The Great Calamity.
The Sovereign of Demons.
Doom.
Or the Demon King of Annihilation.
The deathless great evil known by those dreadful epithets had fallen.
THUD—!
A heavy impact struck the ground, and the earth trembled.
It was only natural. A body larger than most mountains had toppled over.
It was humanity's victory over him. If it could be called a victory at all.
Yet the man who had finally ended the life of the Great Calamity that refused to die couldn't lift his head.
With his broken sword driven into the ravaged ground, he knelt and did nothing but spew out a deep, monstrous howl tangled with sobs.
“AAAAAAAH—!”
His voice was steeped in bitter remorse.
***
The man walked.
Holes riddled his body, and blood poured from them.
Even so, he staggered onward like an inflatable figure swaying in the wind.
He crossed a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
All of them.
Until not long ago, they had been his comrades and friends—the people who had laughed and joked with him, shared meals and drinks with him, and vowed to survive the next battle so they could enjoy another night together.
And the families of those friends as well.
Head bowed, the man filled his hollow eyes with the sight of corpses crushed beyond recognition.
He wanted to ask someone.
‘This.......’
Could this be called a victory?
Everyone was dead.
Humanity's last hope.
It had happened when the Integrated Asian Fortress City, known as the final bastion, was invaded by the Demon King of Annihilation and his armies.
The only survivor was the man himself.
Everyone else.
‘They're dead.’
They were all gone.
“Hah.......”
A sigh slipped out before he knew it.
At that same moment, the strength left his legs and he collapsed where he stood with a wet slap.
“Joo Do...... gyeom.......”
The man, Joo Do-gyeom, snapped his head around.
Amid the mangled corpses and blood.
There was one person still breathing.
With no strength left in his legs, Joo Do-gyeom crawled across the ground toward the figure.
Up close, the figure's condition was even worse than his own.
The entire lower half of the body was gone, and what remained had been ruined by severe burns.
The figure looked infinitely closer to death than life.
He couldn't even properly tell who it was, yet Joo Do-gyeom immediately called her name.
“Vivienne. Vivienne Ashcroft!”
The instant he heard her voice.
He was already certain it was her.
Vivienne answered with a laugh.
“Haha...... what? That's cold. You're calling me by my full name?”
“Damn it. You're alive. You're...... alive.......”
Joo Do-gyeom's head fell.
His tears wet the ground.
Vivienne watched him with a strange look.
“I thought you didn't even know how to cry, but look at you. You can cry after all.”
“Thank you...... thank you, Vivienne. For staying alive. Truly...... thank you.”
“Hey, Joo Do-gyeom.”
“Vivienne.......”
“Sorry to pour cold water on this, but I'm going to die soon.”
Joo Do-gyeom raised his head and looked straight at Vivienne once more.
She was humanity's greatest archmage.
Even with half her body gone and burns covering her from head to toe.
She could revive herself.
No matter how close to death her wounds brought her, she couldn't truly be killed unless her head was severed or her heart ruptured.
That was what Joo Do-gyeom had always understood to be true.
Vivienne smiled and continued.
“My heart's already melted, and my mana core's going to stop functioning soon. The brain I barely managed to activate will shut down with it once the mana core stops.”
It was a complicated explanation, and one he didn't want to hear.
Even in the midst of despair, Joo Do-gyeom managed to process her words rationally.
So he bit down hard on his lip and asked.
“Then how long do you have left?”
“If you're asking how much time......, about six hours?”
“.......”
“Ahaha—!”
Vivienne laughed at Joo Do-gyeom, who looked flustered by the fact that she had far more time than he'd expected.
Joo Do-gyeom smiled as well.
Six hours.
Come to think of it.
It might actually be too little time for humanity's last conversation.
It simply wasn't so pressing that it left him breathless.
That was what he thought.
Then Vivienne spoke again.
“But I don't think we'll have even five minutes to talk.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Joo Do-gyeom's brow furrowed.
“Heh heh.......”
