The silence between the three figures—Arthur, the terrified girl, and the obsidian Hunter—was a physical presence, heavy and suffocating. It was a silence broken only by the drip of rainwater and the wet, heavy panting of the creature, a sound unnervingly close to a human cough. Arthur did not blink. His eyes, trained by years behind a lens, were no longer seeking the perfect composition; they were searching for the negative space—the moment where the subject wasn't.
The Hunter moved first. Not a charge, but a ripple. It simply ceased to be standing still, and in the next half-beat, it was a dark blur less than three feet from Arthur's chest. The bone blade flashed, targeting the junction between his ribs and sternum, a precise, fatal thrust that spoke of grim, surgical intelligence.
Arthur didn't think; he reacted with the pure instinct of his past life, where a fraction of a second determined whether a photo captured a moment or simply captured dust. He recognized the geometric inevitability of the attack. His weak, untrained body couldn't match the speed, but his mind could predict the line.
He didn't parry; he ducked and twisted, throwing his entire body weight to the side, allowing the bone blade to shear through the air where his left lung had been a heartbeat prior. The sudden, unnatural torque pulled every tendon in his back, but the maneuver bought him time. He drove his rusted longsword forward, aiming not for the monster's carapace, but for the soft, vulnerable space between its hip and thigh joint—a move entirely dictated by the precision logic of his Gunpowder Mastery, applying a marksman's accuracy to a swordsman's close-quarters fight.
Screeeech!
The contact was agonizing, metal grating against chitin. The blade didn't penetrate the tough armor, but the impact was enough to stagger the Hunter for a single, critical moment. The sound of the scraping metal—the agonizing friction—sent a wave of nausea through Arthur, but he clung to the hilt, refusing to give up the inch of ground he'd gained.
On the back of his hand, the pale, cracked lines of the Swordplay Rudiment talent pulsed violently, no longer just warm, but radiating a burning agony that traveled up his arm and settled in his teeth. This pain was the Aether entering his system, overloading the fragile network. He was physically too weak to wield the strength he was momentarily accessing.
The Hunter recovered instantly. Its mocking silence vanished, replaced by a guttural, enraged screech. It swung its left bone-blade in a wide, sweeping arc, designed to decapitate.
Arthur's heart hammered against his ribs. He felt the cold rush of the blade before it reached him. This was the end. He was too slow.
But just as the blade was about to connect, the pain in his arm intensified beyond anything he had ever known—a white-hot, tearing sensation that felt like his nerves were being ripped from his bones. The weak Aether pattern on his hand flared from a pale white into a searing, dark copper.
In that burst of agonizing energy, his body moved. It was not skill; it was a desperate, feral parry. Arthur brought the longsword up and across his head, intercepting the Hunter's strike.
KLAANNGG!
The resulting force was monumental. Arthur's arms screamed in protest, his shoulder socket felt like it had been dislocated, and the rusted longsword buckled slightly, but the blow was deflected, sent sparking harmlessly into the concrete wall.
He had deflected the strike. He had survived.
The cost, however, was immediate and brutal. The force shattered the small bones in Arthur's forearm, and the sudden Aether influx caused a wave of vertigo and crippling nausea. He stumbled backward, his vision blurring, a cold sweat breaking out across his face.
The Hunter seemed momentarily confused by the sudden, unprecedented defense from such a weak opponent. It cocked its head, its scarlet eyes burning with analytical curiosity, not rage. It's learning, Arthur thought, the chilling realization cutting through the pain. It was testing us.
That momentary pause was the opening Arthur needed.
His dynamic vision, the ghost of his photographer's eye, returned. He wasn't looking at the monster; he was looking at the debris, the shadows, the entire geometry of the scene. He registered a small satchel lying near Tank's crushed body—Vance's equipment bag.
Diversion. Focus. Escape.
He knew he couldn't win, and he couldn't protect Becca while fighting. He had to sever the attachment.
"Becca! Run!" he screamed, the sound tearing at his throat. He turned, staggering, and launched his useless rifle with the last of his strength, not at the monster, but at the satchel.
The rifle stock struck the bag, tearing it open. A handful of non-Aether-charged flash charges—simple magnesium flares used for signaling—spilled onto the floor. Arthur had planned to use one to get a clean shot, but now they were a desperate, final resort.
The Hunter, sensing the sudden shift in threat level, turned its predatory focus back to Arthur.
"Now, Becca! Go! Don't look back!"
Arthur didn't wait for her. He had to be the decoy. He snatched a piece of broken rebar from the ground near his feet, his shattered left arm dangling uselessly, and threw himself toward the Hunter, feigning a final, suicidal charge.
The monster accepted the bait. It raised its two bone blades, ready to perform a clean, efficient dissection.
Now.
Becca, paralyzed by terror only moments ago, finally moved. Fueled by the sheer horror of watching Arthur charge to his death, she scrambled past the distracted Hunter and bolted up the ramp towards the faint light of the surface.
Arthur watched her go, a clean shot framed in the final moments of his consciousness. He saw the geometry of the escape, the perfect line of flight. He used that image to anchor himself.
