An emergency call went out across the entire nation. Every registered hunter—regardless of rank, faction, or region—was summoned to Starwyn City. The situation had escalated beyond containment.
A few hours later...
The city was in ruins.
Screams echoed in the air. Smoke choked the sky. Blood painted the streets.
Countless citizens had fallen. Many more lay wounded. Hospitals overflowed with the injured. Sirens never stopped screaming.
Seventy brave hunters had lost their lives in the first wave. Ninety-eight more were critically wounded. And yet, the monsters kept coming.
Days passed.
The portal continued to tear the world apart.
Half the world was now lost—swallowed by the chaos, flattened by the invading beasts. Cities crumbled. Nations collapsed. More than half of humanity had perished. What remained clung only to one fragile thread: hope.
In a high-level Safe Zone, behind thick safety barriers, civilians huddled together. Children clutched their mothers. Families whispered prayers. Everyone watched, wide-eyed, as the remaining hunters fought to hold the monsters back.
Then, from among the crowd, a man stepped forward.
He wore a black hoodie. Silent. Steady.
He gently brushed past a man, resting a firm hand on his shoulder before moving toward the barrier. With a calm motion, he lifted the safety belt and walked beyond it—toward the battlefield.
All eyes turned to him.
Gasps filled the air.
When he pulled back his hood and removed his mask, a ripple of shock spread through the crowd.
"W-wait… is that… Hunter Aslan?" someone shouted.
"No way! He retired! He refused to fight anymore!" another voice cried.
"He's just here to show off now?!"
"So what if he is?" someone snapped back. "The world needs him!"
And then, cries rose like a wave from the crowd:
"Hunter Aslan, save us!"
"You're our last hope—our messiah!"
One after another, people began to chant his name, reaching out as if their voices alone could protect them.
And Aslan… simply stood there.
Watching the monsters.
Silent.
Determined.
He had once walked away from the battlefield.
But now… the world had called him back.