Ronin's eyes snapped open like a gunshot had gone off in his chest. His breath came sharp, and his body jerked upright as if waking from a fall instead of a dream.
Darkness.
He blinked, letting his vision adjust. Moonlight crept through the window, tracing faint lines across the clutter of his apartment. Judging by the silence and the deep black sky outside, it had to be past midnight—maybe closer to dawn. Hard to tell. He'd crashed too hard to know when he'd even made it back.
He ran a hand down his face and exhaled. His muscles ached, not from exertion, but from finally relaxing after too long in survival mode. The quiet of the room felt unnatural after the chaos of that other place. Too still. Too soft.
Ronin sat there for a moment longer, staring at his hands, then closed his eyes and circulated his mana through his body.
It burned—slightly—like a hot breeze running beneath his skin. But it flowed. Stronger than before. More obedient.
He stood up and began to dig through the wreckage of his apartment.
The place looked like a landfill had exploded inside. Clothes, tools, paper scraps, food wrappers, empty mugs—everything he'd abandoned in his rush to the Gate was still here, piled high like a memory of a past life. He shoved junk aside, flipping over chairs and kicking through the mess until finally—
There. Buried beneath a collapsed shelf and the husk of an old laptop bag, he found it.
His travel bag. Or what was left of it.
It was scorched—edges blackened, fabric torn, still carrying the scent of blood, fire, and something darker. His fingers trembled as he opened it. Amidst the ashes and cracked supplies, nestled in the lining like a hidden gem—
The blue crystal.
It was smaller than he remembered. Or maybe it only felt that way now, with its light dimmed down to a faint, hollow glow. The vibrant, pulsing energy that had once danced within it like liquid starlight was gone.
Dead?
He pressed a finger to it, curious.
No warmth. No hum. Nothing.
Ronin sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, crystal in hand, and pushed his mana into it.
The moment his mana touched the crystal, it rebounded like he'd punched glass. No absorption. No reaction.
"Well, shit," he muttered.
Still… there was no way this thing was useless. A blue crystal? That wasn't in the textbooks. Yellow was standard for D through B rank dimensions. Green was rare—A rank and above. Blue?
He stared at it with a small, hungry smirk.
An E-rank goblin had this. And it had turned into a monster. A monster.
"If that little freak could hit B-rank levels with this, imagine what I could do..."
He stood up and tucked the crystal back in its pouch. He'd need to embed it. Stack it on top of the yellow one already inside him. See what happened when fire met the unknown.
But not yet.
He glanced around the apartment. This place? It looked like a man had died in here months ago and no one had noticed.
And him? He looked like the ghost.
Time to fix both.
----
The sink was still clogged, the fridge made a weird rattling sound, and the floor probably hadn't seen a mop since he bought the place—but for once, his apartment resembled something close to livable. Garbage bags were piled near the door, dishes washed and stacked, and the floor had actual visible space.
Ronin stood shirtless in the mirror, snipping at his hair with a pair of dull scissors.
He hadn't gone full salon-mode—there were still a few uneven patches—but it worked. He looked… normal. The scruffy mess of beard was gone, jawline now visible, even if a bit sharp from weight loss.
His eyes looked brighter now. Like they belonged to someone who wasn't running on fumes and bitterness.
He ate a cold leftover sandwich from the back of the fridge—he didn't care how old it was—and downed half a bottle of water before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then he looked at the bag. At the crystal.
And smiled.
"Time to see what you've got."
----
In the southern province within the country of Osterra, the roads were dead quiet. Midnight had long passed, and only the cold wind kept the silence company.
Seth stood alone in the center of a blocked-off highway, his black tuxedo catching the glow of the orange Gate that pulsed behind him like a living wound in the air. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a full beard and balding brown hair. Mid-forties, maybe older. His eyes were lined with exhaustion.
The Gate flickered. Mana rippled in the air.
He checked his watch for the twentieth time. Three hours. That's how long he'd been here, waiting for the damn team to come out.
A B-rank Gate. Should've been cleared in under an hour, especially with an S-rank in the squad. That was the point of having them—overkill. Safety. Efficiency.
So where were they?
His job was simple: greet the awakened as they exited and report back. Nothing fancy. He didn't fight. He didn't even carry a weapon. But the waiting? The waiting sucked.
Finally, the Gate pulsed.
He straightened, eyes fixed on the glow as it intensified. Figures began to emerge.
One. Two. Three.
Wait.
Seth's eyes narrowed.
Where were the others? These weren't the people who had gone in. He didn't recognize any of them.
The man up front stepped into the light, and for a second Seth forgot how to breathe.
Tall. Blonde. Impossibly good-looking in a way that made no sense, like a painting brought to life. His white dress shirt was untouched by dust. Not a scratch on him.
Behind him, two more shadows emerged—less distinct, swallowed by the Gate's glow. But the man up front—he looked directly at Seth.
Time froze.
Not metaphorically.
Seth felt his heartbeat stop. His lungs refused to pull air. The world blurred at the edges like it was being erased.
He stumbled back, knees weak.
The Gate behind the three strangers convulsed—and shattered. Glowing fragments of orange scattered into the wind, vanishing like embers into the night.
The blonde man smiled.
Seth collapsed to his knees, gasping.
He fumbled for his radio, fingers trembling.
"I-I need to report—immediately. Something's wrong. They… they weren't the ones who went in."
Silence.
"I don't know who just came out… but we're screwed."