Chapter Eighteen – Sung Il-Hwan
In a prison located in America, the scene unfolds.
The air is thick with the smell of stale sweat, industrial cleaner, and despair. A metallic door, scarred with countless dents and scratches, groans open with a long, protesting SCREECH of hinges.
Through it steps a man.
He is tall, his frame taut with coiled muscle that speaks of a lifetime—or perhaps an eternity—of combat. His hair is long, unruly, and streaked with grime, falling past broad shoulders. He wears the standard-issue prison uniform, the rough orange fabric looking ready to split at the seams.
Opposite him, a different figure stands. An Asian man with thinning hair and sharp, hawk-like eyes that miss nothing. He wears a crisp, expensive suit, a stark contrast to the concrete-gray interrogation room. He is the authority here.
The hunter of S-rank looks at the prisoner with a gaze like a scalpel, designed to dissect lies.
"So," the suit says, his voice clipped and precise, cutting through the room's silence. "You claim you are a Korean person who was trapped inside a gate for a long number of years, and now you have managed to escape. Is that correct?"
The prisoner, (Sung Il-Hwan), looks at the ground. His posture isn't one of defeat, but of a man profoundly elsewhere, his mind still navigating labyrinthine corridors of memory that aren't this sterile box. The flickering fluorescent light above casts deep shadows under his eyes.
He finally speaks, his voice a low rumble, like stones grinding together after a long stillness. It isn't the voice of someone afraid of imprisonment. It's a voice saturated with a yearning so deep it has become part of his marrow.
"That's correct. I was imprisoned in that gate for a long period. I don't know what happened. I just want to return to my family."
The S-rank hunter doesn't buy it. He slams a palm down on the cold metal table between them. The impact is a sharp, loud BANG that echoes in the small space.
"Do you assume I will believe that you, Hunter (Sung Il-Hwan), have been missing all this time inside a gate and now appear after all these years?"
The S-rank hunter's voice is dripping with sarcasm as he says this, each word laced with condescension. He leans back, a smirk playing on his lips, confident in his power, in the unbreakable system this room represents.
He doesn't realize the prisoner before him has tightened his fist slightly, the knuckles turning white for a fleeting moment. But (Il-Hwan) lets it go a second later.
It wasn't out of fear.
He was still clinging to his humanity. Years of wandering inside gates—those realms of endless battle and monstrous landscapes—had made him an angry man, filled with a cold, simmering hatred. But his human judgment, his restraint, had begun to return since his escape. He didn't want to lose it. Not here. Not yet.
The Asian hunter pushes several folders across the table. They slide with a dry whissssh.
These files are filled with photographs.
(Sung Il-Hwan)'s eyes, which had been distant, sharpen. He leans forward, the chains around his wrists and ankles clinking with a soft, mournful jingle. He stares at the top photo.
For a moment, the sterile room vanishes. He sees sunlight, a smile, a memory so warm it threatens to burn through the ice in his chest.
His voice, when it comes, is thick with a longing that cracks his stoic facade.
"My dear… my precious daughter… and that son of mine… Where are they? Please, let me go to them. I want to get out."
The urge to lunge forward, to snatch the photographs and hold them to his heart, is a physical ache in his muscles. His hand twitches.
But the S-rank hunter's hand snakes out, long fingers landing on the folders with possessive finality. He pulls them back, just out of reach. A cruel, deliberate move.
Then, he points to one of the pictures, his fingertip tapping the image with a sound like a tiny, mocking drumbeat. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"A failed hunter. This is your son. As for your family… regarding the wife you supposedly left behind in the gate… she is now sick and unable to wake up. Permanently. As for their financial state… frankly, it's nothing. Worse than nothing if you compare it to the poor. Do you realize your family's situation, (Sung Il-Hwan)?"
The hunter begins to explain each point of the photos, layering on harsh details with clinical detachment. Each sentence is a precise, surgical cut.
Your son is weak.
Your wife is in a vegetative state, a living ghost.
They are drowning in debt and despair.
Your legacy is ruin.
With each word, (Sung Il-Hwan)'s heart seems to stutter and lurch in his chest, a trapped bird beating against its cage. Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Yet, his eyes, which are trembling with suppressed emotion, are unable to cry. He feels as if the ducts for tears have been sealed shut by years of dust and battle, welded closed by fury. A hot, dry pressure builds behind them.
In that moment, he lifts his gaze from the damning photos to the man before him. The simmering emotion in his eyes crystallizes into something hard and sharp.
"Now, I will leave. No one will stop me from meeting my family."