He stopped his charge just short of the Hunter's reach. The monster was confused again. Instead of attacking, Arthur used his last functional limb—his right hand—to sweep the remaining three flash charges onto the wet concrete.
He didn't activate them; he simply knocked them onto the floor, allowing the acidic ground humidity to quickly burn away the weak protective casing.
The Hunter hesitated, analyzing the unfamiliar, small objects. That hesitation was the price of its intelligence.
Shhh-BAM!
The charges detonated in quick succession, not with a massive explosion, but with blinding, hyper-intense bursts of white magnesium light that momentarily overloaded the sensitive scarlet eyes of the Hunter.
The creature shrieked, a sound of pure agony, instinctively covering its eyes with its bone blades.
Arthur didn't wait. The light was his cue. He shoved his shoulder into the nearest abandoned vehicle, using the momentum to propel himself into the side tunnel used for ventilation, away from the path Becca had taken. He crashed into the metal ductwork, tasting blood and dust, and kept crawling.
He heard the Hunter's frustrated roars behind him—sounds that promised a gruesome hunt—but the temporary blindness bought him thirty precious seconds. Thirty seconds was all he could afford to ask for.
He dragged himself through the cramped, rusting duct, the pain in his arm a constant, blinding white fire. He ignored it. He ignored the smell of his own fear. He ignored the knowledge that he was leaving Vance and Tank behind. He ignored Becca.
Sever the wire.
He pushed his consciousness deep into his memory, recalling the raw, visceral sight of Tank's blood on the concrete and Vance's final, desperate roar. He didn't allow himself to feel the grief, the guilt, or the responsibility. He crushed the emotion under a mountain of pragmatism.
If you feel, you die. If you bond, they die.
That single, cold philosophy was the new foundation of his existence. He was not a guardian; he was a weapon. And weapons must be used efficiently, not burdened by human sentiment.
He crawled out of the duct into a side alley near the city wall—a restricted, overgrown zone used for industrial waste runoff. He knew exactly where he was. He pulled himself onto his knees, his body slick with sweat, rain, and fresh blood from his fractured arm.
He knew Becca would follow the walls until she reached Sector B's makeshift gate. She had survived. That was the last shred of human responsibility he allowed himself.
His eyes fell on the two faint patterns on his right hand. The Gunpowder Mastery was cool, distant, logical. The Swordplay Rudiment was burning, screaming, demanding vengeance. The duality was tearing him apart.
Arthur reached into the remnants of his tactical vest and pulled out the single item he still cherished: a small, smooth stone from his past life, a souvenir from the base camp in the Himalayas. He held it for a moment, letting the feel of the cool, familiar surface ground him. Then, with a cold, clear resolve, he threw it into the rushing gray torrent of the runoff ditch.
He had no time for mementos.
He was a ghost now.
He didn't return to Sector B. He didn't report the loss of his team. He didn't seek a healer for his broken arm. He walked in the opposite direction, deeper into the ruined, forbidden territories, using the shadows and the debris as his shield.
His goal was no longer survival for himself, or for a team. His goal was purely to level. To become strong enough that when the next Hunter found him, the confrontation would last longer than three seconds. He would master the brutal, desperate energy of the sword, combine it with the cold calculation of the gun, and turn himself into the precise instrument of destruction he had failed to be when Vance needed him.
The journey began immediately. He was now the Ash Walker, the lonely ghost in the ruins. His training was simple and uncompromising: kill everything that moved.
Over the next weeks, the name Arthur Hall was erased from the few functioning guild rosters. The new name they whispered was a spectral figure known only by his actions: The Reaper. He specialized in the most dangerous solo contracts, retrieving artifacts and clearing high-level nests that entire squads had failed to breach.
His Gunpowder Mastery quickly evolved. Instead of just seeing trajectories, the lines in his vision now included the weakest point in the monster's armor. He became a specialist in the Critical Hit.
His Swordplay Rudiment also grew, fueled by the cold rage he had locked away. Its skills were painful and desperate: Iron Will, a move that allowed him to ignore crippling pain for one vital minute; and Sunder, a reckless, all-or-nothing strike aimed at the monster's joints. Every kill added a new, dark line to the pattern on his skin, hardening his resolve and simultaneously calcifying his heart.
He worked faster, harder, and took risks no sane person would. He was trying to outrun the memory of Vance's face, but the only way to do that was to fill his mind with the immediate, visceral tension of combat.
He had to get stronger. And he had to do it alone.
The world was too fragile for friendship, and loss was a price Arthur Hall refused to pay again.
The transition to his Solo Stage was brutal. His gear was scavenged, his health was constantly low, and his solitude was absolute. He hunted not for coin, but for the rare Aether Crystals necessary for forced, painful skill breakthroughs. The pace of his evolution was unnaturally rapid, propelled by a trauma-induced focus that baffled the few veterans who tracked his kills from a distance.
He never sought out other humans, treating them as obstacles or, worse, potential liabilities.
That, however, was about to change. Not by his choice, but by the relentless, cruel logic of the monster tide. The Ash Walker was heading deeper into the uncharted territories, moving toward the ultimate goal: the source of the disaster. And deep in that territory, a beacon of coordinated resistance was fighting a losing battle.
A beacon led by a woman named Elena.