Vivienne burst out laughing again at his reaction and raised both hands high.
“Ta-da—! Because I actually have one last grand spell left. Surprised, Mr. Joo Do-gyeom?”
“Quit joking.”
“I'm not joking. I'm serious.”
Vivienne's gaze had turned utterly serious.
Her unfocused eyes moved from side to side.
Then she continued.
“Honestly, I can't see very well, but everyone...... is dead, right?”
“......Yeah.”
“Everyone except you and me. All of them.”
GRIND—!
Vivienne ground her teeth without realizing it.
Joo Do-gyeom answered again.
“......That's right.”
“And even in all this, you brought down the Demon King of Annihilation. As expected of our God of War.”
“It's a meaningless victory.”
What had he fought for?
What had he endured all the way to this point for?
Truthfully, Joo Do-gyeom still didn't know the answer.
Because, as a living creature, he had needed to survive.
More than anything, he had held on this long simply because he had to go on living.
But.
At least one thing was certain: he had never wanted to be the sole survivor left to witness humanity's end.
“It isn't a meaningless victory. By defeating the Demon King of Annihilation, the final ingredient for my grand spell is now ready.”
“Vivienne. What nonsense have you been talking about all this time.......”
“Listen carefully, Joo Do-gyeom. We really don't have any time left now, so I'll explain as simply as I can.”
The archmage Vivienne whom Joo Do-gyeom knew was rational and fast in her calculations.
But Vivienne the person was simply a cheerful, bright woman.
She was fond of mischievous jokes as well.
But not once.
Not even once.
She had never once made a joke in that tone or with that expression.
Joo Do-gyeom closed his mouth.
He listened closely to what she was about to tell him.
A powerful instinct told him that was what he needed to do.
Vivienne's lips parted once more.
“I'm going to send you back in time.”
“......!!”
“The last grand spell I prepared is Spacetime Regression Magic.”
“Then you should go, not me.......”
“I can't. Even setting aside that I'm not confident I could do better than you and that my body's a complete wreck, I have to become the final sacrifice needed to complete the grand spell.”
“What do you mean, Vivienne? A sacrifice?”
“It has to be done. Like I said, there's no time for a long explanation.”
Joo Do-gyeom could feel it.
While they spoke.
Mana had begun gathering around Vivienne.
The mana of nature itself.
Even dark mana drawn from the dead.
They mixed together and closed in on them.
The spell had already been cast.
It was too late to stop it.
Realizing that, Joo Do-gyeom asked with a gaze that had settled into an even deeper calm.
“Vivienne. Honestly, even if I go back in time, I'm not confident I can prevent all of this.”
He could reduce the damage by a great deal.
After all, having returned, there would be much for him to gain.
The problem was that the Demon King of Annihilation had been far stronger than anticipated.
To put it bluntly, it felt as though even defeating him this time had depended heavily on sheer luck.
Worse, the Demon King of Annihilation wasn't the end.
Even now, new monsters and calamities were being born all across Earth.
Amid all that.
Who was to say something even more powerful than the Demon King of Annihilation wouldn't appear?
In such circumstances, he couldn't claim absolute confidence.
Joo Do-gyeom didn't want to utter such irresponsible words in the face of her sacrifice.
Sensing how he felt, Vivienne smiled and said.
“You'll still pull it off.”
“What irresponsible nonsense.......”
“Joo Do-gyeom. You can do it. Honestly, if it were anyone else, I'd have forced myself to go instead. I mean it. But you—the Joo Do-gyeom I've watched all this time. A man like you.......”
Perhaps the spell was making her consciousness fade. As Vivienne repeated herself and her voice grew fainter and fainter, light suddenly returned to her eyes.
At the same time, Vivienne shouted.
“Heavenly Killer!”
“What?”
As Joo Do-gyeom was about to ask what she was suddenly talking about, a flash of realization lit his mind as well.
“Vivienne. Don't tell me...... you're telling me to become the Heavenly Killer?”
