Red Gate Arc

Sitting eighth in the series, this stretch runs across novel Chapters 56 to 64, webtoon Chapters 46 to 55, and anime Episodes 13 and 14. It is bracketed by the Job Change Arc before it and the Demon Castle Arc that follows. The story opens with Jinwoo deciding that Han Song-Yi, a rookie E-Rank who happens to be a friend of his sister, needs a real taste of how lethal hunting can be. He pulls strings through Ahn Sangmin so the two of them can join a recruit training drill run by the White Tiger Guild. That plan collapses the moment the group is shut inside a Red Gate, a dungeon that erases its own entrance and keeps everyone caught within until they clear it or perish. The hunters land in a snowbound waste full of predators, and the lone escape route is the death of the dungeon's master.

Their first ordeal is a colossal Ice Bear, a sight that unnerves the feebler recruits. One punch from Jinwoo ends the creature, and he repurposes the body as both meal and heat source before wandering off to grind his stats alone. He finds a den crammed with more of the bears and clears the whole nest. When a stampede of them comes, he raises his Shadow Soldiers for their debut fight, and his shadow casters meet the beasts' quickness with flame spells. Trouble escalates as an Ice Bear Alpha crushes the army and empties his mana entirely, leaving him to command Blood-Red Commander Igris into a solo duel. Igris carves the Alpha to pieces and severs its head, which lets Jinwoo gain a level and pull shadows from the fallen bears to grow his forces.

Pride and panic drive a side thread around Kim Chul, a haughty A-rank whose squad is butchered by Ice Elves, scattering him into a terrified retreat. He stumbles onto Jinwoo's people, who sit warm, fed, and secure, and the contrast enrages him into confronting and menacing them. Jinwoo flickers behind the man, drops him flat against the ground, and leaves his arrogance shattered. The genuine threat surfaces next, as their ruler arrives with his soldiers, all moving under cover to size up the intruders.

That elven arrival frames the wider war to come. The Ice Elf Leader hurls taunts, only for Jinwoo to reply in flawless elven speech, and the System hands him an official grant of comprehension over their language, a clue pointing toward some quiet tie linking him to all things magical. A duel challenge comes from one of the leader's mightiest fighters, whom Jinwoo decapitates in a single motion, leaving the watching elves stunned as the true clash against them draws near. The arc also seeds lasting concepts: the Red Gate itself, Shadow Extraction, the Ice Bears, the Ice Elves, and the System's concealed translation ability. Beyond the sealed gate, elite hunters and guild leaders observe and quarrel over what becomes of Jinwoo, ratcheting up the politics among Korea's foremost guilds.