Aiden Kain gripped his combat knife tighter, not that it would help.
The Veil of Midnight had swallowed an entire city block three days ago. No one who entered had come back. The first response team? Wiped out. Drones? Dead on arrival. And yet, here he was—standing on the edge of something he had no business stepping into.
The air was wrong. Stale. Expectant. Like the Rift itself was holding its breath.
They weren't even supposed to be here. Squad Eclipse wasn't part of the Association's response teams. They weren't high-rank Hunters assigned to investigate the Rift. They were nobodies—a scavenger squad that had slipped past the perimeter in the chaos. When the Association was scrambling to contain a disaster, it left cracks in their security, and Dain had found one.
"A golden opportunity," he'd called it. "Get in, scan the Rift, and get out before the real Hunters arrive. If we bring back useful data, the guilds will notice us. Maybe even recruit us."
Dain was a liar.
Aiden's wristband buzzed against his skin, the synthetic voice chiming in his ear.
[Hunter System Status][Rank: F][Strength: 0.6][Agility: 0.8][Perception: 0.3][Mana: 0.0][Core Trait: None]
Aiden exhaled through his nose. Same numbers. Same reminder.
F-Rank. The bottom of the barrel. He had stopped being angry about it a long time ago—anger meant you thought you could change something. He knew better.
The others walked ahead, their boots crunching against cracked pavement. No one looked back. No one checked if he kept up.
It wasn't just that he was weak. It was that he wasn't one of them.
Aiden was shorter, leaner, built for endurance rather than raw strength. The others were fighters, people with Core Traits that enhanced their abilities. They could take hits. They could summon flame, crush stone, move faster than the eye could track.
Aiden had… nothing.
His jacket hung loose, the fabric worn thin from too many years of use. His boots were secondhand, just slightly too big, the kind of gear you scavenged rather than bought. The others carried weapons made of high-grade alloy, custom-fitted to their fighting styles.
Aiden carried a combat knife—because it was the only thing he could afford.
"Why'd they even send you? What are you gonna do, listen the monsters to death?" One of the Hunters, chuckling.
Laughter rippled through the squad. Aiden ignored it.
Instead, he focused on the feeling beneath his skin—the same instinct that had kept him alive this long.
The city was too still. The wind wasn't moving. There were no echoes. It wasn't just quiet. It was listening.
The Rift pulsed.
Aiden's fingers brushed the nearest wall—smooth, too smooth. Not glass, not metal—something else. Something that shouldn't be here.
His wristband buzzed again. A faint distortion in the audio.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ENVIRONMENTAL DISTURBANCE DETECTED.]
Aiden's breath hitched.
That wasn't normal.
The synthesized voice crackled, breaking into static before continuing.
[Perception… 0.3 → ERROR.]
His pulse quickened.
That wasn't normal.
Before he could process it, Dain scoffed. "No threats detected. Keep moving."
Aiden's stomach twisted.
He heard something shift.
A single step. A dragging motion.
Then—
The screaming began.