The shouted warning was utterly unnecessary considering how the gate began acting. It turned Sua's stomach with sheer wrongness, the crack in reality quivering violently before splintering outwards in sudden breaks against empty air until it went from looking like a gash to a jagged hole that stretched from the ground and up two meters, now wide enough that she could see the crumbling world within it.

A horde of goblins filled the view quickly, looking entirely focused on attacking despite the way non-existence was nipping at their heels.

Dozens streamed out onto the hospital roof, splitting around the hammer user without stopping as they began to spread out. Within seconds, twenty goblins had left the gate; in the next, the warhammer turned red-hot, its wielder pivoting without warning and swinging the weapon in a wide arc, blowing all twenty to bits.

Dodging what looked like goblin brains, Sua focused on keeping her breakfast down at the smell of the splattered gore, thoroughly impressed with the other hunter.

Established as a threat, he no longer went ignored, a group of the goblins attacking him as soon as they cleared the gate.

By that point, the escaping goblins had begun reaching Sua's domain. Even with two mages on standby to pick off any stragglers, she had no intentions of letting a single goblin get that far.

The second a monster cleared the hammer's attack range, their shadows vanished into the pitch-black ring of teeming darkness that made up Sua's attack area.

Sua's daggers never wasted a second, flashing around her as she leapt and dove between goblins, slashing throats and ripping open stomachs without ever coming to a stop.

When a goblin would wise up and run the opposite way, a blade would fly from her hand, burying in the monster's heart as a replacement dagger jumped from the ether, Sua catching it just in time to kill the next goblin.

It felt exhilarating to let loose, weaving with the shadows, fighting together after so many years of sparring.

She couldn't stop the smallest of smiles from crossing her face at each perfect attack, reveling in how crystal clear each opening was, and basking in finally using the power that had begun to press out against her skin after growing with each golden apple.

One hundred goblins had sounded like a lot to cut through.

Realistically, she knew it was a lot to cut through, but it felt like a workout cut short when the goblins stopped coming. 

Sua came to a stop as the last creature in her zone dropped to the ground, glancing around briefly to check that the fight was over before storing her knives and dragging her hair out of her face.

"Is that all?" She asked, nudging the shadows back to their anchors, the darkness of her zone fading away to the normal gray of the rooftop.

"'Is that all', she says." The hammer wielder chuckled, setting his hammer on its head, "You killed about seventy goblins in... what?"

"Thirty seconds, give or take." A hunter supplied through the communicators.

"Without any kind of special move, too, just sheer physicality and endless weapons." He laughed some more, "I finally get why my class is so frustrating for the rest of you."

"I got all set up and then didn't have to lift a finger." That was the ice mage as she melted her spells. "She didn't leave a single one to let me or the team leader look good~"

To her horror, Sua could feel her cheeks growing warm. "I got a little carried away..."

"The faster this got wrapped up, the better." Haneul touched down softly by the roof's edge. Speaking into her phone, she glanced over at the perimeter, "Send the cleanup team in. We've got about one hundred carcasses on the roof and another forty inside the hospital. Patients that need to get back to equipment soon can be escorted inside after my team does a final sweep of the building."

"There aren't anymore goblins inside." Sua picked absently at her romper, a little sad that it got splattered in blood so quickly after she bought it, "Does goblin crud come out of clothes?"

"I'm more concerned about how sure you are regarding the hospital's safety." There was a touch of amusement in Haneul’s voice.

"Oh, I can sense how many living creatures are inside." Sua quickly tallied them via their shadows, "It's just the other hunters, the civilians being guarded, and some lady who's been perched just past the door that leads out here. She doesn't seem dangerous, though."

Haneul sighed slightly, "Yong Iseul..."

"On it." The ice mage replied, starting for the door in question, ice crackling at her fingertips in anticipation as she kicked the door open. 

A yelp came from the other side, a woman in a suit scrambling out of its path. She held her hands up in surrender, "I'm a civilian!"