“.......”
Vivienne didn't answer again.
More precisely, she couldn't.
Perhaps because of the regression spell, her lips were moving as if she were saying something, but no voice came out.
Instead, all he could see was her nodding over and over.
Joo Do-gyeom let out a hollow laugh.
‘The Heavenly Killer, all of a sudden.’
He had forgotten about it himself, but it certainly wasn't a bad method.
Ah.
The Heavenly Killer being discussed here shared its name with the Heavenly Killer commonly found in old martial arts novels, but it wasn't exactly the same thing.
If one had to classify it, it was one of the Traits a Hunter could possess.
It had belonged to a man who had died in the past—a man who might have become the strongest.
Its effect was simple.
The possessor of the Trait, Heavenly Killer.
‘Becomes capable of killing anything.’
The countless battles they had fought to reach this point.
In those battles, what had tormented humanity most was the immortality possessed by calamity-class monsters.
The Earth Demon Dragon, the Witch of Gluttony, the Golden Serpent, and the Lord of the Deep Sea.
And finally, the Demon King of Annihilation.
How many times had they pierced the bastard's heart?
How many times had they cut off his head?
Even then, he hadn't died.
The bastard kept surviving and trampling humanity underfoot.
He looked down on humanity's desperate struggle with a sneer.
Even Joo Do-gyeom's killing blow had merely come at the end of the hundreds of fatal wounds his comrades had inflicted on the Demon King of Annihilation.
But.
What if he obtained the Heavenly Killer?
‘I might be able to kill their immortality.’
No. He was certain.
He could kill their immortality. Without fail.
The problem was.
‘Whoever acquires the Heavenly Killer inevitably develops madness along with it.’
That madness could take many forms.
There was no telling which way it might turn.
The man who had possessed the Heavenly Killer in the past.
He, too, had been unable to withstand the madness and had become a Villain, earning the title of humanity's worst adversary in history.
A special strike team that included Joo Do-gyeom had ultimately killed him, but Joo Do-gyeom still couldn't forget the horror of the Heavenly Killer he'd faced then.
Now he would take that power of the Heavenly Killer into his own hands.
It was dangerous.
If Joo Do-gyeom, the God of War, obtained the Heavenly Killer and was consumed by its madness.
He could be reborn as a calamity even more terrible than the Demon King of Annihilation.
But.
‘There's no other way.’
To keep humanity from repeating this horrific failure.
‘I.......’
He would.
‘Become the master of the Heavenly Killer.’
His decision made, Joo Do-gyeom looked around, light burning in his eyes.
Black and white mana swirled wildly together.
Into the center went his consciousness.
His soul.
His body.
Everything was being sucked in.
Fully aware of it, Joo Do-gyeom stared straight ahead with his eyes wide open.
Vivienne was waving at him.
The final moment.
Sensing it, Joo Do-gyeom waved back.
He wasn't deeply shaken.
Because though it was a farewell, he didn't think of it as one.
‘Let's meet again after I go back, Vivienne.’
Joo Do-gyeom held Vivienne's face in his gaze as it receded farther and farther away.
Suddenly, Vivienne looked as if she'd remembered something and hurriedly opened her mouth to speak.
He still couldn't hear her voice.
Joo Do-gyeom asked in return.
‘What did you say?’
His voice no longer came out either.
And then.
His consciousness faded with unbelievable speed.
***
A jolt more like a rattling vibration.
Joo Do-gyeom felt it and snapped his eyes open.
He hurriedly looked around and saw the spacious interior of something moving at high speed, with blue waves flowing past outside the window.
Joo Do-gyeom knew the name of those waves—more precisely, the river.
‘The Han River.’
Born in South Korea, he had seen that sight until he was sick of it, right up until the country fell.
And the interior?
‘I'm inside a bus.’
The instant he realized it, he hurriedly searched his pockets.
Out came a bar-shaped smartphone, little different from a relic of the old world in Joo Do-gyeom's eyes.
