The system spoke first.
*Approaching dungeon boss.*
*Hunting party casualties — zero.*
*Mana levels across hunting party — stable.*
---
Gun-woo looked at his team.
Then at the cameraman.
Then back at his team.
"I'll face this one alone."
A breath.
"All you have to do is keep the camera running."
---
He walked forward.
---
The system rang out.
*Dungeon boss — Level 18.*
*Cyclops Warrior.*
---
It emerged from the dark the way things emerge when they've been waiting a long time.
---
A giant tree.
But wrong.
Dark and unholy looking.
Its roots stretching in and out of the earth like something that couldn't decide whether it belonged above ground or below it.
Giant crystals the size of full grown people pushing up from between the roots.
Growing from the trunk itself.
Digging outward.
The canopy above filled with the same crystals.
Glowing dim and red.
---
And inside the tree.
At its center.
A single red eye.
---
It opened.
---
The boss dropped from the branches like thunder finding earth.
The impact shaking the ground.
Traveling through the dirt.
Through everyone standing on it.
---
Bigger than the others.
But not by much.
What was different was everything else.
---
Shoulder armor made from the faces of its own kind.
Stacked and bound together.
A single massive horn.
A gauntlet on its right hand.
Prongs and spikes covering it entirely.
Breastplate like snake skin.
Dark and scaled.
Protecting the upper body precisely.
Its teeth sharper than any of the others.
Longer.
Black.
Its fur the color of a dark sea at night.
---
It roared.
---
The sound moved through everyone present like something physical.
Young-ho grabbed the nearest solid thing without meaning to.
The soldiers braced.
The cameraman's hands shook against the grip.
---
Gun-woo kept walking toward it.
---
He stopped.
Looked at it.
Then snapped his fingers.
---
*Skill activated — Imperial Phoenix Flame.*
---
Fire burst from his right hand first.
Then expanded.
A Phoenix formed above him.
Enormous.
Brilliant.
Its wings spreading across the dark canopy.
Throwing red and gold light across everything beneath it.
It climbed higher.
Then dove.
---
Consumed him entirely.
---
The flame settled around him.
Armor made of fire.
Shaped perfectly.
Moving around his body the way water moves around something submerged.
Alive.
Breathing with him.
---
The creature charged.
---
Its fist came like a cannon firing.
Gun-woo jumped.
The punch passing beneath him.
---
Mid-air.
The creature looked up at him.
---
*Skill activated — Plasma Vision.*
---
A beam of red light launched from its single eye.
Hitting the flaming knight full on.
---
Gun-woo hit the ground.
Hard.
But kept moving.
Rolled.
Found his feet.
---
The creature charged again.
Not slowing.
Not hesitating.
Moving like something that had never learned what stopping felt like.
Its fists firing one after another.
Each impact sending him back further.
---
A tree behind him.
The giant black trunk.
He hit it.
---
The impact moved through the tree to its roots.
Through the roots to the crystals.
Through the crystals to the ground.
The whole thing shuddering down to whatever it was anchored to.
---
Pain moved through him.
Real.
Immediate.
His face didn't show it.
He locked it somewhere and left it there.
---
The creature raised its gauntlet.
Drew back.
Another plasma beam building in its eye.
Red and swelling.
---
Gun-woo looked at it.
Waited.
---
The beam fired.
---
He watched it come.
Read it.
Found the thing he'd been waiting for inside its movement.
---
He chuckled.
Small.
Quiet.
To himself.
---
A sword formed in his hand.
Fire condensed into an edge.
Long.
Brilliant.
Burning with a precision that hadn't been in the flame before.
---
"There it is."
His voice barely above a whisper.
"The opening."
---
He moved.
---
One motion.
One cut.
---
The creature separated at the middle.
Both halves falling in different directions.
The red eye going dark before it hit the ground.
---
Silence.
---
The flaming armor dissolved slowly.
Rising off him in wisps.
Until he was just a man standing in a dark forest.
Breathing.
Slightly.
His cape catching a wind that hadn't been there before.
---
He turned to the camera.
---
Smiled.
---
"That's all folks."
A pause.
"Stay tuned for next time."
---
The system's voice filled the dungeon.
*Boss successfully defeated.*
*Congratulations — Level 20 Hunter.*
*The system watches.*
---
Beyond the dungeon.
On screens everywhere.
In streets.
In living rooms.
In offices.
In bathrooms with posters on the wall.
People rose from their seats.
Voices erupting.
Victory finding whatever shape it needed to find in whoever was watching.
---
Gun-woo stood at the center of it all.
In a dark forest that smelled of smoke and crystal and something that had no name.
Watching the camera.
Smiling.
The same smile from the poster.
From the press conference.
From every angle anyone had ever caught him at.
---
Steady.
Unchanged.
As if none of it had touched him.