“You all remember Mu Tianhai,” Mu Yichen said, breaking the tension with a voice steady but thick with history. “My father. The previous chosen hero.”

  There was a subtle shift among the group. Mu Tianhai’s name carried weight, more than just prestige. It carried pain, mystery, and failure.

  Mu Yichen continued, a slight smirk flickering. “He and his hero party entered the Hell Gate. The hero didn’t come back. The rest of the party returned without a single memory of what happened inside.”

  A murmur ran through the room. The silence that followed was heavier than before.

  “But,” Mu Yichen said, voice low but firm, “the Hell Gate was cleared. Humanity was saved.”

  That was the part no one dared argue.

  “But,” Kang Juwon added with a sardonic grin, “the world has a cruel sense of humor. The other Hell Gate just showed up.”

  A collective groan echoed, but it quickly died under the weight of their reality.

  “The new gate appeared much sooner than expected,” Mu Yichen said, eyes narrowing. “Now, it’s time for the new hero to step up.”

  All eyes snapped to Lee Aseok.

  The holy sword gleamed faintly in the dim light, almost humming with its own quiet power.

  But Lee Aseok wasn’t the hero anyone expected.

  His expression was calm, almost indifferent, and the old iron rod he wielded rested against his shoulder like a casual accessory, not a legendary weapon.

  Mu Yichen, Park Taegun, Seo MinHyun, Kang Juwon, and He Ziqin all exchanged uneasy looks, a heavy silence settling between them.

  None had anticipated the Hell Gate’s arrival so soon, and none were prepared for the man who would face it.

  For a long moment, the room was still until Lee Aseok’s voice cut through the tension like a blade.

  “Teleport,” he said simply, his eyes locked on He Ziqin.

  He Ziqin’s face blanched instantly. His usually stoic mask cracked as he glanced nervously around the room, then back at Lee Aseok with a look of pure disbelief.

  Mu Yichen frowned, brows knitting together.

  Kang Juwon’s faint smile remained, but there was a sharpness in his gaze, a silent warning beneath his polished exterior.

  Seo MinHyun’s hope flickered like a candle in the wind. “Wait,” he said, voice cracking with a mix of desperation and disbelief. “Which gate are we going to?”

  Lee Aseok’s voice cut through the thick tension like a sharp knife through silk.

  “Hell Gate.”

  The words landed with brutal finality.

  Seo MinHyun took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm the wildfire of panic blazing in his chest.

  But the breath escaped in a sharp, shaky gasp. No matter how much he tried, the dread wouldn’t loosen its grip. Instead, the panic turned into a shout, raw and desperate.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me! The Hell Gate? Are you insane? This isn’t some walk in the park or a stroll down the street! We’re talking about the worst gate there is! The fate of humanity is on the line! We can’t just march in there like it’s a picnic!”

  The room went still for a moment. Even the usual background hum of the holographic map felt muffled under Seo MinHyun’s outburst.

  Lee Aseok didn’t flinch. Calm and unruffled, he shifted his gaze slowly from Seo MinHyun to He Ziqin, the mage whose face betrayed a mixture of resignation and nervousness.

  “If you don’t want to come, then don’t,” Lee Aseok said quietly. Then, without waiting for a response, he turned back and said, “Teleport.”

  It was a command, but there was no room for debate.

  Seo MinHyun’s eyes darted wildly around the room, searching for allies to stop this lunatic. “Someone! Please! Stop this madness before we all get ourselves killed!”

  Park Taegun, leaning against the wall with arms folded, smirked with his usual deadpan coolness. “Has Lee Aseok ever once listened to any of us? Ever?”

  Seo MinHyun fell silent, the fight draining from his face. He muttered a curse under his breath, a stream of colorful language that would make even a sailor blush.

  Grabbing his potions and gear with a frantic urgency, Seo MinHyun began to prepare, muttering curses and warnings as if that could somehow ward off the inevitable disaster.

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  One by one, the others followed suit, packing supplies, checking weapons, tightening armor straps. The cold reality sank in: this was no ordinary dungeon run. They were heading into the heart of darkness itself.

  Lee Aseok, however, was oddly serene. His eyes lingered on the holy sword resting silently at his side.

  A rare smirk curved his lips, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but promised trouble.

  He was looking forward to meeting the final boss of the Hell Gate. After everything, the lies, the betrayals, the endless questions, he had many answers to seek.

  Mu Yichen, who had been silently observing Lee Aseok since the beginning, noticed the smirk and felt a cold stab of anxiety pierce his gut.

  Whenever Lee Aseok smiled like that, calm, confident, and just a little cruel, it meant only one thing: nothing good was about to happen.

  Mu Yichen’s eyes hardened, his fingers tightening instinctively on the hilt of his sword. No matter what lay ahead, he swore silently, he wouldn’t let Lee Aseok get hurt.

  The skill activated. He Ziqin murmured incantations, weaving the teleport spell with practiced precision.

  The air around them shimmered, reality rippling like a disturbed pond.

  And then, just like that,they were there.

  Then, without warning, the surroundings shifted. The familiar glow of He Ziqin’s teleportation spell blurred their vision, and the next moment, they were standing before the infamous Hell Gate.

  The location was fixed, etched deep into every map and whispered in fearful reverence by every hunter and survivor. So finding it was the least of their concerns.

  What stole their breath was the gate itself.

  It rose before them like a monstrous cathedral to despair, an impossibly towering door nearly a hundred meters in height.

