The sixth dawn arrived with mist clinging to the trees, casting a pale gray light across the forest.
Elena crouched beside a dead beast, its fur still steaming from the heat of her last spell. Her blade dripped with blood, and her fingers trembled slightly as she wiped it clean on her sleeve.
She didn’t stop to rest.
Didn’t dare.
She straightened, breath heavy but steady, and checked her mana reserves. Low. Too low.
Her orb hovered behind her, silent but ever-watching.
She turned away from the corpse and kept walking.
’I have to be first, just like always.’
Her boots crunched against leaves and broken branches. Her legs ached with every step, her shoulders burned from overuse, and her mind buzzed from lack of rest. But her resolve remained intact.
’Push forward. Just a little more.’
Another beast—a fang-bear hybrid—appeared near a moss-covered log. Elena didn’t hesitate. She dropped into stance, mana already flowing to her fingertips.
"Stone Shard," she whispered.
A spike of rock burst from the ground, piercing the beast’s hind leg. It stumbled—she dashed in, twin blades slashing once, twice.
The creature dropped.
Another kill.
Her orb pinged softly.
Total Points: 143
She didn’t even look.
’I can’t let them catch up.’
The thought lingered as she moved forward, brushing past thick vines and low-hanging branches.
Even as her body screamed for rest, one single thought kept her going:
’I have to be first.’
The forest was unnaturally quiet.
Kael Thorne and Damon Thorne moved with purpose through a narrow path choked by thick branches and tangled roots. The usual magical orbs that floated near each participant lagged behind them—flickering intermittently, like candle flames caught in wind.
Kael glanced over his shoulder at the distorted orb.
"Good. The field’s interference is holding."
Damon pulled back his cloak, revealing a sealed crystal vial wrapped in cloth. Inside, a deep crimson liquid pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
"You’re sure this is enough?" Kael asked.
Damon uncorked it. The air instantly soured around them, the scent sharp and chemical.
"Anything that drinks from this lake," he said, grinning, "will lose its damn mind."
They stepped onto the rocky edge of a small, isolated lake, the water dark and still, untouched by wind.
Without hesitation, Damon tipped the vial forward. The liquid oozed out, thick like oil, and spread across the surface in a thin film. Within seconds, it began to dissolve, vanishing into the water with a faint hiss.
The lake bubbled, not violently, but unnaturally—like something far beneath had been stirred.
Kael watched the reaction with narrowed eyes. "The orbs still glitched?"
Damon looked up. "Yeah. The mana distortion around here is stable. The system won’t register a thing."
Kael gave a slow, satisfied nod. "Then let’s move."
The brothers turned away from the lake, walking deeper into the forest with confident strides. Behind them, the orb tracking their progress buzzed once more—then went still, frozen midair.
And in the center of the lake, below the rippling surface... something stirred.
Noel sat on a flat ridge of stone, one knee drawn up, arm resting casually across it as he scanned the treetops below. From this height, the forest stretched like an endless green sea, broken only by mist-wrapped clearings and the occasional glint of an observation orb far in the distance.
He was chewing slowly on a strip of cooked meat—tough, overcooked boar from the night before—when the sound of hurried footsteps drew his attention.
Kael and Damon emerged from the brush, breath controlled, armor lightly scuffed but intact.
Noel didn’t move.
Kael raised a hand in greeting. "There you are. Took us a while to find you."
Noel’s eyes narrowed. "Didn’t have to, I was just fine by myself you see."
Damon stepped forward, face grim. "There’s trouble. A group of participants got ambushed by something big, it looks like a Elite monster, even higger, maybe Adept Rank."
"Really big," added Kael, wiping sweat from his brow for dramatic effect. "We were nearby. Barely got awayfrom there. Thought you’d want to help."
Noel stared at them flatly.
’What the fuck you two really want?’
"They’ve got the bands. If they’re dying, they’ll pop."
Damon flinched, just slightly. "Yeah, but if it’s multiple people, and the orbs can fail at once—"
"Fuck off," Noel cut in.
Kael tensed. "Look, we don’t have time to argue. Are you coming or not?"
