The Anomaly

“We are planning to submit an official request for cooperation to your Dinosaur Guild regarding this gate, Han Hye-nim. Would that be acceptable?”

“Of course.”

From the moment rumors of this newly formed anomaly began spreading, I had already anticipated that the Hunter Association would reach out to us. Levels twenty-six through forty. Within that bracket, it would have been downright bizarre if our guild was passed over.

There were certainly exceptional high-tier hunters in their mid-to-late thirties across the nation, but our squad didn't yield an inch to any of them. Uncle was an S-rank Dragon Knight, Shinhee was an extraordinary A-rank healer, and Minjae commanded raw destructive firepower easily rivaling a seasoned B-rank offensive mage. And though I had leaned heavily on the sharpness of the Sword of the Sky, I had recently brought down a high-tier mutant ogre in a single decisive strike.

On top of that, answering an association request was inherently lucrative. Some guilds declined them because of the extreme occupational hazards, but that was never our style. If you possessed genuine confidence in your capabilities, claiming the rewards tied to these emergency summons was far more advantageous. It was the most reliable avenue for securing sacred elixirs and priority gate passes, since the association typically only mobilized external aid for the nastiest, most treacherous dungeons. Moreover, this instance carried a bizarre, unprecedented quirk: identical gates bearing the exact same name had manifested across dozens of countries simultaneously.

Which means it’s harboring extraordinary rewards.

The source of my certainty was straightforward: I had consulted Chunbae the moment news of the global phenomenon broke.

‘There’s definitely something unusual about this place, isn’t there?’

—Affirmative. It is a Trial Gate that surfaces naturally as dimensional time elapses. One could describe it as a double-edged sword.

Naturally, having served the previous Subspace Master and the master before him, Chunbae was intimately familiar with the anomalous phases of dimensional incursions.

‘A double-edged sword?’

—The bounties are peerless, yet proportionally lethal. A ‘trial’—meaning it is a gate engineered to devour hunters whole.

‘Is it really that brutal?’

—Affirmative. It will be exceptionally grueling.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

For Chunbae to openly characterize it as difficult meant there was undeniably something sinister lurking beyond that threshold.

—Furthermore, unlike conventional gates, if it is not successfully subjugated within two months, a Gate Break will inevitably occur.

‘A Gate Break?’

—A supreme-grade calamity. In the parlance of Earth, a super-large outbreak gate will rupture open.

A super-large outbreak gate. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠That was tantamount to an apocalypse. The 1st Gate Outbreak hadn't plunged the world into an existential nightmare for nothing, and the complete collapse of Australia remained a grim testament to what happened when those rifts overflowed.

‘Earth only survived the first outbreak because the gates ended up closing automatically after their timers expired.’

The Zaratan—the colossal, primeval sea turtle that had crushed my childhood and murdered my parents eleven years ago—had also crawled out from a super-large gate. In short, this situation was teetering on the edge of global catastrophe.

—Additionally, the prevailing deduction among your world's strategists is entirely correct.

‘Which one?’

—Only the raid force that achieves the world-first subjugation shall obtain the rewards. The moment that single subjugation concludes, every other twin gate across the globe will instantaneously collapse.

‘They all vanish?’

—Affirmative. The second the core in any one territory is shattered, all parallel instances will dissipate into nothingness.

Only one conclusion came to mind.

‘The gate is deliberately goading mankind into a lethal race?’

—Such is the logical deduction.

A sudden memory flashed through my mind: the entity I had encountered beyond mortal perception. The Surviving God who had endured the ancient cosmic erosion of mana.

“I was wondering if things were getting a bit too dull. It’s almost the final act, after all. Isn't it far too boring as it is?”

Those had been his words. He had even tried to bait me into a wager. The current predicament carried an uncanny resemblance to his whimsical malice.

‘Could this be that bastard’s doing?’

—That cannot be confirmed. However, Trial Gates fundamentally operate by dangling irresistible treasures to tempt elite vanguards into mutual slaughter against insurmountable odds.

‘Which explains why you called it a trap that devours hunters.’

—Affirmative. Blinded by the promise of transcendent relics, prideful hunters inevitably flock into the slaughterhouse without hesitation.

He wasn't wrong. Top-tier awakeners were universally obsessed with breakthrough rewards. Any slight opportunity to shatter their current ceiling and claw their way higher was intoxicating.

—Trial Gates will continue to manifest at predetermined intervals from this juncture onward.

‘And that’s also due to the rising atmospheric mana density, right?’

—Affirmative. Your deduction is precise.

As the baseline difficulty of gates worldwide crept upward, the Trial Gates had finally begun to rear their heads.

‘Do you know the specific structure inside?’

—The internal trials alter with every incarnation, rendering advance reconnaissance impossible. Should we encounter architecture or entities within my records, I shall brief you immediately upon entry.

Well, there was no helping it. We would just have to face whatever lay beyond the veil head-on.

Turning my attention back to the call, I asked Seo Woong, “When is the muster?”

“I realize you must be exhausted after returning from your expedition, but would tomorrow afternoon be feasible?”

