Chapter 2: What is a Guardian?
At the time, I had no idea what awakening as a Guardian truly meant—or who these goddesses were, or what they wanted from me. But one thing was clear: I had never felt so light on my feet, and my sword had never felt so powerful.
I reached the demons, and in the crowd, I recognized a familiar face. A bloated, grotesque demon—the one who had swallowed my siblings whole. I leaped into the air, bringing my sword down in a brutal arc, splitting the demon's skull in half as we both hit the ground.
By the time I was back on my feet, all the other demons were staring at me, evil grins stretching across their twisted faces. I yanked my sword from the demon's corpse and pointed it at the rest as they began inching closer.
Ding.
——
### You just got your first kill—Nice!!###
You have killed the Demon Squad Leader: Rut the Glut (C+).
Rewards: 300 XP + 1,000 XP (named demon bonus).
——-
Ding.
——-
##Level up! ##
You are now Level 2.
+1 Skill Point
+5 Stat Points
——
Ding.
——-
##Level Up! ##
You are now Level 3.
+1 Skill Point
+5 Stat Points
——
Ding.
——
##Level Up! ##
You are now Level 4.
+1 Skill Point
+5 Stat Points
——-
Ding.
——-
##Reminder###
To check your stats, use a mana crystal from a defeated enemy.
Hold it and say Status. Only you can see your stats—no other Guardian can.
——-
The messages kept popping up, but I didn't have time to celebrate. One of the demons charged me. Instinctively, I angled my sword and jumped to meet it, plunging the blade through its chest. I kicked it off and used the momentum to leap backward, sprinting toward the gate.
The demons followed, chasing me back through the portal. As the first few crossed, a roar—so loud it shook the very ground—erupted from inside the gate. The demons froze mid-step, their grins vanishing.
I seized the opportunity. I rushed the nearest one, sliced off its leg, and as it hit the ground, I took its head. Another charged.
BOOM!
Like a flash of lightning, a massive spear shot through the gate, impaling the demon and slamming it into the ground beside me. As the demon's body slumped, I looked toward the gate.
There, inside, stood a being whose eyes were redder than blood, taller than the demon who had slain my father. He had four massive black horns, skin like molten crimson, and a giant double-headed axe strapped to his back.
We locked eyes. A grin crept across his face, and a shiver of death ran down my spine.
He could've killed me—I knew it. The precision of that spear alone made that clear. But for some reason, he let me live.
The demons who had followed me backed away, returning through the gate. The giant demon pointed at me with his axe and winked.
Then the gate vanished, replaced by a massive stone wall.
I collapsed to my knees and cried—this time from relief. I'd at least avenged my siblings.
I wandered through the village, gathering supplies—gold, clothes, food. I was determined to grow stronger. I read through all my new stats and skills, testing the blessing I'd been granted. I collected mana crystals from both the demons my father had killed and the ones I'd slain myself. Each crystal could be used three times to view my stats before crumbling to dust.
Once I'd gathered what I needed, I stood before the gate one last time and placed my hand on the stone.
"I swear," I whispered, "I'll get revenge for my parents."
Ding.
——
##Hell's Gate – 98th Floor (SS Rank)##
- This gate leads to the 98th floor of Hell.
- Currently on cooldown.
- Time remaining until next open: 4 years, 364 days, 22 hours, 11 minutes.
——-
Even as a boy, I knew this was just the beginning of a brutal war.
I buried my parents and what was left of my siblings beneath an old oak tree that had stood since before I was born. The hill overlooked our estate—once a place of laughter, now just quiet land soaked in blood and memory. After speaking a few final words, I carved our family name into the thick, weathered bark. I let my fingers trail over the rough etching, then turned and walked away.
I had no right to stay. Not yet.
I set out to become stronger—to restore what was lost, to reclaim my territory. The counts and barons who still bent the knee rallied to my call. During my travels, I studied the blessings of the Goddesses and the nature of the Gates. I learned everything I could, every scrap of knowledge that might one day tip the scales in our favor.
I taught my people how to become Guardians. We secured a low-level Gate and converted it into a training ground, cycling recruits through it until we forged warriors instead of victims. Slowly, brick by brick, we rebuilt our territory. We made our people stronger.
Five years passed.
I returned to the estate with an army of Guardians. Our goal was simple: destroy the Hell's Gate that had slaughtered my family. But when it opened—nothing came through.
We waited. Watched.
And when it finally closed, we began construction on a fortress—a containment structure designed to hold the Gate when it opened again. I feared that even with the men I'd brought, if the enemy had decided to come through that day, we would have been slaughtered.
What I learned over those years changed me.
When someone from the Middle Dimension crosses into a Gate and awakens as a Guardian, they're presented with three potential jobs—each gifted by a different Goddess.
