At the front of the colossal gate, several members of the Hunter Association stood in black suits, engaged in quiet conversation, their expressions solemn and tense.
They were stationed there to monitor the large-scale dungeon gate that had opened hours ago—a rift through which the elite hunting squad from the Thousand Blood Sword guild had entered.
Then it happened.
Without warning, the shimmering gate pulsed once, a ripple in space warping the very air around it.
And then
It vanished entirely, leaving behind only a faint trace of mana in the air.
But in the exact spot where the massive portal once stood, something even more shocking appeared.
Dozens of bodies—bloodied, cold, and lifeless suddenly manifested on the ground.
Some were fully armored, others with shattered weapons lying beside them. Among them were the two porters from earlier—the chubby one, and the bespectacled Mike. All of them now lay sprawled in disarray across the scorched earth.
This was standard protocol: when a boss monster was defeated, the gate to the dungeon remained open for thirty minutes before forcibly ejecting all foreign entities—hunters or otherwise—dead or alive.
But no one had expected this outcome.
The Hunter Association agents gasped in horror and rushed forward with wide eyes. Their boots stomped against the earth as they ran toward the heap of bodies, eyes scanning the faces with disbelief and rising dread.
"Th-That's... the entire raid team," one of the agents muttered, his voice shaking.
"They're all dead… even the S-Rank from Thousand Blood Sword," another whispered, eyes locked on the blood-splattered insignia stitched on a fallen hunter's cloak.
A heavy silence settled over them. No one dared speak further.
But then—something odd happened.
Just as they were about to inspect the corpses, a faint buzz came from the thigh pocket of one of the bodies.
Mike's smartphone.
It flickered to life. Its screen lit up for a second—glitching with static—before the air around it began to twist unnaturally.
Zzzzzzttt!
In an instant, space distorted around the phone, and before anyone could react, it vanished—completely—right before their eyes.
"What the—?!"
No one saw it clearly. It happened too fast.
Far above—hundreds of meters in the sky—a crackle of black lightning sizzled in the air. A distortion flickered, and out of thin air, Mike's phone reappeared.
It floated midair, untouched by gravity.
Black tendrils of lightning crawled across its surface like serpents.
Then the device began to change.
The outer shell twisted, folded, and split apart, metal warping unnaturally. Its entire body collapsed inward and restructured itself—splitting into hundreds of microscopic metallic cubes before reforming into a single compact, polished object.
The smartphone was gone.
In its place hovered a small metallic cube, faintly humming, its edges constantly shifting like puzzle pieces. It emitted low, pulsing crackles of black energy—unnatural, alien… sentient.
The cube floated silently, suspended in the open sky like a god's eye.
Then
—click—
A sudden pulse echoed out from it.
It began emitting invisible rays, scanning every direction. Waves of energy surged across the Androlis Sovereign Zone like ripples in a pond. If someone could see the unseen—mana-sensitive perhaps—they might have noticed the transparent black rays shooting through the sky like a radar scan, slowly circling outward like a mechanical heartbeat.
But to the world below, there was nothing.
No one noticed it.
No one sensed it.
As soon as the pulse finished sweeping across the entirety of the Androlis Sovereign Zone, the hovering metallic cube stopped moving. It remained suspended in the silent sky.
Then—
Ding!
A small, transparent screen materialized just above it, glowing faintly in the air like a hologram.
Lines of text began to flicker across the screen, typed in with mechanical precision.
[System Initialization Complete.]
[Commencing Attribute Synchronization...]
Another pulse emitted from the cube, thinner and faster—almost surgical.
[Scanning for Attribute Bearers…]
[Attribute Bias Identified: — 'Child of Darkness'/ 'Apprentice of Darkness']
[Attribute Bias Identified: — 'Child of Light'/ 'Apprentice of Light']
[Searching for Compatible Dual-Attribute Host…]
The screen flickered. For a moment, it displayed nothing but static. Then came the failure prompts.
[No Suitable Dual-Attribute Host Found.]
[Recalibrating Search Parameters…]
[Searching again…]
[No Match Found.]
The system waited.
A silent pause lingered in the air.
