Abyssal Requiem

The story relocates to South Korea, specifically Seoul, to align with a modern urban environment conducive to the narrative's themes of societal pressure, hidden corruption among the elite, and the emergence of Awakeners in a high-tech, densely populated metropolis. This setting enhances the contrast between everyday normalcy and the underlying horror of trauma-fueled power. The protagonist's name has been updated to **Ji-hoon Kim** (김지훈). **Kim** is the most common Korean surname (held by approximately 21–22% of the population), and **Ji-hoon** (지훈) ranks consistently among the top male given names in recent years (often in the top 10–20, meaning "wisdom and training" or "wise and heroic"). This combination provides cultural authenticity and relatability for a South Korean context In a Seoul where no dimensional gates invaded the skyline, but the accumulated fractures of human despair did, the **Abyssal Requiem** awakens, not as a gift, but as an insidious parasite embedded in the soul's most profound breaks. Ji-hoon Kim was an ordinary salaryman: a mid-level employee at a major Gangnam corporation, sustained by the quiet routine of long commutes, late-night overtime, and the modest warmth of his family in a cramped apartment in Nowon-gu. That ordinary life ended on a monsoon-drenched night when masked intruders, early Awakeners exploiting an unregulated, emergent system—invaded his home. They did not grant swift death. They prolonged the torment: restraining Ji-hoon to witness the methodical torture of his wife and young daughter, their cries harvested as raw fuel for the assailants' ascending levels. The perpetrators exulted in the suffering, their auras flaring as power accumulated. Ji-hoon's desperate pleas met only indifference. **System Notification (First Awakening):** *[The Abyss acknowledges your requiem.]* *[Trauma Echo absorbed: Level 1 attained.]* *[Skill Unlocked: Lament's Grasp – Constrain adversaries with chains forged from their suppressed guilt. Cost: Relive a shard of your own inadequacy.]* *[Warning: Advancement requires sacrifice. Resistance leads to obliteration.]* Ji-hoon survived—not through leniency, but because his anguish surpassed the threshold the system required. In the instant his psyche splintered, an ancient force rose from humanity's vast reservoir of collective pain. The **Abyssal Requiem** inscribed itself upon him: a parasitic mechanism that transforms suffering—his own revisited nightmares and echoes extracted from others—into unrelenting growth. He emerges altered. No longer the compliant victim, Ji-hoon becomes a relentless pursuer of those who exploit the vulnerable, siphoning their agony to accelerate his rise. Each level necessitates immersion in simulated trauma: intensified reenactments of his loss, where remorse is forged into lethal instruments. Abilities manifest in grotesque forms: regeneration maintained through analogs of self-inflicted harm, shadow entities summoned from the unresolved spirits of the betrayed, or domains that compel foes to endure multiplied versions of the pain they caused. South Korea, and the global network beyond, fractures under the sporadic rise of Awakeners. Government agencies classify them as national security risks, chaebol conglomerates seek to harness them as assets, and hierarchies of the empowered prey upon the powerless in concealed cycles of predation. Ji-hoon traverses this landscape, establishing tenuous alliances with other traumatized survivors, only for betrayals to reinforce his profound solitude. As his strength mounts, the system discloses its origin: the consolidated lament of all human history, poised to consume reality through ceaseless intensification. To annihilate it necessitates assuming its ultimate incarnation—or relinquishing the final vestiges of his humanity.