He tapped it and checked the time.
February 5, 2026.
Joo Do-gyeom clenched his fist without realizing it and said.
“Vivienne, you did it.”
Her regression spell had succeeded.
‘That aside.’
February 5, 2026, was five years before he became a Hunter.
‘I've come back much farther than I expected.’
It was a good situation, if one chose to see it that way, but truthfully, he still had regrets.
His mother had died in an accident five years earlier.
Then, the previous year, even his father, who had been fighting cancer, had passed away.
If only.
It was only human for such a greedy wish to rise in him.
Joo Do-gyeom shook his head and cast the regret aside.
A person's mind might be different going into the bathroom than coming out, but.
As he'd thought moments ago, wasn't this basically a good situation?
‘And in 2026, that incident hasn't happened yet.’
Earth itself was still in relatively decent shape.
Of course, that was by the standards of the future Joo Do-gyeom knew.
In truth, the current situation couldn't exactly be called good either.
In any case.
Leaving his regrets about his parents behind, Joo Do-gyeom focused on his present circumstances.
‘Let's think carefully.’
What had he been doing around this time again?
Whether fortunately or unfortunately.
His memories of this time remained quite clear in his mind.
As vivid as if he'd lived it yesterday.
He had been what people would commonly call a logistics-center worker for a parcel delivery company.
He had graduated from college but failed to find a job, so he had been living little better than a day laborer, earning enough to survive while waiting for his next chance.
He had no savings.
That was only natural. His family had already been poor, and they had spent everything on his father's long treatment.
Seen in that light, five years later.
His decision to become a Hunter despite knowing how dangerous it was had been less coincidence than inevitability.
He had believed there was no future if he kept living that way, so he had staked his life on a gamble.
‘Back then, the Hunter mortality rate was around twenty percent.’
Now, five years earlier, it was probably around thirty percent.
It was a staggering figure, but even that had fallen considerably.
In the early days of the world's Great Upheaval, the Hunter mortality rate had been a full sixty-eight percent—nearly seventy percent.
That meant seven out of every ten people who tried to become Hunters died.
Those who survived that era were treated as living legends in the present world.
‘That wasn't much different even in the future.’
There were others like Joo Do-gyeom who started late and fought their way upward, but they were exceedingly rare.
Anyway.
How did he know such detailed data?
He had seen it on an online Hunter community.
Ordinary people couldn't even access it without verification, but with his memories of the future, there was no way he wouldn't know.
‘Even so, my memories are strangely vivid.’
He quickly set the question aside.
In any case, he had regressed.
He believed it was better to act than waste time on unnecessary doubts.
The first thing he had to do was already decided.
***
There was no longer any point in working part-time at the logistics center.
So immediately after arriving at work, Joo Do-gyeom left early and returned to the tiny rented room where he had been staying at the time. There, he recalled an email address and sent a message from his smartphone.
The recipient was.
‘Vivienne Ashcroft.’
The archmage who had sent Joo Do-gyeom back in time.
He didn't know why, but she'd said she used to change her phone number often.
But she had kept using the same email address, so once she checked it, he should receive a reply.
He kept the contents simple, but wrote enough for her to fully grasp the situation.
All that remained was to wait.
A Hunter born in the early days of the Great Upheaval.
If he could receive the help of one of those living legends from this point onward.
‘I'll be able to advance much faster and farther.’
Even so, it would take quite some time.
‘She changed her number all the time, and she wasn't the type to check her email quickly either.’
He decided to wait without rushing.
He had plenty to do in the meantime anyway.
***
Joo Do-gyeom's second move after regressing was to borrow money.
He had no choice.
‘My current bank balance is 2.5 million won.’
At the time, that was more than enough to cover a month's living expenses for Joo Do-gyeom, who wasn't a big spender.
But considering what he intended to do from now on, it was nowhere near enough.
‘First, I need to obtain the Heavenly Killer.’
It was as obvious as watching a fire burn that the preparations alone would easily cost more than ten million won.
