I woke up with no pain.
Everything felt… normal. Which was strange.
I slowly sat up in the hospital bed, my fingers curling into the sheets. My legs didn't ache. My chest didn't burn. My breathing was steady—too steady, considering everything I had just experienced.
The fluorescent ceiling light was off. Only the streetlights from outside spilled a soft blue hue through the window.
I glanced around.
No doctors. No nurses.
The room was silent.
I remembered what the doctor told me.
"You aren't the only one… Others arrived. People who came from another realm. And monsters."
That sentence wouldn't leave my head. Not because of what it said—but because of what it meant.
My world—the one I came from… it had fused with this one.
Or at least, the boundaries between worlds were gone.
And if that was true, then monsters like the one that killed my father… could already be walking these streets.
I clenched my fists.
I had no proof. No map. No plan.But I had mana.I had something inside me now—something powerful.
And I knew one thing for sure:
I couldn't stay here.
I had to figure out what this place was.
Why I was brought back.
And what the hell this "system" was that whispered through the void and brought me back from the edge of death.
I slipped out of bed.
My clothes had been folded neatly in a chair beside the nightstand. A basic white shirt. A light hoodie. Black joggers. Not exactly battle gear, but it would have to do.
My body felt stronger than ever. Each step was silent, my feet instinctively soft on the linoleum floor. Something had changed in me—something primal. A heightened awareness. My mana was coiled tightly under my skin, waiting like a loaded spring.
As I walked toward the window, a strange glimmer pulsed in the reflection.
A small red icon flickered in the top-right corner of my vision—barely visible, like a heads-up display in a game.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
I blinked, stunned.
[USER: JAE HOON – STATUS: AWAKENED][UNLOCKED: BLOODLINE TRAIT – ???][MISSION: SURVIVE – INVESTIGATE DIMENSIONAL MERGE]
A chill ran through me.
Bloodline trait?Dimensional merge?
Was this like the games I used to hear about in the capital academy? No… it felt real. Too real. My mana responded to the text like it was part of me.
A second message appeared:
[WARNING: HIGH-LEVEL MANA SIGNATURE DETECTED IN LOCAL DISTRICT][RECOMMENDATION: STAY HIDDEN OR PROCEED WITH CAUTION]
My eyes darted toward the hallway beyond the room.
A deep, echoing sound vibrated through the walls. Like a hum. Like something big breathing slowly nearby.
I could feel it.
Something powerful. Not human. Just... waiting.
The lights in the hallway flickered once. Twice.
Then silence.
I grabbed a metal IV pole from beside the bed. Not a weapon, but it was heavy enough to swing. If I had to, I'd fight my way out of this place.
Just as I cracked the door open, a faint whisper brushed past my ears.
"I see you, chosen child…"
I froze.
That voice.
It wasn't Lyra's.
It wasn't the system's.
It was something else entirely.
Something evil—and watching.
I stepped into the hall.
And down the corridor, I saw it:A crackling red line running along the floor like a scar across reality. At the end of it, a portal—twisting, glowing, burning.
Something was coming through.
My hands started to glow red—mana flooding my limbs in response to the threat.
I stepped back, slowly.
But I wasn't watching my feet.
My heel clipped the baseboard behind me.
I lost my balance.
Fell.
Out the side window.
Glass shattered, and wind roared in my ears.
The streetlights spun.
The sky whirled.
And the last thing I saw before everything went black again… was a single message blinking in my vision:
[SYSTEM ALERT: MORTAL BODY UNSTABLE][INITIATING BACKUP PROTOCOL][JAE HOON, DO YOU WISH TO AWAKEN—TRULY AWAKEN?]