As they moved deeper into the icy jungle, the air grew heavier.
Every step crunched over thin layers of snow and frost-bitten roots. The trees, once looming in silence, now formed tight arches of frozen bark and icicle webs. Visibility dropped, and the cold felt denser, not just against their skin, but in their bones.
The footprints began to multiply.
Deeper. Wider. Heavier.
There were more now than before—some fresh, some older, all of them massive. Jaemin kept his eyes forward, lips pressed in a thin line.
They weren't alone anymore.
Stone golems didn't roam here. They couldn't—the terrain was wrong for them. But now that they had crossed into the central zone of the Rift's icy section, there was something else waiting.
"WI-WI-WI!"
A stuttering screech echoed through the woods.
Everyone froze.
What stepped into view wasn't a stone golem. It looked like one at first glance—tall, bulky, lumbering on thick limbs. But it wasn't made of stone. Its body was jagged, layered with sheets of bluish ice, spears of frost protruding from its arms like bone. Its shoulders steamed in the cold, and its joints let off a misty hiss every time it moved.
A Frost Golem.
"A FROST GOLEM AHEAD!"
Kim Rae-ah shouted, snapping up her bow. Her fingers shook. It could've been the cold. Could've been something else.
The golem turned.
No face. No eyes. Just a hollow in its frozen mask, and the chilling sound of ice grinding as it bent forward to move.
THUMP!
A wooden log split under pressure—Jaemin's boot, cracking the dead bark beneath him as he stepped forward.
"Stand back."
He said, his voice calm and sharp in the cold.
"I'll be handling the Abyssals now."
No one moved.
He didn't explain further.
In truth, Jaemin's FOCUS—its heuristic matrix fully initialised was now recording, analysing, and processing data at a different speed. His experience points had sharpened. He didn't just want the kill—he needed it. Letting others strike would dilute the XP he could gain. He wouldn't gain anything that way.
But deeper than that…
He didn't want them to get hurt.
Not when he could end it clean.
The Frost Golem raised its arm, thick with frost-covered muscle.
Jaemin moved first.
"I don't need my daggers for this..."
Jaemin muttered with a smirk, his hands clenching into fists.
BOOM!
The ground trembled as the golem launched its massive arm downward.
"WI-WI-WI!"
Snow blasted into the air on impact—too fast to follow, its strike cracked open a wide crater in the frozen ground.
But it hit nothing.
"Hmm... you're fast for someone who's fat."
Jaemin's voice echoed from behind.
The golem jolted around.
He was already above it, mid-air, twisting slightly.
The golem wasn't fat. Just... big. Big and slow.
Jaemin's legs stretched out, rotating down with pinpoint control—KABOOM!
His heelbone slammed into the back of its icy skull like a meteor.
The golem's body shuddered once. Then, chunks of frost broke apart as it hit the ground.
Jaemin landed clean.
He casually shook snow from his boots.
"Aye-aye… these were new."
He muttered, eyeing the slush splattered up his pant leg.
TING-TING.!
[You have levelled up.]
[Level: 51]
A small smile tugged at his mouth.
Now that his Focus was fully unlocked, his experience points would ramp. The better he moved, the smarter he fought, the more quickly his levels would rise.
Still… it depended on the enemy. Stronger foes meant more experience.
And that golem wasn't weak.
"Um... hey..."
A voice called out.
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Jaemin turned slightly. Kim Rae-ah was staring at him, eyes uncertain.
"Are you sure... you're a Precision Core...?"
Jaemin blinked.
Well, last time he checked, Precision Coreborns didn't leap through the air or drop-kick golems into dust. So he just gave her a sheepish smile.
"It's a part of my magic trick."
He offered.
No one laughed.
That joke only worked once.
He sighed softly.
There was a pause until Rae-ah raised her hand slightly.
"I was just saying… maybe you take the lead from now?"
She suggested, trying to sound casual.
