Outside the sealed rift gate, Commander Kang Daesang stood still, one hand covering half his face. Fingers pressed hard against his temple, as if doing so might squeeze the headache out. It didn't.
This wasn't a raid.
It was a gamble.
A blood-soaked one.
"Mr. Hanjun."
He called out suddenly, voice low but firm.
"Yes, sir?"
"If—and that's a big if—the survivors make it out... especially that recruit you mentioned. The Precision Coreborn."
Daesang lowered his hand, eyes narrow.
"I want you to dig up information on him."
"Sir?"
"I want to know everything. If he survives, I'll know it wasn't just luck. It'll be because of the team."
"No!"
A sharp voice cut through the air.
Daesang turned, mildly surprised. A man stepped forward with brisk, assertive steps.
The manager of the original strike team.
"Forgive me, sir, for interrupting."
He said, bowing slightly, though his tone didn't falter.
"But if anyone makes it out of that rift... it won't be because of the team. It'll be because of Hwang Seungho. No one else."
Daesang stared at him for a moment.
"You seem confident."
"I am."
The man stood tall now, expression unshaken.
"We've trained Hwang Seungho extensively. He's survived dozens of Rift Raids—tier 3s and beyond. His combat scores are top of his class, his tactical decision-making is airtight, and physically..."
He paused.
"He's a Bastion."
That pulled something in Daesang's chest.
Relief.
He exhaled—just a little.
Bastions.
They were the anchors of any strike team. The unbreakable wall. The core type that didn't just endure, but outlasted.
A regular Bastion Coreborn at full output could tank sustained machine gun fire and still keep walking. But Hwang Seungho?
His energy output was nearing the threshold of rare-class stabilisation.
And somewhere in the back of Daesang's mind, the comparison clicked.
The Core of Steel...
A Bastion-type so powerful that it was theorised to survive a nuclear detonation and still walk away with minimal damage.
No cracks. No burns. Just smoke on the armour.
"...He's not Core of Steel."
Daesang muttered, half to himself.
"But he's close, isn't he?"
The manager nodded once.
"Closer than most."
Daesang's eyes turned back to the rift, still pulsing with its strange, flickering red-black hue.
"Then maybe."
He said quietly,
"We have a fighting chance."
"Well… I'm putting my faith in Hwang Seungho then."
Kang Daesang finally said, exhaling with a trace of relief.
"I hope he proves himself the way you've described him."
"Rest assured, Acting Commander."
The manager replied confidently.
"If anything, our strike teams are stronger than any Precision Coreborn, at least."
Kang Daesang didn't respond to that.
But next to him, Hanjun's lips tightened. He wanted to say something—wanted to defend the recruit. Jaemin. But what was he going to say? That he heard he was strong?
From Gyeongnim, no less…
That alone was supposed to mean something.
Wasn't it?
He stayed quiet.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
****
Back inside the rift, the team was pressed. The tropical heat was thick, clinging to the skin like a second layer of armour. Vines hung low. Branches creaked with weight unseen. The deeper they went, the louder the forest got—buzzing, growling, watching.
"You know."
Kim Rae-ah said casually, walking beside Jaemin.
"I'm not gonna let your whole 'Precision Core' act slide off my radar."
Jaemin sighed.
The same way someone would when a fly wouldn't leave their ear alone.
"I suggest you drop it."
He replied, eyes scanning the treetops.
"There's a thing called privacy. Maybe respect it."
She grinned, unbothered.
"You're just proving my point, you know."
Her tone was light, but her gaze was focused. Kim Rae-ah wasn't like the others. Her hobby—archery—had given her trained eyes, a practised instinct. No, she couldn't follow Jaemin's eyes and ears. But she did see enough to know something was off.
Not in a bad way.
In a non-normal way.
But before she could push further, footsteps crunched over the moss behind them.
Hwang Seungho appeared from the upper trail, his armoured coat glinting faintly with an aura. His presence calmed the group like a living shield that had just arrived.
"We're moving deeper into the tropical zone."
He announced.
A few confused looks met him.
It was the right tactical call.
The snowy side was open, but exposed. Visibility was poor due to constant frost storms, and the terrain funnelled movement, making it perfect for ambushes or bottlenecks. The tropical side, humid and dangerous as it was, offered something vital: cover, caves for shelter, and running rivers.
Clean water. Shade. Space to regroup.
None of it came easily.
But it was survivable.
And right now, survivable was the best they could ask for.
On the other side of the rift—the icy side—there was nothing but frostbite and silence.
The cold bit through everything. No natural cover, no flowing rivers, no resting points. Just slabs of ancient ice and the steady crunch of snow under boots. It was a dead land. A place meant to wear you down, slowly and without warning.
Hwang Seungho's decision had been calculated. If the Rift Boss was hiding in the tropical side, he and his strike team would be prepared, rested, hydrated, and steady. But if it was tucked away in the frozen stretch?
Then good.
It would be out of their hands entirely.
Let the recruits deal with that.
Or let divergence happen.
But then something odd happened.
Jaemin stepped forward… and chose the icy route.
"...Huh?"
Hwang Seungho paused mid-step, glancing back.
Jaemin had a faint smirk on his lips, unreadable.
"Alright then."
He said calmly.
"We'll go to the icy part."
There was no hesitation in his tone.
No bravado.
Just certainty.
"Good luck, then."
Seungho said, with a nod that almost passed as sportsmanship.
Almost.
