Chapter 94

Rather than witness the Kwon Haeju who had tragically taken his own life in his thirties during the previous timeline, Nam Shin-hoo desperately wanted the man standing before him to live a longer, infinitely happier life. This was no calculated, pragmatic maneuver designed to fulfill a system quest. It was Shin-hoo’s raw, unvarnished desire.

Haeju was a far better and vastly more extraordinary man than Shin-hoo had ever anticipated. To think he was only twenty-four years old. It was far too young and pitiful an age for his brilliant light to be permanently extinguished.

Reaching out with trembling fingers, Shin-hoo pulled Haeju into a desperate embrace. Reading the sudden, chaotic spike of anxiety radiating from the older hunter, Haeju flinched in surprise before fiercely wrapping his arms around him.

“What is it? What on earth is happening?” Haeju demanded, his voice thick with panic. Treating the drained hunter like a fragile treasure, he supported Shin-hoo’s collapsing weight as they slumped together against the barren stone of the mountain.

The exact moment he hit the ground, a hard, distinct object rattled against Shin-hoo’s chest. It was the artifact he had shoved into his breast pocket at the dungeon’s entrance and entirely forgotten in the escalating chaos.

…!

A shock of absolute, electrifying clarity violently dispersed the suffocating fog in his mind. Frantically tearing open the pocket of his combat suit, Shin-hoo found it.

It was there. The single, miraculous lifeline capable of saving Kwon Haeju from this apocalyptic execution.

“Kwon Haeju,” Shin-hoo called, fighting to steady his ragged, trembling breath.

Responding to his name, Haeju lifted his head. Simultaneously, the crushing wave of dread bleeding through the Vesper Ring began to subside.

“Thank you. I’ve calmed down considerably,” Shin-hoo lied smoothly. “Take this Egg and secure it. And…”

“I’m listening.”

“I think you’re going to have to suffer a little bit more,” Shin-hoo said.

Nodding dutifully, Haeju accepted the artifact. The moment Shin-hoo confirmed the iridescent Egg was safely tucked away inside the inner pocket of Haeju’s jacket, a faint, resolute smile ghosted across Shin-hoo’s lips.

Every preparation was complete.

“I’m retracting my previous statement about handing the Egg over to the US,” Shin-hoo declared. “Let’s keep it for ourselves if possible. It feels like an exceptionally powerful Unique Weapon.”

“Understood,” Haeju replied, his tone laced with profound bewilderment. He clearly sensed the jarring, unnatural pivot in Shin-hoo’s demeanor but couldn’t deduce the cause. It was only natural.

Yet Haeju exhibited no overt worry. Tethered by the Aurora Ring, he was undoubtedly feeling Shin-hoo’s current emotional state. It was the euphoric, maddeningly absolute relief of a man who had just discovered the ultimate salvation.

“Once we get out of here, we’re both going to be swamped with work,” Shin-hoo murmured softly. “It will probably be incredibly difficult to see each other for a while. So, about that wish I promised earlier, would you mind if I granted it a little later?”

“Of course.”

It was an absolute certainty, but they would never see each other again.

The Return Stone Shin-hoo had excavated from his breast pocket was the only one left. He had separated it from his spatial inventory on a paranoid whim at the dungeon’s entrance.

He had to feed Haeju this cruel, beautiful lie about a future reunion. He needed the man who would be left behind to harbor at least a microscopic shard of hope to survive the trauma.

I’m sorry, Shin-hoo apologized in the silent depths of his mind. If we ever meet again when you are old and gray, I swear I will grant every single wish you ask of me.

Smiling self-deprecatingly at his own pathetic inability to offer anything but lies until the bitter end, Shin-hoo secretly slipped the Return Stone into his mouth.

The artifact was designed to trigger its extraction sequence the instant it suffered a structural fracture.

Gently tracing Haeju’s slightly parted lips with his fingertips, Shin-hoo leaned forward and captured his mouth.

…!

Shocked by Shin-hoo initiating the kiss for the very first time, Haeju’s body went utterly rigid. A heartbeat later, the paralysis shattered, and he fiercely pulled Shin-hoo into a crushing, ravenous embrace.

As their lips parted and their tongues tangled fiercely, Haeju aggressively deepened the kiss.

Capitalizing on the passionate invasion, Shin-hoo seamlessly pushed the hidden Return Stone deep into Haeju’s mouth, lodging it against his molars.

The very second Haeju’s tongue reflexively attempted to push the sudden, foreign object away, Shin-hoo tore himself free.

“What is this?” Haeju started, but the moment he spoke, his teeth clamped down on the stone.

With a sickening crack, the artifact shattered inside his mouth, instantly triggering its magical payload.

His physical form immediately began to turn translucent.

Having utilized a Return Stone before, Haeju instantly recognized the spatial displacement and roared in sheer, unadulterated panic.

“What the hell did you just do?” Haeju roared, the rest of his words swallowed by the chaotic magic tearing at the air.

“Listen to me, Kwon Haeju,” Shin-hoo commanded, his grip locking onto the younger man’s shoulders like a vice as Haeju glared at him with unseeing, furious eyes.

“Within twenty years, an apocalypse will descend and shatter this world. It will ignite in the United States, obliterating every single foundation humanity has built, and it will massacre every living organism on the planet.”

A brutal, crimson warning window detonated in his vision, screaming a violation of causality.

An agonizing pain violently skewered Shin-hoo’s chest. It felt as though a massive, iron stake had been driven straight through his contracting heart, completely paralyzing his lungs.

But none of it mattered anymore.

“You must survive until then. You are the only one capable of stopping it.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Why are you saying this now… Don’t tell me. No. This isn’t happening.”

