[The Third Wave — Hour 2]
The world was burning.
Not in fire — but in code.The sky itself glitched, like reality was being reloaded every few seconds. Pieces of clouds repeated themselves in unnatural loops. The horizon trembled, distorting like broken glass.
Min Jae's guild —
Haven's remaining 140 survivors —
held their line along what used to be Gangnam Avenue.Now it was nothing but a charred strip of asphalt, littered with bones, steel, and flickering remnants of monsters that didn't bleed — they dissolved.
"Fall back to the second barricade!" he shouted, blood running down his temple.Children screamed behind the barrier; the healers were already out of mana.
[System Notice: Reinforcement Protocol Failed.]
[Warning — Magic Density Exceeds Safety Limit.]
He didn't even flinch at the message anymore.Death had stopped being something to fear. The fear had burned out of them days ago — now only motion remained.Move, fight, breathe, repeat.
[Ground Level — Seo Mirae's POV]
The street was molten.Every step melted through her boots, but she didn't care. Her flames roared out of control, fusing with the monster's mana until everything around her turned white-hot.
The creature screamed — a sound like ten radios hissing at once — before bursting into fragments of light.
She panted, falling to her knees. Her MP bar blinks red.
[0/6500 Mana Remaining.]
Still, she stood.They'd stopped counting casualties. They'd stopped calling names.
Beside her, Ryu Hanseok lay half-buried under rubble, eyes open but glassy. The gravity field that once distorted bullets was now tearing the street apart.
"Rest," she whispered, even though she knew he couldn't hear."Rest, before the next comes."
And then, the ground moved again — a wave of black liquid pushing up from the cracks, forming another creature.No face. No form. Just code seeking a body.
She raised her trembling hands.
"Burn again."
[Haven Command Tower — Min Jae POV]
The command tower was barely standing, its foundation cracking with every shockwave.Min Jae gripped the railing, voice hoarse from shouting.
"Left flank — retreat through the alley! Right barrier's collapsing! Move!"
The wall shattered as a Type-III Crawler slammed into it, a beast of shifting crystal. His sword glowed red as he charged, leaping from the rubble.The impact nearly broke his arm, but he forced the blade through its chest.
The creature wailed — a shriek of collapsing frequency — before dissolving into white dust.
[EXP +10,000]
[Berserker Passive Activated: Pain Conversion → +45% Damage.]
He stumbled, coughing up blood. His veins glowed faintly red — his power feeding on agony, on exhaustion.
He could feel himself slipping.The Berserker within him was whispering — let go, break everything.
But Evelyn's voice still haunted the edge of his mind."You fight to protect, not destroy."
He gritted his teeth. "Not yet."
[Skyline Ridge — Jinwoo POV]
From high above, Jinwoo watched the madness unfold through the eyes of a falcon familiar.The battlefield stretched for miles — each guild fighting alone, desperate, isolated.
The Church of Dawn's army burned like gold across the northern flank, Saintess Ara channeling divine light that shredded monsters into motes.But every kill left her weaker. Her followers dropped to their knees, praying, bleeding, glowing.
"Fools," Jinwoo muttered. "Faith won't stop extinction."
He turned toward his blade, Kaiser, which now hummed with unstable energy.
[Warning: Weapon Resonance Critical. Mana Oversurge 127%.]
He exhaled. "So this is what she fought against."
The fissures in the sky widened. Lightning — no, data — cascaded downward, rewriting the air.Monsters stopped appearing. Instead, humans began to change — their status panels glitching, their levels vanishing.
[System Error: Awakener Tag — Corrupted.]
One by one, soldiers screamed as their mana collapsed, their bodies turning into light fragments.
The world was unmaking itself.
[Ground Zero — The Collapse]
The Han River Bridge erupted — a blast of azure mana shot straight into the heavens.For a brief moment, the entire city froze in time.
Everyone heard it — a low, rhythmic pulse that didn't belong to sound. It was heartbeat, colossal and distant.
[Root Protocol Initializing.]
[Third Wave: Completion Rate — 89%.]
Min Jae fell to his knees as gravity vanished.All around him, people floated — soldiers, monsters, debris — suspended midair's like puppets.
And then, a voice echoed through the entire world.
[Balance has failed.]
[Reconstruction commencing.]
[All awakeners will be judged.]
The sky shattered.
Thousands of light pillars descended — each targeting an awakener.Mirae screamed as she was pulled upward, dissolving into light.Saintess Ara fell to the ground, her halo shattering like glass.Jinwoo tried to cut through the beam with Kaiser — but the sword itself fractured.
Min Jae reached for the nearest child as the light touched him — his arm turned to motes, dissolving.He didn't scream. He just smiled weakly.
"Evelyn," he whispered, "if you're out there—"
And then, the ground split apart.
[Aftermath — Unknown Location]
When the light faded, there was silence.The city was gone.Only fragments of glass and rebar floated in a sea of gray mist.
No sky. No sun. Just the echo of what used to be Earth.
Min Jae woke first, lying beside a cracked vending machine — one of the few remaining "safe zones."Around him, fifteen survivors. None above Level 10 now.All of their panels reset to zero.
[System Notice: Level Cap Reset — 0/∞]
[World Restructuring Phase 1: Complete.]
He sat up slowly. His reflection in the glass flickered. His crimson eyes were dull, his aura gone.
No monsters. No ranks. No guilds.
Just survivors.
[Epilogue — End of the Third Wave]
Global Death Toll: 92%
Remaining Safe Zones: 17 worldwide
System Phase: Root Reconstruction
Status: Unknown interference detected — [Entity: ???]
And in that quiet void, beneath the fractured code of the world, something stirred.A flicker of green light.Roots spreading across the ruined earth — pulsing softly, like a heartbeat.
The beginning of something new.And somewhere, beyond the reach of heaven or code, Evelyn Park's voice whispered:
"Survive. I'm not done yet."