The throne room of Cartenon Temple loomed, an endless expanse swallowing them whole. Above, the vaulted ceiling clawed back the light, leaving only jagged shadows to dance across the polished stone floor. Silence, thick and heavy, pressed down like a living thing, stealing the breath from their lungs. Hunters froze, mid-step, eyes wide with a terror that hammered in their chests.
Something was moving.
Not a torch's flicker, not a draft in the air. Something alive. Something impossible.
The Angelic Statue a towering marble giant that had already claimed so many lives shifted its head. The motion was subtle, almost imperceptible, yet it resonated with a command more potent than any shout. The air itself seemed to vibrate, anticipating the inevitable. Every hunter felt it, a cold certainty sinking into their bones: death wasn't coming; it was already here.
Jin-Woo huddled with the E-ranks, the dregs of the hunter world, in a forgotten corner. His hands trembled, his legs felt like concrete. He wasn't a hero, wasn't even brave. Just another scared kid, too weak to matter, too insignificant to make a difference. His eyes darted, tracing the statue's movements, desperately searching for any sign, any opening, any miracle that might save them.
Then the blue glow.
Red lines, like veins of fire, snaked from the statues' limbs, mapping the inevitable trajectories of death. Above each hunter, percentages flickered cruel, unblinking judgments: 0% survival. For every single one of them.
Except…
A faint green line, impossibly thin, cut through the chaos. It twisted and turned, a mocking promise of escape. Jin-Woo's gaze snapped upward, past the sweeping arc of stone wings, to a seam in the ceiling.
The statue's hand began to rise. The silence shattered, replaced by the frantic pounding of hearts. Jin-Woo's breath hitched, ragged and shallow. He didn't think, didn't plan. He just acted.
"Mr. Song! Don't look at its eyes! Throw your sword! High! Fast! Hit the crack above the second arch on the right NOW!"
The veteran hunter froze, disbelief etched across his face. Song Chi-Yul, a man who had faced down nightmares and lived to tell the tale, could hardly credit what he was hearing. The words ripped through his instincts, severing the cords of doubt. He hesitated, hand tightening on his sword, his mind struggling to reconcile the audacity of the command with the sheer desperation of their situation.
Then something a spark of reckless hope, perhaps ignited within him. He obeyed.
The sword left his hand in a desperate, soaring arc, whistling past the statue's head, missing its mark entirely. A collective groan rippled through the hunters. But hitting the statue wasn't the point. The sword slammed into the ceiling, striking the 97% exploitable seam with pinpoint accuracy.
A ripple shuddered through the room, not the rumble of collapsing stone, but the sickening thrum of magic faltering. The statues stuttered. Their movements glitched. The world, for a heartbeat, held its breath.
Seconds stretched into an eternity seconds that were now theirs to seize.
The hunters scrambled, adrenaline surging, minds still struggling to catch up. Alive. Alive because the weakest among them had seen what no one else could, had trusted an impossible probability, had commanded the impossible.
Jin-Woo collapsed, a puppet with its strings cut. His mind felt flayed, raw. He could barely draw breath, barely see through the swirling darkness. The weight of what he had done pressed down on him, crushing, suffocating.
Then it appeared.
The system message seared itself onto his vision, stark and unforgiving:
**
**
**
Jin-Woo stared, chest heaving, the echoes of the room fading behind the stark pulse of the message. He hadn't been granted the power to fight. He had been burdened with something far heavier than any weapon: the duty to calculate, to strategize, to sacrifice, to save lives when every instinct screamed that salvation was impossible.
If he failed, if he miscalculated, if he hesitated… it wouldn't just be death that awaited him. It would be obliteration.
And somewhere, deep in the shadow of that impossibly tall statue, Jin-Woo understood the cruel, terrifying truth of his new reality: he was no longer just a hunter. He was the mind, the oracle, the last, fragile line between chaos and survival. And he would have to rise to that impossible challenge or be erased entirely.