The inherited memories wouldn't stop.
Raze woke at 3 AM to dreams of being suspended in darkness, consciousness compressed into crystalline form, waiting for centuries while the world moved on without him. He woke at 4 AM to dreams of consuming other minds, wearing their bodies like coats, discarding them when they wore out. He woke at 5 AM to dreams that weren't dreams at all — fragments of knowledge bubbling up from the integration process, filling his understanding with information he'd never learned.
Dungeon ecology. Monster evolution. The secret histories of aberrants who had come before him.
By dawn, he'd stopped trying to sleep and started cataloging instead.
The parasitic entity had been old. Very old. It had called itself Thresher in life — a dungeon-born predator that specialized in consuming other predators, a Devour-type creature that had evolved independently of humanity's awakening. When hunters finally killed its physical form, it had discovered a survival mechanism encoded in its core: consciousness transfer.
For three hundred years, Thresher had existed as a crystalline ghost. It had been eaten by seventeen hosts before Raze. Every one of them had been taken over, their bodies puppeted until they wore out, and then Thresher had found a way to encode itself again, to wait for the next victim.
Raze was the first host to consume the consumer.
The knowledge Thresher carried was incomplete — fragments rather than complete records, memories degraded by centuries of crystalline existence. But even fragments were valuable. Raze now understood things about dungeon formation that the Hunter Association had never discovered. He knew secrets about core consumption that could have been fatal if he'd learned them the wrong way.
And he knew more about The Alpha.
Thresher's memories held echoes of encounters — glimpses of a presence so powerful that even a three-hundred-year-old consciousness had recognized it as superior. The Alpha had visited Thresher during its crystalline imprisonment. Had spoken to it. Had ultimately arranged for Thresher's core to be delivered to Raze as a test.
*Can you integrate something that doesn't want to be integrated?* The Alpha's words, filtered through Thresher's memory. *Show me.*
Raze had shown them. Now he waited for the next move.
---
Recovery took three days in total.
His physical condition normalized first — healing factor and Fortress Body working together to repair the damage from seventeen hours of internal warfare. His mental state took longer. The Psychic Defense skill helped wall off the worst contamination, but some things couldn't be separated cleanly. Thresher's paranoia colored his assessments. Thresher's cynicism shaded his expectations.
He was becoming something composite. Multiple experiences layered on top of each other, none of them quite his own.
The system tracked the changes with its usual clinical detachment:
**[CURRENT STATUS: RAZE ASHEN]**
**[Consumed Cores: 18]**
**[Human Purity: 79%]**
**[Skills: 24 (7 combined)]**
**[System Classification: Human (Aberrant) — WATCH STATUS]**
**[Note: Integration of foreign consciousness detected. Monitoring for behavioral changes.]**
Watch status. That was new. The system had noticed the Thresher integration and flagged him for additional observation. Somewhere in the Hunter Association's monitoring network, his file had been updated.
Kira's warning was proving accurate. He was running out of time to fly under the radar.
The dead drop system activated on day four. Kira had left a message at location five — a loose brick in a temple wall in Bukchon:
**Status check. You've been quiet.**
**Also: Association is actively investigating the Blackpine incident now. They've concluded "internal theft" and are re-interviewing all party members. Your name came up. They want to schedule a "routine" assessment.**
**How are you fixed for alibis?**
Raze read the message twice, memorized it, and ground the paper to dust.
The assessment wasn't routine. The Association was closing in, using the Blackpine incident as an excuse to get him into a controlled environment where they could run deeper tests. His physical mutations were still subtle enough to hide, but any serious mana scan would reveal the abnormalities in his signature.
He needed to disappear. Or he needed to become powerful enough that the Association decided he wasn't worth the confrontation.
Neither option was achievable in the short term.
---
The Greyhound Party was meeting at a hunter bar in Gangnam — the kind of place where B-rank and above gathered to trade war stories and arrange future work. Raze had never been invited before, but the approaching assessment gave him a reason to reach out.
Captain Asha Yoon arrived at 8 PM, punctual as always. She spotted him in the corner booth, and her expression tightened with something between suspicion and resignation.
"Raze." She slid into the seat across from him. "Wasn't expecting to hear from you. After the Blackpine business, I assumed you'd want distance."
"The Association is scheduling me for assessment. In connection with the missing core." He kept his voice level, watching her reactions. "I thought you should know before they start asking questions."
Yoon's jaw flexed. She signaled a server, ordered something clear and strong, and waited until it arrived before speaking. "I gave my statement. Told them exactly what happened — boss kill was clean, core went into containment, core vanished before extraction. No direct accusations against anyone."
"But you suspect me."
"I saw you catch a three-hundred-pound wolf mid-lunge with one hand." Yoon's drink arrived. She took a long sip, her expression never changing. "Support contract. Enhanced perception. That's what your file says. What I saw in that chamber wasn't enhanced perception."
Raze didn't deny it. Denials would insult her intelligence, and Yoon was too sharp to buy comfortable lies. "I'm not what my file says."
"No shit." Another sip. "Question is whether you're dangerous."
"To you? No."
"To the party? The hunters who trusted you to watch their backs?"
Raze considered the question seriously. His memories were full of Thresher's betrayals, of hosts who had been allies before becoming victims. He could feel the inherited cynicism trying to twist his answer, and he pushed past it.
