CHAPTER 1
Ten years.
Ten years since Orion vanished from the city that once whispered his name in awe and fear. Ten years since his blade tasted blood in the moonlight. Ten long years since he had erased an entire syndicate in a single night and walked away without a word.
Now, under a sky dimmed by drifting clouds, a single man approached the outskirts of civilization. A tall figure wrapped in a long, dark, hooded cloak. His steps were light—too light for a mortal—and his presence seemed to fold into the winds themselves. Black hair slipped from beneath his hood, swaying gently despite the still air. A sword rested calmly against his back, the sheath dark as night, the grip wrapped in cloth worn smooth by endless battles.
He did not announce his return.
He simply walked.
The silence around him was the first to react. Even the insects refused to chirp. Leaves refused to rustle. The world knew something ancient and dreadful was drawing closer.
Orion paused.
The air tasted different.
Human scent. Monster scent. Fear. Hope. All mixed together.
It had been a long time since he felt the weight of a place where mortals lived. He had spent years wandering through wilderness, slaying beasts stronger than mountains, tracking horrors that grew in the cracks of abandoned realms, and wiping out entire broods of mutated creatures born from corrupted mana wells.
Ten years of uninterrupted battles.
Ten years of silence.
Ten years of being hunted by the night—until he became the night.
Ahead, the faint outline of the city rose from the dark. Lanterns glimmered like trembling stars, scattered and weak. The walls were reinforced with fresh stone, coated with defensive talismans. Signs of desperation.
Orion exhaled softly.
So things truly had worsened.
He continued forward, his figure flickering like smoke as he crossed the final stretch of wilderness. The moment he neared the city, shadows shifted on the wall above. Guards stiffened.
Someone shouted, voice cracking, "I-it's him! The— the Silent Hunter!"
Another guard nearly dropped his spear.
Orion's presence was not openly threatening, but even from a distance they felt it—that cold, quiet pressure that settled into their bones, the instinctive sense that he was something far beyond human.
But instead of fear, awe spread among them.
For ten years, rumors had grown like wildfire.
The shadow who hunted the night.
The hunter who never spoke.
The man who left behind piles of corpses, arranged with eerie precision.
The cloaked figure who protected caravans without asking payment.
The one who walked into a nest of evolved beasts and slaughtered all of them before sunrise.
And now—he had returned.
Orion reached the gates.
They scrambled to open it.
He stepped through, ignoring their stares, ignoring the murmurs that followed him like timid echoes. The sound of the gates closing behind him was strangely final, as if marking the end of an era of absence.
He walked into the city without hesitation.
He blended with the shadows naturally, every step silent, his cloak flowing behind him like liquid darkness. Citizens parted instinctively, forming a path without being asked. Mothers pulled children closer. Hunters bowed without daring to look directly at him.
His name spread in whispers:
"The Silent Hunter…"
"He's back…"
"He survived all those years?"
"I heard he killed a calamity-class beast alone…"
"No—he killed five."
"He's not human."
"He doesn't age."
"He doesn't talk."
Orion didn't react.
People had always talked.
What mattered was why the land itself felt so tense.
He moved deeper into the city until he found a quiet spot away from the crowded market street. He stood still, letting the wind brush past him. A faint tremble pulsed beneath his foot. Mana in the air was unstable, stirred by something approaching.
A danger.
A large one.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing beneath the hood.
A monster. No—monsters.
Not one. Not ten. Not a hundred.
Thousands.
Their presence echoed like dull footsteps in the distance, rolling forward like a suffocating wave. Their combined killing intent was thick enough to scrape against the soul, even from afar.
Orion exhaled once, the faintest trace of weariness slipping through.
There was no rest, even after ten years.
He stepped forward, but a voice called out behind him.
"Orion?"
The hunter turned slightly.
An old man limped closer—Cassian, the retired hunter who once trained rookies at the Hunter Guild. He had aged more than Orion expected, hair now white, body frail. His eyes, however, were still sharp.