The Goddess of Life, Epatra, offers jobs rooted in light and healing, mana-based support roles.
The Goddess of Death, Adith, grants combat-oriented jobs: high-damage, specialized killers.
And the Goddess of Balance, Sarien, bestows roles that are versatile—balanced between offense, defense, and utility. These jobs blend physical skills with mana.
Jobs were ranked from F to S, F being weak, and S being exceptional. Each grants a different amount of starter points in stats. The different stats were STR, investing points into strength directly correlates to how much damage you did to an enemy, VIT the amount of health you had, INT was the amount of mana you had, AGI was how fast you moved, and PER was how far and detailed one could see. That was the standard—for everyone except two people.
Myself… and Bella.
When I awakened, I was granted a job marked "1 of 1"—a singular class. Its ranking was (unknown), but it didn't take long to understand how powerful it was. Bella, our party's healer, also received a 1-of-1 class. The daughter of a count who perished in the first invasion, she rose from grief to lead and rebuild her town. The Goddess of Life smiled at her kindness and granted her a 1 of-1 healing job.
Every level gained came with five stat points and one skill point. Basic skills were either granted at specific levels or inherited from preexisting knowledge. These were skills that anyone from any job could learn, although talent had a major factor to play. For example, if a guardian who had a job that had to do with swordsmanship wanted to learn the skill: blade of furry (a skill that increases physical attacks by 10% for as long as it's active) they simply bought the skill scroll for it and ranked it up from (F) to (B) while only masters of the skill got it (A) with (S) being unheard of. The process of upgrading the skill from (F) to (B) took around 8 years with no skill points and moderate talent. However, if you had no talent in swordsmanship and were instead a healer, for example, and you tried to learn this skill it would take about 30 years. Although there was no rhyme or rhythm to this system, we used what we could with the knowledge we had. We concluded that one's talent' directly corresponded to the rank your job was. Ranks F and E are poor and B, C, and D are moderate with A being excellent. I had wielded a sword long before awakening—so I was granted the Swordsmanship skill at the start.
Skills could not be ranked higher than your job rank so talent played a huge part in your success. Instead of naturally trying to level up your skills though you could instead use skill points to upgrade your skill. 5 skill points for F to E, 10 for E to D, and so on increasing by 5 each time. Not all Guardians chose to fight—some awakened only to use their skills in farming, crafting, or politics. Even merchants and nobles joined the ranks to boost influence with skills like Charisma or Flattery.
But it wasn't the basic skills that truly mattered. It was the unique skills.
Unique skills couldn't be learned, taught, or copied. They were branded into you the moment you awakened—and whatever rank they held then, they would remain.
These were what separated the elite from the rest.
If your unique skill was weak—even with a powerful job—you were labeled useless. But if your unique skill was strong, even the lowest-ranked Guardian might rise to greatness.
Because of this, people guarded their skills and stats like secrets. Suspicion and betrayal spread through parties like rot, until someone finally figured out how to use mana stones to share stats voluntarily. Trust became easier—though never guaranteed.
Most people only had one unique skill. I had two.
Both came with descriptions, effects, instructions—everything a Guardian needed to understand them. All but one. My second skill, Misfortune, offered no explanation. No guidance. No hint of what it could do.
I tried everything to figure it out. But it remained a blank mystery, lurking beneath my skin.
I dove deeper into my studies, expanding beyond just skills and stats. I turned my attention to the Gates themselves.
With the help of other kingdoms, we estimated there to be 100 Hell's Gates scattered across the continent. Most had been found. But Gates 90 through 97, Gate 99, Gate 100, and Gate 50 remained missing.
Each Gate had its own ranking—its own difficulty level. The deeper the Gate, the harder the fight.
When demons crossed over from their dimension, they could only travel two kilometers from the Gate. They had twenty-four hours before the portal closed again. If they were still on our side when it shut, they turned to dust—leaving behind nothing but their mana crystal.
We called these events invasions.
After an invasion, a Gate would enter cooldown. The stronger the Gate, the longer it remained dormant. The shortest we'd seen was ten minutes (Gate 2). The longest, is five years (Gate 98).
Guardians were allowed to invade the Gates once every 24 hours, in teams of no more than six.
A Gate could be destroyed in only two ways:
1. Destroy the Dimensional Orb powering it.
2. Kill the Floor's General and taking his mana crystal—a powerful demon who served the King of Hell.
Either act would collapse the Gate.
Except for Floor 1.
There was no Orb. No General. The portal remained wide open, bidirectional, with no cooldown and no limit to how many could pass through.
Using that knowledge, we created training grounds out of the easier dungeons. We'd invade, kill everything and leave the generals mana crystal behind, then exit. By the next team's entry, the floor had reset—new demons, same challenge.
It became our crucible. A place to sharpen blades and skills.
Then I began to study the demons themselves.
