National Level Hunters

Kamish's death is where the title was born. As payment for felling the dragon, each of the five S-Rank Hunters responsible received authority equal to a sovereign nation, and the National Level Hunter classification arose from that act. The world treats them as a cut above S-Rank, owed both to overwhelming might and to the one-of-a-kind power every member holds. A cleared S-Rank gate, at minimum one, sits behind each of them; Goto Ryuji pointed to that feat as the entry floor for anyone hoping to climb so high. Royalty is how they live, and near-total freedom is how they operate, answerable to nobody at all.

Why such a chasm yawns between these figures and a normal S-Rank came to light in time: across the preceding ten years the top four had been handed strength by the Rulers, mirroring the pact that tied Jinwoo to Ashborn. Within the world remade by the Cup of Reincarnation, Liu Zhigang brought the title back after seeing Sung Suho release tremendous power during an Indian dungeon break, yet leaders withheld formal recognition until Thomas Andre rose to Monarch and, alone, struck down the Apostle of Conquest, which compelled them to concede he ranked past the ordinary S. One difference proved decisive in that reset world: with the Rulers selecting no human vessels, the four once-elevated hunters stayed the planet's strongest but never reached the power they had wielded before.

By Hunter Points, the recognized roster runs Thomas Andre first, then Liu Zhigang, Christopher Reed, and Siddharth Bachchan. Sung Il-Hwan, Jinwoo's father, might have stood among them had he not gone missing ahead of both the ranking system and the Kamish raid. As for Jinwoo, his power and his record were plenty to earn a place, yet his entry never came; by the point the world judged him fit, fresh conflict between the Monarchs and the Rulers, their second, was already underway. Sung Suho, meanwhile, takes the distinction of the very first National Level Hunter within the revised timeline.