The day after the A.S. encounter became a relentless, brutal cycle. Shi-Yoon's Aether-Watch never stopped screaming.
He didn't need to check the missions log to know the pattern: Grade A incursions—creatures powerful enough to cause city-wide blackouts—were now arriving every three hours. Before the Seo-Jun anomaly, he'd handle one or two such threats a week. Now, he was fighting a localized, personal war.
He stood on the ledge of a collapsed skyscraper in the Financial District, wiping the ichor of a freshly severed Grade A Revenant from the obsidian shaft of his Reaper's Blade. The scythe was beautiful and terrifying, absorbing the defeated soul energy, yet Shi-Yoon felt none of his usual satisfaction.
His frustration was a physical, bitter heat in his chest, fueled by one maddening fact: every single high-level enemy he faced—the Revenant, the Void-Wraith he fought near the docks, the multi-limbed Shifter he tracked through the subway tunnels—was a blind spot.
He brought his hand up to the Watch, which was already projecting his tactical screen. The Soul-Sight was worthless against them. No life timer. No dimensional weakness. He was fighting blind, relying only on eleven years of refined combat instinct and raw power.
"Dispatch, confirm anomaly correlation," he demanded into the mic hidden in his collar, his voice a low, furious growl.
The cold, automated response was instantaneous. "Reaper-Designate Shi-Yoon. Your deployment rate has increased 450% above median. All targets share an untraceable fatalistic signature."
"They have no timer," Shi-Yoon corrected sharply. "And I know why."
He knew the relentless incursions weren't random. The entities were either fleeing an escalating chaos in their own dimensions, or they were being specifically drawn to this region. And the only thing unique to this region was the Resonance emanating from Seo-Jun.
He was a magnet. And by placing the Reaper's Mark on him years ago, Shi-Yoon had unknowingly tied himself to the strongest, most terrifying bait in the city.
He sheathed the Reaper's Blade, letting it revert to the innocuous pendant, and walked toward the new emergency portal shimmering into existence twenty blocks away.
As he moved, he subtly toggled his Aether-Watch to Designate: T-F-412. Seo-Jun was at a local library, trying to study. Normal life, oblivious to the fact that Shi-Yoon was cleaning up a battlefield of horrors being drawn directly to him.
I save you once, and now I have to save the world for you every day, Shi-Yoon thought, his indifference cracking under the weight of his unintended responsibility. I am your shield, your watchman, and your goddamned errand boy, all because I can't see your fate.
The next incursion was already underway—a rare Grade A.S. Alpha-Unit manifesting in a park near the library. The Aether-Watch on his wrist wasn't signaling the monster. It was screaming the warning for Seo-Jun.
Shi-Yoon didn't activate the portal. He pushed his body to its limit, launching himself across the rooftops toward the park, the anger finally boiling over into pure, devastating speed. He wasn't just going to contain the threat; he was going to shatter it until it gave up the secret of the blind spot.
He would not be defeated by a mystery, and he would not let his own mistake cost the boy his life.
The park was a scene of blossoming dimensional horror. The A.S. Alpha-Unit—a writhing mass of shadow and serrated metal—was drawing power from the very life force of the trees, turning them into skeletal husks. Its presence was a massive vacuum, and Shi-Yoon's Soul-Sight once again registered nothing but an impenetrable void where its destiny should lie.
He landed hard on the rooftop of a nearby maintenance shed, the impact cracking the concrete beneath his feet. The Aether-Watch screamed its relentless, personalized alarm, the frequency peaking as the Alpha-Unit turned its attention toward the school visible just beyond the treeline.
It knows where the Resonance is, Shi-Yoon realized, the thought burning through his exhaustion. It's not just drawn here; it's hunting.
The frustration coiled into a desperate rage. He couldn't risk the urban-combat illusion; he let the Reaper's Blade fully unleash. The obsidian pendant exploded into the seven-foot scythe, casting a blue-white, cosmic glow that momentarily suppressed the shadow creature's aura.
"You're not getting closer," Shi-Yoon snarled, vaulting off the shed and closing the distance in a single, blurring dash.
He attacked with precision honed over a thousand unseen battles, aiming to exploit structural weaknesses he usually confirmed with his Soul-Sight. Now, he was guessing. He drove the tip of the blade deep into the creature's crystalline outer shell, but instead of the satisfying disintegration, the blade scraped against an unexpected barrier. The Alpha-Unit didn't just block the attack; it absorbed the kinetic force, stabilizing its form.
"Damn it!" Shi-Yoon wrenched the scythe free, his teeth gritted. The lack of information was a heavier opponent than the monster itself. Every move was a fifty-fifty chance.
Suddenly, the air split with two fresh, smaller tears.
Two new incursions—Grade B Scraps—slid out of the fresh dimensional rifts, flanking the Alpha-Unit. They were lesser foes, but their timing was perfect, designed to overwhelm.
Shi-Yoon had to pivot instantly, using the scythe to sweep a massive defensive arc that beheaded both Scraps simultaneously. He felt the minute rush of their energy drain into the Reaper's Blade, but the momentary distraction was costly.
The Alpha-Unit struck.
A razor-sharp tendril of shadow lashed out, catching Shi-Yoon on his left side. The blow sent him skidding across the dirt, the rough impact tearing his coat and leaving a jagged, stinging gash on his ribs. He fought through the pain, pushing himself up on one knee, the scythe held ready.
The Aether-Watch, sensing his injury, projected a small, secondary window with basic triage data. His vitals were stable, but the warning beneath the text was the real slap in the face: "Dimensional Energy Spike. Proximity to T-F-412 Exceeded Critical Threshold."
The pain wasn't just the wound; it was the realization that the more power he exerted, the more the Resonance spiked, drawing even more entities toward Seo-Jun. His very effort to protect the boy was acting as a lure.
"You want the energy? Take it!"
With a guttural roar of pure, desperate frustration, Shi-Yoon released an unmeasured blast of the concentrated dimensional power he usually reserved for instant execution. A focused wave of cosmic force surged from the Reaper's Blade, engulfing the Alpha-Unit. The creature shrieked, the crystalline shell finally cracking, its form destabilizing into a cloud of ash.
It was a catastrophic waste of energy, but the park was silent. He had won.
Shi-Yoon stood panting, leaning heavily on the scythe, his eyes fixed on the school. The Aether-Watch returned to normal time. The alarm was silenced. The immediate threat was gone.
But he knew it was futile. As he watched, already seeing the distant, faint shimmer of a new, nascent rift forming over the northern business district, he realized the pattern wasn't over. The monsters would keep coming until the anomaly—Seo-Jun—was either destroyed or understood. And until then, the blind spot would keep him trapped in this endless, frustrating cycle of war.