Tomorrow... It was a tight squeeze. That meant diving into an unknown trial without even having the luxury to test my newly promoted S-rank skill, Incineration.

“You won't be deploying into the gate immediately,” Seo Woong clarified smoothly. “Tomorrow will strictly consist of the joint raid force briefing. The actual deployment is scheduled for the day after tomorrow—two days from now.”

“Hold on a moment, please.”

Even if I held the title of guild master, I had no intention of making arbitrary decisions. I needed the consent of the team.

“I'm fine with it,” Uncle said with a hearty grin.

“Same here,” Lee Shinhee agreed softly.

“They say the gate could vanish at any moment if another country clears it first, right?” Minjae chimed in, adjusting his glasses. “We should get in there as fast as humanly possible.”

With unanimous consent, I nodded toward the receiver. “Understood. We'll attend the briefing tomorrow.”

“Thank you very much. I will adjust the schedule to push the meeting as late into the afternoon as possible.”

We were currently down in Daegu. With the considerable distance back to Seoul, the association was clearly trying to afford us adequate breathing room. But their accommodations didn't stop there.

“Furthermore, given the transit time to Seoul, the association has arranged a chartered flight on standby at the local airfield for your guild.”

A private flight. Now that, I thought with a smirk, is service I can get behind.

“Ugggh, I’m beat to the bone.”

Fresh out of the shower, Uncle emerged into the living room, rolling his broad shoulders and stretching his arms toward the ceiling.

“Did you call Auntie?” I asked from the sofa.

“Took care of that ages ago while you were dead to the world on the plane, kiddo.”

Under ordinary circumstances, clearing a gate meant everyone immediately dispersed to their own homes for well-deserved rest. Today was an exception. Given the urgency of the situation, we had gathered at the guild house for a brief strategy session. The Hwarba Ruins had been an unbearable furnace, so everyone had made a beeline for the showers the moment we stepped through the front door.

A moment later, Lee Shinhee stepped out of the washroom, patting down her damp hair with a towel.

“You didn't have to rush out so quickly,” I remarked.

“It's a guild meeting; how could I keep everyone waiting while I leisurely dry my hair?” she replied with a modest, gentle smile, pulling up a chair across from us.

And so, our impromptu war council began. It wasn't anything excessively grandiose. With zero advance intelligence on the interior of the gate, trying to predict its layout was an exercise in futility. Instead, our discussion naturally pivoted to the roster.

“Who else is participating besides our team?” I inquired.

“Iron Wall Guild's Lee Hongju team is confirmed,” Uncle stated. “Word is, the man is sitting at exactly Level 40.”

Knight Lee Hongju of the Iron Wall Guild. He was the veteran whose workshop raid record I had previously shattered, as well as the frontline defender who had rushed to back us up during the sudden outbreak gate in Seoul.

“Then does that mean he’ll be appointed raid leader?”

“Most likely,” Uncle replied with a nod. “As a knight, Lee Hongju is the highest-level vanguard in the entire strike force. It's only natural the mantle passes to him.”

“That works out well. Lee Hongju is someone you can genuinely rely on.”

In terms of pure, raw offensive capability, general consensus ranked him slightly behind China's top sword prodigy, Liu Zhen, who possessed an S-rank swordsmanship skill in his late thirties. However, as a frontline anchor, Hongju was widely celebrated for his impeccable situational awareness and battlefield composure.

“Next on the docket is Miro Guild,” Uncle continued.

“Miro Guild?” I blinked.

“What is it? Something catch your eye?”

“I know someone there.”

It was the guild where Sang-yeop worked—my former swordsmanship instructor from the rookie workshop with whom I had recently engaged in friendly sparring sessions. He had casually mentioned back then that we should tackle an expedition together sometime, but I never imagined the opportunity would present itself quite like this.

“Miro Guild is a solid outfit,” Uncle agreed. “Great track record, no dirty laundry.”

Indeed. Sang-yeop was a remarkably seasoned combatant for someone in his mid-thirties, making Miro Guild a dependable vanguard asset.

“And the rest aren't whole guild strike teams, but individual recruitments of prominent mages across the Level 30 bracket.”

“Mages?”

“Since the gate is dubbed the 'Trial of Mana,' command seems determined to pack the ranks with spellcasters. There are a few additional healers mixed in as well.”

It made logical sense. Whatever horrors awaited inside, a domain dubbed the 'Trial of Mana' would undoubtedly involve mechanisms intricately tied to magical energy. Bringing in mages, who possessed high Mana stats and the highest innate affinity for handling ambient flow, was the textbook tactical counter.

“Looks like our squad holds the lowest levels in the entire raid roster,” I observed with a faint smile. “They're really playing it as safe as humanly possible.”

“Can you blame them?” Minjae chimed in, looking up from his tablet. “China's elite detachment just suffered a catastrophic wipe.”

The operational bracket spanned Levels 26 through 40. Normally, when a gate permitted a generous twenty-person quota, large guilds routinely slotted in low-level prodigies to let them soak up experience and power-level under senior supervision. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Liu Zhen—the undisputed pride of China armed with an S-rank sword technique—had been utterly repelled. Even after assembling a handpicked strike team exclusively composed of peak-level awakeners to claim the global first-clear, they had been driven out in disgrace. Carrying baggage was out of the question. The association had to deploy only verified, hardened combatants to minimize risk.

