Chapter 1

A monster the size of a warship dominated the sky. The Nuckelavee, a demonic beast resembling a colossal whale, swam through the heavens as if navigating the deep ocean, mercilessly trampling the world below. Armored in pitch-black scales, its body stretched for hundreds of meters; a single thrash of its bulk reduced soaring skyscrapers to rubble and cleaved the asphalt wide open.

For six months since its arrival, a grueling war had raged. Civilians who had sought refuge in underground bunkers lay crushed beneath collapsed concrete, while the Hunters who had staked their lives on the front lines fell alongside the very trees that once lined the avenues.

Hck… 

Nam Shin-hoo spat a mouthful of thick blood, dragging his battered body forward with agonizing effort.

Before him lay the source of this despair: the Nuckelavee, collapsed upon the ruined earth. The remnants of humanity had barely managed to strike the final blow.

Abandon all defense and focus every ounce of combat power on Hunter Nam Shin-hoo.

It was a triumph bought through an extreme, desperate strategy. The haughty beast that had crushed humanity from the sky had finally plummeted to earth, torn down only after countless lives were brutally sacrificed. Nam Shin-hoo raised his weapon toward the dying creature.

Channeling every last drop of his strength into his hands, he forced blue lightning to crackle and dance along the shaft of his spear. A massive bolt of electricity bridged heaven and earth, writhing violently as it split the sky—the culmination of every scrap of energy they had hoarded for this moment.

“You fucking bastard,” he spat.

The spear descended in a long, brilliant arc, piercing the Nuckelavee’s massive eye and driving straight into its brain. The beast released an agonizing shriek as flesh seared and blood boiled, flooding the air with a horrific, metallic stench. The supersonic wail seemed to vibrate straight through the skull, blanketing the ruined world.

Thrashing in agony, the Nuckelavee struck Nam Shin-hoo with its massive fin, sending him flying through the air until he crashed into a crumbled concrete wall. The beast’s rampaging movements gradually slowed. Charred fragments of scales sloughed off its body as the overwhelming aura of dread it had radiated dissolved into nothingness.

Ah, hahahaha…

Laughter bubbled up from his chest despite the excruciating agony of his dislocated spine. Nam Shin-hoo’s eyes gleamed with a feverish light as he watched the monster slowly die.

It had been a desperate, blood-soaked war. In merely half a year, humanity had lost everything built over millennia. Once-dazzling cities were reduced to ash; neon signs lay shattered, their broken glass carpeting the ground, while the lush grass of the parks had burned to crisp black.

Nothing remained. Every living, breathing thing had perished—the salarymen who once crowded the streets, the students who had bustled with vibrant energy, and the Hunters who had thrown themselves into the meat grinder of battle.

Yet the architect of this absolute despair had finally fallen.

Ha, haha…

His laughter withered away. Physical torment, lingering anguish, and the sheer weight of accumulated despair crushed him like a boulder, leaving behind a profound exhaustion so complete he could barely twitch a finger.

Nam Shin-hoo rubbed his blurring eyes. The corpses of his fellow Hunters littered the area in every direction—the very people who had sacrificed themselves to carve out this final opening, offering their bodies as shields just to ensure he could land the killing blow.

Gurgle… grrrk…

The sound of the Nuckelavee taking its final, rattling breath echoed in the distance, a nauseating noise that rang with a strange, sweet finality before ceasing entirely.

Nam Shin-hoo pressed the communicator strapped to his left wrist with a trembling right hand. “Headquarters. What’s the situation?”

Static hissed. No reply. He mashed the next button. “What about the shelters? Any civilian casualties?”

Dead silence.

His hand trembled with mounting dread. He tried to steady himself, but his grip faltered, and the fragile communicator shattered under the pressure. The world around him was entirely devoid of sensation—no breathing, no beating hearts. Not a single trace of life remained.

Clinging to his last shred of hope, Nam Shin-hoo spoke into the empty air. “Sei. Scan the surrounding area for any remaining biological signatures.”

[Please specify the exact scanning radius.]

“As far as possible. Push it to the absolute maximum limit,” he commanded.

[Processing your request. This may take some time depending on the volume of data. Please wait a moment.]

Despite the warning, the response returned almost immediately.

[Master. I have scanned a 300-kilometer radius. The number of detected biological signatures is one.]

“…So I’m the only one left.” He had already braced himself for this reality when the communicator went dead, but hearing the definitive result still shattered his heart.

The Nuckelavee’s legions had swarmed the globe simultaneously, obliterating every nation humanity had built. The United States, once hailed as a Hunter superpower; the European Union; the myriad countries of Asia—all had fallen. In the midst of this continental destruction, Korea had been the last bastion standing, fighting a bitter war of attrition until the very end. And now, Nam Shin-hoo was the sole surviving organism in the entire country.