Jaemin blinked, caught a little off guard.
He looked at the rest of the group.
"Are you all fine with it?"
He asked in a low voice.
They nodded, every single one of them.
They all shared the same thought—Survival was only possible if they stayed close to Jaemin.
***
Outside the Rift, the world was quiet—but not still.
The rift gate hissed faintly, pulsing with low energy like a sealed wound trying to bleed. Kang Daesang stood a few meters from the cordoned zone, his hands in his coat pockets, eyes locked on the distortion as if trying to read it.
There was a flicker of motion.
His fingers wrapped around something inside his pocket and brought it out.
A pocket knife.
His thumb pressed gently against the base, just enough for the blade to nudge out, a few centimetres from release. Just enough for the thought to linger.
"Maybe if I transformed..."
"Acting Commander."
His focus broke.
"Hm?"
Kang Daesang turned his head.
It was Hanjun. The man looked paler than usual, his brows tense.
"You're not... thinking of transforming, are you?"
Hanjun asked. His voice was quiet, but the way it shook made it clear—just the idea alone scared him.
"I'm not."
Daesang replied, his tone flat, unreadable.
"Don't worry."
But he didn't let go of the knife.
There was a pause.
"Sir... do you mind me asking?"
Hanjun began again.
"Why do you slit your hand or inflict a wound to transform? I mean... I know it's required, but... why a wound?"
Daesang didn't respond at first.
He didn't want to explain it. But after a long breath through his nose, he answered—gruff, simple, and dry.
"Uh... how do I explain this..."
He turned toward the Rift again.
"If we think about the old Chakra system, like the ancient one, you can usually only move your energy up to the third point—solar plexus. Basic Coreborns stop there."
Hanjun nodded, following.
"But Special Coreborns..."
Daesang continued.
"We push beyond that. Fourth, fifth chakra. Sometimes even the sixth. But not unless there's an open wound."
He looked down at his palm, flexing it slightly.
"A wound... acts like a doorway. A trigger. It lets power erupt from your body, surge upward through all channels. That's what causes the lightning explosion you see when a full Core Mode is activated."
He said it like it was just biology. Just routine.
But there was a silence afterwards, like the idea had sunk in differently now.
To become what they are, they had to bleed first.
Hanjun stayed quiet. The Rift continued to pulse.
Kang Daesang slowly slid the knife back into his pocket.
For now.
"Does the lightning strike cause destruction?"
Hanjun asked after a beat.
"It does."
Kang Daesang replied without hesitation.
"A very bad explosion. With the potency to vaporise anything near it."
There was no pride in his tone. No drama. Just a fact.
"So… is that why you had the idea of transforming?"
Hanjun asked, startled by his guess.
"To see if the Rift could be blown open…?"
Daesang didn't even look at him.
"Yeah, well… I've been to a Dysgenesis Rift before."
His voice was flat. Tired.
"There's no blowing it open."
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Outside, just a faint shimmer of the Rift's field remained visible, like thin water constantly folding on itself.
"One hour outside is two days inside."
Daesang muttered.
Hanjun's face stiffened.
Three hours had already passed.
That meant… six days had gone by for those inside.
Daesang stared into the shimmer.
"Our only hope."
He said quietly.
"Is Hwang Seungho and his strike team. They might be able to make it out alive."
Even someone like Kang Daesang—Core of Steel, Acting Commander—knew the truth.
If he went in now, even he wouldn't be able to help all of them at once.
Not in that Rift.
The environment itself was a gauntlet. Scorching heat and subzero frost on either side. Abyssals packed in by the dozens, each with traits designed to overwhelm. Then there was the hunger, the sleep, the time—the brutal crawl of six days without proper rest or food, hunted by creatures that didn't sleep or starve.
It wasn't just a Rift. It was a warzone wrapped in a clock.
Daesang clenched his fist once.
And waited.
*****
Inside the Rift, time passed quietly, tense, but manageable.
