The medical bay in Underground Sanctuary Gamma-7 smell wasn't really comforting. Lee Min-ah held her husband's hand, trying to stay strong, as Dr. Choi delivered news they both dreaded.
"I'm sorry," the doctor said softly, his enhanced eyes glowing faintly as he examined the scans. "Your baby has no heartbeat. This... Vitalis Displacement Syndrome is caused by all the dimensional energy in the air. It's too much for developing life."
Min-ah's fingers tightened around her husband Kim Jae-sung's. Both were Silver-rank hunters—strong enough to punch through steel and fast enough to dodge bullets—but none of that mattered here, facing this silent loss.
"How long?" she whispered.
"Your body will naturally dissolve the fetal tissue within 48 hours," Dr. Choi said, voice gentle but final. "I'm so sorry."
Around them, the bunker thrummed with generators, children crying somewhere far off, and distant artillery fire from the war raging above.
Jae-sung pressed his forehead against Min-ah's. "I'll make it up to you. When this is over, I'll…"
BOOM.
The bunker shook violently. Red emergency lights flashed.
"All Silver-rank hunters and above report to Defense Station Alpha now! Overlord-class breach detected in Sector 7!" blared the alarm.
Week four of the cosmic game had unleashed horrors beyond imagination.
The tears in reality had become gaping wounds, wide enough to swallow entire city blocks. From them emerged monsters far larger and deadlier than the first scouting creatures—Overlord-class nightmares capable of flattening entire cities with a single step.
Humanity had fled underground, scrambling into bunkers drilled deep into the earth's bones. The surface was now lost—claimed by monsters. Even hunters, humanity's apex predators, could only mount desperate hit-and-run tactics.
Jae-sung kissed Min-ah's forehead. "I have to go."
"I know," she whispered, forcing a smile. "Just… come back."
He grabbed his plasma rifle, powered by his enhanced energy, and the blade forged from a dead Titan monster's core. He was fast and strong, but unsure if that would be enough.
They didn't notice a strange shimmer glide silently through the medical bay—a wisp born from cosmic energies and bound by tragic life lost. It settled like a seed inside Min-ah's womb.
Inside a warm, dark space, something stirred.
"Where… am I?"
Yoo Seung-yoon's awareness flickered like a distant light returning.
Broken memories surfaced—the alley, the bullets, cold spreading in his chest, dreams cut short.
Then long nothing.
Now, heartbeat rhythms filled his consciousness.
Am I alive?
He was in a womb. How was that possible? He'd died. Felt pain, felt cheated.
Yet here he was, thinking clearly, trapped in a fragile infant body.
Tiny limbs twitched weakly. He tried making a sound—only a gurgle escaped the fluid.
What's happening to me?
A voice answered inside his mind—calm, precise, machine-like.
Individual: Yoo Seung-yoon.
Status: Soul reincarnation success.
Current form: 7.2 months fetus.
'Who are you?' he asked.
'A system? '
I am your innate skill: Akasha Archive. Not a system or outside force. I am part of you, born from your unique reincarnation.
He scoffed mentally, Innate skill? Like a game ability?
Comparison accepted. Your soul scattered by cosmic Order and Chaos. This rebirth granted you power beyond human limits.
Images flooded his mind—death, cosmic chess, ripples dragging him back.
'What powers?'
The world shook violently.
Host mother under extreme stress. Prepare for combat.
'Combat? But I'm a baby!'
Your consciousness is adult, enhanced by cosmic energies. You're already stronger than a normal infant by 847%.
Screams echoed through the watery barrier.
Min-ah pressed against a wall as chaos tore through Sanctuary Gamma-7.
The Overlord monster punched through six levels of steel and concrete, carving a path to the deepest bunkers.
"Emergency shelters, now!" blared the alarm. "Multiple breaches detected. This is not a drill."
Hunters fought fiercely above, plasma fire streaking, bodies broken, creatures feeding.
Min-ah ran—seven months pregnant, mourning a lost life and fearing for her own.
Panicked civilians flooded emergency corridors, illuminated in harsh red light.
Hunters urged her forward. "This way, ma'am! Shelter this way!"
Before she could respond, a hunter's head vanished—a silent erasure. His body staggered, then collapsed.
Min-ah's enhanced mind screamed as she saw the monster—a subway car-sized spider shadow, limbs bending reality.
Hunters fired hopelessly. Bullets passed through it like smoke.
It turned.
Eyes or voids stared deep into her soul.
'I'm going to die.
My baby is already gone. Now… it's me.'
It lunged.