"I ate the Fenris core," he admitted. "My ability lets me consume monster cores and integrate their skills. It's not registered, not approved, and definitely not legal. But I didn't harm anyone on that mission. I helped."
Yoon's eyes went flat and cold. The anger she'd been suppressing surfaced, controlled but visible. "You stole from us. Ten percent of a B-rank boss core — that's two million won that should have been split between the team. Berick's medical bills aren't cheap."
"I can compensate—"
"With what? Core-eating money?" She shook her head. "You're an aberrant, Raze. An unregistered, uncontrolled aberrant who infiltrated my party under false pretenses. The legal penalty for that is containment. The practical penalty is usually worse."
"So turn me in."
Yoon's hand tightened on her glass. For a long moment, she didn't speak. The hunter bar hummed around them — conversations, laughter, the sounds of people who lived in a world where the rules still made sense.
"I should," she said finally. "It's what protocol demands. Clear procedures for encountering aberrant activity: report, retreat, let the specialists handle it." She set down her glass. "But I've also seen the 'specialists' handle things. I've seen the containment facilities where aberrants get processed. That's not justice. That's disposal."
Raze waited.
"I won't turn you in." Yoon's voice dropped lower. "But you and I are done. You don't come near the Greyhound Party again. You don't use my name as a reference. You don't exist in my professional life. Clear?"
"Clear."
"And if I find out you've hurt anyone with these abilities — anyone who didn't deserve it — I'll put you down myself. I've killed B-rank monsters solo. I can kill whatever you're becoming."
She stood, dropped cash on the table for her drink, and looked down at him with an expression that mixed disgust and something that might have been pity.
"Good luck with the assessment. You're going to need it."
She left. Raze sat alone in the booth, surrounded by hunters who had no idea what was sitting among them, and processed the conversation.
Yoon wasn't his enemy. But she wasn't his ally either. She was a professional who'd reached her limit and drawn a clear line. That was more than he'd expected.
Now he just had to survive the Association.
---
The assessment was scheduled for three days out. Official location: Hunter Services Internal Security, a branch of the Association dedicated to investigating awakened individuals who didn't fit standard classifications. The summons called it "routine verification of irregular mana signatures detected during field operations."
It was, very clearly, a trap.
Raze spent the first day running scenarios. If he went to the assessment, they'd scan him. The scans would reveal his aberrant nature. From there, the outcomes ranged from "extended detention for study" to "immediate termination of threat entity."
If he didn't go, he'd be flagged as non-compliant. Hunter licenses were tracked. Without the legal cover of registered awakened status, he couldn't operate in dungeons, couldn't claim cores legally, couldn't exist in normal society without constant risk of exposure.
Both options ended badly.
The third option — the one Thresher's inherited memories suggested — was to become powerful enough that the Association's options didn't matter. An S-rank aberrant, properly established, could negotiate terms. Could demand recognition instead of requesting permission.
But he wasn't S-rank. He was barely B, with maybe a chance of approaching A if he consumed the right cores. That wasn't enough to challenge the Association directly.
Which meant he needed information. Specifically, he needed to know what the Association knew about him, and what they planned to do with that knowledge.
He needed to infiltrate Hunter Services Internal Security before the assessment.
Kira's reaction to the plan was predictable:
"That's insane. Like, clinically, diagnostically insane." She was pacing the rooftop where they'd arranged to meet, nervous energy crackling through every step. "You want to break into the branch of the Association that specifically hunts aberrants? The one run by Director Morrow, who is basically the boogeyman of our community?"
"I want to access their files. Learn what they know about me. Prepare for the assessment by understanding their approach." Raze sat on an air conditioning unit, watching her pace. "If I go in blind, I lose. If I know what's coming, I can plan."
"And if you get caught breaking in, you skip the assessment entirely and go straight to containment."
"That's why I need to not get caught."
Kira stopped pacing and stared at him. "You're serious."
"The assessment is in two days. I need to act tonight, while their attention is focused on scheduling rather than security." Raze stood, testing his body's readiness. Full recovery. Skills integrated. Psychic Defense active and stable. "You have access to their systems. Limited, but enough to get me building layouts. Guard rotations. Access codes."
"I have access because I'm careful. Because I move slowly and don't leave traces." Kira's voice rose. "What you're describing isn't careful. It's a smash-and-grab, and smash-and-grabs are how aberrants get caught."
"So help me make it surgical instead."
Kira's mouth opened and closed several times. Her hands moved through the air, punctuating arguments she hadn't spoken yet. Finally, she let out a breath that was half laugh, half defeat.
"Fine. Fine. But if you die, I'm not coming to your funeral. Because there won't be one. They don't give aberrants funerals."
"Noted."
"And you're buying me expensive coffee for the next month. The really good stuff, with the foam art."
"Done."
Kira pulled out her phone and started typing. "Okay. Hunter Services Internal Security. Main building is in Yeouido, but that's a front — the real operations center is underground, accessible through a parking garage three blocks east. I can get you the entry sequence, but once you're inside, you're on your own. I can't run overwatch on Association internal networks without tripping alarms."
Raze committed the information to memory. The pieces were falling into place: entry route, timing, objective. He'd break in, access his file, and extract before anyone knew he was there.
What could possibly go wrong?
The answer, as it turned out, was everything.