Then suddenly, the screen pulsed with a new energy.
[Match Detected.]
[Initializing Host Identification...]
The glowing text glitched for a brief second before realigning into clearer data.
[Name: Taegyun Park]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 16 Years]
[Class: Undefined]
[Attributes: — Child of Darkness, Child of Light]
[Compatibility: 99.99%]
[Mental Interference Resistance: High]
[Awakening Potential: Unmeasured]
[Status: Inactive]
[Host Confirmed.]
[Initializing Forced Awakening Protocol...]
A soft buzz ran through the air around the cube. As if the sky itself was reacting, dark clouds began to swirl above the region in a spiral formation—ominous, foreboding, silent.
The screen pulsed one final time.
[Warning: Dual-Attribute Awakening Detected.]
[System Integration Will Begin Shortly.]
Then everything faded.
The screen vanished.
The cube stopped humming.
It rotated once—slowly, deliberately—and then vanished, dissolving into streams of black data particles that shot through the sky like meteor trails, heading straight towards the south.
***
It was midnight.
Inside a room dimly illuminated by the soft, pale light of the moon seeping through the glass window, Taegyun Park lay sprawled on his bed. The room was silent except for the sound of his slow, even breathing.
His brows twitched slightly.
"Mmm... Miss Anna... your lips… so sweet," he muttered under his breath, lips parting ever so slightly as a thin line of drool traced the corner of his mouth. "S-So soft… I never thought… kissing a beautiful woman would feel this... mmhh... this damn good..."
His voice was low, dreamy, almost lustful—clearly lost in a dream that was far from pure. A faint smile played on his lips as he squirmed lightly beneath the sheets, drunk on the bliss of a forbidden fantasy.
Suddenly—without warning—a torrent of black, crackling data particles streamed through the closed glass window. They didn't shatter the glass or make a sound. They simply passed through as if the window had never existed.
Silent, seamless, spectral.
The black particles swirled through the air for a moment before they dove downward—straight into Taegyun's chest.
Like water soaking into parched soil, the data vanished into his body without resistance, as if his skin itself was absorbing them like a sponge.
For a few seconds, everything went still.
Then his body jerked.
Muscles twitched. Sweat formed rapidly across his brow and temple. His breathing turned ragged. His legs kicked out from under the blanket as he twisted from left to right violently, as if writhing in invisible flames.
"Mmm—ugh...!" A sudden groan escaped his lips. His hands clutched his chest as he sat upright abruptly, eyes flaring open in panic. He gasped as if the air had turned into fire.
His bare feet hit the floor with a thud, and he immediately dropped to his knees, the pain overwhelming.
"FUCK—WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" he tried to scream, but his voice came out warped, distorted—like a scream underwater or through a wall of intense heat. The sound felt unreal, broken.
"Cough... cough! Ughhh..."
Blood spilled from his lips, staining his chin and dripping to the cold floor. His entire body trembled as his insides twisted with agony. His mouth opened wide, but no sound came out this time. Only blood.
He clutched his chest with both hands, trying to contain the pain as tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
Then—darkness.
Taegyun collapsed face-first onto the floor and went completely unconscious.
Thirty Minutes Later…
The boy stirred.
With a low groan, Taegyun slowly pushed himself up from the blood-stained floor, body trembling, breathing shallow. His muscles ached as if he'd run a marathon while being crushed under tons of pressure.
He blinked a few times, vision blurry.
"…The hell...?" he muttered hoarsely, staring blankly at the red stains beneath him.
His clothes were torn—no, not torn—burned. Singed around the edges, as if someone had pressed a branding iron across his shirt and pants. Ash clung to the fabric like fine powder.
Ding!
"Agh—" he winced, clutching his head as the sound echoed directly in his skull, loud and painful like a spike driven into his brain. "What the fuck was that?!"
Just as the pain subsided, his breath hitched in his throat.
Before his eyes, a transparent screen hovered in mid-air—floating, shifting, glowing faintly like a hologram from a sci-fi movie.
He flinched, taking a cautious step back.
For several seconds, Taegyun stared silently at the strange translucent screen hovering in front of his face. It didn't move, didn't glitch. It just floated there like a ghost, quietly glowing in the darkness of his room.
