Giacomo Ferrari walked calmly through the twisting paths of the forest, his dark eyes scanning the unnatural distortion in the air. Sofia Conti followed closely behind him, her boots crunching softly against the dry leaves."A normal dungeon contains a stationary core that remains heavily guarded by a powerful boss monster," Giacomo explained with a calm, steady voice.Sofia listened intently, her face reflecting her deep focus as she tried to absorb every piece of information. She felt a growing sense of anxiety about their current environment."If a hunter manages to destroy that central core, the entire dungeon structure collapses and dies instantly," Giacomo added with a firm, educational tone."How exactly does an erosive dungeon differ from the standard gates we usually clear," Sofia asked with a curious, slightly worried expression.Giacomo stopped for a brief moment, his gaze locking onto a patch of grass that was slowly turning a sickly shade of grey. He felt the heavy pressu

The silence after Jung-woo's words stretched too long. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The forest around them, half torn apart by Ji Yeon-hwa's shadows, seemed to hold its breath along with them. Ah-yeon's face had gone pale. She looked at Jung-woo like she was hoping he would take it back. "There's no way to save her?" she asked. Her voice cracked in the middle of the sentence. "None that I know of," Jung-woo said. His tone stayed flat, but his eyes carried the weight of having said this once before, in another world, about another person. "Not here. Not in the other world either." Ah-yeon's hands curled into fists at her sides. She wanted to argue. She wanted to demand he was wrong. But she had never once caught Jung-woo lying to her, and some small, furious part of her hated him for that consistency right now. "You're sure," she said again, quieter this time. "I'm sure," he said. "The core fused with her down to the cell. That black stone on her forehead isn't decoration, Ah-yeon

The voice came from behind him, rough and out of breath, but steady in a way that only came from someone used to walking away from disasters. "You planning to strip her clothes off while she's unconscious, or is there a reason you're just standing there." Jung-woo turned so fast he nearly lost his footing on the loose rubble. Baek Hojun stood a few feet away, bruised down one side of his face, his shirt torn at the shoulder, but very much alive and very much smirking despite everything. "I wasn't going to—" Jung-woo stopped himself and exhaled. "You're alive." "Don't sound so disappointed." Hojun limped closer, glancing past him toward the two women on the ground. His humor faded the second his eyes landed on the child curled in Ah-yeon's arms. "Who is that." "Ji Yeon-hwa," Jung-woo said. Hojun stared at him like he expected a punchline. When none came, his gaze snapped back to the small sleeping figure, taking in the white hair, the darkened patches of skin, the face that look

Upstream's headquarters lit up the moment word reached the front desk that an S-rank Hunter had arrived unannounced. By the time Baek Hojun walked through the main doors, half the night staff had already gathered in the lobby, and Director Jo Chang-woo was practically sprinting down the hallway to greet him. "Hojun-nim," Jo Chang-woo said, breathless, straightening his jacket as he approached. "This is an honor, but I wasn't informed of any scheduled visit. Is something—" He stopped mid sentence. His eyes had landed on the sofa near the reception area, where Jung-woo had gently set down a small, sleeping figure wrapped in a spare jacket. White hair. Darkened patches of skin along her arms. A face that couldn't have been older than thirteen. "Who is that," Jo Chang-woo asked slowly, his professional smile faltering. "Ji Yeon-hwa," Hojun said. The words landed like a slap. Jo Chang-woo's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again with nothing coming out. He looked at the sleeping

The room deep inside Javelin Guild had no windows and no warmth. Kang Gi-hun knelt on the cold floor, his shoulders trembling, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt despite the chill in the air. Across from him stood a pale faced man in a plain black coat, hands folded behind his back, watching Kang Gi-hun the way someone watches an insect they haven't decided whether to crush yet. On paper, Kang Gi-hun was the strongest Hunter in the entire Guild, its official representative, the face the Association dealt with whenever business needed handling. In this room, none of that meant anything. He knelt like a dog waiting to be told whether it had done well or whether it was about to be beaten. "Explain it to me again," the pale man said, his voice quiet and even. "How exactly did Baek Hojun stop her after she absorbed the Heart." "Unique," Kang Gi-hun stammered, not lifting his eyes off the floor. "Unique Management got involved. Shin Ah-yeon fought alongside him. The two of them