By the time I reached the Central District, the city had already begun to panic.
Sirens screamed in the distance. People were running in every direction, some with their phones in their hands, others with their children dragged behind them, and all of them had the same expression on their faces. Confusion had turned into fear far too quickly, and fear was only one step away from disaster. I could already feel the change in the air. The mana around the district had become unstable, heavy enough to press against my skin, and above the tallest buildings, a crack in the sky had widened into a shape I knew too well.
A Gate.
My chest tightened, not from fear, but from the memory of what came next.
I had seen this before.
In my first life, I had arrived too late. By the time I got here, the first wave of monsters had already broken through, and the street had become a slaughterhouse. People had died while still trying to understand what was happening. Hunters had rushed in without proper formation. The government had panicked. No one had known the Gate was far more dangerous than it looked.
This time, I was here before the first bodies hit the ground.
I shoved my way through the crowd, ignoring the angry shouts and frightened faces around me. The crack above the district had grown wider, and a strange white glow pulsed inside it like a beating heart. The closer I got, the more clearly I could feel the pressure of the Gate. It was not just a hole in the sky. It was a wound. A wound in reality that wanted to open wider and swallow everything beneath it.
My hand tightened around the sword at my side.
The question was no longer whether the Gate would open.
It was how bad the first wave would be.
When I turned onto the main road leading toward the center plaza, I saw the first line of police barricades already being pushed into place. Officers were shouting at civilians to move back. A few awakened Hunters had arrived before me, though most of them were clearly low-rank and badly prepared. One of them, a man with a scar across his cheek and a cheap metal spear in hand, was staring at the Gate with a face far too pale for someone trying to look confident.
I recognized him.
Not by name, but by memory.
He had died here in my first life.
He had been the kind of Hunter who joined because he thought he could make quick money, not because he understood what real danger looked like. In the end, he had been torn apart by the first wave before he even got the chance to swing his spear properly.
I did not have time to think about him too long.
A loud crack echoed from above.
The Gate had fully opened.
The air split apart with a violent pulse of mana, and the glow inside the crack deepened into a blinding white circle. People in the crowd screamed and stumbled backward. A child fell to the ground and started crying. One of the police officers grabbed him and tried to carry him away, but even he looked like he was barely holding himself together.
Then something moved inside the Gate.
I raised my eyes and felt my body go still.
The first creature stepped out.
It was shaped like a wolf, but only if someone had built a wolf out of bone, claws, and hatred. Its body was thin and stretched, covered in gray-black fur that looked burned in places. Its eyes were red and glassy, and its mouth opened too wide, revealing rows of needles instead of normal teeth. It landed on the pavement with a wet crunch, sniffed the air once, and turned its head toward the crowd like it had already chosen its meal.
A second one appeared behind it.
Then a third.
Then four more.
The crowd erupted into chaos.
People shouted. Some ran. Others froze. The officers tried to push them back, but the line collapsed almost immediately when the first monster leaped forward and tore through a metal barricade as if it were made of cardboard. The scream of the first person to die cut through the air so sharply that it made my stomach tighten, but I did not hesitate. I moved before the panic around me could swallow the whole street.
One step.
Two.
I drew my sword and rushed toward the nearest monster.
Its head snapped in my direction at once.
Good.
It had noticed me.
The creature lunged with terrifying speed, its claws striking for my throat. I twisted my body just enough to avoid the attack, felt the wind of its movement brush against my cheek, and brought my blade down across its shoulder. The sword met resistance for only a fraction of a second before biting into the flesh beneath.
The monster shrieked.
It was not a normal sound. It was sharp and unnatural, like glass being dragged across stone. Black blood sprayed across the pavement as it twisted away from me. I did not give it time to recover. I stepped forward and drove my sword straight through the side of its neck.
Its body convulsed once.
Then it dropped.
A message flashed across my vision.
[You have defeated a Gate Creature: Lesser Fang Beast]
[EXP +12]
I did not even have time to process the message before another beast jumped at me from the left. I ducked low, felt its claws pass just above my head, then pivoted on my heel and slashed across its legs. It stumbled. I cut again, this time deep into its chest, and when it hit the ground I finished it with a quick stab through the heart area.
Another flash.
[EXP +12]
The third beast came from behind.
I stepped back just in time, letting its jaws snap shut where my neck had been a moment earlier. Its teeth scraped against the air with a disgusting click. I caught its foreleg with my left hand, pulled it off balance, and rammed my shoulder into its body. It crashed into the pavement, and I brought the sword down hard enough to split its skull.
The impact ran up my arm, but the monster stopped moving.
For a second, the area around me was silent except for the screaming civilians and the panicked orders of the officers.
Then one of the Hunters in the barricade shouted my name.
"Who the hell is that?"
I did not look back.
The first wave was still coming, and I knew better than to waste even a second on reactions. The Gate would continue to spit out monsters until either the mana supply inside it dropped or something inside the Gate was destroyed. I had seen what happened when groups got too slow and too careless. The weak ones died. Then the strong ones got overwhelmed. Then the people with authority arrived and tried to clean up the disaster after the damage was already done.
