The high-end shopping district of Myeongdong, usually teeming with millions of tourists, fashion boutiques, and street food vendors, had been reduced to a silent labyrinth of abandoned luxury. Neon signs for cosmetics and designer brands flickered unevenly, powered by dying backup generators that buzzed like dying insects in the stagnant afternoon air.
Min-jae walked down the center of the main avenue. His footsteps made no sound.
With his Agility at 25 and his newly acquired passive,
[Iron Thread Meridian]
, his control over his physical presence had undergone a qualitative shift. In his first life, he used to stomp and strain to force his body into motion. Now, his muscles shifted beneath his skin like silk over steel. The internal gold of his 20 units of
True Ki
flowed through his newly cleared pathways, providing a constant, low-frequency hum of energy that kept his body at peak biological efficiency.
He stopped in front of a shattered glass storefront of a five-story department store.
[Warning: Enter at your own risk.]
[Local Sector designated as: Shadow Wolf Hunting Ground (D-Rank Dungeon Zone).]
[The environmental data has stabilized. Time until Gate closure: 47 hours.]
A normal level-3 or level-4 Hunter squad would look at this notice and immediately begin calculating their mana potions, checking the durability of their shields, and revising their retreat vectors. To them, a stabilized D-Rank dungeon zone meant an organized, systemic threat where a single mistake resulted in a party wipe.
To Min-jae, it was a grocery store.
"Ten units of
True Ki
expands my capacity," Min-jae murmured, checking his golden status screen. "But to reach the next realm—the 'Iron Skin' stage—I need to completely saturate these new meridians. Thirty units minimum."
He didn't hesitate. He stepped over the jagged shards of reinforced glass, entering the dim, cavernous interior of the department store.
The air inside smelled of expensive perfume mixed with the raw, metallic tang of dried blood. The escalator in the center of the lobby was dead, several bodies of security guards draped over the handrails, their throats torn out by clean, massive bite marks.
Growl...
From the shadows of the cosmetics counters on the first floor, multiple pairs of crimson eyes ignited. One, two... five. Five Shadow Wolves stepped into the dim light, their ink-like fur rippling with localized mana. They didn't bark or howl; they were intelligent predators. They split into a textbook crescent formation, intending to flush Min-jae toward the dead-end of the structural pillars.
Min-jae didn't even drop into a defensive stance. He loose-jointed his shoulders, his arms hanging casually at his sides.
"Five," he calibrated. "Total Strength pool roughly 45. Combined Agility 60. Predictable pincer movement."
The wolf on the far left lunged first, its claws tearing through a display case of luxury watches as it launched itself toward Min-jae’s throat. Simultaneously, the wolf on the right blurred through the shadows, aiming for his Achilles tendon.
Min-jae didn't activate
Formless Step
to escape. He used it to move
into
the attack.
He took a sharp, microscopic step forward and to the left. The lead wolf’s jaws snapped shut on empty air, a hair’s breadth from his ear. As the beast sailed past, Min-jae didn't punch. He simply raised his left elbow, locking the joint into a rigid, forty-five-degree angle.
Perfect Alignment.
The wolf’s own forward momentum carried its throat straight into the stationary wedge of Min-jae’s elbow.
CRACK.
The mechanical force of a 22-Strength vessel meeting a high-velocity target resulted in an immediate structural failure. The wolf’s trachea and cervical vertebrae shattered instantly. It plummeted to the floor, dead before its tail hit the linoleum.
Without looking down, Min-jae pivoted on his right heel. The wolf attacking his legs was already there, its jaws wide. Min-jae didn't retreat; he drove his right foot straight down, stomping heavily onto the beast’s upper snout.
BOOM.
The sheer downward pressure drove the wolf’s head completely through the concrete floor, fracturing its skull into atomic dust.
[You have defeated a Level 12 Shadow Wolf.]
[Converting vital essence... You have gained 1 point of 'True Ki'.]
