Two Rebirths of Bone and Muscle
A low, resonant hum filled the air.
Above a blood-red altar, a single figure floated in empty space.
The vast mana an S-rank gate was devouring poured entirely into one human being.
On an altar meant to birth a disaster beyond even an Ancient Species, that power was being swallowed whole by a single man.
In the early days of the Gate Era, when humanity was still staggering to its feet amid ruins left by Ancient Species, the hunter world had been ruled by pure strength.
Human rights, ethics, morality—those only mattered in a world where people could afford to eat.
Hunters had thrown themselves into gates with no rank system and no information, and the casualties had been catastrophic. Gate Breaks erupted without warning; civilian deaths piled high. There had been no city barrier system like the one that stood today.
Decades ago, when a young Lee Myeong-won first stepped onto the gate front lines, he had been a D-rank hunter.
Low-rank hunters were treated better as pack mules than as fighters. In the worst cases they were shoved to the front of the party as meat shields. Their sacrifices vanished without a sound or a grave.
This passage feels off…
Hmm… Lee Myeong-won. You go first. Alone.
What the hell are you—gah!
You don’t get a say. If you’re weak, you make yourself useful like this. You knew what you were signing up for the moment a low-ranker applied for a high-tier gate raid, didn’t you?
You okay, Myeong-won?
Kh… Kim Jin-seong, let go. I can walk on my own.
You should stop partying with higher-rank hunters. I can’t always be there with you.
I never asked you for help.
…Sure, the higher the gate, the more chances you get to grow stronger. But every hunter in this era is a heartless bastard. Low-ranks are just meat shields. If you die sprawled out somewhere, nobody will even care.
I’ll handle myself. Worry about your own neck.
Lee Myeong-won was a man of ambition.
And that ambition had burned just as fiercely in the days when his strength had been pitiful.
He had clung to life with a single thought: grow stronger by any means necessary—kneel those who had scorned him, and take revenge on every soul who had driven him into death’s path.
He joined countless high-tier gate raids. He endured every filthy treatment they threw at him.
And to those who survived, opportunity came.
After that, a strange rumor began to trail Lee Myeong-won.
No party member who entered a gate with him ever walked out alive.
L-Lee Myeong-won…!? What is this power? You were a D-rank!
Why are you attacking us!?
I’m the type who holds a grudge. …As far as anyone’s concerned, you all died to the monsters mid-raid.
G-Gyaaaaah!
Even under that cloud of rumor, Lee Myeong-won’s power grew, steady and sure.
In time he made his name as an S-rank hunter and founded the foremost guild in the Republic of Korea—the Jeokpung Guild.
“……”
Fragments of the past tormented Lee Myeong-won inside the crimson sphere.
Kim Jin-seong had said he had changed. The Blood Demon’s power had only amplified what was already there.
Lee Myeong-won had always been that kind of man.
The Blood Heaven Asura Art, which absorbed other hunters’ mana and made it his own, was fundamentally aligned with the twisted energy of the gates.
The power of an S-rank gate, steeped solely in the will to destroy, was never meant for a human body. But the Blood Heaven Asura Art Lee Myeong-won had received from a constellation absorbed it beautifully.
This gate itself was the altar for Lee Myeong-won’s completion.
Most of the hunters who had entered would become offerings as well.
And the work on the body of that “newborn constellation,” still out there somewhere, was already finished.
Judging by the power that had slain an Ancient Species, it was likely a constellation strong enough to rival the completed Blood Demon—yet it was still only a child. Direct brainwashing driven into the mind of an infant before a self had even formed could not be refused. Pull the trigger, and it would obey his words without question.
The completed power of the Blood Demon. A newborn constellation. And the Sage of the North Sea.
Enough force to reign as both tyrant and savior of a chaotic world, and to impose order upon the ruins.
The gate’s mana flooding into Lee Myeong-won’s body crossed its critical threshold.
“…!”
Blood began to pour from all seven orifices.
Crack. Crrrack.
His body was changing.
A chrysalis casting off its old shell.
The same process he had endured when he first became an S-rank hunter.
A second transformation.
Through this evolution he would shed his humanity and set foot in the domain of gods.
And then—
—Oh. Has it finally begun?
The Blood Demon’s consciousness, half-slumbering within Lee Myeong-won, lifted its head with crystalline clarity.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWANG! KWANG!
“So this is the third one?”
With my protective aura spread, I deflected the storm of blades pouring from ahead and studied the pattern carved into the cavern wall.
A single massive circle occupied the center. Of the twelve smaller circles arranged like the hours of a clock, two—at the one and two o’clock positions—were already lit.
