Aiden Kain had long since accepted his place at the bottom.

The Hunter System didn’t favor the weak. Strength meant everything—rank, survival, respect. If you had power, you were worth something. If you didn’t? You were nothing.

F-Tiers weren’t even considered real Hunters. They were the cleanup crews, the cannon fodder, the ones barely trusted to stand in the same room as true warriors. D-Tiers and C-Tiers were foot soldiers, competent but replaceable. B-Tier Hunters were the kind who commanded guilds, who made the rules, who stood a level above the rest. And S-Tiers? They weren’t Hunters. They were monsters.

Aiden wasn’t anywhere on that scale.

No rank. No class. No power.

He should’ve never been here. Should’ve never even set foot in a Rift. And yet—here he was, standing in an S-Rank Rift, walking toward his own death.

He could feel it in the way his squad sneered at him, the way their steps always stayed just a little ahead, as if he were already falling behind. Even the lowest-ranked Hunters treated him like a joke. A pity case.

Born blind. Born weak. Born useless.

Squad Eclipse only let him join out of pity. And even then, he knew what they thought. He could hear it in their whispers.

"The Kain family disowned him for a reason."

"Why’s he even here? He can’t even use an ability."

"He should’ve just been a civilian."

Aiden agreed with them.

But the Rifts didn't care if you were weak. When the world needed warriors, every able body was thrown into the meat grinder.

And tonight, Aiden had been thrown into an S-Rank Rift.

The air inside the Rift was wrong.

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Aiden couldn't see it, but he could feel it—like stepping into a room where someone was waiting for you, unmoving, unblinking.

The Veil of Midnight had appeared three days ago, swallowing an abandoned city block. Every piece of technology inside had stopped working. Drones sent in never came back.

The Hunter Association designated it S-Rank. That meant mass extinction threat. Only the strongest should enter. If it spread, entire cities could fall.

Squad Eclipse was not made up of the strongest.

"Recon only," Dain Varos, their squad leader, had said. "No fights. We get in, scan, get out. Simple."

But Dain was a liar.

And Aiden already knew—this was a trap.

"Why’d they even send you? What are you gonna do, listen the monsters to death?"

Laughter rippled through the squad.

Aiden didn’t respond. He just kept walking.

It didn’t matter what he said. They’d already made up their minds about him.

Squad Eclipse moved ahead through the abandoned city streets, weapons raised, boots crunching softly on the cracked pavement. Buildings loomed around them, twisted by Rift corruption.

Aiden’s fingers brushed the walls as he walked, feeling the strange, smooth texture beneath his gloves. Glass? No. Something else. Something alive.

The Rift pulsed.

Something was watching.

Hunters were ranked based on raw combat ability.

Every awakened Hunter possessed a unique ability—a "Core Trait"—granted upon their first Rift clearance.

Some could manipulate fire, lightning, or gravity. Others had enhanced strength, reflexes, or regeneration. The best of the best had multiple abilities, combining them into unstoppable forces.

Aiden had nothing.

No awakened Core Trait. No enhanced senses, no physical strength.

Even his combat knife—standard-issue for all Hunters—was useless in his hands. He had trained, memorized attack forms, but his body was too slow, too weak.

If they were attacked, he would die first.

"Dain, something isn’t right," Aiden murmured.

The squad leader scoffed. "We’ve been here for ten minutes, Kain. Stop pretending you know what’s going on."

Aiden clenched his fists.

He did know.

Not with sight. Not with power. But he had spent his whole life navigating a world without vision.

He knew when a space was empty. He knew when something was waiting.

And right now?

The air wasn’t empty.

It was waiting.

"No threats detected," Dain announced, voice dripping with arrogance.

Aiden’s frown deepened. He wasn’t sure what was wrong, but something was.

The buildings around them seemed too quiet. The wind didn’t move. The city felt like a painting, something designed to be looked at, not lived in.

His stomach churned.

He heard something shift.

A single step. A dragging motion.

Then—

The screaming began.