The Jeju Island S-Rank Gate was a S-Rank Gate that spawned in Jeju, Korea.
Overview[]
The gate spawned on Jeju Island about four years before the events of the main storyline. Due to how weak the Korean S-Rank Hunters were at the time, they failed to close the gate and it eventually underwent a dungeon break, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Korean civilians and turning the island into a wasteland no longer fit for human habitation.
Over the next three years, the Korean government launched three search-and-destroy missions on the island to no success. When the third raid resulted in the death of Eunseok, one of their prized S-Rank Hunters, the Korean government formally abandoned their efforts to reclaim Jeju and decided to leave the island alone in hopes that the ants would eventually perish on their own by starving to death when their food supply eventually ran out. Unfortunately, this move backfired, as the ants eventually started evolve and develop wings that enabled them to fly over long distances.
In response to this evolution, the Draw Sword Guild, Japan's strongest and largest guild, agreed to collaborate with the Koreans in liberating the island before all of the ants learned how to take flight. A simple but promising plan was worked out; the Japanese S-Rank Hunters would use themselves as bait to draw out the ants, while the Korean S-Rank Hunters would sneak into the unguarded nest and kill the queen.
Initially, the raid went well, with the Japanese easily slaughtering the ants and the Koreans killing the queen and her guards with minimal trouble. However, the situation took a horrible turn when an incredibly powerful ant called the Ant King revealed himself to be the true boss of the dungeon, ambushed both teams, and easily killed eight of the 16 S-Ranks who were participating in the raid, including Goto Ryuji and Min Byung-Gyu. As a result, the raid nearly failed altogether and the entire party would have been slaughtered had it not been for Sung Jinwoo, who swiftly arrived on the island to save his allies and killed the Ant King on his own after a lengthy battle.
With the dungeon boss finally defeated, both teams evacuated the island, with only Jinwoo staying behind to finish off the rest of the ants. After Jinwoo finished the job and headed back home, the Korean Hunters Association sent in the Knights Guild to collect all the essence stones on Jeju and make sure that there were no ants left alive.
Legacy[]
The fact that the 4th Jeju Island Raid only succeeded due to the efforts of Sung Jinwoo made him a national hero in Korea. His fight with the Ant King was also broadcast all over the world for everyone to see, cementing his status as one of the strongest hunters in Asia and caused a major geopolitical shift, with nations as powerful as America and China wanting to recruit Jinwoo for themselves.
Being the only Korean hunter who died during the raid, Byung-Gyu was honored as a hero in a national funeral that was held for him in Seoul. Jinwoo was also blamed by a good handful of Korean netizens for Byung-Gyu's death, as they believed that he wouldn't have been killed had the former participated in the raid from the very start. However, at the end of the day, significantly more Koreans had a positive perception of Jinwoo than a negative one and he gained a great deal of respect from Korean society as a result.
In Japan, the events of the 4th Jeju Island Raid had a catastrophic effect. The deaths of seven of the Draw Sword Guild's 11 S-Rank Hunters not only resulted in the downfall of the guild altogether, but also caused a power struggle with the other major guilds in Japan. Goto's death also meant that Japan had lost a great deal of their military power and as a result, the country was left defenseless when a S-Rank Gate suddenly spawned in Tokyo several months later.
Unbeknownst to anyone, Jinwoo released so much power in his battle with the Ant King that he unintentionally left behind traces of Ashborn's power when he departed Jeju Island and headed back home to Korea. This would catch the attention of the Monarchs Rakan and Sillad, who came to Jeju themselves to figure out why the Shadow Monarch was helping the humans, only to discover that Jinwoo was long gone and that there was no hope in tracking him down from there. Deciding that the hunt for the Rulers in the human world would proceed according to plan and this little disturbance did nothing to change that, the two Monarchs left the island through their portals and continued to bide their time until the hunt was scheduled to begin.
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| S-Rank | First S-Rank Gate | Jeju Island S-Rank Gate | Tokyo S-Rank Gate | |
|---|---|---|
| A-Rank | Busan A-Rank Gate | Hunters Guild Gate | Red Gate Incident | |