ASLTN 02

Chapter 02

Yongsan Hunter Market.

A new trading hub for Hunter-related goods, built atop the ruins of the old electronics district.

“Did you see the new sword from Magus Corp?”

“Heard Hansung just launched a new armor line.”

“Oh, right. Something crafted from that new substance discovered at the Spire of Norie…”

The people flowing through the Hunter Market—almost all of them were Awakened, chosen by the System.

In other words, Hunters.

Yujin passed through the lobby and made his way to the accessory section.

Rings, necklaces, bracelets—each one enhanced with magic.

As he scanned the enchanted accessories, a store clerk cautiously approached him.

“Uh, sir? Are you looking for something in particular?”

“I’d like to see the Ring of Dark Abyss.”

The clerk gave a short, dry chuckle. “Right this way,” he said, guiding Yujin to the far back of the store.

Tucked away in a dusty corner few ever visited, Yujin finally found it—his hidden opportunity.
A tarnished ring, coated in layers of dark grime and brown stains.

“The price?”

“Twenty million won, sir.”

[KM Bank – 32,590,160]

The sum of every penny he had: the support grant he’d received upon leaving the orphanage, plus three grueling years of laborious work.

‘It’s tight, especially considering what I need next.’

Yujin didn’t hesitate.

He bought the Ring of Dark Abyss.

It was a cursed ring—rather than empowering the wearer, it debilitated them with a slew of debuffs.

That dry laugh from the clerk made perfect sense now.

For a Rare-grade item, its price was practically nothing—most sold for well over a hundred million.

‘There’s no reason to wear this unless you want to screw someone over.’

There were over a hundred of these rings in circulation globally, not just in the Hunter Market.
All shared the same effect—mental curses that tore into the mind.
Hunters had tested it endlessly, hoping to uncover a secret.
Some had even poured divine power into it, believing purging the curse would reveal its true nature.

‘No one ever found the answer.’

Once purified, it simply reverted into a mundane, useless ring.
It couldn’t be used to craft dark-magic items or serve as a spell catalyst either; useless for anything except pranking or cursing someone.

That was the common consensus on the Ring of Dark Abyss.

‘But I’m different.’

Yujin gripped the jet-black ring tightly.

The secret no one had ever discovered—
Whoever could endure the curse that surged from the ring would gain the power to defy death itself — in other words, they would inherit the knowledge and power of Necromancy.

‘This item’s design is all wrong.’

To awaken the source of the Necromancer’s power, one must endure the curse—not resist it.

Removing the curse was no different.

That was how Yujin had become the first Hunter in history to unlock the profession known as Necromancer.

The moment he slipped the Ring of Dark Abyss onto his finger—

The instant the ring tightened around his finger, a barrage of curses surged forth, clawing at his sanity; but they could not touch him.

‘This much is nothing.’

Complete immunity, guaranteed by the System itself.
No matter how vicious the curse embedded within the ring, it could not breach the defense of Clear Mind.
After a sustained outpour of malevolent energy, the ring finally began to settle.

The grime and filth caking its surface peeled away.
A soft radiance bloomed across the metal, like moonlight rippling over a midnight sea.

“It’s done. It worked.”

A crooked grin crept over Yujin’s face.
At that very moment—

The other Rings of Dark Abyss, scattered across the globe, all spontaneously ignited and burned to ash in plumes of blue flame.

Compared to the weight of the miracle Yujin had just claimed, that global anomaly was little more than a footnote.

༒︎

A dark-blue sheen shimmered across the ring, now blackened to the shade of pitch; ancient script from another world etched itself into the surface, glowing faintly.

With its true form restored, the Ring of Dark Abyss pulsed with an eerie, chilling light.

The skill [Library of Knowledge] granted access to the necromantic wisdom of the ring’s previous users.

[Coffin of the Dead] allowed the user to store a corpse, regardless of size, within a subdimensional space inside the ring.

‘Let’s start with the class change. I can’t use any of these until then.’

With the ring equipped and the status window activated, an additional option appeared—
A profession unlocked only when holding a special item.

‘I choose the path of the Necromancer.’

“I finally got this trait… only after returning.”

The Guide of Death was a special trait granted only upon selecting a class for the very first time after awakening.
For example, magic users would typically receive [Mana Release], which boosted the power and range of projectile spells.

‘But for me, the soul power reduction is far more useful.’

Yujin had first learned of the Guide of Death trait during the raid on the ‘Wailing of the Dead’ Gate five years in the future; technically, it was still possible to unlock the Necromancer path by conquering specific gates, even without the ring.

‘I just happened to get a head start thanks to my unique trait.’

In his past life, Yujin had also become a Necromancer after accidentally unlocking the secrets of the Ring of Dark Abyss.
Unfortunately, he’d chosen the Magic class first and missed out on the initial bonus trait.

‘This time, I’ve got the starting perk, too.’

The Necromancer was a profession that demanded constant summoning and sacrifice of the dead.

The Guide of Death trait drastically lowered the consumption of soul power, massively increasing his endurance in combat.
Compared to before the regression, he now stood at a significantly more advantageous starting point.

‘Now let’s test the ring.’

Yujin channeled his burgeoning soul power into the ring.

Clack—!!! Clack—!!!

The hidden artifact, repository of necromantic knowledge and origin, stirred to life.

He already knew what he needed.

