But the worst ones? They don't fight you with blades or spells.
They look at you like they know you, and you can't remember what side you're on anymore.
I’d been tracking him for three nights straight.
No rest. No backup. Just the cold fire of a name pressed into my skull.
Rheon.
The Guild had no photo. No record. Just a kill-on-sight order and the whispered warning:He is not like the others.
That meant one thing — he was worse.
And yet, as I followed his energy trail through the backstreets of Hongdae, something in me twisted. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even bloodlust.
It was heat.
A subtle burn beneath my sternum. The mark on my palm — the Guild’s holy seal — pulsed faintly, not with danger… but with recognition.
My instincts screamed that something was wrong. But my body?
My body was responding.
The trail led me to the edge of the city — to a crumbling stone temple half-swallowed by trees. Moonlight filtered through the broken roof tiles, casting jagged shadows across the altar stones.
He was already there.
Tall. Still. Shadow-wrapped. I knew it was him before he even moved, and when he turned…
My breath hitched.
Silver hair. Bare chest streaked with old battle scars. 6’6 height, His muscles were revealed by the opening in his shirt, leather pants and a half-unbuttoned black coat that looked like it had been stolen from death itself.
On his chest — glowing, alive — was the mark.
A jagged, ancient sigil pulsing with gold and crimson light.
It flared the moment his eyes met mine.
They say fate is a thread you follow. But no one warns you what happens when it coils around your throat.
My blade was already drawn. I lunged first — fast, sharp, no hesitation.
He blocked with the flat of his hand — skin against steel — and didn’t flinch.
“You don’t want do this little hunter,” he growled.
“Shut up,” I snapped, spinning, striking again.
He parried, slid behind me like smoke, grabbed my wrist.
I drove my elbow into his ribs.
We broke apart.
His eyes flashed, and darkness crackled at his fingertips — shadow magic, corrosive and pure.
“You don’t even know why you’re killing! You are nothing more than another puppet for me to kill,” he said, voice low.
