A Shocking Entrance
Thirty years ago.
Seoul, South Korea, had collapsed.
The cause was the sudden mass emergence of entities known as Ghosts.
They were called Ghosts because modern humanity could not comprehend them. Because of these beings, countless places were destroyed. Seoul was merely one among them.
In the aftermath, Korea constructed several new cities to replace the ruined capital.
One of those cities bore the name Monghwan City, a self-deprecating label that mocked its own dreamlike, nightmarish reality.
“Everyone, move out!”
“Maintain formation!”
This was an abandoned district that had once been part of Seoul but now belonged to Monghwan City.
In a forsaken place where all former glory had been brutally erased, a group moved with urgent purpose.
They were armed with bulletproof tactical vests, alloy blades, and specialized firearms. On their backs, the same words were stamped in bold letters.
MONGHWAN CITY GHOST COUNTERMEASURES DIVISION
In this era, every city required such an organization. These were the men and women who stood between humanity and the Ghosts.
Because their work demanded they risk their lives daily, most members of the division were sturdy, well-built men. Yet one figure stood out sharply from the rest.
She had long brown hair braided thickly down to her waist, a slender frame wrapped in a black jacket, and a face that still looked remarkably youthful.
Completely out of place in such a dangerous zone, the girl shouted toward the rest of the team.
“All units, halt! We have reached the target location!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Every member of the division obeyed her without question.
Her name was Han Bori. Though she appeared no older than a teenager, she was actually well into her thirties and ranked among the most veteran hunters in the entire Ghost Countermeasures Division.
“Is that the rift mentioned in the report?”
Her voice, slipping from those small lips, was calm to the point of being icy. Bori’s gaze was fixed on a jagged tear in space that looked as if the very fabric of reality had been violently split open.
“Yes, Senior Bori. Scrap collectors working in the abandoned district happened to discover it.”
“Coming to an abandoned district to collect scrap at a time like this? I’m grateful for the report, but those people must be out of their minds.”
Bori spoke with cold sarcasm.
This was an age when a Ghost could appear anywhere, at any moment. If one had burst from that rift immediately, the collectors would have died before they could even send a message.
“What kind of hole is this that some Ghost is going to crawl out of?”
“No way to know until it happens.”
“True. That’s exactly why they’re called Ghosts.”
Ghosts followed no fixed patterns. Knowing this, even the seasoned professional Bori could only give the standard warning instead of specific orders.
“Keep your guard up at all times.”
“The air sure is nice today.”
The atmosphere was thick with soot, as choking as swallowing iron filings. Bori’s small sarcasm hung in the air as she kept her eyes locked on the rift, ready to spring into action at any second.
Thirty minutes passed.
Creak.
Something began crawling out from within the rift.
Whatever emerged looked like it had stepped straight out of a nightmare. A naked, gray body that was impossibly thin yet nearly three meters tall. Its mouth was grotesquely narrow, like a buttonhole, and its eyes were the same. It stared at the Ghost Countermeasures Division with that eerie face.
In the next instant—
“What the hell are you staring at? Everyone, open fire!”
The division greeted the gray Ghost with a storm of bullets. Large-caliber rounds capable of felling elephants, treated with special processing, poured out in a continuous roar from their machine guns.
Against an ordinary Ghost, the barrage would have turned it into a honeycomb in seconds. Unfortunately, their opponent was anything but ordinary.
The buttonhole mouth stretched wide enough to swallow a human torso and devoured every incoming bullet.
Then the absorbed rounds fused inside its body, forming a massive shell. Using its own mouth as a barrel, the Ghost fired the projectile straight at Bori.
“Ah, fuck…”
Bori cursed as the enormous shell slammed into her, launching her backward through the air.
“Senior!”
“Damn it!”
With their commander gone, the remaining agents attacked desperately.
They might have brought down an armored vehicle with that firepower, but the enemy was a Ghost wielding bizarre supernatural powers. The gray creature continued sucking in bullets with its mouth while advancing on the division.
It seized one of the men.
“U-ugh, aaaaah!”
The gray Ghost lifted the struggling agent toward its maw.
It was going to swallow him alive. The others kept firing to save their comrade, but their attacks had no effect.
In that critical moment—
“Spit him out!”
Bori reappeared and delivered a powerful kick to the Ghost’s abdomen. The creature was sent flying, releasing the captured agent.
“This bastard’s being a real pain in the ass!”