The S-rank hunter lets out a short, derisive laugh. He leans back in his own metal chair, which squeaks under his weight. He looks at the imprisoned man, bound by power-suppressing chains and with mana-disrupting wires wrapped around his ankles, as one would look at a chained dog barking at a mountain.
"Do you think you can get out of here?"
As he speaks, a massive aura erupts from him.
WHUMP!
It's a physical force, a wave of dense, crushing pressure that causes the entire interrogation room to shake. The metal table groans. The concrete walls hum. Cracks begin to spiderweb through the solid steel doorframe, just from the aura being released. The very air grows heavy, difficult to breathe.
This is the clear, unmistakable power of an S-rank hunter, a force meant to induce instant submission.
But to a person like (Sung Il-Hwan), this power is nothing.
He doesn't even flinch. The aura washes over him like a mild breeze. He remains seated, then slowly stands, the chains rattling. He looks at the hunter with a coldness that makes the room feel suddenly frigid.
He repeats his words, his tone now flat and deadly, devoid of all the earlier yearning.
"I will get out. You there. Step aside before I kill you."
Years of surviving inside gates have eroded his pity to near extinction. The last vestiges of mercy are being offered through these very words to the hunter in front of him.
The Asian hunter, (Hwang Dong-Su), doesn't retreat. Instead, he takes the words as the ultimate insult. His aura flares brighter, and he attacks with a powerful punch aimed directly at (Il-Hwan)'s face. It's fast, a blur meant to instantly demonstrate his dominance as an S-rank.
But the strange thing is, this punch doesn't reach its target.
Suddenly, the prisoner disappears from in front of them.
One moment he's there, the next—gone. There's no flash, no sound of movement. It's as if he simply ceased to occupy that space.
(Hwang Dong-Su)'s eyes widen behind his tinted glasses. Instinct, a primal warning bell honed in countless raids, screams in his mind. He tries to retreat, throwing himself backward.
His shoulder collides directly with a solid body that was behind him.
THUD.
The impact is jarring. How did he get there?!
This strange, instinctive interaction happened with bizarre speed. The shock drives (Dong-Su) to retreat several steps, his dress shoes scuffing loudly on the concrete floor. But his pride as an S-rank, and the arrogance that comes with it, slows his reaction by a crucial fraction.
One punch from (Il-Hwan).
It's not flashy. It's a simple, straight blow from a torso that has twisted with impossible torque.
It connects with (Dong-Su)'s midsection.
CRUNCH.
The sound is sickening, a muffled explosion of air and impacting force. (Hwang Dong-Su)'s body is launched several meters backwards as if yanked by an invisible cable. He flies across the room, limbs flailing, and smashes through the reinforced steel wall.
KABLAM—CRASH—BOOM!
He doesn't just hit it; he penetrates it, the metal tearing like paper. He plows through one room, then another, debris exploding in his wake, before finally being punched out of the prison building entirely by the sheer consecutive force, landing in a heap outside with a final, dusty THUMP.
All in one moment.
(Sung Il-Hwan) jumps several meters into the air, a leap that carries him through the gaping hole in the wall. He descends towards the dazed hunter outside, aiming another blow.
The S-rank hunter, (Dong-Su), coughing up blood, uses all his power and skill to enhance his next attack, trying to both dodge the incoming punch and launch a counter-strike. His body glows with concentrated mana, a last-ditch effort of a proud man.
But what actually happens is something completely different from his imagination.
(Sung Il-Hwan) catches his punch.
He simply reaches out and grabs the fist, stopping it dead with an effortless, vice-like grip. The force dissipates with a sound like a popped balloon—PFFFT.
Then, (Il-Hwan) throws his own grabbed fist—still holding (Dong-Su)'s hand—into the hunter's stomach.
(Dong-Su)'s eyes bulge behind his sunglasses, which finally fall off, clattering to the broken asphalt. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, filled with pure, uncomprehending shock.
Before he can utter a word, a punch is sent towards his jaw.
SNAP!
The sound is crisp and final. His head snaps back, and his body is lifted several meters into the air.
(Il-Hwan) follows it up with several slaps to the back. They don't sound like slaps. They sound like localized detonations—WHAP-BAM-THUD!
The hunter's body is driven into the ground, cratering the asphalt. He loses consciousness completely, lying broken in the rubble.
(Sung Il-Hwan) looks down at the hunter before him. He lets out a sigh—a soft, weary exhalation that seems to carry the weight of years.
He didn't want to do that.
