An Unprecedented Rank

It was a rank I had never seen in my life.

S+.

Did my eyes deceive me?

I tilted my head, blinking hard, and checked the notification again.

The text remained entirely unchanged.

“Holy crap… It really is an S+ rank dungeon?”

Fascinating. Had such things always existed? I was pretty sure I had never heard of an S+ rank before.

Tap, tap, clack.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, scouring the search engines and private Awakened community boards.

Nothing came up except speculative banter and wishful thinking like that. Whoever posted that certainly had sharp intuition, though. S+ rank was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠very real. I doubted SS or SSS existed, but still… why had I never heard even a whisper of this?

Wait.

Don't tell me…

“Did those bastards in China intentionally hoard the intel so other countries couldn't prepare?”

No, surely not… right?

Yet the more I pondered it, the more plausible it sounded. Then again, perhaps it was only manifesting in China. Considering the global leaderboard for the Tower of Despair, China held an overwhelming lead.

Luo Qin had cleared all the way to Floor 66. Behind him was the top ranker of the United Kingdom, who was currently stalled at Floor 62. Given the widely accepted theory that regional dungeon difficulty scaled with a nation’s highest tower record, it made sense that an anomaly like this would appear exclusively on their soil.

“Unrepentant scoundrels, the lot of them…”

It wasn't as if China's territorial greed was news to anyone. Locking down their S-rank and A-rank dungeons under total state control while refusing to share a scrap of data with international agencies was standard operating procedure for Beijing.

Still, an S+ rank dungeon was an eye-opener.

“Wait… does this mean Luo Qin can actually solo an S+ dungeon? Damn, he must be ridiculous. I'd break into a cold sweat just staring down a normal S-rank.”

When I thought about it, that disparity seemed reasonable. My personal record in the Tower of Despair sat at Floor 19. Ordinary folks considered themselves blessed to touch a C-rank dungeon at my level, so popping into A-ranks for casual afternoon strolls was already an absurdity. Luo Qin, however, had conquered Floor 66. The difference in raw tower level alone exceeded threefold. Naturally, an immense gap had to exist between us.

Envy would get me nowhere.

“Go ahead and have fun clearing your S and S+ dungeons, big guy. I'll stick to picking clean your A-ranks.”

“Beautiful.”

Every time I glanced over the available rift catalog, admiration welled up inside me. Connecting to China via the Hub System had been a stroke of genius. Their territory was a goldmine. It was practically an all-you-can-eat buffet—no matter how many A-rank dungeons I devoured, brand-new ones kept popping up in their place.

Well, who was I to turn down an endless feast?

“Thanks for the meal.”

Beijing, China.

Inside the grand office of the Heavenly Martial Alliance Leader, the pinnacle of Chinese Awakeners—the man heralded across the continent as the Heavenly Emperor—let out a flabbergasted breath.

“What did you say, Liu Wei? Speak plainly. What is the projected grade of the upcoming Settlement Dungeon? S+?”

In all his years navigating countless life-and-death battlefields, Luo Qin had never encountered such a classification. For a brief second, he assumed his hearing had betrayed him.

“Yes, Alliance Leader… It is correct,” Liu Wei replied, his head bowed low. “While complete verification is impossible until the gate opens, my detection skills are projecting an anomaly at S+ rank.”

There was little room for doubt. Liu Wei was no ordinary scout; he was the nation's premier S-Rank detection specialist. His prognostications had never faltered, save for that singular, humiliating encounter with the elusive phantom designated as '???'. If Liu Wei sensed an S+, the chances of it being real were horrifyingly high.

“Preposterous…” Luo Qin exhaled, a vein throbbing along his temple. “This defies all reason. Did you not report just days ago that the Settlement Dungeon was calibrated firmly at S-rank?”

The bi-monthly Settlement Dungeon was a systemic event they monitored with religious precision. Liu Wei's sensory arrays were kept trained on the spatial fluctuations around the clock. While fine-tuning the exact grade typically required proximity to the manifestation date, the baseline timetable had been tracked meticulously. Four or five days prior, it was undeniably an S-rank.