"What the fuck is this… a hologram?" he muttered, scratching his head. "Did I buy some AR device I forgot about? I don't remember installing anything like this."
As the initial panic calmed, he leaned forward and waved his hand, trying to shoo the screen away like an annoying fly.
His fingers passed through it—half the screen dispersed into a wisp of black smoke, then instantly reformed like it had never been touched.
His brows furrowed.
"…What the hell?"
Suspicious now, he turned and glanced at his study desk across the room.
"I don't know who installed some high-tech prank shit in here, but if there's a projector, it should be on my desk…"
He walked over, opened drawers, flipped books, even checked under the table—but found nothing.
"…Why's it following me?"
Everywhere he moved, the translucent screen followed him like a loyal pet, floating always within his field of vision. He turned left. It moved. He walked to the door. It hovered. He squatted. It lowered. He even jumped—and the damn thing jumped with him.
"This… isn't a normal hologram," he muttered.
Then he looked down.
At the blood stains on the floor.
And at his clothes, scorched and torn.
Memories flashed through his mind—the pain in his chest, the blood from his mouth, the feeling like his body was burning from the inside out.
Taegyun's eyes went wide.
"Did I... awaken?"
The thought struck him like lightning.
"No, that can't be. I didn't feel anything before today. No symptoms, no burning… wait—"
He paused. A deep frown etched itself onto his face.
"Usually if someone's about to awaken, their body starts acting up a week in advance. Burning, sweating, sharp pains—something. I didn't feel shit before today. I went to school. I went on a… 'date.'" A grin twitched at his lips. "Hell, I was having a damn good dream just now..."
His voice trailed off as he stared at the screen.
A strange, unsettling possibility surfaced.
"…Is this my first skill? Some weird hologram-based ability?"
He focused on the screen, and lines of glowing text became clear:
_____________
Name: [Taegyun Park]
Race: [Human] (Evolution: Unavailable)
Rank: [Awakened] (???)
Title(s): [System Chosen], [Unknown Variable]
Class: [None] (Unassigned)
Void Core: [1/10]
Void Particles: [0/1500]
Attributes: [Child of Darkness] (Void), [Child of Light] (Void), [Touch of Temptation]
Void Abilities: [Darkness Manipulation], [Light Manipulation]
Skills: —
_____________
"…This looks like a character status screen... from a fucking game."
He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin slowly.
"Void Core… Void Abilities? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Child of Darkness and Light…?"
He sat down on his bed, still staring at the glowing panel, brain churning.
Then something clicked.
"System... system… I've seen this before somewhere..."
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
"No way. This is just like those old world webtoons! The long vertical comic strips with the overpowered main characters and systems."
He quickly grabbed his phone, unlocked it, and began tapping away furiously. A few keywords, some frantic scrolling, and he landed on a familiar old archive site.
"Read the Top 1 System Webtoon of the Old World: THOUSAND SHATTERED WORLDS!"
"Damn, even the description sounds crazy," he snorted. "OP MC, system powers, and... multiple wives? Sounds like a hentai plot with plot armor."
He tapped it open and read through a dozen chapters in nearly fifty minutes. By the time he put his phone down, his expression was a mix of excitement and confusion.
"…So I'm basically an OP protagonist now?"
He looked back at the hovering panel and whispered, "Disappear."
The screen vanished.
His eyes lit up.
"System."
Ding.
The panel returned instantly.
"Fucking cool!"
His grin widened, borderline maniacal now.
"Holy shit, I got a system! And not just that—I got a dual attribute system with light and darkness. That's edgy and badass. Am I dreaming?"
Without hesitation, he slapped his own cheek—hard.
"AH FUCK—! That hurts!"
He rubbed his face with a wince.
"Okay, nope. I'm definitely not dreaming."
A wide grin stretched across his face. "Yes! I finally awakened! I have a system! And... 'Touch of Temptation?' Damn, this is some spicy cheat skill, isn't it?"
He shook his head to calm his giddy thoughts.
"Right. Calm down. First I need to make sure if I've really awakened or not."
