Day 21 — Six Hours Before the Second Wave
The city of Seoul no longer slept.
Every district burned with light and movement as survivors prepared for the Second Wave—the event that would decide which guilds endured, and which vanished into memory.
Guild banners fluttered between the cracked buildings. Fires glowed in iron barrels. The sound of hammering, drilling, and shouting filled the air.
For once, humanity wasn't running.They were ready to fight.
POV: Jinwoo Han — Ardent Flame Guild
Jinwoo stood atop the half-collapsed Seoul Tower, wind cutting against his coat. From this height, he could see the city divided into zones of light and darkness.
Below, hundreds of survivors worked in formation—building barricades, forging weapons, setting traps near the newly formed dungeon rifts.
He tightened his gloves and checked his stats again.
[Name: Jinwoo Han]
[Level: 42]
[Class: Flame Warden]
[Title: Seoul's Beacon]
[Skill Tree: Fire Manipulation – Lv.8 / Inferno Shell – Lv.3 / Purifying Flame – Lv.2]
[Status: Stable]
Behind him, his deputy approached—a tall woman with cropped hair and soot on her cheeks.
"Captain," she said, "the scouts confirmed what you asked. The monsters are evolving. Stronger shells, faster regeneration. Even mid-tier magic can't burn through them anymore."
He exhaled sharply. "Then we don't use mid-tier. We use everything."
The woman hesitated. "If we exhaust ourselves before the second wave even starts—"
"Then we die slower," he said.
She fell silent.
Across the River — Horizon Union Research Camp
Yuna Havel hadn't slept in two days.Her lab—once a university lecture hall—was now packed with System monitors, paper maps, and handwritten calculations.
Each time she blinked, the same phrase echoed across her data feeds:
[System Reconfiguration Pending…]
[Safe Zone Network: Under Review.]
[Do not panic.]
She scowled at the screen. "Under review? What kind of system reconfigures itself hours before an extinction event?"
Her assistant shrugged helplessly. "Maybe it's an update?"
"Updates don't delete coordinates," she snapped, tapping furiously. Every registered Safe Zone across Seoul flickered red—offline, inactive, void.
Her hands trembled. "No, no, no…"
[Warning: Safe Zone Stability Failing.][Countdown: 06:00:00]
Yuna's breath hitched. "It's resetting the rules."
District 13 — Evelyn Park's Sanctuary
In her greenhouse dome, Evelyn's plants began to shiver.
The glow of life energy dimmed, wilting as if suffocating. Her system chimed urgently.
[Warning: System-Wide Instability Detected.]
[Safe Zone Protocols Resetting.]
[Your Sanctuary will expire in 05:58:31.]
Evelyn frowned, setting down her watering can. "Expire? What are you doing now?"
She accessed her panel. The information was fragmented—lines of corrupted text, static, and code symbols she didn't understand.
[New Condition Applied: Balance of Survival]
[Objective: Equalize Protection Across Populace]
[Previous Safe Zones: Invalidated.]
[New Safe Zones: Randomly Distributed.]
[Capacity Limit: 20 Individuals Per Zone.]
Evelyn starred. "You're… moving them?"
And then, as if the world obeyed the command, her barrier—her home, her garden, her months of safety—flickered once and vanished.
The light shattered into dust. The air grew cold.Her plants shriveled instantly.
[Sanctuary of Life – Deactivated.]
She stood in the middle of her barren yard, now nothing but dead soil. Her system hummed faintly.
[New Safe Zone Detected: 0.8 km northeast – "SunMart Gas Station"]
Evelyn sighed. "A gas station. Of course."
The Collapse
Across Seoul, chaos erupted.
Entire shelters blinked out of existence—government bunkers, guild fortresses, safehouses painstakingly built over weeks—gone in a flash of light.
Screams filled the air as monsters began to move again, sensing the sudden absence of protection.
Only the faint glow of convenience stores and gas stations now pulsed faintly in the darkness—each one surrounded by a transparent barrier humming with System energy.
[Safe Zone Established: Gas Station Seoul-13]
[Capacity: 20/20]
[Entry Locked]
People fought to enter. Families were torn apart at the doors. Guilds enforced ration lists at gunpoint.
Jinwoo arrived at one of the barriers too late—his men already full inside.
"Captain!" they shouted from behind the glass. "We can't open it! It's locked!"
He pressed his palm against the invisible wall, fire flickering weakly across it.
The system chimed.
[Access Denied. Capacity Full.]
He cursed under his breath. "Damn it, I can't lead from outside."
Then a message appeared in faint orange letters.
[Special Access: Override Available for Rank 10 and Above.]
His eyes widened. "Rank 10…?"
He opened his status window. The global ranking still showed static.
But as the interference cleared for a single second, a new list appeared:
[Global Rank #10 – Jinwoo Han | Flame Warden | Power Rating: A+]
[Rank #1 – ??? | Life Artisan | Power Rating: SSS+]
And beneath it—
[All Safe Zone Coordinates Approved by Rank #1 Entity.]
His blood ran cold. She was still in control.
Meanwhile — Yuna Havel
Her camp dissolved in light, people screaming as their shelter's barrier vanished. The Horizon Union scientists ran, scattering toward the nearest glow—a convenience store a block away.
They barely made it.
Inside, twenty survivors huddled between aisles of instant ramen and bottled water, breathing heavily, staring at the invisible dome outside.
Yuna pressed her hand against the glass door.Outside, she could see monsters gathering, waiting.
Her system beeped.
[Message Received from Entity: E.P.]
Her heart jumped. "Wait—she's contacting me?"
The message unfolded on the screen:
[The System is resetting the rules.The shelters were never meant to be permanent.Protect the people near you. Survive the night.I'll restore what I can—if I'm not too late.]
Yuna's hands trembled. She typed quickly.
[Who are you really?]
No reply. Only a faint pulse of light at the bottom of the message log, like a heartbeat fading away.
District 13 — Abandoned Streets
Evelyn stood alone in the ruins, wind tugging at her cloak. The city was collapsing around her again—screams, barriers flickering, monsters prowling.
Her system flared once more.
[Time Until Second Wave: 03:00:00]
[Quest Updated: "Balance of Survival"]
[Objective: Recreate Sanctuary Under New Rules.]
[Bonus Objective: Save 20 Individuals.]
She exhaled slowly. "So that's how it is."
Pulling her hood up, she started toward the distant flicker of a gas station.
For the first time since the world fell, she wasn't just protecting others from afar.She was walking into the chaos herself.
Epilogue Scene
The night swallowed the city again.A thousand convenience stores glowed like stars across Seoul—tiny shelters in a storm of monsters.
And from somewhere beyond the city, a voice—soft, digital, almost human—echoed through every awakened person's system.
[The Second Wave Begins.]
[May the strong protect the weak,
and may the hidden remember their purpose.]