How on earth had it mutated?

“At the time, the spatial density aligned strictly with standard S-rank parameters,” Liu Wei explained, his tone laced with mounting dread.

Even an S-rank was unusually severe. The bureaucrats at the Central Awakened Management Bureau had always prided themselves on calculating dungeon clear rates so precisely that the settlement event rarely escalated past A-rank.

“However,” Liu Wei continued, “over the past few days, the energy density spiked uncontrollably into the S+ threshold. It is almost certainly the result of the sheer volume of A-rank dungeons being eradicated across our provinces in rapid succession…”

“The incident the Bureau reported,” Luo Qin grunted, his eyes narrowing into venomous slits. “That vermin, the one suspected to be ???, systematically razing our territory's high-tier dungeons.”

“Precisely.”

“Insolence… To think our great empire is being thrown into disarray by a solitary, nameless rat!”

While Luo Qin seethed in indignation, Liu Wei was privately suffering a nervous breakdown. Frustration barely described his current agony; he felt as though he were losing his mind. As the sole observer watching the invisible gauges redline in real-time, the creeping despair was suffocating.

Neither Luo Qin nor the smug desk jockeys at the Bureau understood the true horror.

Good grief…

S-rank? That was already an escalation. Before Liu Wei filed his report earlier that week, the settlement gauge had sat comfortably in the mid A-rank tier. Over the past two months, following the disastrous incident where ??? pilfered Luo Qin’s divine blessings and stripped the national buff, the leadership had explicitly dialed back high-rank raids to avoid tipping the regional balance. Everyone believed the upcoming settlement would be child's play.

Then the world lost its mind.

Out of nowhere, Chinese A-rank dungeons began vanishing by the handful every single day. Before the Alliance could even formulate an investigation, the gauge leapt to S-rank. A few days later, it pierced the ceiling into the uncharted territory of S+.

“Alliance Leader… will an S+ rank dungeon truly be manageable?” Liu Wei ventured with immense trepidation. “Perhaps we should consider extending an invitation for joint intervention to the United Kingdom and the United States…”

The top rankers of Britain and America lagged behind Luo Qin, but they were seasoned veterans who had conquered past the 60th floor. They possessed the baseline combat strength to survive S-rank expeditions. If assembled into an allied strike force, they might just stand a fighting chance.

Yet even as the suggestion left his lips, Liu Wei anticipated the rebuke.

“What insolence comes spilling from your mouth, Liu Wei?” Luo Qin snapped, his aura flaring with suffocating pressure. “Do you dare imply that I, Luo Qin, am incapable of quelling this beast? Spare me your pathetic cowardice. My instincts assure me that this blade is more than sharp enough to cleave whatever emerges.”

Predictable. The boundless arrogance of the Heavenly Emperor would never stomach begging Western powers for aid.

Still, Luo Qin’s supernatural intuition had pulled him through countless crises. Perhaps his confidence wasn't entirely baseless.

It has to be right. It must be… Liu Wei prayed silently.

Spatial mapping placed the manifestation point directly in the vicinity of Beijing. If the raid collapsed, the entire metropolitan heart of the nation would be wiped off the map. Failure was not an option under any circumstance.

“Has there ever been an ordeal under heaven that this seat failed to conquer?” Luo Qin declared, his chin held high. “This trial shall be no different.”

“Your words ring true, Heavenly Emperor,” Liu Wei conceded softly.

Factually, Luo Qin had never tasted defeat within their borders. His martial prowess had elevated him to a stature where even the highest state leaders treaded lightly around him. The dilemma, however, lay elsewhere.

An S+ rank is an unknown abyss compared to standard S-rank.

The chasm between A-rank and S-rank was as wide as heaven and earth. One needed only to look at the catastrophic A-rank gate that recently brought South Korea to the brink of ruination. Terrifying as it had been, global rankers would have dismantled it with routine coordination. A genuine S-rank was an entirely different nightmare.

What, then, did an S+ represent? A calamity that defied mortal comprehension.

Worse still, the Alliance Leader is no longer operating at his peak.