  Its surface was a macabre tapestry of red and black patterns, twisting and writhing like veins of fire trapped beneath obsidian glass.

  The gate’s edges were jagged and uneven, as if forged in the very heart of hell, scorched and warped by eternal flames.

  The patterns weren’t static; they pulsed and shifted in an eerie rhythm, reminiscent of a heartbeat, but cold, menacing, and lifeless all at once.

  It was a gate that breathed malice, a monstrous sentinel daring the world to try and breach its terrible threshold.

  The very air around the gate crackled with unnatural energy, thick enough to taste like iron and ash.

  The ground beneath their feet was scorched in places, blackened scars like the aftermath of some ancient battle.

  A heavy, suffocating aura pressed on their chests, whispering warnings they couldn’t afford to ignore.

  No one spoke. The group simply stared in solemn silence at the vast, nightmarish portal.

  Yet, they did not move forward. Instead, all eyes turned to Lee Aseok.

  It was common knowledge by now, Lee Aseok hated the holy sword.

  The divine weapon that chose him as its wielder was nothing but a curse in his eyes.

  He refused to touch it, rejecting its glowing, otherworldly light like a poison.

  But the cruel truth was clear: to open the Hell Gate and venture inside to clear it, the hero, no matter how unwilling, had to use the holy sword.

  The blade’s usual brilliance was replaced with an oddly sulky, almost bad-tempered aura, as if the sword itself was sulking over being tethered to someone it didn’t respect.

  It was strange to see such a divine relic act like a petulant child, and yet here it was, glowing with a faint blue-gray haze that made the runes on its blade shimmer with uneasy light.

  Everyone glanced back and forth between the sword and the hero.

  Lee Aseok remained calm and indifferent, his expression unreadable and distant, like a man who didn’t care if the world ended today or burned to ashes tomorrow.

  And in many ways, they all knew that was true.

  Lee Aseok hated humans.

  At least, that was the bitter reality no one dared say out loud.

  He was an enigma wrapped in apathy, carrying scars deep enough to make empathy seem like a luxury he couldn’t afford.

  His iron rod, the old, battered weapon he wielded instead of the holy sword, was gripped loosely in one hand. The other hand hung free at his side.

  The holy sword began to move.

  Slowly, hesitantly, it floated nearer to Lee Aseok as if drawn by some unseen magnetic force, an undeniable bond that neither hero nor sword could fully escape.

  The brightness of the sword is something they have never seen before. It was obvious even to the casual observer: the sword was in a great mood.

  The holy sword can finally complete the bond with its master.

  The room seemed to hold its breath as Lee Aseok and the sword faced each other, an unspoken battle of wills playing out between them.

  Then, unexpectedly, Lee Aseok blinked once, almost dismissively, and coldly said to the sword, “Move away. You’re too bright.”

  The sword froze mid-air, its radiant glow dimming instantly, as if sulking at being told off.

  The once-vibrant light became a faint shimmer, barely illuminating the grim expressions of those around.

  A collective sigh of relief escaped the group, mingled with confusion. What exactly was Lee Aseok planning?

  Seo MinHyun exchanged a bewildered look with He Ziqin. “Did he just tell the holy sword to back off because it was ‘too bright’?”

  He Ziqin muttered, eyebrows knitted in disbelief.

  Mu Yichen cleared his throat, trying to contain the nervous tension tightening around his chest.

  Everyone knew better than to underestimate Lee Aseok, but this? This was something else entirely.

  Their gaze flickered anxiously toward the towering Hell Gate, which loomed ominously ahead.

  Lee Aseok’s eyes, cold and indifferent, rested on the monstrous door, his thoughts distant and unreadable.

  In his past life, he had used the power of the holy sword to open gates and had bent its mana to his will, no matter how reluctantly. But now, things are different.

  Now, he carried something far more potent hidden inside him: the energy of countless dungeon cores, pulsing and alive, swirling like a storm beneath his skin.

  That energy was vast, so overwhelmingly powerful that even Lee Aseok struggled to fully grasp its magnitude.

  It was a force that could rend gates asunder without a single swing of a blade.

  Without a word, Lee Aseok stepped forward, his gait calm and steady, like a man walking to a familiar funeral.

  The energy hummed beneath the surface, raw and immense.

  He walked toward the massive Hell Gate, his steps calm and measured.

  The door was colossal, easily a hundred meters high, with patterns that twisted like veins of molten lava, red and black swirls that seemed to pulse with an ominous life.

  The gate’s surface was cold and unyielding, a barrier known as indestructible to even the most skilled hunters.

  He raised his hand toward the gate, fingers spread wide, palm glowing faintly with a dense, pulsating energy. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like mana—but it was far more than that.

  Lee Aseok raised his hand, fingers spread wide as if preparing to punch a wall.

  But his palm glowed softly, suffused with that dense core energy, an invisible power humming just beneath the surface.

  To the others, it looked like a simple shimmer of mana, but they didn’t know what it really was.

  Seo MinHyun and He Ziqin exchanged uneasy glances. “Is he seriously about to punch that thing open with his bare hand?” Seo whispered, his voice a mix of disbelief and growing panic.

  He Ziqin’s eyes darted between Lee Aseok and the gate. “Has he completely lost it?”

  Author Note:

  Every “OH MY GOD ASEOK STOP” gives me the strength to write the next disaster.

  Mon ? Wed ? Fri

  (Yes, I too question my life choices.)

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