The sun hung high, infusing the air with warm heat as the streets of Silver Town sang the chorus of morning—endless car horns blaring while children raced toward school.
It was another normal day… to live an abnormal life.
Riven let out a quiet groan as he shifted on his worn-out bed, eyes fluttering open to meet the morning rays. He ignored them at first—until it hit him.
"Classes!" he blurted, springing up with messy hair and a pale face.
As if mocking him, the clock was the first thing he saw, hanging crookedly on the wall of his tiny one-room government apartment.
"Fuck—it's 8:30," he rasped, immediately running to the wall where his timetable was glued.
"Haaa…" he let out a deep breath, dropping his tension. "It's Monday. All we have is history and politics. Guess I'll skip class. After all, Mr. Logan never teaches anything besides the Veil and its monsters anyway."
He paused, then smirked, raising his hand like a conductor as he imitated his history lecturer with a flat, nasally voice.
'When Rifts first tore through reality a hundred years ago, our ancestors thought it was the Rapture… only to discover it was a world of monsters bleeding into ours…'
Riven chuckled softly, adjusting imaginary glasses just as his professor always did in class.
"Yeah, that man really sucks," he muttered, striding to another corner of the room where a small square table stood. On it rested a large framed picture, flanked by two others.
His face grew serious as he knelt before the center frame—his mother, a dark-haired woman with kind eyes. To the right, a photo of his baby sister. To the left, his father—the one man he had yet to beat in video games.
But guess what? A rift had snatched them away two years ago.
It had started as a happy day—him at school, his mother in the labor room. The very day his sister entered this world.
Smiling faces. Discharge from the hospital. A bus ride home.
And then—
A red veil tore open like a mythic portal before their bus, dragging it past Earth into the realm of monsters.
That was all the news and hunters ever said. They barely had the resources to hold back the monsters already trespassing onto Earth, let alone chase after a bus that had driven straight into hell.
"May your souls rest in peace," Riven murmured, offering his last prayer before flopping back onto his bed and grabbing his Android phone.
"Now… let's grind that Call of Duty account," he smirked, switching on his mobile data.
The first notification froze him.
"The Veil again…?" he rasped. Normally, someone like him wouldn't care about news alerts. But when it came to the Veil, he always looked. His grudge burned too deeply, and the hope that his parents were still alive was the only thing that kept him breathing.
He tapped the notification and read:
Breaking News: A major Red Veil has appeared in the Newlife Country. All humans worldwide are advised to cancel any business there until hunters regain control of the situation.
"What? That's… a level 3 precaution rule." His grip tightened. "How many monsters came out of that thing?"
Precaution commands were ranked by threat. For an entire country to be locked down, the weight of disaster was enormous. In other words, it was the Rapture for Newlife. The only way to bring it under control would be with at least five groups of S-, A-, and B-ranked hunters.
"Someone really needs to put an end to this bullshit… Monster holes just opening anywhere and grotesque things pouring out."
He sighed. "Man… I didn't sign up for any of this. If I'd known, I wouldn't have come out of Mum's womb into such a cruel world."
Anger bubbled under his skin every time he thought about the Veils—especially the red ones. They weren't even the deadliest, but to him, they were the worst. Worse than Mr. Logan's droning voice in class.
"Guess I'll just pour this anger into some Call of Duty bullets," he smirked, opening the app and rotating his phone sideways.
That's when it came—
An electrical buzzing sound cutting through the air, accompanied by a sudden shift of wind inside his room.
At first, Riven thought it was background noise from outside. But then he turned—and froze.
A ring-sized hole had opened in the middle of the air, rippling wider by the second.
"Holy crap!" he yelped, leaping off his bed and pressing his back against the far wall.
There was nowhere to run. The rift was opening right in front of his only door.
"C'mon, I didn't mean to say anything that would hurt you," he muttered, sweat racing down his temple. His legs shook like mopsticks struggling to carry the weight of a duplex.
"Someone… please…" His voice cracked, reduced to rat-like squeaks.
The Veil kept widening, its surface swirling gray. Gray veils usually birthed the lowest-ranked monsters—F and E class.
But no monsters emerged. Only a cold wind seeped through, an abnormal circumstance.
"There must be a lucky tag on my head today," he whispered after long minutes of silence, finding his voice again.
It wasn't that scary anymore. Just a hole in reality. He could probably walk out and report this to the nearest hunter station. But—
A deeper shiver ran through him.
What if this is my gateway to saving Mum, Dad… and Lora?
He whispered her name. His sister had never been named before she was exiled to the Veil, so he had given her one—back in those days when he drowned in tears every night.
Now, an opportunity stood before him. To answer his questions. To chase his blood.
At eighteen, he wasn't stupid enough to walk into a lion's den. But the bond of family pushed him.
"Gosh…" he whispered, not realizing when his feet had tiptoed closer, as if drawn by invisible strings.
"It's either this veil gives back what it took from me… or it takes me too."
Blinded by emotion, his foot stepped into the rift. Terror screamed through his mind, urging him to turn back—but it was too late.
The veil dragged him in.
Galaxies blazed past in seconds, colors spilling through the black expanse. Unnatural winds tore at his being. A buzzing filled his skull—then an emerald glow appeared before his eyes. A panel, shimmering, refusing to vanish no matter how violently he was twisted and turned.
[System inscribed into host successfully]
[Emotion Looting System Online]
Name: Riven Duke
Race: Human
Vitality: 2/100
Titles: None
Ability: Emotion Looting
Accessories: None
Survival Points: None
Task: [Click Here]
Shop: [Click Here]
His vision blurred. The words burned themselves into his mind. Before he could even question what was happening, he tumbled out the far end of the veil, headfirst into unknown soil.
Darkness claimed him.
Now, he lay unconscious in the middle of Chaos's domain.
Family bonds had pushed him through the veil.
But would those same bonds keep him alive?