I could not let that happen here.
Another beast leaped from the Gate, and this one was larger than the others, with thicker limbs and a heavier body. Its claws struck the pavement hard enough to crack it. Its eyes locked onto me immediately, and something in the way it moved told me this was the kind of creature that had already learned how to kill humans efficiently.
A stronger one.
Good.
I needed that.
I narrowed my eyes and held my sword with both hands. The beast lunged.
This time I did not dodge.
I stepped in.
Its claws swept toward my chest, but I twisted my body and let the strike graze the edge of my shoulder instead of taking the full blow. Pain flared briefly, but I ignored it and used the momentum of the attack to close the distance. My sword moved from low to high in a clean diagonal slash, cutting deep into its torso.
It roared.
The sound shook my ears.
I could feel its blood splashing across my face as it reared back in pain, and for a moment the world slowed. My body had already started moving before I fully understood what I was doing. I used the step I had trained in my past life, the one I had repeated thousands of times until it had become instinct, and drove myself directly beneath the beast's guard.
Then I activated every ounce of strength I had.
The sword pierced through the gap between its ribs.
Straight into its core.
The monster froze.
Its red eyes widened.
Then the body collapsed, falling forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
A stronger flash crossed my vision.
[You have defeated a Gate Creature: Fang Beast Leader]
[EXP +50]
My breathing remained steady, but the inside of my chest had begun to heat. Not from exhaustion. From something else. A faint pulse moved through my body, subtle but unmistakable, as if the authority sleeping within me had reacted to the kill.
I felt it deepen slightly.
A line appeared in front of me.
[Authority Fragment Resonance Increased]
[Progress: 0.2%]
My lips twitched.
So it really did grow from conflict.
That confirmed everything I needed to know.
I did not have time to celebrate that thought, because the crowd had not stopped running, and the monsters had not stopped coming. I looked toward the Gate just in time to see several more creatures spill out, each one larger and more aggressive than the last. The police line had broken completely by then, and the low-rank Hunters were scrambling to regroup. The scar-faced spear user I had noticed earlier was bleeding from one arm and clearly struggling to stay upright.
He was going to die if he stayed here.
I clicked my tongue under my breath and moved toward him.
He saw me coming and looked surprised. "What are you doing? Get back!"
I ignored him and cut down a beast that was rushing from his right side. The creature fell in two ugly pieces. He stared at the corpse for half a second before looking back at me with even more shock.
"Who are you?"
"Someone trying to keep you alive," I said, and then I shoved him backward just as another beast lunged for the spot he had been standing in.
The spear user stumbled, but he managed to catch himself. "You're insane."
"Probably," I replied.
Then I turned and blocked a claw strike from the side.
Metal rang against bone.
The force of the blow pushed me back half a step, but I absorbed it and redirected the momentum before slicing through the attacker's throat. The beast collapsed instantly. I moved again before its body even hit the ground, cutting through a second one, then kicking a third monster hard enough to send it crashing into a damaged police car.
The spear user recovered enough to stab the fallen beast before it could rise.
He stared at me in disbelief. "What the hell are you?"
I almost answered, but another monster appeared behind him, and I had to step in again before it could tear him apart.
"Focus on surviving," I said sharply. "Questions come later."
He swallowed hard and nodded, gripping his spear tighter.
Good. At least he could listen.
That was more than I could say for most people in a crisis.
The Gate continued to pulse above the district, and I could feel the pattern of the mana shift slightly. The opening was not stable yet. The monsters would keep coming, but there was still a chance to stop the disaster before it became much worse. In my first life, I had never gotten close enough to understand that. I had only seen the aftermath. This time, standing in the middle of the chaos, I could feel how the entire event was shaped by hidden pressure. The Gate was trying to expand.
If it did, the number of creatures would increase rapidly.
I could not let that happen.
I scanned the area quickly and found what I needed.
A broken maintenance truck sat on its side near the center road, probably thrown there when the first monsters crashed into the barricades. Its metal frame had been crushed, but the black box-like object mounted to the back still looked intact. I remembered this from my first life as well. It was a mana relay unit used to stabilize minor Gate disruptions. The Hunters had ignored it because they had been too busy panicking, and once the situation spiraled, nobody had bothered trying to fix the relay.
If I could activate it, I might slow the Gate's output.
I pointed toward it. "Cover me."
The spear user blinked. "What?"
"Cover me for ten seconds or stay here and die. Your choice."
That was enough to get him moving.
He swallowed his fear and took position while I sprinted toward the damaged relay truck. A beast lunged at me from the left, but he managed to spear it through the chest before it reached me. I did not waste time thanking him. I slid across the pavement, grabbed the relay unit, and ripped open the side panel.
The wiring inside was half-burned, but the core crystal still glowed faintly.
I had seen enough of these units in the future to know how they worked.
My hands moved quickly.
I twisted two lines together, pushed mana into the core crystal, and forced the damaged system into a basic stabilization loop. It was not elegant, and it certainly was not proper repair work, but it was enough. The crystal flared once, then locked into a steady pattern.
The Gate above us shuddered.
I felt the pressure in the air shift.
