He clenched his fists as he walked along the narrow path strewn with small, glistening black stones. His gaze turned back for a moment, staring at the tunnel's exit one last time—a slit in the stone wall slowly sealing itself behind him.
Zhen pulled his face covering up to just beneath his lower lashes, shielding himself from the night wind that sometimes blew dust into his eyes.
[Hell Hunt System.]
[Hunting Map Activated.]
[Target Location: Burdon.]
[Estimated Distance: 23 Kilometers.]
The air before Zhen shifted into neatly ordered symbols, ancient runes appearing one by one to form a hovering map like glowing mist.
"Pretty far." Zhen rotated his stiff neck and walked right past the system's projection.
Burdon was one of the forbidden locations in the Western Territory. It was once a trading hub for clean water, destroyed in a massacre by the monster Gorf. A restricted zone that perhaps only Zhen had been assigned to by the system. No Official Blood Hunter would ever be sent there—the system likely refusing to pay the higher cost.
And Zhen had no choice. His choice had already been made for him.
Three hours passed as he kept descending the rocky path, now nearing the very edge of the trail.
The ground beneath him changed; his feet no longer struck those shimmering black stones but pressed onto hard, cracked earth. Dust clung to his trouser legs, so dry and barren that it turned them thoroughly filthy.
Zhen also felt his throat growing parched, as if drought itself were strangling him over time. He considered stopping for water, but abandoned the idea and forced himself to keep moving.
He abandoned it because something thrilled him. Something that made his heart pound more savagely, his breath forced to calm itself so it wouldn't roar from his lungs.
"I'm inhaling monster blood again… after rotting so long in that academy prison!"
His pores seemed to open wide, recognizing the scent of blood vapor rising from the monsters now stalking him.
The Gorf were still lying in wait, biding their time to strike and tear his body apart, so they could soak the barren sand with his blood—hoping the cursed hunter's blood might revive the fire cacti, their food that had long gone extinct.
'Keep hiding until I find you and rip out your eyeball with the fang I'll pull straight from your mouth.'
One of the lurking Gorf seemed to catch his signal, understanding exactly what he meant. It knew Zhen would turn the hunt back on them.
That small Gorf immediately sank into the sand to relay the news.
'Damn little scout.'
He sprinted so hard his bones felt like they might snap against one another, his pupils locked onto an imagined droplet of blood that made his thirst unbearable.
'Now he… really does look like a cursed hunter.'
But the green silhouette had already slipped from his sight.
Charred stones lay scattered across Burdon's sands as far as the eye could see. He kept walking, watching the burnt boundary markers on either side of the ruined gateway.
Zhen felt something off—a pair of eyes boring sharply into him. So he lowered his head and crouched, pretending to examine one of those blackened stones in his palm.
"Come out, little Gorf. Show yourself. I won't hurt you."
His pupils scanned carefully all around, until the corner of his eye caught a long claw slowly driving itself into the sand, creeping closer toward him.
Zhen lifted his chin to get a better look at the brave little Gorf.
The reptilian creature stood two meters tall, vaguely human-shaped, grinning at him with rows of gleaming saw-like teeth. Its claws on both feet were a full meter long, driven an estimated ten centimeters deep into the sand.
He scanned the monster with unwavering focus, not blinking once.
"I'll stab your heart so it won't hurt you."
The Gorf bent its legs, ready to lunge at him.
But before it could move, Zhen inhaled deeply to steady his eyes, twisting his wrist to flick a tiny, sharp piece of metal.
The golden siphon needle shot forth.
The small weapon met the howling wind and fused with its whistle, and in a split second, its tip buried itself directly in the Gorf's chest, making it roar uncontrollably.
"Did that needle hit your heart? Shame—I was hoping to play with you first."
Zhen savored the moment with disturbing delight, listening to the monster's strange, muffled sobs—as if its very soul were being sucked into the needle.
He stepped closer, eyes ablaze, forcing the creature's clenched jaws apart. The Gorf's mouth was lined with predatory fangs, which sent Zhen into a frenzy as he ripped them out one by one, leaving pitiful, exposed gums in their place.
'You think that's enough? You damn monsters!!
I grin like a lunatic when I conquer you and earn my goldi. But!! Do you know?! I feel tortured even after you're burned from this hunting world, knowing you'll still be sealed away in the system's hell!!
Bastards! I know you'll keep suffering! But what I want is for you to burn away completely!! To vanish into thin air!'
His fingers toyed with one of the sharp fangs in his grip before tearing into the Gorf's pupils, unleashing rivers of blood from the shattered eyeballs.
Its eyes dimmed at the same time its body collapsed and spilled apart onto the sand.
Zhen stepped back, washing his hands in the mixture of blood and dust. He planted the ripped-out fangs among the charred stones, circling the long claws still jutting from the sand.
He had buried the Gorf upside down, its head plunged deep into the sand while its claws jutted upward.
"Return to me. Your job is done!"
The golden siphon needle sprang from the sand and landed neatly in his palm.
Zhen regarded the golden needle for a moment before tucking it back beneath his sleeve.
"You like blood too, huh? Then, want to keep hunting blood with me?"