Far from the wrecked highway in America, in a place that felt peaceful and familiar, Sung Jinwoo was immersed in the mundane affairs of his own reality. The world had found relative peace after the Monarch catastrophe. The Gates had mostly closed, and the looming threat had retreated, largely thanks to his intervention. Now, his life was less a battle for global survival and more a quiet management of the threads of power he had accumulated.
He was sitting in his office, discreetly reviewing reports on Residual Hunter activity, or perhaps simply enjoying a rare afternoon of calm, when the disturbance struck. It wasn't a sound or a sight that alerted him first. It was a sensation. An immense, strange fluctuation in the very fabric of the planet's magical energy. Like a stone thrown into a perfectly still pond—but this stone was the size of a mountain, and the pond was its world.
Jinwoo bolted to his feet, the calm of a moment before shattered. He extended his perception, not with his eyes, but with the innate sensitivity he'd developed as a Shadow Monarch, capable of sensing undercurrents of power kilometers away. What he sensed now wasn't kilometers away, but continents away, on the other side of the ocean. And it was colossal.
It was a burst of energy that defied usual classification. It didn't resemble the energy of magical beasts, or that of a normal portal, or even that of other National-Level Hunters he knew (and whose energy signatures he could instantly identify). It was... fundamental. Pure and manipulated at a level he'd rarely encountered.
And then, beneath the sheer magnitude of the disturbance, Jinwoo recognized a signature. An energy he'd felt before, in a place he could barely remember, a nebulous transitional space where time and reality had blurred. It was the energy signature of the eccentric masked man, the one who called himself "Shadow," whom he'd seen for a brief, intense moment in the Nexus.
Jinwoo frowned. That energy, now anchored in his own reality, was the source of the spike that was driving sensors across the planet crazy. But the disturbance wasn't just an arrival; there seemed to be a conflict. He could feel the power signatures of other Hunters, individuals he knew to be among the strongest in America, colliding with the source of the anomaly. And alarmingly, those power signatures... were disappearing. Not in death, but in a strange, abrupt neutralization.
Reports began to trickle in, first in encrypted codes to their private channels, then as breaking news on screens. The US government was in a panic. Its elite Hunters, deployed to contain a massive energy anomaly in an uninhabited area, had been... disabled. No explanation, no sign of intense fighting, just a sudden blackout. Drone footage showed destruction in the area, yes, but not the kind of devastation they would expect from a clash between National-Level powers; it was more as if the combatants had collapsed after causing collateral damage with their own attacks.
Jinwoo connected the dots. The unique energy signature. The swift, non-lethal neutralization of elite fighters. The magnitude of the event. It wasn't a monster. It wasn't a runaway portal. It was the arrival of someone, or something, with power far surpassing anything known in his world. And that someone... had the same energy as the man from the Nexus.
The Nexus. A place that now felt distant and dreamlike, where he had glimpsed a scale of existence that exceeded his previous understanding. There was a purpose behind his presence there, he knew. And now, that strange presence, that power signature similar to his own in its profound origin but different in its manifestation, had appeared in his world.
This wasn't something the mundane authorities could handle. It wasn't a Guild, it wasn't an invading Monarch. It was something... from somewhere else. Something he, with his own Void-derived power, with his own atypical origin, was perhaps the only one capable of understanding or confronting.
The scale of the controlled chaos in the United States, the swift and subtle neutralization of that nation's strongest Hunters, was an unmistakable sign. Whoever it was, they had a purpose. And that purpose, or the disruption it was causing, was too great to ignore.
Jinwoo looked out the window, up at a blue sky that suddenly felt smaller and more vulnerable. He remembered the feeling of that nebulous Nexus space, the strange and powerful presence he had felt there, and Shadow's unique energy. Now, that energy was here.
He didn't hesitate. Curiosity, the sense of duty that had driven him to protect his world, and the unsettling familiarity of the energy spurred him to action. He wouldn't send others. This was personal. This required his direct attention.
She walked to her door, her shadow stretching around her, ready.
"Beru," he called, his voice low but filled with quiet authority. "Prepare a portal. To the United States. Locate the source of that energy disturbance."
His faithful shadow emerged, his head bowing in acknowledgment. Jinwoo felt the power of his army latent, ready to respond.
The calm was over. The echo of the cosmic conflict, the strange call from the Abyss, had reached the Shadow Monarch. And Jinwoo was heading into the chaos to find the man behind it.
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