They came in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Some fought out of instinct, others for hunger, and a rare few simply for the joy of it. They didn't have levels like we did—instead, they had rankings. The higher the rank, the more experience you earned for the kill.
Some demons were named. Stronger than their kin. Intelligent. Capable of memory.
They were the true danger.
Most demons forgot you the moment you left the Gate. Not the Named. They remembered. They studied your movements, remembered your fighting style—even if you'd killed them before. They would respawn with all that knowledge intact.
When a demon died, they dropped mana crystals. The crystal's rank reflected the demon's. These could be used to:
• Check stats
• Forge gear
• Sell and trade
• Or share your skills and stats publicly, if the crystal was ranked C or higher.
Over time, mana crystals became currency—backed by gold and trusted across kingdoms.
With every victory, my name spread. I gathered skilled Guardians, cleared Gates across the human kingdoms, and became known by a single title:
The Guardian of Lukeauh.
Things were going smoothly. Until I came home.
Back to Gate 98.
It had been five years. The containment fortress was complete, a fortress of stone and spell meant to endure the worst. But something felt… wrong.
There was a stillness in the air. The kind that coils around your spine and whispers that something terrible is watching.
I spoke with my party, shared my unease. We agreed—if there was a threat, waiting wouldn't save anyone.
We would invade first.
None of us had ever faced an S-rank Gate before besides me. The risk was massive. But if we failed to act, and that Gate burst open on its own… the loss of life would be unimaginable.
So we stepped through.
And I, like a fool, led them straight into the pits of hell.
We knew nothing about the enemy. Nothing about the terrain. No strategies. No preparation.
And because of that…
I got everyone killed.
Bella was taken. The rest—gone. I was the only one who made it back.
Grief turned into rage. And that rage burned into something even more dangerous: desperation.
The next day, I stepped into the Gate alone. I was going to bring Bella back—or die trying.
But before I passed through, something happened.
I blinked—just once—and everything around me disappeared.
I found myself in a white void. So quiet, I could hear my own heartbeat echoing like thunder.
I hadn't even moved when a voice, calm and elegant, spoke from behind me.
"Come here. I have something for you… for your next task."
I turned.
And saw her.
She was so beautiful I could've gone blind.
Dark black hair. Smooth tan skin. A little shorter than five foot six. Her eyes were bronze and glowing, like molten metal beneath sunlight. Her pupils shimmered with a star-shaped iris.
White wings stretched from her back—angelic and wide. A blue halo floated above her head, humming faintly.
She wore a single-piece tunic the color of desert sand, with golden etchings running the length of it. Intricate symbols traced her collar down to her ankles. It hugged her body in a way that revealed her slim waist and generous curves—graceful, but powerful.
Gold dots ran across her face in a straight line beneath her eyes. She was barefoot, standing atop a dune of soft, glimmering sand.
In her right hand she held a glowing balance scale. In her left, a floating hourglass, sand frozen in time.
Her hair was tied into a long braid, woven with golden threads that shimmered with each step she took as she descended the hill toward me.
I was too stunned to move. I could only watch as she approached.
Then she spoke.
"My name is Sarien. I am the Goddess of Order. The youngest of the Three, and the protector of balance in the Middle Dimension."
Her voice was soft—every word chosen with deliberate care.
"I created the Guardian system as a response to the God of Calamity's invasion. His actions broke the laws that prevent divine beings from interfering with mortal affairs. My sisters and I have made it our duty to restore that balance… and you, Basileus Narciss, are one of our chosen weapons. No, rather, MY chosen weapon."
I asked her: Why me?
She smiled.
"Because, you chose me."
And I remembered. When I first awakened, I'd been furious. Lost in grief. When given the choice between the three jobs, I'd picked one of the two remaining at random—angry at the Goddess of Life for her pity.
It turned out my randomness had a reason.
I asked Sarien what the God of Calamity wanted. Why he had come.
She didn't know. Not yet.
"But what matters now," she said, "is pushing him back."
Then she reached forward and placed her palm over my heart.
"You are now the Goddess's Guardian. Mine. No matter where you are, if I need you, I will send an avatar to summon you. You will protect me—and the balance of the dimensions."
And with that, she gave me two gifts.
Immortality and Overview Sight.
Immortality meant I would never age. No matter how I died, I would fully regenerate in twelve hours.
Overview Sight allowed me to see the stats of other Guardians—and view my own—without a mana crystal.
Before sending me back, she gave me a final warning.
"Soon, the God of Calamity may gain enough power to walk the dimensions freely. That is when I will need you most, Basil."
The way she said my nickname… the way she smiled when she said it… it caught me off guard. I blushed.
Then I blinked—
—and I was standing before the Hell's Gate again.
New power in my veins. A new purpose in my heart.
And one goal:
Save Bella.