[You have defeated a Level 13 Shadow Wolf.]
[Converting vital essence... You have gained 1 point of 'True Ki'.]
The remaining three wolves froze. Their predatory instincts, hardwired by the World Tree System to terrorize low-level humans, suddenly short-circuited. In their simple cosmic hierarchy, humans were supposed to scream, cast flashy blue spells, or run behind shields. This human didn't even have a scent. He moved like a machine and struck like a falling mountain.
"Don't stop," Min-jae said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration in the quiet store. "I still need eight more."
He blurred.
What followed wasn't a heroic battle; it was a clinical extraction of resources. Min-jae moved through the department store floor by floor, executing the logic of pure martial arts against the digital parameters of the dungeon. He didn't use flashy movements. Every strike was short, compact, and designed to maximize the kinetic output of his perfectly aligned frame.
A palm strike to a ribs matrix. A thumb-drive into a soft optic nerve. A sweeping low kick that turned a wolf’s hind legs into splinters.
By the time he reached the third floor—the luxury menswear section—the floor was littered with thirteen lifeless black carcasses. The ink-like mana fur was dissolving into grey ash, leaving behind the pure, unadulterated biological essence that the Overmaster System greedily siphoned.
[Current True Ki: 25 / 30]
[Your internal meridians are reaching a state of high-density saturation.]
[Warning: Continued accumulation without structural tempering may cause localized cellular combustion.]
Min-jae stood in the center of the aisle, surrounded by overturned clothing racks and shattered mannequins. He was drenched in sweat, his breathing deep and resonant as the
Primordial Core
rhythm worked overtime to cool his internal organs.
Tempering,
Min-jae thought, reading the prompt.
It means I need a external force to hammer the Ki into my skin. I can't just cultivate it; I have to forge it.
Suddenly, his ears twitched. His Perception stat of 15 caught a sound from the roof of the building.
It wasn't the sound of a wolf. It was the heavy, rhythmic thumping of military-grade helicopter blades, followed by the distant, magnified sound of a megaphone echoing from Gwanghwamun Square.
"Attention all citizens! This is the Republic of Korea Armed Forces! A Calamity-Grade Gate has mutated in the central plaza. All unawakened personnel must evacuate to the designated shelters immediately! Do not attempt to engage the anomalies!"
Min-jae walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass window, looking out toward the main square.
Through the smoke, he could see three heavy transport helicopters hovering over the plaza. Down on the ground, a massive military blockade had been established—tanks, armored personnel carriers, and hundreds of soldiers armed with experimental mana-rifles.
But what made Min-jae’s eyes narrow wasn't the military. It was the group of people standing behind the armored vehicles.
They wore matching, dark blue coats emblazoned with a golden sun crest—the elite vanguard of the
Miracle Guild
, the current number-one state-sponsored organization of South Korea. And leading them was a middle-aged man with sharp, eagle-like eyes, holding a massive tower shield that glowed with a blinding, pure white mana barrier.
Choi Sung-min. The 'Iron Wall'. A Level 28 Guardian Class who, in Min-jae's past life, was considered the absolute pinnacle of human defense during the first year of the Convergence.
They weren't there to rescue civilians. Min-jae knew their true intent. They had seen the system announcement of a C-Rank Vanguard Commander being slain solo, and they were hunting for the "Hidden Master" who did it. They wanted the legendary class, the mythic items, or the rogue variable dead before it could disrupt the emerging corporate hierarchy of the new world.
"They're fast," Min-jae muttered, his hand tracing the cold glass of the window. "But they're still looking for a ghost."
He turned his gaze back toward the dark stairwell leading to the basement of the department store. His perception caught a massive, dense vibration originating from the lowest sub-level—a vibration far heavier than any shadow wolf.
The
true
master of this dungeon zone hadn't come out yet.
"Perfect," Min-jae said, a cold, sharp smile breaking across his face. "I needed a proper hammer to finish this skin."