The grass of the Savvan plains swayed like a starving serpent tasting the scent of fresh blood, lured by the wind's whisper, as though celebrating that cruel betrayal.
The master pulled his blade free from the last leg. Its dull steel swallowed the dripping red glimmer. His breath stayed steady, his face blank as ever. Cutting down four hunters at once was nothing but routine work to him, nothing worth exalting.
"Filthy traitor… I knew it! You damned bastard!" The trembling voice, heavy with rancor, broke from the hollow-eyed hunter.
His face grew paler as he struggled to make sense of the cruelty that had just unfolded.
When those black eyes turned back to him, deep as a bottomless well, they carried a faintly drawn smile of satisfaction.
"You should have struck me from the beginning. If you had trusted your suspicion, perhaps you could have delayed death for a while… maybe even begged for mercy."
The Camouflage Insects that had been scattered before now crawled out in greater numbers from the cracks in the earth, drawn by the scent of human blood.
Zhen's lips curved into a thin smile.
Blood gushed wildly from the severed stumps of legs, forming narrow streams.
The four official hunters dragged themselves helplessly, hands reaching for the fallen spears, but their bodies no longer obeyed. The agony they bore was more than flesh torn apart; it was the wound of betrayal, etched into the heart, leaving nothing but hate.
"You… demon…" cursed the mahogany-cloaked hunter, his pale face trembling with the shreds of his body.
Zhen only gave a faint smile, unwilling to waste words on the stream of curses. All he wanted was to reveal his sword's technique to the four men awaiting the end of their breath.
His cruel hand moved the blade slowly, cutting through the air. With that motion, the space around him split into two layers—one of reality, and one of shadow. The shadow layer mimicked the path of the real blade, but lagged just behind, striking in another breath of time.
"That is the secret of my Twin Shadow Slash." His gaze slid toward his prey.
Just as one hunter tried to crawl backward, pressing a cloth to his wound, the second shadow cleaved the cloth apart with ruthless haste, and a scream tore the night.
The hunter's body split in a grotesque display, his blood spraying wide, staining the other three.
Zhen crouched, his gaze fixed on the hollow-eyed hunter.
"That is the technique."
Then he rose again, sword held upright against the earth, this time turning his eyes to the man in the mahogany cloak.
"In this world, no law is more absolute than a blade's cut. Even your system knows that."
He closed his eyes as he swung his sword once more.
The true slash glided smoothly, severing the intricate threads of the system's puppets.
One hunter's head slid cleanly from his shoulder. The wound at his neck was so precise, it bled almost nothing, as though it had been sliced away by nothingness itself.
"You… demon… cursed…" the hollow-eyed hunter rasped.
A breath later, another head tumbled down, eyes rolling loose from the hollow sockets of its face.
The leader in mahogany had already surrendered to fear, waiting for his turn to be claimed.
Zhen lifted his eyes to the sky, pale as the corpses of the three hunters before him.
"I should thank you. You gave me chances—openings you refused to see. So… I suppose your death should be dealt with honor."
The sharp blade pierced the last hunter's heart, then twisted, tearing, plunging again and again.
Blood burst in fountains, spraying here and there. Zhen's face, masked in black cloth, was drenched in the hunter's fresh crimson. Only the veil spared his skin from being stained.
[ System Warning! ]
[ You have violated protocol. Hunters are not permitted to execute Official Blood Hunters without sanction. ]
The cold voice resounded in his skull, striking at the core of his soul.
[ Cease this reckless act, or the system will deliver punishment! ]
But Zhen only lifted his sword, watching his own reflection in its blackened steel. His lips curved faintly.
"Punishment…"
Why should there be punishment, if no wrong was done? If it was not another man who fell but himself, should it not be he who bore the death?
No trace of guilt stirred in Zhen's mind. He felt no fear toward the system.
[ Second Warning! ]
[ Disciplinary sanction will be enforced— ]
Zhen pressed both palms over his ears, as if to drive the voice away.
"Shut up, you wretch! You're nothing but a shadow tightening chains!"
The system fell silent at once. Which only drove Zhen deeper into thoughts of the countless schemes it might already have prepared to erase him.
His steps carried him forward again, through the swaying grass, toward the other prey lurking somewhere, watching his movements from the dark.
For a moment, his mind wandered back to the shield spell that had protected him, and an idea struck.
"I can keep living as long as I rely on that magic. This is real. With nothing but my strength and swordplay, the protective sorcery of those four hunters vanished the instant it touched this Broukirakh shield."
Yet he received neither Goldi nor the bracelets of the four Official Blood Hunters. Because the Northern Hunter was a cursed, Brutal Hunter bound to a different system—at least, that was the working theory.
"So I'll prove it. I'll involve the Eastern Hunter. I need to know if the system has been weaving its game from the shadows all along… with that clan."
After wandering the route for some time without finding a single Sinful Human, Zhen felt unease creep in.
"Where are they hiding?"
His steps halted. A heap of straw, rising five meters high, had appeared from nowhere, blocking his path.
"Damn it."
Zhen had no intention of wasting time on something so trivial, so he chose another path and skirted around the straw mound.
He gave it no suspicion—an oversight that would prove fatal.
A sudden grip, strong as iron, seized him from behind, dragging the Northern Hunter off his feet in a brutal ambush.