Haeju shook his head with violent, frantic denial. Thrashing against the fading spell, he lunged forward, but his translucent hand phased harmlessly straight through Shin-hoo’s torso. The spatial dimensions separating them were already tearing apart.

“No! I will stay here instead! How can I leave you behind… Please, tell me this is a lie. Please!”

“Just wait for me outside,” Shin-hoo whispered. “It will only take a moment. Then I will…”

I’ll be right behind you. I’ll find another way out, so don’t worry.

He desperately needed to feed Haeju that final, comforting lie, but his throat seized entirely, the words dying on his tongue.

“Nam Shin-hoo!” Thick tears rapidly pooled in those silver-gray eyes.

Shin-hoo remained silent.

“Tell me it’s not true. Please. Tell me this is just a nightmare, that it’s all a lie…”

Fading into a ghostly apparition, Haeju begged, his voice cracking with absolute devastation.

Unable to endure Shin-hoo’s heavy, tragic silence, Haeju swung his arms wildly.

Trembling from head to toe, he desperately clawed at the air to grab the older hunter, but his hands grasped nothing but empty space as the dimensional rift finalized.

Realizing with crushing finality that he was utterly powerless to stop the extraction, Haeju buried his face in his hands.

A raw, wet sob ripped from his throat.

Witnessing that absolute devastation shattered Shin-hoo’s heart infinitely more than the agonizing penalty for violating causality.

He quietly took a step back to burn the entirety of Haeju’s final silhouette into his retinas.

Leaving nothing behind but the haunting echo of his weeping, Kwon Haeju vanished entirely, evaporating like a shadow exposed to blinding sunlight.

“I’m sorry,” Shin-hoo murmured, staring into the hollow, empty space.

While the tragedy unfolded, the encroaching, apocalyptic boundary hadn’t paused for a single second.

It had systematically devoured the entire dimension, leaving nothing but the isolated peak of the stone mountain.

Even the fanatical hawk monstrosities had plummeted to the earth, reduced to cold, lifeless corpses.

Left entirely alone at the end of the world, Shin-hoo closed his eyes.

The final moments of his previous life flashed behind his eyelids like a tragic kaleidoscope. The haunting memory of dying as the absolute last living organism on the planet washed over him in a wave of suffocating déjà vu.

Thank god. At least this time, he was allowed to die alone.

Although he had ultimately failed to complete the system’s quest, Shin-hoo could only pray that Haeju would somehow bridge the remaining sixty percent success gap.

He felt profoundly sorry for burdening the younger man with such a monumental cross to bear until the bitter end, not to mention the countless promises he could never keep.

But it would be alright now. He had already altered so many critical variables from his past life.

Kwon Shinju was alive, and the Epic Guild had flourished into an absolute powerhouse.

Above all, Kwon Haeju was infinitely stronger than Shin-hoo had ever given him credit for. He was the kind of man who could treat their brief, chaotic time together as a fleeting intersection of fate and eventually overcome the crushing grief.

Please, overcome this memory and live a long, beautiful life.

With unparalleled desperation, Shin-hoo prayed for the happiness of the man he had left behind.

The apocalyptic boundary had collapsed so tightly that it barely afforded enough space for a single man to lie down.

Staring directly into the true, unmasked abyss of the EX-Rank dungeon, he found it utterly horrific.

It was an absolute void, resembling a barren, pulverized planet where existence itself had been systematically devoured.

It was suffocating. Feeling as though he had been sealed alive inside a claustrophobic coffin, Shin-hoo gently pressed his hand against his throat.

So, this was exactly where his second life ended.

Ding.

A blinding light suddenly engulfed his vision.

***

“What day is it today?”

“It is the sixth day, sir. Tomorrow will mark a full week.”

“Hmm…” Staring at the bizarre, swirling anomaly concealed beneath Niagara Falls, Glys Roban thoughtfully stroked his jaw.

It had already been six days since the two hunters from Korea vanished into the EX-Rank gate.

They had thoroughly extorted Bale Taylor to secure the most meticulous exploration guide available. Assuming they adhered strictly to the established routes, they should have reached the designated checkpoint within three to four days.

“You don’t suppose they possessed the sheer arrogance to delve deeper than the guide permitted, do you?” Roban mused. “Perhaps they foolishly attempted to actually secure the Egg.”

“That is highly improbable, sir.”

The terminal coordinate in the guide marked a depth that only a single, elite American reconnaissance team had ever successfully reached. Formulating a hypothesis that a couple of foreign S-Ranks could penetrate deeper into the abyss was logically absurd.

“Alternatively, is it possible something truly catastrophic occurred inside?”

“No matter how incompetent they might be, they are still two S-Rank hunters,” Roban stated. “They possess enough basic combat intuition to trigger a Return Stone before they are annihilated.”

That bastard Bale Taylor. He actually possessed the sheer audacity to rate a couple of amateurs who can’t even navigate a dungeon with a literal guidebook higher than me, Glys Roban?

If he had his way, he would have violently seized that sly snake by the collar right now, but there were far too many eyes watching him.

Above all else, Glys Roban meticulously guarded his pristine public image.

The absolute strongest, the most flawless hunter in the world. That messianic title belonged exclusively to him. Showing even a sliver of agitation over such a trivial matter was unacceptable.

“Hey. Are you seriously still waiting out here?” a voice called out.

Had the man somehow heard the vicious insults echoing in Roban’s mind?

Approaching from the distance, casually picking his ear, was Bale Taylor. He had reportedly been clearing a dungeon on the East Coast until dawn, yet apparently, he had sprinted straight here the moment he finished just to spectate the drama.

“So, what’s the situation? Hey, you, give me the rundown.”

Bale poked the waist of a highly strung aide standing nearby. Snapping to rigid attention, the aide briefed him on the current status with a grim expression.