Chapter 18: C-Rank Guild?
The small, abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city stood silent, its once-bustling machinery long forgotten. Vines had begun to reclaim the crumbling walls, and the air around it was thick with an uneasy stillness. But now, something new had manifested before it—a portal, its swirling energies pulsing with a strange, malevolent light. This was no ordinary portal; its size and the dark aura it exuded marked it as a C-Rank portal, the kind meant for seasoned hunters to clear. Yet, as Axel—now known only as *Nameless*—stood before it, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was more than just another mission.
The portal, though classified as C-Rank, felt wrong. It hummed with an energy that made his skin crawl, and he could feel the eyes of the B-Rank hunters around him, sizing him up, each one trying to decipher the enigma behind the black mask he wore. The mask concealed his face, his identity, his humanity—if he could still be called that.