She had been blasted away by a cannon-like shell only moments ago, yet she stood completely unharmed. The reason was simple: Han Bori was a Hunter—one of the superhumans who had manifested alongside the Ghosts, each possessing unique supernatural abilities.
Bori’s ability was the renowned high-grade physical reinforcement.
“Heave!”
“?!”
She lifted a one-ton rebar nearby and swung it at the gray Ghost. The sheer mass and strength behind the blow forced the creature to retreat in alarm.
Once it had gained distance, the Ghost opened its mouth toward the rebar and began devouring the metal. Bori watched with disbelief.
“Then try eating this instead!”
She shouted boldly and thrust her fist forward. Her punch landed directly on the most dangerous part of the monster—its mouth. The gray Ghost tried to bite down on her hand with glee, but it failed.
Bori’s physical durability far exceeded that of the rebar. Her fist smashed into the Ghost’s mouth and sent it flying once again.
“What are you all doing? Attack it now!”
“B-but Senior, what about you?”
“I’m fine, so shut up and keep shooting!”
Bori completely ignored the risk of friendly fire. The weapons they carried could pierce armored vehicles, yet they could not penetrate her skin. Only the gray Ghost steadily accumulated wounds.
“We’ve got this!”
Having taken on the role of tank against the gray Ghost, Bori was certain of victory. The creature was strong, but at this rate their side would undoubtedly win.
But at that exact moment, the previously clear sky suddenly turned black.
It was not merely dark. The heavens themselves began to shine with an inky black radiance. Everyone’s eyes were drawn to the sky, which had taken on an ominously bewitching glow.
“What the…?”
“Huh?”
Bori briefly wondered if the Ghost was responsible, but the gray creature was also staring upward in apparent shock.
While both humans and Ghost remained transfixed, the blackness staining the sky began to writhe. It descended toward the ground like a dragon diving in reverse, gathering into a single streak as it fell.
And then a woman appeared.
She was like the very embodiment of night’s beauty. Her face was as white as a blank canvas, adorned with doll-like features. Long, jet-black hair was tied into twin drill rolls, and her eyes were the same deep black. The dress she wore was black and antique in style, yet the body beneath it was so voluptuous that its feminine curves were obvious even through the fabric.
A fatally elegant queen of the night. Or perhaps the very essence of darkness condensed into human form.
“…”
“Who is that?”
Every member of the Ghost Countermeasures Division forgot they were in the middle of a battle. They were utterly overwhelmed by the dangerously beautiful appearance of the woman in black.
“Kiiiieeeeek!”
In contrast, the gray Ghost let out a shriek of excitement. It screamed in a way it had not done even when under attack, yet its eyes were filled with pure terror.
The irony of a Ghost—the very creature that terrified humans—being afraid. And when something was afraid, it usually chose one of two actions: flee, or lose all reason and charge forward recklessly.
The gray Ghost foolishly chose the latter.
It rushed toward the woman in black and swung a fist powerful enough to trade blows with Bori.
There was no time for the division to intervene.
The result was immediate. The gray Ghost’s arm vanished.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“…”
The woman in black stared quietly at the screaming Ghost. In her hand she held the creature’s severed arm. At some point she had sliced it off and caught it.
A chill ran down every spine.
The Ghost Countermeasures Division had personally witnessed how even a relentless barrage of bullets had barely scratched the monster. Yet she had torn its arm off with her bare hands. When had she even moved?
“S-Senior, did you see that just now?!”
“…I have no idea either, idiot!”
Even Bori had failed to perceive what had happened. The entire team was stunned.
But an even more shocking event occurred the very next instant.
The gray Ghost, realizing its peril far too late, chose to flee. Its eyes were wide with complete terror as it turned to run without looking back.
In that moment, its head was severed and fell to the ground.
“What the hell? What the hell is going on?!”
Bori, who had been concentrating this time to try and catch the movement, screamed. The woman in black had not moved at all. She had simply stood in place, yet the fleeing Ghost’s head had been cut clean off.
“…”
Having dispatched the gray Ghost in the blink of an eye and sent the entire division into shudders, the woman in black now gazed at the severed head.
She tilted her head as if she genuinely did not understand what it was. Bori found the innocent gesture even more horrifying.
However—
What the hell is this thing?
The woman in black had not been behaving like a psychopath. She truly did not know what the creature was.
It suddenly charged at me, so I knocked it down, but this isn’t human, right? What the hell is it? And why is my body like this?!
The woman in black—Mu Yeonghui, whose appearance had been completely transformed as a side effect of her flawed ascension instead of a proper return—let out a silent scream.