Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Trapped

Hal should’ve figured something was up. Well, he’d known something was wrong, but not this. Still, unsanctioned groups were unsanctioned for a reason. If they didn’t want to be under the watchful eye of the Hunter’s Association, they were either actively trying to avoid being questioned like he was… or they were criminals.

Gavin had seemed like a nice enough person when Hal had run into him with group 1447, so he’d trusted the D-rank enough to go with him.

Stupid of me.

Each one of Yancy’s steps was careful, measured. The man was an inch or two taller than Hal, but the dark aura around him made that difference seem far greater. His eyes were pitch black, the mark of his Path being in full force.

Hal recognized what it was. Path of Ruin, a high-potential one that would eventually lead to the user being able to destroy objects on even a conceptual level. S-rank Hunter Arjun Agarwal possessed a more advanced version of the Path, and he’d been instrumental in closing the Great American Gate Breaks.

His power had also consumed him from the inside out a year later, but Hal wasn’t dumb enough to think that he could rely on that in this fight.

Silently, he thanked Sarah for making him study her fellow Hunters so much. He was far more acquainted with the world of Hunters than most like him—in fact, he probably knew more about Yancy’s Path than the Ruin user did himself.

If only I could use it. Hal pushed the thought aside, taking a step back. With [Swordfighting] now active at level 4, his movements were smooth like butter. It was like he was back with Sarah, sparring in a way that just felt right. Under her guidance, his movements had flowed from point A to B with trivial ease, and this was that sensation redoubled.

Yancy gathered power in his left fist, forming a steadily growing sphere of dark power that physically hurt to look at.

Hal wracked his brain, thinking of what that might be. Sarah had ensured that he had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of major Paths, but it was a bit difficult to remember the exact details when he was fighting for his life.

The sphere stopped growing and Hal ducked instinctively.

A beam of black energy passed over his head harmlessly, no thicker than his pinky finger but exuding a sense of danger so intense that Hal had to stop himself from flinching as terror leached into his mind.

On the far end of the room, the rusted trolley groaned as the technique tore a hole in its side. Steel clashed against steel as it started to fall in itself.

With that, Hal recognized the skill.

[Void Beam]. A Silver-level technique. Without any spiritual protections, it would carve a hole straight through Hal just as easily as it had demolished the metal of the still-collapsing trolley.

“Asshole,” Hal grunted. “Why do this?”

To his surprise, Yancy responded even as he started to build magic once more. “For the same reason any Hunter hunts. Power is everything in today’s world.”

Hal couldn’t deny the truth of that, but… he gripped his daggers. “To seek power for power’s sake is utter delusion. There’s other things to do. Have you tried reading a book, perhaps?”

This time, when the attack came, he was ready for it. He dropped to the ground, using a burst of [Speed] to dodge it. Yancy readjusted just a bit too late, and the technique grazed his coat, taking a chunk out of a sleeve. Hal’s heart jumped into his throat as it passed him by, but he didn’t show his fear.

He wanted to close the distance, but the dark aura still storming around the Ruin user was stopping him. It was a [Ruination Cloak], something that Hal recognized as a signature of the Path. At higher levels, he was fairly certain that it was a weapon of its own, something that Hunters on the Path would utilize to make themselves into human wrecking balls that annihilated the matter and mana in their way.

At Silver, he knew, it was defense only, little better than a mundane shield. At Gold, it would bite back, attacking the enemy as it absorbed hits. If Hal got hit by a blast of Ruin from a shield like that, he was likely to lose a limb.

But he had no choice. He could spend all day waffling about it, but this fight was going to end one of two ways. Either he won or he lost, and every moment not spent winning was another moment allowing Yancy to assure his own success.

He couldn’t fail here. He had to show his sister that he wasn’t worthless.

Hal dashed forward, catching Yancy off guard. The other man stumbled back, clearly not ready for the sudden aggression, and he lost control of his technique.

No attack incoming. Still, Yancy held the [Ruination Cloak] around himself, protecting his body from blows.

Hal couldn’t afford to be cautious. [Swordfighting] guided him as he dodged two ineffectual blasts of pure Ruin mana, stepping around them as easily as Sarah stepped around his dagger-swings when they sparred.

Can’t get caught up in memory now. With Yancy off balance, Hal pressed his advantage. The D-rank wasn’t helpless—he made use of his own skills to parry Hal’s strikes using a weapon he’d formed out of his own mana.

Still, he was inexperienced, and no amount of [Swordfighting] from Yancy’s side could overcome the raw experience that Hal had. With a single, clean stroke, he disarmed the other man, twisting the blade out of his hand when Yancy tried to block. The Ruin blade dissipated into wisps of unstructured mana as it left his hand.

Hal saw his golden opening and took it immediately, mercilessly slashing his dagger at the other man’s chest.

Dark mana met his strike, and his dagger vibrated in his hand like he’d just struck a hard surface. The aura around Yancy started to fade, but so too did the dagger, its tip turning black and crumbling away into ash.

It struck back with a vengeance, and Hal had to throw himself back to avoid the grasping tendrils of power. If even one of those touched him…

Using all his [Speed], he managed to just barely dodge the [Ruination Cloak]. It was at Gold level, but Yancy must not have trained it up much, because Hal managed to get away.

The aura was weakened from the blow, and the tendrils faded almost as quickly as they’d appeared. Hal’s next attack would hit.

But as he brought his daggers up, he saw that the ruinous mana had taken hold in it. They were crumbling apart, degrading into nothing even as he watched.

Yancy saw the effect of his skill, saw Hal’s newly useless weapons, and he smirked.

Hal tossed the disintegrating blades aside, then reached into his inventory.

Backup plan.