"... aren't you with Blade’s End Guild?" Iseul asked.

"I'm just an intern! I was told to get in contact with Hunter Ahn Sua..."

Sua immediately turned away from the scene to look at Haneul, "Can I leave now?"

It looked like Haneul was doing her best not to laugh, "Yeah, go ahead. If you take the romper to the laundry service at the dorms, they'll get that gunk off your clothes. Takes a special treatment to handle it."

"Noted, thanks." Sua hopped off the roof without delay, ignoring the flustered call of her name from the guild intern.

Rather than landing on the ground, she dropped into the shadows, relaxing as she flowed through the comfortable darkness before emerging under a tree at the Association's complex. 

The private park was quiet and serene, feeling far away from the sea of reporters still waiting eagerly when Sua walked around the side of the building on her way to the dorms' main entrance. 

She stopped before reaching the security guards, opening her mouth and only having to wait a few moments for the reporters to quiet down, "I just want to let the guilds know that I went out today to get a phone. I'll have the Association share my number with official guild representatives for anyone who wants to meet me. I'd rather not make interns run around the city trying to find me."

"What about the break at Sahmyook?" A reporter shouted.

"It's been handled, the rapid response team is carefully overseeing cleanup right now. If you'll excuse me." She walked past the security guards and into the building, ignoring the stream of questions the reporters called after her. 

Being famous was bizarre.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

A video went up online. 

"S-Rank Hunter Versus 70 Goblins! Live Gate-Break Footage!" 
Uploaded by @HunterSpotter
Hunter Ahn Sua single-handedly wiped out most of the Sahmyook Medical gate break monsters, and I caught it all on drone video.

Well-known for getting exclusive footage of hunters in action, the video channel boasted thousands of subscribers who got notifications every time a video was added. It only took ten minutes for subscribers to flock to the comments. 

- Let's goooooooooooo!!!!!! Ahn Sua!!!!
- Guys, no lie, I think I just fell in love...
   ---  get in line, some of us have been in love since her announcement 
- Geez, S-ranks really are something else, I can barely keep track of her daggers. 
   --- watch it on .5 speed, it looks like she's dancing, it's insane
- So she is a fighter class, huh
   --- don't be dense, she's summoning daggers from thin-air, what fighter class can use summoning magic like that?
   --- Well, she's not a mage, she's clearly in the damage dealer slot for this. Lee Haneul always keeps the team in tight formations: mages at the back. 
   --- You're both idiots, she's gotta be a unique class. That's the only explanation.

Within an hour, the video had gone viral. 

It was blasted across every social networking site, the name Ahn Sua jumping right back to the number one trending topic everywhere it could be measured. 

The news sites got their hands on it next, dissecting Sua’s combat style, arguing over the method she used to summon daggers, and debating just as strongly as the commenters about which class her combat fell under.

Fresh out of a bath, Sua’s brow inched up as she watched the video on her phone, sent to her via text by Haneul with a single question.

> Did you notice the drone?

She hadn’t, and she couldn’t help but be a bit annoyed about it. It was one thing to be followed around by people, but a flying robot was something else.

< Does this happen often?

> That user basically stalks hunter fights, get used to it.

< … what about the nicknames?

> Are you implying that you don’t like being called the Blood Princess~?

Sua dropped into a seat on her bed with a little huff at that.

< It’s not my fault the goblins are full of blood. And I’m not a princess.

> Blade Dancer is getting some traction too. If you pick a favorite, they’ll stick with it.

< I feel like you’re having too much fun with this.

> I would never! Good luck dealing with all those guilds, Death Blade.

Groaning, Sua flopped onto her back, switching away from her text conversation with Haneul to go through the stream of missed calls she received in the bath. 

Perhaps dealing with the guilds would help get her mind off of all of the attention online. At the very least, she was curious about how things worked everywhere outside of the Association.

Picking the first missed call she received, Sua dialed the number back, only having to wait for one ring before the phone was picked up. “Hello, my name’s Ahn Sua, I was returning a missed call…”