Noel stood up slowly, brushing dust from his pants. "What do you think the meaning of fuck off is?"
Damon blinked. "What?"
Noel turned his back on them. "Find someone else to manipulate you little son of bitches."
His tone was calm.
The wind blew gently through the trees.
The two brothers stood in silence for a moment. Kael’s jaw twitched. Damon looked frustrated.
Then they exchanged a glance. One that said: Plan B, then.
Noel, already walking away, didn’t miss it.
He reached for the hilt of his sword.
’Yeah, I thought so.’
Noel’s boots struck the dirt hard as he cut a sharp turn around a moss-covered tree, ducking under a low branch and vaulting a fallen trunk. His breath was steady, his footwork controlled—but adrenaline spiked hot through his blood.
Behind him, Kael’s voice echoed faintly through the trees.
"Noel, wait—just listen!"
He didn’t stop.
’Like hell I’m falling for that.’
They hadn’t chased for long—just enough to force a reaction, enough to isolate him. And that’s what bothered him most.
They didn’t want to win a fight.
They wanted him out of position.
A quick burst of mana wrapped around his legs as he jumped over a root, reinforcing the landing as he slid behind a thicket of dense bushes. The canopy above trembled with bird flight stirred by movement.
Then... silence.
Noel crouched low, Revenant Fang already in his hands, eyes sharp as blades.
’Why aren’t they following me...?’
He tilted his head, listening. A squirrel darted through the underbrush nearby. A breeze rustled the leaves.
And then it came.
A low, guttural vibration beneath his feet.
Not thunder.
He turned.
A second later, the roar tore through the trees like an explosion, shaking the ground and silencing the forest in an instant. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t even beast-like.
It was wrong.
Noel stood slowly, eyes narrowing toward the source.
"What the fuck was that, they were not joking."
He gritted his teeth and sprinted back the way he came—toward the sound.
Something in his gut twisted.
’What the hell did they do...?’
The air in the clearing was thick with heat and the stench of blood. Trees were scorched and broken, the earth gouged and blackened from impacts and stray spells.
And at the center of it all, it moved—a snake the size of a nightmare.
Ten meters long, its thick, scaled body coiled like a living avalanche, covered in jagged black plates. Its eyes glowed with a sickly red hue, and from its fangs dripped a steaming, greenish venom that hissed wherever it landed.
Noel crouched behind a fallen log on the edge of the chaos, eyes wide, hand gripping his sword.
’What the hell is that thing...?’
The beast struck, faster than anything its size had any right to move. One of the nobles tried to cast a defensive spell, but the moment he raised his hand—
Snap.
The snake’s tail whipped around and sent him flying, slamming into a tree with a brutal crack. He didn’t get up.
And no glow. No pulse. No protective band activation.
Noel’s blood ran cold.
’Why didn’t it trigger...?’
He looked up—instinctively searching for the glowing orbs that tracked every participant.
’What, how is that possible!?!?!?’
Nothing.
Not a single floating scrying eye in sight.
’No orbs or interference alerts. What the fuck are the nobles doing? Are they even watching us!?’
Another participant tried to flee, scrambling toward the treeline—only to be intercepted. The serpent lunged and sank its fangs into his leg. He screamed as the venom sizzled through flesh and armor alike.
Still—nothing.
Noel’s grip on Revenant Fang tightened.
At the center of the field, Elena stood, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Cuts ran down her arms, her left shoulder bloodied. She held her blades tight, her stance low and solid, despite the exhaustion etched into every line of her face.
’She’s still standing? Against that thing, has she gone mad...?’
The snake hissed, then reared back, ready to strike again.
And for a single second, Noel felt the weight of something shift inside him.
This wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t part of the hunt, this part wasn’t even in the novel.
This was a massacre waiting to happen.
And no one was coming to stop it.
Unless someone step in the fight.
Noel stood there, looking at all that was happening in front of his two emeral eyes.
’What do I do? Shit!’
Noel didn’t know how to react to the situation ongoing.
And just at that moment a familiar sounds echo’d in his head.