Daylight spilled in from an opening high above, illuminating the hatchling and the Abyss Thrall in sickly green-brown light.
Watching the contract circle pulse and tighten, Ethan came to a single conclusion.
If he wanted to live, he had to strike first.
Kill the Hunter – before the Hunter noticed him.
And if he pulled it off, there was more than survival on the table.
There was a Relic.
A Tier 1, Rank 9 Awakened would have Relics. That was how the Abyss faction climbed: hunting Awakened, stripping power, devouring progress.
Kill him, and Ethan could stay alive… and loot what he needed to finish the tasks and lock first place.
It was hard to find a reason not to do it.
Except for one problem.
Ethan was still Tier 0. Pre‑Awakened.
How was he supposed to kill someone one step away from Tier 2?
As if to answer, the ritual flared brighter.
The Hunter’s chanting, low and steady until now, abruptly climbed into a sharp crescendo.
The hatchling sensed the end approaching and thrashed with everything it had left.
From the look of it, the hatchling was losing.
If the contract completed, it would become the Hunter’s slave – and the Hunter’s strength would surge from binding an Awakened beast.
For Ethan, that was a death sentence.
Time was running out.
He forced himself to examine one question he didn’t want to ask.
How do I get stronger – right now?
– Suddenly – his mind detonated with images.
Sound slammed into his ears like a physical blow.
He remembered.
Last night: fishing Moonlight Island.
The Artifact.
Moonshadow Elixir – and the evil presence tangled around it.
He glanced down at the strip of white cloth tied around his wrist.
All of it came back at once.
He’d fished up an Artifact: Moonshadow Elixir.
When he tried to examine it with the Eye of Insight, it had tempted him.
A thousandfold boost to every ability. A promise to help him reclaim everything he’d lost.
He hadn’t swallowed the bait. He’d kept the elixir sealed and stored it away.
But the malice on the Artifact had still seeped into him – quietly, patiently – until his thoughts started to fray.
SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing had helped him recover sanity in the pond.
Yet the influence lingered.
It had even erased the obvious: it made him forget what was affecting him… and nearly made him forget the elixir existed at all.
Now, cornered by the cavern and the Hunter, the pressure cracked the haze.
Memory snapped back into place.
Something inside him shattered – like a pane of glass breaking.
The confusion that had been coiled around his mind peeled away.
He’d beaten the elixir’s manipulation by reclaiming his own story.
His thoughts had traveled a thousand miles, but it had taken less than a heartbeat.
The next second, the hatchling’s screams yanked him back to reality.
So… was he really going to drink it?
Drink Moonshadow Elixir, make a feather into an elephant, and force a path across the gap between Tier 0 and Tier 1?
A thousandfold boost should be enough.
And the Hunter was visibly weakened by the ritual. His body trembled; his posture sagged with exhaustion.
It was an opening.
But the price mattered.
Drink it, and something would notice him.
It would whisper to him. Mark him. Curse him to retrieve something on its behalf.
Abyss Thralls weren’t the type you negotiated with – but neither were gods.
Two terrible options. One choice.
Ethan asked himself quietly:
Die later – drink the elixir, accept the gaze and the whispers, gamble on finding a way out before the debt came due?
Or die now – clean, simple, finished?
He’d tried “finished” once before.
And he’d learned the cruel truth: giving up didn’t guarantee an ending.
A short, humorless laugh escaped him.
“When did I get so indecisive?”
His fingers tightened around the glass.
Rodless Fishing stirred at his touch, like a blade sliding free of its sheath.
In the shadow behind the boulder, he drew the fish-bone knife from his belt.
On the cavern floor, the green-brown light flowed like liquid fire.
“I’m going to succeed!”
The hooded Hunter finished the last line of the chant, eyes wide with fanatic joy.
All his schemes, all his planning, all his effort had narrowed down to this final moment.
He raised his hands high and clenched his fist.
The rings of light snapped tighter around the hatchling.
Almost there. Almost there!
“All I have to do is stand here and wait,” the Hunter whispered, voice shaking. “The Hunt Goddess will bless me.”
“The last black dragon in the world… soon. Soon she’ll be my slave.”
“And when she is… I’ll ride her into the sky. I’ll burn the Endless Sea with her endless fury. I’ll be governor of every island. I’ll be an emperor. I’ll rule—”
The thought ran like a stampede through his veins.
His heart hammered faster and faster…
And then—
Pain bloomed in his chest.
“What…?” His voice cracked. “That’s not part of the rite.”
He looked down.
A thin, bone-colored dagger had punched clean through his heart.
“Impossible,” he rasped. “No one should be here…”
“Even if someone was… I would have sensed them.”
With shaking strength, the Hunter turned his head.
A masked, black-haired young man stood behind him.
The Hunter tried to focus, to force the face into clarity.
“No… I can’t feel any Awakened aura. He’s not an Awakened… how is this possible? Unless…”
Darkness surged up like a tide.
The Hunter’s consciousness snapped… and vanished.