His prime was merely a month ago. Since then, the ghost known as ??? had stripped three divine blessings from his soul and revoked China’s grand national blessing. In terms of sheer combat potency, Luo Qin was fielding barely half of his former glory. Could a crippled emperor truly slay an S+ anomaly?

Furthermore, an even grimmer reality loomed.

“Heavenly Emperor, forgive my impertinence, but there remains a far more pressing crisis.”

“What? A crisis greater than an S+ dungeon?”

“Yes. There is still a considerable window of time before the rift actually ruptures…”

The speed at which the gauge had surged—from A to S, and then from S to S+ within days—proved that the difficulty was still climbing. Under normal conditions, they could have stabilized the system simply by freezing all dungeon clear operations nationwide until the rift matured. But presently, they possessed no means to halt the intruder.

And what if S+ wasn't the terminus?

If higher tiers existed, and that phantom continued his feeding frenzy, a catastrophe beyond human survival would be unleashed upon their capital.

“We must urgently petition the Korean government through our diplomatic channels to rein in their rankers, while simultaneously coordinating contingency forces with international allies…”

“Hmm…”

Liu Wei breathed an inward sigh of relief seeing Luo Qin actually pause to deliberate. At long last, reality seemed to be piercing his pride.

“If S+ is indeed not the ceiling, the situation could indeed turn delicate, just as you say,” Luo Qin murmured, leaning back into his throne. “Very well. We shall adjust the contingency framework.”

“Your wisdom is boundless, Heavenly Emperor.”

“Furthermore,” Luo Qin added, his gaze chilling into ice.

“Sir?”

“Open a channel to the Japanese islands. Those islanders are well-versed in insidious, bizarre sorceries. If anyone possesses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the dark arts required to ensnare the tail of that phantom ???, it will be them.”

Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Inside the Awakened Management Bureau headquarters, a peculiar atmosphere permeated the office of Director Ko Jinhyuk.

“So… the American DAA officially tendered that exact proposal?”

“Yes, Director,” his chief aide confirmed, reading from an encrypted tablet. “They have pledged full transfer of their proprietary next-generation Awakener support technology, alongside an annual allocation of five hundred intermediate magic stones, on the sole condition that we facilitate direct contact with EX-jwa.”

Ko Jinhyuk let out a dry, incredulous chuckle. It was an astonishing bounty. Such a technological windfall would shave years off domestic research initiatives overnight.

“And what of China?”

“The Chinese side has stated that if we restrict EX-jwa from accessing dungeons within their borders, they will formally apologize for their unilateral termination of our bilateral Awakener dispatch treaty and reinstate the agreement immediately.”

Hearing the summary aloud only heightened its absurdity. A formal apology? From the very regime that had treated Korea like an inconsequential nuisance just weeks prior?

EX-jwa… what an unfathomable ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠individual.

To think a single anonymous hunter had brought the sprawling empire of China to its knees, reducing its arrogant officials to desperate groveling. Yet, as tantalizing as both offers appeared, the Bureau's stance remained obvious.

“Do we even have the means to stop him? We haven't the faintest idea who he is,” Ko Jinhyuk stated flatly.

He crossed his arms, his gaze hardening.

“And even if we possessed the power to restrain him, why on earth would we?”

“My thoughts exactly, sir.”

Reinstating the bilateral security pact sounded pleasant enough on paper, and the American tech package was undeniably sweet. But Ko Jinhyuk possessed sharp political instincts.

“Instead of doing everything in our power to shield our national treasure, these snakes expect us to sell him out or clip his wings? Do they take us for brainless fools?”

It was utterly offensive.

“Draft a response to both delegations immediately. Keep the phrasing diplomatic, but ensure our refusal is absolute: The Korean government possesses zero information regarding the identity or whereabouts of the entity known as EX-jwa.”

The Americans were transparent in their ambition to recruit a transcendent anomaly, while the Chinese were clearly scrambling to extinguish a blazing fire in their backyard. Whatever ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠calamity Beijing was facing, they could sort it out on their own.

Just as they had left Korea to bleed when the shadows darkened their own skies.

A few days later, a piece of news detonated across the globe, shattering the international community's composure.