind it suddenly expanded.
Dark cracks spread through the sky above Seoul.
More corrupted creatures slowly began emerging from the gate.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
The hunters panicked instantly.
“T-There’s more coming out!!”
“We can’t stop this!”
The corrupted knight pointed its sword toward Suho again.
“…Choose, successor.”
“Protect humanity…”
“…or inherit the throne of destruction.”
The system began flashing violently.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Emergency Scenario Triggered━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Suho looked toward the terrified civilians nearby.
Then at the endless monsters emerging from the corrupted gate.
His fists slowly tightened.
And for the first time— his shadow began moving completely on its own.
TO BE CONTINUED….!!
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