He stepped forward and stabbed Yancy in the chest.

“How—“ the man who’d tried to kill him grunted, choking on his own words. “How did you—“

As he fell to his knees, his mana tried to ruin the one who’d struck at him. Hal withdrew his hand as grasping black tendrils folded over the dagger he’d stuck inside Yancy, watching as it devoured the knife wholesale.

It wasn’t going to be enough to save Yancy. Not only was he already bleeding from a strike to the heart, but Ruin mana would’ve consumed his own lifeforce to fuel that action. It was the desperate final curse of a dying man, not the next stage of his fight.

Hal wasn’t sure if Yancy had something else to say, but he walked away from the man. He didn’t want to get close enough for Yancy’s magic to lash out and attack him again.

As Yancy bled out, blubbering nonsense to nobody, Hal felt the veil on the dying man’s spirit lift.

He’d been a Gold.

That shocked Hal more than the actual act of killing did. He’d managed to take down a Gold? Sure, Yancy had been a bit arrogant—he’d looked and sounded more like he was playing with his food—but a high D-rank Gold should’ve been able to crush him like a bug.

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He thanked his lucky stars that he’d caught Yancy off guard. If at all possible, he was going to have to avoid this kind of fight in the future. Hal had true hope for advancement now, but he needed to temper that with realism. If Yancy had actually treated him like a real enemy instead of as a bug to be squashed, Hal would already be dead ten times over.

Yancy let out one more guttural gurgle. Hal felt him die.

[Level up!]

[Health restored!]

[+5 skill points!]

The notification startled him, but it was more than welcome. He felt the mana passing into him, one Hunter to another, and he recalled Yancy telling him that humans were a source to progress with.

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” he said, then he spat on the body. “Piece of shit.”

That could’ve just as easily been him on the floor and Yancy leveling up. He felt no remorse for killing the man—death was a natural part of being a Hunter, and Yancy had more than deserved it.

He didn’t invest any of his skill points. He’d used them during the fight, but that had been necessary. He wasn’t sure if the upgraded [Swordfighting] had made that much of a difference, but the flow state he’d managed was otherworldly.

Suddenly, his anger flared at Gavin. That bastard had left him here to die with the flimsiest excuse Hal had ever heard. Sure, he should’ve expected something slimy to come up—nobody went unsanctioned without their reasons—but he hadn’t expected this.

Before he could work himself up into a proper fury, he calmed himself. He could be angry once he’d gotten out. There was one more task he needed to accomplish.

Hal withdrew Alia’s phone.

Ascended Sign-In System

Credits: 1

Time Until Next Credit: 23:58:47

[Sign in?]

Sometime during the fight, he’d gotten another credit. Hal wasn’t sure when, but he hadn’t had time to check. There wasn’t exactly a great opportunity to pull a phone out from his pocket when he was fighting for his life.

He activated the button without hesitating.

[1 credit consumed!]

[F-class location bonus active!]

[Obtained Silver-tier item: Icejade Dagger]

Just as before, it appeared in his inventory. Unlike the last time, he had more inventory slots, and with his level increasing to 3, he had an equivalent number of slots available now. One of them was occupied with his second backup dagger, another with the new item, and the third was empty.

He wished he’d managed to keep one of the daggers. Sure, they weren’t magical, but they were nice knives. Military grade. They’d set him back two hundred dollars apiece, which wasn’t insignificant when a Gate delve wasn’t even guaranteed to net him a thousand dollars worth of materials.

The core of the monster was gone, too. Gavin had taken it.

Hal would track him down for that. He swore it.

In the meantime, though…

Hal took the Icejade Dagger from his inventory. It was longer than his other knives, nearly a foot long. Its hilt was set with blue-green gems and its blade was a greenish-blue material with an odd sheen.

Right. Jade.

Suddenly, Hal realized the value of what he had. That was a Silver item. Silver! He’d never even gotten a Bronze item before. He could feel the power coursing through the item, just waiting to be unleashed. Before, he’d thought he wouldn’t be able to power something on this level, but with the Icejade Dagger in his hand, he could sense his own attunement with it, understand intuitively how it was meant to be used.

Hal passed his mana into it, letting his instincts guide him.

A hidden dog-spider jumped out from a corner of the room, finally showing itself now that all the noise had died down, and he threw the knife, propelled by an impulse he somehow knew he could trust.

His mana dropped like a brick, flowing into the dagger. Hal still wasn’t high enough level—using it even once was going to take its toll on him.

The knife left a frigid sky blue trail behind it as it soared straight and true, slamming into the spider before it could even think about attacking him.

Ice crystals formed in fast motion around the spider. No, not on—in.

When it hit the ground, it was a block of ice. It shattered, its body breaking apart into a dozen frozen bloody pieces, revealing its core.

With another flex of his will, the dagger came flying back of its own volition, reversing its direction and returning to his hand.

Hal grinned, giddy with excitement.

Oh, he was going to have some fun with this.

He started by looting the place for everything he could find. There wasn’t much more apart from a few hidden dog-sized jumping spiders, but he killed them all with the Icejade Dagger and gladly took their cores. He had to pause a couple of times to cycle his mana, restoring magic power to his body, but he was never threatened.

After he was sure that he’d killed every monster remaining, he used his pick to sort out the cores. Fourteen new shards all for himself. It was far below the average total output that a normal clear got, but this was a smaller Gate anyway. He was happy with taking… roughly fifteen hundred dollars worth of shards, plus however much the dagger was worth.

I have to do this more, he thought.

But he didn’t want to repeat this experience. He didn’t want anybody to have to deal with this.

When he got out, he was going to hunt down Gavin. Then, he was going to find Gates himself and clear them.

Alone.

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