The output had slowed.
A grin flashed across my face.
Good.
The next wave would still come, but it would be more manageable now. That gave the Hunters a chance to organize, and it gave me the chance to continue gathering experience without letting the situation spiral out of control. I stepped back from the relay and looked around.
People were still screaming, but fewer than before.
Some of the civilians had already been evacuated.
The police line had reorganized.
A few stronger Hunters had finally reached the district and were beginning to move into position.
One of them landed on the hood of a ruined car with a heavy thud.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing proper Hunter gear. His badge caught the light for a second, and I recognized the insignia immediately.
A mid-level registered Hunter.
This was already better than the first life.
His eyes swept over the battlefield, then landed on me.
The moment he saw the body count around my feet, his expression changed.
"You," he called.
I glanced at him once.
He jumped down from the car and moved closer, his voice hard. "You're not part of the official response team. Who are you?"
I sheathed my sword slowly.
"Just a Hunter," I answered.
He frowned. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you need."
His eyes narrowed, clearly unhappy with me, but before he could press further, a deeper roar erupted from inside the Gate.
The air changed.
I felt it immediately.
The pressure that rolled out from the opening was stronger than before, colder and heavier, making the hairs on my arms rise. Even the stronger Hunter's face shifted slightly as he turned toward the sky. A larger shape emerged from the white light inside the Gate.
I already knew what it was.
In my first life, this creature had slaughtered half the response team before it was finally brought down. It was a commander-type monster, far above the level of the first wave. If it got loose in the streets now, the casualties would rise dramatically.
The creature stepped out onto the broken road with a sound like stone cracking under enormous weight.
It stood nearly three meters tall, with a body covered in armored plates and two massive arms that dragged along the ground. Its head was low and elongated, its eyes pale and empty, and a line of spikes ran down its back like a row of jagged blades. When it opened its mouth, the sound that came out was low and awful, like the grinding of metal inside a furnace.
The mid-level Hunter cursed under his breath.
"I need a team."
"You don't have time," I said.
He shot me a look. "What did you say?"
The monster moved.
It was fast.
Far faster than its size should have allowed.
The Hunter raised his weapon, but the beast's fist slammed into his side with enough force to send him skidding across the pavement. He hit the ground hard and rolled once, his breath knocked out of him. The surrounding soldiers shouted and aimed their weapons, but their attacks barely scratched the creature's armor.
The monster turned toward the crowd.
I stepped forward.
"Move," I said.
The Hunter coughed, still trying to rise. "What?"
"I said move."
The creature focused on me now.
Good.
Its attention settled fully on me, and I felt the strange calm of battle descend over my mind. The noise around me faded into the background. The fear of the crowd, the shouts of the police, the panic, the smoke. None of it mattered anymore. Only the monster in front of me and the sword in my hand.
The beast charged.
I lowered my stance.
It swung first, a heavy arc that would have crushed my torso if it landed. I stepped inside the path of the attack instead of retreating and let the blow pass close enough to strike the air beside my shoulder. The force of it was enough to blow dust off the ground, but I had already moved past the center of the strike. My sword flashed upward and cut into the joint of its arm.
The blade did not go all the way through.
The armor was too thick.
But it bit deep enough to slow the limb.
The monster roared and swung the other arm.
I ducked beneath it and rolled forward, coming up near its leg. My blade moved again, this time at the back of the knee joint. Sparks jumped when metal scraped against hardened bone, but I forced the cut deeper until I felt something give.
The beast staggered.
That was all I needed.
I drove the sword up beneath its jawline where the armor plates were weakest and shoved as hard as I could.
The monster froze.
Its body trembled violently.
Then black blood burst out of its mouth, and the red in its eyes flickered.
The pressure in my chest surged.
A strange sensation moved through me like an invisible current.
A new message flashed in front of my vision.
[You have defeated a Gate Commander: Armored Fang Unit]
[EXP +180]
[Authority Fragment Resonance Increased]
[Progress: 0.5%]
I stepped back as the body crashed to the ground.
For a brief moment, the entire battlefield went silent.
Even the Hunter who had been thrown aside stared at me as if he had just watched something impossible.
I sheathed my sword slowly and looked up at the Gate.
The crowd was still alive.
The district was damaged, but not destroyed.
The first disaster had not been stopped completely, but it had been contained far better than I remembered.
That alone was enough to prove that the future was already changing.
The Hunter who had been watching me finally spoke, his voice rough and stunned. "Who the hell are you?"
I glanced at him and then at the Gate still crackling above the district.
This time, I did not answer with silence.
I looked at the monster bodies scattered across the road, at the frightened civilians being escorted away, and at the sky where the Gate still glowed like an open wound. Then I said the only thing that mattered.
"My name is Eren Vale," I replied. "And if anything else comes through that Gate, I'm killing it too."
The Hunter stared at me.
Behind him, the first wave of survivors began to cheer faintly, not because the danger was over, but because someone had finally stood in front of it and refused to move.
I felt the authority inside me pulse once more, quiet but undeniable.
The crown was still sealed.
But it had tasted blood.
And somewhere deep inside, I could feel it begin to wake.