The group had found a cave tucked deep beneath a cliff of frozen rock. A narrow opening concealed its entrance, but inside was just enough space for them to huddle in, with a high ceiling and natural stone vents above to funnel smoke out.
Jaemin had helped them set it all up.
Before leaving, he brought down three small creatures from the Rift's wildlife—strange, Lion-like things with slick, dark fur and clawed feet. Nothing like a normal game, but edible enough. He handed them over to the group, said nothing more than:
"Don't leave the cave."
And disappeared.
—
"I didn't know you were a good cook…"
Ji-yoo said softly, her tone light but cautious as she sat near the fire.
She was talking to Lim Yunjin, one of the male Coreborns, who—along with Hwang Junho—was carefully flipping chunks of meat over the flame. The scent of lightly charred protein and salt carried through the warm smoke, something grounding after so much cold.
"Don't be fooled."
Yunjin grunted.
"This is survival cooking. Not gourmet."
On the other side, Kim Rae-ah silently sprinkled seasoning into a small bowl of melted snow water—improvised brine, flavoured by the Rift's herbs Jaemin had somehow foraged earlier.
Ji-yoo leaned closer to her.
"Unni... where did our leader go?"
She asked quietly.
Kim Rae-ah paused.
She didn't answer immediately. Her hands worked, but her thoughts had trailed off.
"I don't know…"
She finally said.
"But he did tell us to stay here."
She stopped mixing, then looked at the younger girl with a calm, tired smile.
"Let's eat up."
She added.
"Whatever he's doing, let him."
Ji-yoo's expression didn't ease completely.
But Rae-ah ruffled her hair softly and added.
"Besides… if anything was about to happen to us, he'll be here."
That made Ji-yoo smile a little. Not because it was blind faith, but because Rae-ah meant every word of it.
They all did.
Even now, in this unfamiliar Rift, surrounded by danger—
Jaemin felt closer than any of them.
Even when he wasn't in the cave.
****
Far in the frozen north of the Rift, Jaemin moved quietly through a narrow pass, the snow crunching softly beneath his boots. The path opened into a vast cavern, cold, hollow, and deathly still.
Outside, twenty golems stood.
Frost Golems lined the edges like sentries, their jagged limbs pulsing with subzero haze. Crystal Golems—yellow and cyan—stood deeper in, positioned in staggered rows, as if protecting something farther back.
Jaemin stopped just at the mouth of the cavern.
A boss was hiding in there somewhere. He could feel it.
The clusters of Iron Golems deeper inside all but confirmed it. Iron types never roamed in groups unless they were guarding something. But Jaemin didn't recognise the boss type. Not yet.
Still, thirty golems weren't a number to brush off.
As he stepped forward, the nearest golems turned.
Crystalline eyes flashed.
Ice scraped stone. The cavern grew alive.
"Ah-hoy, everyone~"
Jaemin called out, voice carrying lightly across the open space.
He smiled cheerfully, almost innocently. Then blinked slowly.
"Would you like to see a magic trick?"
His tone dropped low. Cold. Mute of all warmth. Something murderous curled beneath it.
The golems didn't answer.
They charged.
A mix of crystalline blurs and lumbering ice surged forward, heavy footsteps shaking the cavern floor.
Jaemin's expression didn't change.
"Well…"
He said with a grin, cracking his neck.
"Since you guys are excited for it—"
He paused. His eyes narrowed.
"GO FARM XP FOR ME~."
His shadow swirled beneath him like black ink rupturing from the stone.
SHHHK!
Bright armour emerged—figures wrapped in silence. Weapons drawn. His Resonants.
They stood at attention around Jaemin—silent, sharp, and ready.
He exhaled slowly.
"Your first mission."
His voice was calm.
The words hadn't even fully left his mouth when the Resonants launched forward, blades raised, moving like a black tide into the storm of stone and crystal.