Jaemin stared a moment longer, then replied.
"You too."
Of course, he had other words in mind.
"Shove that good luck up your ass."
But instead, he just walked.
And so the two groups diverged—one toward heat, one toward ice. No turning back.
*****
"GI-GI-GI-GI!!"
The jungle trembled.
From behind thick trees and pulsing vines, the Stone Golems erupted from the forest floor—hulking, jagged masses of rock, layered in moss and crystal veins. Their movements were slow but massive.
BOOM!
The first one slammed a fist into the earth. A shockwave split the ground, tossing two Coreborn off their feet.
Before the dust could settle—FLARE.
A deep red glow lit up the centre of the strike team.
Hwang Seungho stepped forward, aura expanding like a pulse of crimson fire. His Bastion output burst through the fog like a living furnace.
SLASH—SLASH—
His strikes weren't flashy. They didn't need to be.
Every blow was clean, heavy, and final.
One golem collapsed. Another followed, limbs shattering under the force of impact. It was like watching a siege weapon tear through ruins.
"Tsk."
Seungho wiped his blade and glanced over his shoulder as the others regrouped.
"They must be struggling by now..."
His voice was quiet, but his jaw was tight.
"Rae-ah and the others made a stupid decision—following some dumb recruit."
He didn't say it out of spite.
He said it because he believed it.
Because in his eyes, Rae-ah hadn't just gone the wrong way—
She'd chosen the wrong person.
On the other hand, Jaemin's group encountered…
Nothing.
No Abyssals.
No traps.
Only silence, wind, and the crunch of snow beneath boots.
That should have been a relief.
But it wasn't.
As they moved further, traces began to emerge—sigils etched into frozen boulders, footprints buried deep into the frost. Not humanoid. Not even beastlike. Massive, wide, heavy indentations, each one nearly the size of a man's torso.
"Golem tracks."
Jaemin muttered under his breath.
In the rifts, even chaos had rules. Even monsters had hierarchies.
And Golems were near the top—territorial. They didn't share space. If Golems ruled this side of the rift, then…
That explained everything.
The one-eyed Abyssals wouldn't be here. They wouldn't even dare. And neither would wild types like Barbtails or Fleshcrawlers—they'd be hunted down or pushed out by the Golems almost instantly.
Strangely, that also meant Hwang Seungho's team had it a little worse.
Because while they were probably dealing with the scattered aggression of lesser Abyssals—creatures like Barbtails, unstable and chaotic—Jaemin's group was trekking through order.
Lethal order.
Ruled, clean, and quiet.
And somehow, that felt even more worse.
"Phew… I think we should stop here."
One of the team finally broke the silence, voice trembling a little from the cold.
Jaemin turned around.
Kim Rae-ah had her arms wrapped tightly around Ji-woo, the youngest recruit, trying to warm her. Rae-ah wasn't even shivering herself—she was doing everything she could to keep the girl from slipping into hypothermia.
Jaemin exhaled softly.
"It's chilly."
Obvious, but still—he said it.
In all honesty, Jaemin loved the cold, god knows why; his room at night was the Antarctic Peninsula in Nari's words.
He thought for a moment.
He could conjure a wind flare, stir up storm energy from his Core—but that would only amplify the cold. He could summon his Focus, maybe look for a hidden Rift Point or safe zone nearby, but the signal was deadened in this area.
Or…
He could open the Shop.
FWIUP–PING.
A faint, iridescent ring of violet light shimmered into view, orbiting near Jaemin's temple like a thin halo. Silent. Controlled.
His Focus had activated.
STORE: AVAILABLE—
[Item: Heat Lamp— Amount Available: 32 Units.]
Well, that's all the store could offer for heat, no coats or boots. It wasn't a department store.
"Now that's what I call lowkey useless."
Jaemin didn't hesitate though.
Jaemin pulled out the heat lamp from the Focus store. One by one, small thermal cylinders lit up, spreading warmth fast and wide like invisible hearths under the snow.
SHHHH—TSSK.
He passed them out without a word.
Everyone got one.
Except for him.
He didn't need it.
The Core of Tempest stirred faintly within him—a sleeping storm bound to his breath. It wasn't just thunder and downpours. It was control over all weather and temperature—wind, pressure, heat, and cold. But right now, tapping too deep into it would just wear him out. It wasn't time for that.
Still, Rae-ah noticed.
"Uh… you're a Precision Coreborn."
She said slowly, watching the warm lamp glow in her hands.
"But I thought you guys could only summon like… daggers?"
"Ahhh… It's so warm…"
One of the men exhaled with a full-body sigh.
"I could summon these things before I was a Coreborn."
He replied casually.
"It's nothing."
There was a pause. Then—
"EHHHH?!"
"WHAT??!"
The entire squad nearly jumped in sync.
He looked away with a shrug.
"I was a part-time magician."
Silence.
Then, A sudden laugh burst out.
"Are you serious?"
One of them scoffed.
"A magician? Like kids' birthday parties?"
Jaemin didn't reply.
But the tension cracked just enough for some breath to return. The recruits settled down. The cold still stung, but now, it didn't bite.
His dodge had worked. The mood lightened, if only for a moment.
But then, he straightened.
"All of you."
He said quietly,
"Don't ask me any more questions..please"
There was a beat of hesitation.
"Respect my decision."
It was enough, all of them nodded and agreed
That shut them up.
https://tapas.io/series/CoreBorn-The-First-Core