The twelve circles at the numeral positions marked the individual zones, no doubt.
The largest circle in the middle almost certainly meant the final boss room.
That was enough to grasp the nature of this gate.
There might be shortcuts, but the orthodox path was clear: clear all twelve zones, then enter the final boss room.
KWA-KWA-KWANG!
The thing in front of me was the boss of the third zone.
Kill it, and the third circle would light up.
Which meant nine more boss fights before every circle was active.
I muttered a light complaint.
“What are the other hunters even doing?”
I had already torn through two zones alone, and still only two lights burned. There were four other S-rank hunters in here, yet not a single other zone had been cleared.
Most of the monsters in this sector had been slimes with vicious acid. They looked a bit like jelly, but none of them had looked particularly appetizing.
And the creature waiting at the end—
KWA-KWA-KWANG!
A boss that hung in midair, black martial robes whipping around it as it flung blades in every direction.
A small humanoid frame.
Obvious at a glance. A mimic.
It was copying my body and my abilities.
Keeping my protective aura steady, I flicked open my terminal hologram and searched the stored data.
Doppelganger (A+)
Evolved Slime Specimen — Ability Copy
In the right circumstances, it could become the most terrifying ability of all—the stronger the original, the stronger the copy.
But.
“If you’re going to copy me, at least do it properly.”
Wum. Wum. Wum.
As if to pass judgment on that clumsy, half-baked Heavenly Demon Meteor Sword woven from crude mana, Mind Swords began to flood the cavern—every last one of them locking onto the small figure.
Wum.
The doppelganger that wore my face curled in on itself and dropped into a defensive stance, trying to force out something that vaguely resembled a protective aura.
A dozen complaints rose to the tip of my tongue, but in the end it was only a monster.
There was only one answer worth giving it.
“Then die.”
Puh-puh-puh-PUCK!
The moment the countless Mind Swords punched through the fake Wiji Yeon and the copy vanished—
Wum!
—exactly as expected, the third circle on the wall flared to life.
I hopped in place.
“Heehee! Zone Three cleared! And…!”
Where the doppelganger’s body had disappeared sat a single blue jewel.
“Hnnngh.”
I beamed and wiped a line of drool from my chin.
An inner core.
The reason I had been able to clear three zones this fast—despite having overwhelming burst power but serious stamina problems—was exactly these: the inner cores the zone bosses dropped.
Kim Na-yeon’s face and Lee Da-yeon’s face flashed through my mind for an instant. I shook my head hard and erased the phantoms.
“I have to eat first.”
My attack power was strong, but my body was still fragile.
I needed at least one Rebirth of Bone and Muscle—needed the body of the Harmony Realm—before I could feel even a little secure.
After swallowing the cores from the first two zones, my body was already standing on the threshold of the Harmony Realm, on the verge of S-rank.
I gulped.
The doppelganger’s blue inner core slid down my throat like candy.
“…!”
Internal energy past the critical point began to boil over in my dantian.
I forced my convulsing body still, settled into a lotus seat, and circulated the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Kugu-gugu-gugu.
I had prepared thoroughly.
I had eaten well and lived well. My body could take it.
Through the Taecheon True Scripture Heart Method I had diligently polished the vessel of my dantian.
There was no wall of enlightenment left to climb.
Like water finding its course, the Gate of Life and Death opened; true qi began to flow freely between the Conception and Governing Meridians.
Crack. Crrrack.
In the midst of a mad heat, the raw sound of skin splitting filled my ears.
It was here.
At last—the moment the Heavenly Demon would be reborn in a powerful body.
I would undergo explosive growth and gain a solid, adult physique.
If I obtained a body stronger than even my Left Guardian’s, no one would dare treat me like a child for being small anymore.
I might even reverse the roles and scoop my Left Guardian up into my arms. I could hoist my young cult leader, Lee Da-yeon, high into the air with ease.
PAAAAAHT!
Ash pattered down.
“Uugh.”
I shook my head once, and the clothes that had burned to ash scattered in every direction. Pale skin peeked through the falling soot.
I pinched my arm and stretched it.
Soft. Still elastic.
Unexpectedly… the skin was the same.
I pressed and prodded.
Thankfully, the bones felt considerably harder.
I hopped to my feet and bounced in place a few times.
My field of vision was still low to the ground.
“H-Huh?”
A blank little sound slipped out of me.
My voice was still the thin, high voice of a little girl.
I had definitely undergone Rebirth of Bone and Muscle.
I could feel that I was stronger—stamina, physique, everything.
…But my body hadn’t grown at all?