He sat on the bed, folded his legs into a lotus position, and closed his eyes.
According to hunter knowledge and countless forum articles, the moment someone awakened, they should be able to feel their mana—a current of energy usually flowing near the abdomen. If one could sense that stream of power and start circulating it, they'd form something called a core.
He breathed in slowly and focused inward.
His mind quieted.
In meditation, those attuned to mana would feel its presence—glowing, flowing, in different hues depending on the person. Some golden. Some blue. Some white. But all shared one common trait:
They emitted warmth and light.
But as Taegyun reached deeper into himself...
What he felt was neither warm... nor light.
However, a sharp pull suddenly tugged at his forehead—as if his skin was being dragged inward.
His eyes snapped open, body stiffening.
There was something. A sensation that jolted him from his focused state.
But it wasn't mana.
It didn't feel light or warm.
Instead... it was cold.
It felt like a stream of darkness, twisting violently inside his chest. It moved like a storm, suffocating, foreboding. A weight that pressed down on his lungs and coiled around his heart like a snake.
A normal person would panic.
But strangely—Taegyun did not.
He felt it was dangerous. It felt like death.
And yet, deep inside, a whisper told him—
This is natural.
This is you.
You are one with the darkness.
His lips trembled. "Crap—"
Splurt.
Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, sliding down his chin.
"Huff... Huff..."
His chest heaved violently as he struggled to breathe, clutching his shirt as if trying to rip the pain out from within.
'Shit… this definitely isn't mana. What the hell was that?'
He coughed, still panting. The sensation was gone, but the chill lingered.
"Rather... it felt like it was part of me. Not something I drew from the world... but something that belongs to my soul."
He glanced back at the hovering panel.
His expression tensed.
'Right. My awakening... it isn't normal. This system, the Void Core, the dual attributes... it's all different. My progression path—it's not like other Awakened. And I'm pretty damn sure I'm the only one with something like this.'
A long, slow sigh escaped his lips as he leaned back.
"This is hard... how the hell am I supposed to compare myself to others now?"
But he didn't dwell on it.
He straightened his back and narrowed his eyes.
"Step by step. Let's go through this panel. Figure out what it all actually means."
His gaze fell to the first strange line under his name:
_____________
Race: [Human] (Evolution: Unavailable)
_____________
"Evolution... unavailable?"
He tilted his head.
"Does that mean I can evolve? Like, into the next phase of human development?"
His imagination wandered. He envisioned himself with four legs, four arms, long horns, and a dozen glowing eyes staring in every direction.
He blinked.
Then shook his head violently.
"Naah. That's a bit too much. I'm not tryna turn into a fucking Eldritch Abomination."
Still, he muttered under his breath, "If it says 'Unavailable'… it means possible. Just not now."
Next, his eyes drifted down to his Rank and Titles.
_____________
Rank: [Awakened] (???)
Title(s): [System Chosen], [Unknown Variable]
_____________
"Three question marks?" he muttered. "What's that supposed to mean? Is it hiding my actual stage? Or is it not decided yet?"
He hovered over the line.
"System Chosen, huh?"
As soon as he focused on the title, a new panel blinked into existence in front of his face,
_____________
Title: [System Chosen]
Description: You have been chosen by the Absolute Void System, an ancient construct forged from the will of the Void itself.
When the first pulse of existence rippled through the formless expanse, the Void did not disappear — it evolved, watching in silence.
From that silence was born a singular purpose: to find a being capable of ascending beyond duality — one who embodies both True Darkness and True Light — and shape them into the Supreme Void, the destined ruler over all that is and is not.
System Chosen Requirements:
▸ Must possess compatible dual attributes:
→ Child or Apprentice of Darkness
→ Child or Apprentice of Light
_____________
Taegyun's eyes widened slightly, lips parting in disbelief.
"...Supreme Void?"
He stared at the screen, the words searing themselves into his mind.
"Chosen by some ancient will... to become the Supreme Void?"
His voice was a whisper now.
"What kind of ridiculous destiny is this...?"
But even as he said that, he felt something stir deep in his chest.
A spark.
Not of fear.
Not of confusion.
But excitement.