"You're alive…" Cassian muttered, voice trembling. "For years I wondered if the rumors were true."
Orion said nothing.
Cassian laughed weakly. "Still quiet as ever."
The old man approached slowly, stopping at a respectful distance.
"You came back at a good time," Cassian said. "Or a bad one, depending on how you see it. There's… trouble."
Orion didn't ask. He simply waited.
Cassian took a deep breath. "A horde is coming. A monster horde bigger than anything we've recorded. Some say fifty thousand. Some say eighty thousand. We don't know. They come from the far north, killing everything in their path."
A pause.
"And at the center, there's a beast strong enough to be Stage 5."
Orion's fingers brushed the hilt of his sword.
A faint tremor rippled through the city earth in that moment—something distant, but growing closer.
Cassian continued, voice tight, "We've been trying to evacuate. The guild is assembling hunters from all nations. Even stage-four elites are gathering. But…"
"But none of them will be enough," Orion said quietly.
Cassian froze.
Sometimes, after years of silence, Orion spoke only when a truth needed to be stated.
"…I see," Cassian whispered. "Then you intend to fight."
Orion didn't respond. He didn't need to. His intent drifted clearly in the air—sharp, cold, absolute.
Cassian swallowed. "Orion… that horde will kill you."
Orion continued walking, leaving the old man behind.
"Wait—!"
Orion stopped. Not turning, he spoke again, his voice calm.
"If I don't go…"
His hand rested on the sword at his back.
"…this city won't exist tomorrow."
Cassian fell silent, defeated.
As Orion walked away, the old hunter murmured something that disappeared into the wind.
"Just like ten years ago… always carrying everything alone…"
Orion didn't look back.
He moved toward the city gate once more, steps unhurried, cloak brushing softly against the stone. Hunters watched him, eyes wide as they realized where he was headed.
Outside.
Toward the horde.
Some tried to stop him with desperate questions.
"Are you alone?"
"Do you need backup?"
"Should we send a squad with you?"
Orion answered none of them.
He did not need backup.
He walked alone.
He always had.
When he passed the final guard tower, the watch captain shouted:
"Send word to the Guild—The Silent Hunter marches alone!"
The cry echoed across the wall and spread like wildfire.
He crossed the threshold and stepped once more into open ground.
Night wind brushed his cloak.
The moon hid behind clouds.
And far in the distance—he heard them.
Roars.
Snarls.
The earth shaking under countless feet.
The horde was coming.
He paused for only a moment, eyes lifting toward the moon.
Then he whispered a name that had long slept in the silence of his mind:
"Mara…"
It was not a name of a person.
It was the name of the path he walked.
The name of his true, evolving body technique.
The name of the power that whispered in his blood.
The name that would soon awaken completely.
His voice faded. His presence changed. The wind stilled, and even the moonlight hesitated before touching him.
He let his aura spread just slightly—enough to echo something ancient, something monstrous.
Hunters on the wall felt it and stumbled.
"W-what is that…?"
"His killing intent—"
"It's suffocating…"
They had never seen Orion release even a sliver of it.
And even this tiny fraction felt like standing at the edge of a collapsing world.
He stepped forward.
The cloak fluttered behind him.
The voice of his sword hummed faintly at his back.
Shadows clung to him like loyal beasts following their master.
The Silent Hunter walked to war.
The horde felt him.
Roars intensified. The ground trembled. Birds fled the forest. The sky dimmed under spiritual pressure.
He drew his sword.
A single gesture.
A single sound.
A quiet whisper of steel.
The blade reflected no light—only darkness.
And then—
He spoke the name of his sword art for the first time in ten years:
"Heaven has declared your death."
The wind froze.
"No chance of survival."
And the world trembled.
He stepped forward—
toward one hundred thousand monsters—
toward a fake Stage 5—
toward his own ascent—
toward destiny.