The sound from above wasn't a roar; it was a scream of metal on metal. It felt like a thousand saws cutting through bone. The purple sky disappeared, hidden by a blanket of falling red lights.
"Don't look up!" I shouted. I grabbed Hana's arm and forced her to run. "If you look at their eyes, they lock onto your location! Keep moving!"
Behind us, the first hunters hit the ground with a heavy thud. They weren't animals. They were Steel-Stalkers—three-legged machines the size of wolves. Their bodies pulsed with a red light that matched the tall tower in the distance.
[Notice: The Swarm has surrounded you.] [Detection: 22% and rising...]
A machine landed on a rusted car right in front of us. Its red eye clicked as it searched for us. I didn't slow down. I reached into my own shadow, and my new sword, Sovereign's Recompense, appeared in my hand. It felt cold—so cold it made my skin sting.
"Hana, left! Into the arcade!"
We crashed through the glass doors of an old gaming center. Inside, the air smelled like burnt wires and dust. The red beam from the machine's eye swept across the glass behind us, missing my feet by an inch.
"Han Chen... my power is back," Hana gasped. She leaned against a broken game machine. Her hands started to glow with blue light. "I can freeze them."
"No," I said, watching the shadows outside. "The machines outside are just the dogs. If you use your ice now, your energy will act like a flare. The flying monsters will drop the whole building on us."
I checked the timer in my vision.
[Time Left: 38:12] [Detection: 45%]
"We need to go lower," I whispered. I saw a metal vent on the floor. "These lead to the old subway tunnels. The System didn't map them because they are too broken."
I jammed my sword into the vent. The blade didn't just pry the metal; it made the bolts turn to dust. We slid into the dark hole just as the front of the arcade exploded. Three machines burst inside, their red lights searching everywhere.
We crawled through the narrow, dusty shafts for a long time. The metal walls shook from the noise above.
"Why is the First Lord doing this?" Hana whispered. "I thought the Union was in charge."
"The Union just does the paperwork," I explained. "The First Lord is like the brain of this city. To him, I'm not a person—I'm a mistake in the computer code. He wants to delete me before I break the rest of the world."
We dropped out of the vent into a subway station. It looked like a graveyard. White vines grew over everything, and the tracks were filled with black water.
But someone was waiting.
Standing on the platform was a man in a clean black suit. He was leaning against a pillar, looking at a silver pocket watch. He looked human, but he was breathing at the exact same time the walls hummed.
"You're late, Han Chen," the man said. He didn't look up. "The Union expected you at the hotel, but the Lord wanted to talk to you first."
I held my sword low. I didn't know this man from my past life. That was scary—it meant my choices had changed the future completely.
"Are you an Executioner?" I asked.
The man laughed. He put his watch away and looked at me. His eyes were a bright, scary blue.
"I am the Herald," he said. "And I'm not here to fight. I'm here to make a deal."
He pointed to the tracks. A silver train made of pure energy was sitting there.
"That train goes straight to the hotel penthouse," the Herald said. "No machines. No hunters. You can get the medicine and save your friends. All the Lord wants is that sword."
He pointed to my blade.
"That sword is poison to the System. Give it to me, and you can be a hero. If you say no... the hunt won't stop. We will follow you back to your tree. And we both know trees burn easily."
Hana looked at the train. I could see she wanted to take the deal. She was tired of being hunted.
I looked at the Herald, then at the black blade in my hand.
"You're right about one thing," I said, stepping onto the platform. "The blade is poison."
I swung the sword, but not at the man. I drove it into the side of the silver train.
The train shrieked like a dying animal. It didn't just break; it started to melt. My blade sucked the energy out of it like a straw.
"But I'm the one who chooses who to poison," I said.
The Herald's face twisted in anger. His blue eyes glowed like fire, and the stone pillars began to bend toward us like giant fingers.
"Then the tree burns," he hissed.
[Mission: Survive the Hunt — FAILED.] [New Goal: Kill the Herald.] [Difficulty: S-Rank]
The floor beneath us shattered.
As we fell, the Herald didn't drop. He floated in the air. His suit tore open to show wings made of silver light. I grabbed Hana and threw her toward the stairs. This wasn't a hunt anymore. This was a boss fight I wasn't supposed to have yet, and I only had one sword to win it.