‘I’ll access the knowledge of the necromantic arts.’

“Grrrrgh!”

A raw scream tore from Yujin’s throat.
It felt like a burning iron pressing relentlessly into his skull.
His brain surged into a near-fatal overload under the sheer weight of alien knowledge that defied mortal cognition.

‘Damn it. Even regression didn’t change this part.’

The power of Clear Mind only granted immunity to mental attacks.
This—transferring knowledge directly into the mind—was not an attack, and thus offered no relief from the pain.

‘Fuck. It hurts even more this time.’

Ironically, the very trait that kept his mind pristine now amplified his agony.

Who knows how long he endured, teeth clenched, forcing himself to remain conscious.

It hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes.

He almost wished he could have just passed out.

‘Hell. I can’t believe I’m doing this again.’

The pain was like his brain being stretched smooth—like his very gray matter was unspooling. In his previous life, Yujin had accepted the full depths of the ring’s stored knowledge and become a sovereign of death.

Much of that knowledge still stirred within his memory.
But the problem was that his power now was still anchored to the [System].

‘With my current level, I’m still bound by the rules the System has defined.’

He needed to reach at least 7th Star.
That wasn’t something you could achieve just by grinding monsters.
The System could forge powerful Hunters, yes—but to surpass that?
You needed insight; enlightenment. You needed karma accumulated in the soul.

‘Until then, I’ll lean on this thing.’

He had walked this path before.

This time, he’d be faster.

Stronger.

He may have started later than the heirs of the Seven Great Houses, but he had every confidence he would surpass them all.

Hah.

Seems regression came with some perks.
When a skill hits MAX proficiency, its energy cost drops while its power surges. Not only that—it could even be taught to others, as long as they met the conditions.

His cheek twitched with the unexpected bonus.

‘I’ve taken the first step—but it’s not enough.’

Avatars were virtually immune to magic-based attacks.
Only Divine Power could truly harm them.

Even Dmitri, cloaked in the divine might of an Avatar, hadn’t dared take Yujin’s onslaught head-on without relying on Aura, a skill exclusive to Avatars.

‘I need a patron behind me.’

Now that he had chosen the path of the Necromancer, his chances of gaining the support of any conventional Constellation had dropped to zero.

Even after reaching the 9th Star in his previous life—standing at the absolute summit of Hunter society—those beings had merely scoffed, dismissing his power as an aberration that defied the natural order.

And pledging his soul to the vile Constellations of the Tower of Babel was a line he refused to cross.

‘But there’s one other way.’

Yujin reached into his pocket.
The cool touch of metal sent a chill down his spine—but also a strange sense of clarity.

“If I don’t have a Constellation to support me… I’ll create one.”

He murmured the words softly, fingers tightening around the only trace left behind by the parents he’d never known.
The artifact that had defied fate and reversed time itself—

Chronos’ Pocket Watch.

༒︎

Crete.

The cradle of the Minoan civilization, and one of the most celebrated tourist destinations in Europe.

‘Flights straight here are stupidly expensive, I swear.’

After the Great Cataclysm, erosion zones sprang up across the globe, and the skies were no longer safe; to avoid aerial monsters like wyverns and harpies, flights were forced to take long detours—
Or pass through erosion zones escorted by Hunters capable of intercepting flying threats.
Yujin’s flight, being a direct route, had cost him four times the normal fare.

[KM Bank – 2,590,160]

Talk about burning a hole in his pocket.

He had practically starved his funds into submission.
Sure, it had shaved off hours of travel time, but his stomach still churned at the expense.

‘First thing I’m doing when I get back to Korea is raid a gate and refill my wallet.’

So why had he drained his already meager savings to come to a tourist trap?

Because Yujin had a reason—a very good one.

“Take me to the Knossos Temple, please.”

A twenty-minute drive south by taxi brought him to one of the island’s most famous landmarks.
Even from the entrance, the place was teeming with visitors.

Without a word, Yujin wove through the sea of tourists and stepped inside the ruins.

‘The Minoans worshipped the Titans.’

Titans.

The primordial gods, the origin of the term “Titan” itself.

‘The ancient Constellations who were cast down after their defeat to Zeus and the Olympians.’

They were the Fallen Stars—

Constellations who had lost their light, forgotten by myth and stripped of their glory.

Still, not all Titans had vanished into obscurity.

Some, like Themis, goddess of justice, or Helios, the sun god, had accepted Olympus’s rule and continued to exist as Constellations under a new order.

‘But the one bound to this watch… was not one of them.’

Chronos.

The tyrant king of the Titans.
The being so obsessed with avoiding his prophesied downfall that he devoured his own children.
In the end, prophecy prevailed. He lost everything and faded into legend.

‘If any place could stir a reaction from an ancient Constellation, it would be the ruins of the Minoan civilization, where the Titans were once revered.’

Outside of Pantheons or the Tower of Babel, this was the only other known way to summon the attention of a Constellation—

By offering a Holy Relic as a conduit.

Yujin knelt and placed the Damaged Chronos’ Pocket Watch on the stone floor of the ruins.

Then he slammed his fist into it.

CRACK—!!!

〔What impudent wretch dares desecrate My court with such insolence?!〕

A thunderous roar erupted from the watch, shaking the air.
There it was.
The bite at the line.

Yujin smiled sweetly.

“Pleasure to meet you—O dethroned king of the Titans.”