The following days did not follow the agreed plans.
Dae-hyun developed a constant paranoia, accompanied by obsessive preparation.
He stopped sleeping in his gosiwon. He rotated between twenty-four-hour PC bangs in the older districts, always paying in cash, his hood pulled tight to avoid the omnipresent cameras.
His world shrank to two screens: his phone, where he monitored the System logs, and the public computers, from which he watched high-rank raid streams.
He was no longer interested in C or D Zones. He was looking for a catalyst.
A rank B anomaly or higher.
According to the records, they did not appear at random. The System predicted them hours — sometimes minutes — in advance, based on spikes of dimensional instability. They always involved the mobilization of major guilds.
It was in a PC bang, surrounded by the frantic clicking of keyboards and raised voices, that he found the opportunity.
An error log, marked as
"HIGH SEVERITY – ENCRYPTED (LEVEL 1),"
leaked into his corrupted interface.
He couldn't read it in full, but the key words stood out immediately:
[PREDICTION OF MANIFESTATION: GANGNAM DISTRICT, K-SKY FINANCIAL TOWER. ESTIMATED TIME: 03:47.]
[INFERRED CLASSIFICATION: RANK A ANOMALY (VOLATILE / CHAOTIC DATA).]
[INTERNAL DESIGNATION: "CODE ECLIPSE".]
[NOTIFIED GUILDS: CHEONHA, HORIZON, VALHALLA.]
[PROTOCOL: MAXIMUM CONTAINMENT.]
The K-Sky Tower. Seoul's modern icon.
A Rank A manifestation there would not be a simple raid, but a national event, broadcast on every screen in the country. The pressure on the System would be brutal; its resources pushed to the limit.
The perfect catalyst. But the scanners would be war-grade. A rudimentary ghost profile had no chance of deceiving them.
Unless…
Dae-hyun sank into the deepest menus of his interface. Among lines of garbage code he found a forgotten tool:
"Emergency Patch for Network Devices."
Its function was simple and dangerous: disguise a device as an authorized node within the guilds' support system.
Minimal duration. Catastrophic risk.
If a scanner executed a protocol verification, his device would be identified as a digital Trojan horse and eliminated… along with any nearby biometric data.
That is, him. A desperate gamble. Still the only real one.
——
At 02:30, the streets of Gangnam — normally vibrant — were unrecognizable.
Armored guild vehicles advanced escorted by soldiers from the Anomaly Defense Force. Holographic barriers projected blood-red warnings.
"MAXIMUM DANGER ZONE – IMMEDIATE EVACUATION."
Dae-hyun, wearing a telecommunications engineering uniform stolen from an unattended van, approached a side access point.
It was not the hunters' entrance, but a technical service point.
Two guards stood watch at the door, magic pulse rifles in hand.
—Identification —one ordered, as his visor scanned him.
Dae-hyun nodded, sweating beneath the uniform. He activated the patch on his phone and discreetly aimed the camera at the reader.
[INJECTING NETWORK SIGNATURE…]
[SIGNATURE ACCEPTED: "CHEONHA_GUILD_SYS_TECH_07".]
[DURATION: 15 MINUTES.]
[WARNING: GHOST SIGNATURE. DETECTION RISK INCREASING.]
The reader glowed green. The guards checked the authorization and opened the door.
The power of the Big Three opened every door.
Even false ones.
———
The atrium of the K-Sky Tower, once luxurious, had turned into an advanced command post. Holographic screens displayed real-time readings of the anomaly forming on the upper floors.
Dae-hyun watched the elite hunters preparing.
He recognized several from the streams: Valhalla's Juggernaut, a living wall; Cheonha's casters with immaculate robes; and among them, serene and lethal, Chae Harin of Horizon, speaking quietly with a young man who radiated authority. The guild master, without a doubt.
Dae-hyun blended in among the technicians, feeling the repetitive pounding in his chest.
He needed to go up. The anomaly would manifest between floors 60 and 70. He had to be close enough for a direct data injection.
He took a service elevator, using the patch to override the restrictions.
The ascent was silent. Through the glass, the city stretched beneath him like a sea of lights.
Suddenly, everything changed. The lights flickered.
His screen filled with incoherent numbers:
#ERR0R
71.3.5A
NULL
He had entered the periphery of the Error Zone. The doors opened on the 65th floor.
The office space twisted; glass desks floated at impossible angles. The screens spilled green binary code.
That was the Code Eclipse.
At the center, floating above the void of the atrium, the anomaly: a mass of fractal geometries with no defined shape.
From it, creatures emerged.
Glitchhounds, bodies of broken polygons, moved in violent jerks.
Data Sentries, pixelated humanoid figures, fired beams of corrupted information.
[RANK A ANOMALY DETECTED.]
[DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM UNDER SEVERE STRESS.]
[RESOURCE USAGE: 94%.]
Perfect. From his hiding place, Dae-hyun watched as the battle began.
Juggernaut struck first. His hammer shattered a Glitchhound into a rain of pixels. A Cheonha caster forced the rewrite of a Data Sentry… only partially.
Chae Harin moved without wasting a single gesture. A disc of compressed air severed several Glitchhounds. Then she trapped a Data Sentry in an invisible sphere and crushed it from within.
The stream chats exploded.
[와… S랭크 전투는 장난이 아니네]
[하린 언니 미쳤다…]
[저거너트 체력 바 실화냐]
Dae-hyun ignored the amazement.
His attention was on the System logs. The data flowed without control… until he saw it. A recurring fluctuation.
An instant in which all defenses reconfigured.
The core was left exposed. He needed a direct connection.
A defeated Data Sentry had not yet disintegrated. From its body hung a corrupted data cable, writhing on the floor.
It was now or never.
Dae-hyun stepped out of his hiding place, dodging debris and melting pixels. He reached the cable and pressed his phone against the data stream.
Pain.
Electric.
Straight to the brain.
[DIRECT DATA STREAM INJECTION INITIATED!]
[INJECTING USER SIGNATURE: KIM DAE-HYUN (TRASH / DIVINE-TIER GHOST).]
[WARNING: FOREIGN INTRUSION DETECTED DURING CRITICAL EVENT!]
At that instant, Chae Harin activated her ultimate.
"Eye of the Cyclone: Final Implosion."
The System's evaluations froze.
Then, a new set of data briefly appeared on every broadcast in the country:
[SIGNATURE ID: KIM DAE-HYUN]
[PUBLIC DATABASE: TRASH (RANK 0).]
[CORE DIAGNOSTIC: PARADOXICAL DATA DETECTED.]
[DIVINE-TIER FRAGMENTS: 99.999% CORRUPTION.]
[RESULT: CANNOT CLASSIFY.]
[FALLBACK: SYSTEM ANOMALY.]
[DESIGNATION: VOID.]
[RANK: ERROR.]
For a second, "Kim Dae-hyun [VOID]" flickered on every screen in Korea.
Then it disappeared.
The anomaly collapsed in silence.
Void.
A wave of nullity.
Windows shattering.
The battle was over. But no one was thinking about victory. Everyone had the question about the name Kim Dae-hyun.
——
Hours later, with a cheap phone in hand, Dae-hyun accessed the public network. The official application showed:
USER SEARCH: KIM DAE-HYUN
RANK: ERROR
DESIGNATION: VOID
STATUS: SYSTEM ANOMALY
INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS
Below, at the command post, Chae Harin watched her screen in silence.
The interference she had felt…
Dae-hyun dragged himself away from the battlefield, his body shattered, his head burning.
He was not a god and not even close to a hunter. But he existed in that middle point, outside the rules.
The hunt for the "Virus" had ended. Now the hunt for the Void was beginning.