The problem was that no legitimate financial institution would lend money to a man who had neither real assets nor even a job.
Friends?
He hadn't even kept in touch with them while caring for his father.
Even if he had, few friends his age could casually lend him that much money.
So Joo Do-gyeom sought out a notorious predatory loan shark in the area.
A long scar ran beside the man's left eye.
The small-framed but densely muscled man tilted his head and asked.
“So...... you just showed up out of nowhere and asked me to lend you ten million won?”
He was Oh Jin-seok, the owner of this loan-sharking operation.
“Out of nowhere? Isn't this a place people come to borrow money in the first place?”
“Hmm.......”
Even as he hummed, his eyes quickly swept Joo Do-gyeom's body from head to toe.
Then the questions came pouring out.
“How many times a week do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you exercise?”
“I drink about once a year. I don't smoke. I haven't done any dedicated exercise yet, but I can confidently say I'm healthy thanks to working at a logistics center.”
Oh Jin-seok's eyes gleamed.
‘Even if I just strip him for parts and sell them, I would more than break even.’
The parts he meant to strip and sell were human organs and body parts.
In addition to lending money at usurious rates, he also acted as a broker in the overseas sale of the bodies of people who couldn't repay him.
So he was quite pleased to see a healthy young man like Joo Do-gyeom, but he couldn't let it show.
Instead, he crossed his legs with a dissatisfied expression and said.
“But listen, kid. You’re talking awfully casually to me, aren’t you? I obviously look older, and you are the bastard who came here to borrow money. Do you really think you can afford to be so insolent?”
“If you don't like it, I'll look somewhere else.”
Joo Do-gyeom rose from his seat without hesitation.
Oh Jin-seok immediately spoke, his expression turning urgent.
“Hey now, you should hear a man out. Sit down first.”
“Are you going to lend it to me?”
“I said I will lend it to you, so sit down, you bastard. Damn brat, talking down to me like that. Tsk.”
When Joo Do-gyeom sat back down, Oh Jin-seok bounced his crossed leg and continued.
“But ten million is a bit much. You have no family and no close friends. You even live around here, I hear? You could be mauled to death by a monster or robbed at any time. Ten million is out of the question.”
Through narrowed eyes, he tried to read Joo Do-gyeom's emotions.
But he saw nothing.
His impassive face and black eyes like glass beads held nothing but an indifference cold enough to sting.
‘Is this bastard really a logistics-center temp?’
Instead of lending him the money only to sell him off somewhere, should he try putting the man to work for him?
If he trained him well, the man might prove quite useful.
His mind was turning over the possibilities.
“Then how much can you lend me?”
Perhaps he found Oh Jin-seok's argument reasonable, because Joo Do-gyeom asked again.
Oh Jin-seok gave a slimy smile.
He licked the corner of his mouth and spread five fingers.
“Five million. What do you think? For reference, the interest is seventy percent a month. Consider it unavoidable. We are making a large investment when we do not even know whether we will get all our money back from you.”
The legal maximum interest rate was under twenty percent a year.
But seventy percent?
It was usury so vicious that the word barely did it justice, yet Joo Do-gyeom nodded without hesitation.
“Let's do that.”
Why?
Oh Jin-seok.
He and every member of his organization would be killed fifteen days later by an unidentified Hunter.
As befitted a vicious loan shark, he had earned grudges everywhere, and the case was buried because the culprit couldn't even be identified.
Or perhaps another organization had done it to claim the area's profits. Bluntly speaking, Joo Do-gyeom didn't care.
What mattered was that Oh Jin-seok was enough of a villain that Joo Do-gyeom would feel no qualms even if Oh died before the debt could be repaid.
And at that moment, an additional five million won in cash had fallen into his hands.
“You made the right decision. Later, you will be grateful you borrowed only this much. Remember that it is all thanks to me, young man. Haha—!”
Oh Jin-seok laughed.
Joo Do-gyeom laughed too.
It was that kind of day.