But he was forced to. He wants to go to his family. He needs to.
And then, it comes.
A voice, cold and alien, slithering up from somewhere else in his consciousness. It wasn't his own thought. It was an implant, a command buried deep.
You must remember. Eliminate the Shadow Monarch.
The voice is icy, but it carries a strange, compelling aura. It forces the hunter who just defeated an S-rank to his knees. He grabs his head, a guttural groan escaping his lips as pain, sharp and psychic, lances through his skull.
An image comes to his mind.
It's the image of a young man with black hair, shrouded in an aura of deep, all-consuming shadow. Around him stand soldiers. An endless, silent army stretching into darkness. The image is terrifying, monstrous in its implication of absolute command.
This horrifying picture flashes in the lost hunter's mind.
In the end, unable to resist the compulsion, he can only grit his teeth and speak the words, each one torn from him.
"I will kill him… I will kill him… I will kill the Shadow Monarch."
After he says these words, the feeling of pain disappears from his head. He lowers his hands, breathing heavily.
But his eyes have become sharper, colder, focused with a new, terrible purpose. The humanity that had been flickering back to life is now buried under a layer of frost and directive.
"I will kill the Shadow Monarch. After that, I will return to my family. I will be able to live with them again. I will accomplish this, no matter what happens."
The prison is destroyed after this quick battle. Walls are shattered, alarms are blaring a futile, rhythmic WAIL, and dust hangs thick in the air.
But for the lost hunter who had become a prisoner, he leaves quickly. With a swift leap, his body—which now feels like it can barely be perceived, like a heat haze—becomes like a mirage. He disappears directly from the spot, leaving only settling dust and the groans of the defeated.
---
In another place, the White House.
The place where the President of America lives, the events have arrived directly.
The atmosphere in the secure situation room is tense, filled with the low hum of servers and the quiet murmur of aides. Screens display the wreckage of the prison.
"Contact (Thomas Andre). He needs to look for this person for us. We need to capture him alive. He is… a special individual."
The voice of the American President, along with the murmurs of agreement from congressional leaders, is very clear while giving this order. There's a hint of avarice, of wanting to possess a new, unpredictable weapon.
---
(Thomas Andre), the giant, who is considered the strongest hunter in the world, hears the news in his lavishly appointed lounge. He doesn't pay it much mind at first.
He picks up a heavy crystal glass filled with an expensive, amber liquor. The ice cubes clink with a melodic tink-tink.
"Tch," he clicks his tongue, his voice a deep rumble. "Damn it, why do I have to go search for a little mouse when I can drink here?"
He takes a long, savoring sip, the liquid smooth and burning down his throat. But his voice changes a little after the drink. His eyes, a piercing, predatory blue, seem to glow faintly. He takes another sip, a slow, thoughtful one.
"But… I've been feeling bored these days. No harm in looking for some entertainment, right?"
His aide, standing stiffly beside him, hears all of this. He quickly produces a different communiqué, one that has just arrived.
"Sir, an announcement has been made regarding an international conference concerning the S-rank gates that have appeared in Korea. It seems a hunter of… national rank has also appeared. He is from Japan. Japan has fully announced the necessity of an urgent meeting for all nations and their S-rank hunters, and even hunters of… national rank are to attend."
The world's strongest American hunter hums, a low, vibrating sound in his chest. Then he smiles. It's a fierce, shark-like smile.
"A hunter of national rank? Are you sure? I think that mouse (Goto Ryuji) hasn't stopped talking about wanting to become one, but we all know he'll never be able to."
But the aide shakes his head quickly, his glasses glinting.
"Not him. I know you have… unfavorable feelings towards him. But who I'm talking about is a person who managed to resolve two S-rank disasters. According to the data that appeared, plus the gate readings… their rank has reached the level of (Kamish), the terrifying dragon that caused so much catastrophe five years ago."
This time, (Thomas Andre)'s smile freezes.
He stands up. The simple movement carries the weight and presence of a mountain shifting. He is a man of immense stature, with thick blond hair and those sharp blue eyes, keen as a lion's.
"Prepare the matter. We will go to this meeting." His voice drops, filled with a new, intense curiosity. "I am eager to see this so-called national rank hunter."
He looks towards the window, as if he can see across the ocean. Then he adds, almost as an afterthought, but one laced with hunting instinct.
"As for that escaped prisoner… I suppose I'll track him right after the meeting. After determining if that national rank hunter is the real deal… or a fake."
The game board, it seems, is getting more crowded. And the pieces are all beginning to move.
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End of Chapter.
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