When They Returned
Eight hours after vanishing, they reappeared.
In the same tent. Same location. Like they'd never left.
But Jae-sung's wounds were mostly healed. Color returned to his face. Strength in his movements.
Ji-hye found them there at noon.
"You're back."
"Yeah."
"You look better."
"Yeah."
"Should I ask where you went?"
"Probably not."
She nodded. "Okay then. Baby needs feeding. And you need real food. I'll get both."
She left without pressing further.
Smart woman.
Jae-sung looked down at his son. The baby's eyes were open—still that disconcerting awareness.
"We need to talk," Jae-sung said quietly.
"Not now. You can't talk yet. But when you can—we need to discuss what you are. What you can do. Because this?" He gestured at his healed shoulder. "This is beyond anything I've seen."
Yoo made a sound that might've been agreement.
"But for now—thank you. For saving me. For risking yourself."
Thump-thump.
"I'll do better. Won't put you in position to save me again. Promise."
You can't promise that. This world won't let you.
But Yoo appreciated the sentiment.
They sat together in quiet understanding.
Father and son.
Both changed by what had happened in that impossible space.
Both knowing the world would demand more from them.
Both willing to pay the price.
That Afternoon
Dr. Choi received a report.
"Subject and father disappeared for eight hours. No explanation. Father returned with injuries healed beyond natural rate. Recommend: increased surveillance."
Choi deleted the report.
"No," he said to his assistant. "No more surveillance. We leave them alone."
"Sir, the baby's abilities—"
"Are his own business. Not ours. Am I clear?"
The assistant hesitated. Then nodded.
Choi watched them through security footage anyway. Couldn't help himself.
Saw the baby looking directly at the camera. Meeting his eyes through the digital feed.
As if aware he was being watched.
Choi turned off the monitors.
Some children are meant to become legends, he reminded himself.
Others are meant to become something more.
He didn't know which category Yoo fell into.
But he knew interfering would be disaster.
So he'd watch. Record. Document.
But never touch.
Never risk destroying something humanity might desperately need.
Three Days Later
The world ended again.
Not as dramatically as the first time. No massive entities appearing in the sky. No reality-tearing rifts opening globally.
This was subtler.
Deep beneath Earth's surface, in the planet's core, something broke.
A seal. A barrier. A cosmic lock that had held for millennia.
It shattered.
Energy flooded outward. Pure, raw, transformative power. The kind that reshaped reality at fundamental levels.
It took twelve hours to reach the surface.
When it did, every human with even a fragment of hunter potential felt it.
Like lightning in their veins. Fire in their bones. Their Gi—the internal energy they'd been cultivating through combat and cores—suddenly exploded.
Worldwide. Simultaneously. Instantaneously.
The Core Surge had begun.
And nothing would be the same.
The Surge
Yoo was sleeping when it hit.
His infant body convulsed. Energy poured into him from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.
Not like absorbing a monster core—that was targeted, controlled.
This was drowning in power.
His cells drank it in greedily. His underdeveloped Gi pathways expanded violently. His bones, muscles, nervous system—everything reconstructed at accelerated rates.
"WARNING: CORE SURGE DETECTED. GLOBAL PHENOMENON. ENERGY INFLUX: CATASTROPHIC LEVELS. HOST BODY ABSORBING AT RATE 847% ABOVE HUMAN NORM. RECOMMEND—"
Akasha's voice cut out.
Because even it couldn't process what was happening.
Yoo's consciousness fragmented. He saw:
—His father screaming as Gold rank power flooded his system, pushing him toward Platinum threshold—
—Ji-hye crying as Bronze rank manifested in her untrained body, years of suppressed potential activating all at once—
—Dr. Choi collapsed in his lab, Silver rank achieved through pure cosmic accident—
—Across the slums, people glowing with power they'd never earned, never trained for, suddenly possessing abilities that terrified them—
And him.
Yoo felt his infant body changing. Growing. Evolving at impossible rates.
His Gi pathways formed completely—something that should take years, finished in minutes.
His muscles developed density beyond human norm.
His bones hardened with trace minerals they couldn't possibly contain.
And most importantly: his age accelerated.
Not chronologically. Physically.
When the Surge ended—fourteen minutes after it began—Yoo's body had aged two years in physical development.
He was ten weeks old chronologically.
He looked six months old.
And he was starving.
Aftermath
The world counted casualties.
Three billion humans had some level of hunter potential—most Bronze equivalent, dormant, never activated.
The Core Surge forced activation in all of them simultaneously.
Thirty percent died. Bodies couldn't handle the transformation. Blood vessels burst. Organs failed. They burned from inside out.
One billion dead in fourteen minutes.
The survivors were different. Stronger. Faster. More than they'd been before.
Bronze became Iron. Iron became Silver. Silver became Gold.
Every rank jumped at least one tier. Some jumped two.
In the slums, people stared at their hands. At the energy crackling between fingers. At the impossible strength that let them punch through concrete.
And they wept.
For the power they'd gained.
For the friends who'd died beside them.
For the world that kept taking and taking and never gave anything back except pain.
Yoo's Status
When Jae-sung found his son, he almost didn't recognize him.
The baby was twice the size. Looked six months old instead of two. His eyes glowed faintly—gold and silver light visible even in darkness.
"What... what happened to you?"
Yoo stared up at his father. Tried to speak—
"H-hun... gry..."
The word came out. Slurred. Barely intelligible. But a word.
Jae-sung's blood went cold.
Ten-week-old babies didn't speak.
But his son had.
Because his son wasn't normal.
Had never been normal.
And the Core Surge had accelerated whatever impossible development was already occurring.
"Okay," Jae-sung said, voice carefully controlled.
"Okay. Let's get you food."
He picked up his son—heavier now, much heavier—and carried him to find milk.
Knowing that everything had changed.
Knowing that hiding Yoo's nature was becoming impossible.
Knowing that soon, very soon, the world would notice.
And when it did—
There would be consequences.