His arms fell limply to his sides as directionless emotions churned violently in his chest. They had been forced to pour every ounce of their power into the assault on the Nuckelavee, leaving no resources to spare for even a single shield generator at the civilian shelters. They had gambled everything on Nam Shin-hoo, accepting the catastrophic sacrifices, and only then had they managed to slay the beast.

They had finally struck the long-awaited gong of victory, but there was no one left to hear it. After this devastating war, Nam Shin-hoo was the only human left breathing on earth.

Staggering, he forced himself upright. Clutching his screaming lower back, he hobbled toward the nearest fallen corpse and dropped to his knees. He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, but the body remained perfectly still.

I will cover you until the very end. I am the Saint Guild’s strongest shield—its final aegis. I will gladly die for you, so please, become the sun for those who remain.

It was his trusted right-hand man, a loyal friend who had stood by his side for twenty years. They had grown old together, often lamenting their increasing gray hairs over drinks. Gently, Nam Shin-hoo swept his palm down to close his old friend’s lifeless eyes.

He moved on, carefully laying the body of a young girl flat on the ground beside the man.

As long as you survive, Master, that’s all that matters. Even if our buffs cut out, never look back. Just keep moving forward. You are our final hope.

She was a support-Rank Hunter who had channeled her energy into him until the very second her heart stopped. Her sacrifice was the only reason he had been able to breathe when the rest of the Hunters succumbed to the Nuckelavee’s toxic gas.

One by one, Nam Shin-hoo straightened the fallen. He laid them out comfortably and closed their eyes. Despite being coated in grime and stained with their own blood, every single one wore a remarkably peaceful expression.

It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Hunter Nam Shin-hoo will deliver humanity from this darkness.

I’ll be going on ahead, so please, fulfill our shared wish.

If you don’t smash that damn Nuckelavee’s skull in, I’ll curse you from the depths of hell. So don’t worry about us—just press on.

Their faces were completely devoid of lingering attachments or regrets. Having sacrificed everything for him, they had crossed the threshold with faint smiles gracing their lips.

“Fools,” Nam Shin-hoo murmured, his voice cracking as sweat and tears dripped onto the parched earth, leaving dark, rounded stains. “What do you mean, ‘final hope’? What ‘sun’? In the end…” He paused, his chest heaving. “I couldn’t save a single thing.”

He gripped the cold hand of the corpse he was tending to—a Hunter whose name and face he barely even knew, yet a stranger who had trusted him enough to lay down their life. Countless lives had been extinguished in exactly this manner. Suffocated by the sheer volume of people who had died right before his eyes just to protect their supposed final hope, he couldn’t even lift his head.

Nam Shin-hoo bit down hard on his lip, blackish blood trickling down his chin.

If I had known it would end like this…

His grip tightened into fists, his clenched jaw trembling violently.

This is all my fault.

A tidal wave of belated regret crashed over him. The remorse sank so deep into his bones that every joint in his body felt as though it were collapsing under the biting chill of his guilt.

From the very planning stages of the operation, the Hunter Association had known there would be massive casualties. They had executed the strategy fully aware that civilians and countless Hunters would perish. And the man holding the ultimate authority to greenlight that decision had been Nam Shin-hoo. He had pushed the plan forward, convincing himself that a small sacrifice was a necessary evil.

The strategy had failed, culminating in the worst possible ending.

An operation built on the assumption of a minor sacrifice had instead demanded the lives of absolutely everyone. The only person left breathing was Nam Shin-hoo, standing atop a mountain of corpses.

Blood dripped steadily from his tightly clenched fists.

He had been so terribly wrong. Even if humanity faced total annihilation, he shouldn’t have allowed this. Nam Shin-hoo should have been the one to sacrifice the most. Even if it meant his arms being torn off and his heart exploding, he should have stood at the absolute vanguard from the very beginning. He should have embraced the Nuckelavee and died before any of them, fully prepared to blow himself to pieces.

Hah…

The wretched sob of the sole survivor echoed across the ruined plaza, fresh tears carving wet trails into the dry, dust-swept ground.

Staring blankly at the earth with empty eyes, Nam Shin-hoo was too consumed by bitter grief to notice the shadow creeping up behind him. A pitch-black silhouette slowly advanced, coming to a silent halt directly at his back.

By the time he realized the danger and spun around, it was already there—a humanoid silhouette formed entirely of pitch-black darkness. It was a lifeform covered in the exact same obsidian scales as the Nuckelavee he had just slain.

Don’t tell me… there was a Phase Two?

Boss monsters in dungeons occasionally underwent transformations after death, transitioning into a Phase Two complete with new forms and entirely different attack patterns.

Nam Shin-hoo scrambled to ready his spear. He grabbed the hilt, which still sparked with residual electricity, but he was already too late.

The demonic beast reached out without a shred of hesitation. Just as Nam Shin-hoo had pierced the Nuckelavee, the beast drove its hand straight through his chest.