The world had ended thirty years ago, but no one had told the rats.
Lee Hyeon watched one scuttle across the cracked concrete floor of the bunkhouse, its matted fur glistening under the flickering glow of a dying neon sign. Outside, the perpetual twilight of post-Riftfall Seoul cast long shadows across the ruins, painting everything in shades of gunmetal gray and rust. He flexed his fingers, feeling the familiar ache in his knuckles from another day of hauling scavenged steel for the Crimson Maw. The calluses on his palms had calluses now, each one a testament to five years of surviving in a world that had stopped caring whether he lived or died.
He was twenty years old, though he felt twice that. The last time he'd seen his reflection in a broken storefront window, a stranger had stared back—hollow cheeks, eyes too dark for someone so young, a scar running from his left temple to the corner of his mouth like a second smile. A souvenir from the day the Crimson Maw had "recruited" him.
*Recruited.*
The word tasted like bile.
They'd come to the orphanage when he was fifteen, all polished armor and false smiles. "We're rebuilding Korea," they'd said. "Every hand matters." What they'd meant was: *We need bodies to throw at the dungeons until the real Hunters arrive.*
A shout from the yard snapped him back to the present.
"Move your ass, Hyeon! We roll in five!"
Kim Ji-hoon, the squad leader, stood silhouetted in the doorway, his Crimson Maw insignia gleaming even in the dim light. The man had a face like a hatchet and a personality to match.
Lee Hyeon stood slowly, his muscles protesting. He'd spent the last twelve hours hauling debris from a collapsed subway tunnel, and every inch of him ached. But complaining meant a beating. Or worse—being assigned to tunnel duty without a gas mask again.
He'd seen what happened to the ones who breathed in too much of the Rift-tainted air down there. Their lungs turned black first. Then their eyes. Then they started *screaming* at things no one else could see.
The bunkhouse emptied as the laborers filed out into the yard. The air smelled like ozone and rotting meat—the signature perfume of post-apocalyptic Seoul. Somewhere in the distance, the rhythmic *thump* of artillery fire echoed through the ruins. The Silver Fang Guild was pushing east again.
"Listen up, maggots!" Ji-hoon barked. "We got a C-rank sweep in the Rustfang Lair. Standard procedure—you clear the trash mobs, we handle the boss. Any of you useless fucks slow us down, you get left behind. Understood?"
A chorus of muttered affirmations. No one met Ji-hoon's eyes.
Lee Hyeon adjusted the straps of his makeshift armor—a patchwork of scavenged riot gear and car plating. It wouldn't stop a dungeon beast's claws, but it made him feel slightly less like a walking meal.
The truck ride to the dungeon was silent save for the rattling of gear and the occasional cough. No one spoke. No one ever did. You learned quickly in the Crimson Maw that friendships were liabilities. The last person Lee Hyeon had let himself care about—a girl named Min-ji with a laugh like wind chimes—had disappeared on a D-rank run six months ago. They'd found her boot. Just the boot.
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The Rustfang Lair loomed ahead, its entrance a yawning maw of shattered concrete and twisted rebar. The air here was thicker, heavier, like breathing through wet wool.
"Move out!"
The descent into darkness was always the worst part. The way the temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. The way sounds became muffled, like the dungeon itself was swallowing them. The way your skin prickled with the unnatural energy that pulsed through every Rift-born structure.
Lee Hyeon's boots splashed through something thick and dark. He didn't look down.
The first hour passed in a blur of tension and half-seen movement in the shadows. The laborers moved in a tight formation, their flickering lanterns casting grotesque shadows on the tunnel walls. Every so often, a skittering sound would freeze them in place until someone worked up the courage to keep moving.
Then the screaming started.
It came from up ahead—a wet, gurgling sound that cut off abruptly. The line of laborers froze.
"Contact!" someone hissed.
The Gorefang Hyenas came at them in a wave of matted fur and yellowed fangs. Lee Hyeon barely had time to raise his crowbar before the first one was on him. The impact drove the air from his lungs as claws raked across his chest plate. He swung blindly, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone as the makeshift weapon connected.
Chaos erupted around him. Someone was sobbing. Someone else was shouting for help. A lantern shattered, plunging part of the tunnel into darkness.
Then—a horn blast. The real Hunters had arrived.
Lee Hyeon caught a glimpse of gleaming armor and enchanted blades before the Crimson Maw elites pushed past the laborers like they were furniture. The hyenas fell quickly under their assault, but not before taking three more laborers with them.
"Fall back to the secondary chamber!" Ji-hoon ordered. "Boss is waking up!"
They ran.
Lee Hyeon's lungs burned as he sprinted through the twisting tunnels. Behind them, something massive stirred—the deep, resonant growl of a creature that should not exist. The walls trembled. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Then the ground gave way beneath him.
The fall seemed to last forever. When he finally hit bottom, the impact drove the breath from his body. Something in his leg snapped with a sound like green wood breaking.
Darkness.
Silence.
Pain.
When his vision cleared, he realized two things: First, he was alone. Second, the tunnel collapse had sealed him in a side chamber with what remained of Park Dae-ho.
Or rather, what remained of Park Dae-ho's *upper half.*
The man's glassy eyes stared at nothing. His mouth was frozen in a silent scream. The lower portion of his body was...gone. Chewed away.
Lee Hyeon vomited.
Then he heard it.
The scratching.
Slow. Deliberate.
Coming from the other side of the rubble pile.
Something was digging its way in.
He tried to stand, but his broken leg screamed in protest. The scratching grew louder. Pieces of debris shifted. A single, blood-matted claw emerged through a gap in the rubble.
Then another.
Lee Hyeon's fingers closed around a jagged piece of rebar. It wasn't much, but it was something.
The creature pushed through the debris with a sound like tearing meat.
It was bigger than the others. Older. Its fur was patchy, revealing stretches of mottled gray skin beneath. One eye was milky white, blinded in some long-ago battle. The other was the color of fresh blood.
The Alpha.
It sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. Then those terrible eyes locked onto Lee Hyeon.
There was intelligence there. Not human, but not animal either. Something worse.
It lunged.
Lee Hyeon swung the rebar with all his strength. The Alpha twisted in midair, avoiding the blow with unnatural grace. Claws raked across his chest, parting flesh like wet paper.
He fell back, gasping. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.
The Alpha circled, savoring the moment.
This was how it ended. Not in battle. Not as a hero. But alone in the dark, forgotten by the world, reduced to nothing more than meat for a monster.
The Alpha tensed for the killing blow.
Then—
A voice.
Not from the tunnel.
From *inside his head.*
**"You wish to live?"**
The Alpha froze. Its remaining eye widened in something like fear.
Lee Hyeon tried to speak, but only blood came out.
The voice came again, ancient and terrible:
**"Then take its soul."**
The world went black.
Then red.
Then—
Something *changed.*
When Lee Hyeon opened his eyes again, the Alpha was dead at his feet.
And his hands...
His hands were *wrong.*
Shadows coiled around his fingers like living smoke. In his chest, where his heart should be, something *else* now beat.
Something dark.
Something hungry.
Something that whispered:
*"More."*
**Chapter 1 End**