“Which is precisely why other nations have lost their appetite to charge in recklessly,” Minjae added.

I had browsed international hunter forums during our flight. Multiple global powers had initially mobilized with grand fanfare, but the mood had plummeted following the Chinese disaster. Mid-tier nations had immediately frozen their deployment orders, and even traditional hunter superpowers like the United States were quietly observing from the sidelines. The entire international community was treading on eggshells.

‘Liu Zhen suffered a string of humiliations ever since crossing paths with me, but on paper, he remains an extraordinary powerhouse.’

While he had struggled in geopolitical debates against mid-forties super rookies, among those in their late thirties, he was universally acknowledged as having no equal. If the world's premier prodigy under Level 40 had failed miserably, foreign governments were naturally terrified of throwing their own national champions into the meat grinder. Hunters were irreplaceable strategic assets, and Coordinate-Designated Return Talismans were astronomically expensive emergency lifelines. A botched raid meant crippling national prestige and catastrophic resource loss. Besides, the idea that only the first-clear team would secure the spoils was still mere speculation to the general public.

‘Though I know for an absolute fact that it's the absolute truth.’

Viewed through that lens, South Korea's aggressive posturing was rather fascinating. We were organizing our assault force faster than any other nation on the planet, second only to China's frantic initial push. Well, perhaps it wasn't so shocking after all. South Korea had long been recognized as an elite hunting nation, hadn't it?

Knight Lee Hongju, while falling short of Liu Zhen's pure martial ceiling, was a rock-solid vanguard. Miro Guild was thoroughly dependable.

And most importantly—our Dinosaur Guild was on the board.

Had we not been available, the Korean association would almost certainly have dragged its feet like everyone else. That wasn't self-aggrandizement; on paper, our combat metrics were simply wildly over-specced for our numerical levels.

“The primary tactical concern is how we’ll integrate into the formation,” I mused aloud.

“Eh, won't Lee Hongju coordinate the battle lines smoothly?” Uncle shrugged with an easygoing grin. “He saw you fight right in front of his nose last time. He knows what you’re capable of.”

True enough. We had exchanged mutually respectful pleasantries during that defense.

Bzzzt—

My smartphone vibrated against the table. I expected to see Secretary Park Seo-woong's name on the caller ID, but it was someone entirely different: the sniper, Seo Seung-yeon.

The following morning, fresh intelligence from across the Yellow Sea dominated the international wire. As the first global power to breach the Trial Gate and suffer a devastating rout, China was under intense global scrutiny. What struck analysts as peculiar was that Beijing was already mobilizing a second wave of combatants.

They had already deployed the absolute cream of their Level 30 crop and eaten dirt, yet they were frantically preparing for an immediate second attempt. Had their vanguard caught a glimpse of the final boss room's rewards before retreating? That was certainly a possibility.

‘Or now that they know the dungeon's internal layout, they're confident they can counter it on round two.’

I didn't lose any sleep over it. Our deployment was slated for tomorrow morning. We would undeniably breach the threshold ahead of whatever ragtag replacement team China cobbled together. No matter how fast Beijing cracked the whip, they wouldn't outpace our timetable.

Putting aside unproductive speculation, I focused entirely on final equipment checks. With our entry set for the following morning, there wasn't much room for extensive conditioning anyway. For now, I decided to leave my sixteen unallocated stat points banked. If Chunbae had deemed this place sufficiently lethal to issue multiple stern warnings, maintaining a substantial reserve of adaptable stats was pure common sense.

Apprehension regarding the trial aside, looking down at my status window filled me with quiet, profound satisfaction.

‘Now this is what a proper status window ought to look like.’

When I first awakened in that hospital bed, the screen had been pathetic and barren. But step by step, my arsenal had steadily broadened, growing denser and deadlier. The spoils reaped from the Hwarba Ruins had been especially monstrous. I had acquired a genuine S-rank offensive skill, and my Fire Resistance had skyrocketed to Level 7. At this threshold, standard thermal attacks wouldn't even singe the hairs on my arms.

Though, if I were subjected to the apocalyptic dragon's breath I had witnessed during my initial awakening, it would probably still turn me to ash in a heartbeat...

“You're here early.”

A familiar voice broke my reverie. Looking up, I watched Seo Seung-yeon and Korea's undisputed apex vanguard, Shin Chang, step into the private training hall. Following her sudden message yesterday evening, we had coordinated this private rendezvous.

An informal sparring session with Shin Chang had been arranged.

“Oppa mentioned he wanted to see you in person before you go in,” she had told me.

Receiving personal guidance from South Korea's number-one vanguard right before plunging into a lethal, uncharted trial was an invaluable blessing. On top of that, I genuinely wanted his seasoned assessment regarding my newly minted S-rank skill, Incineration.

‘Shin Chang had remarkably sharp insight when evaluating my Subspace applications back then, too.’

Having the ear and blade of the man standing at the absolute ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠summit of the nation was an opportunity I would welcome with open arms, any day of the week.