Zavi watched the act with a look of disgust. At the same time, he felt a twinge of guilt, suspecting that Moreira was the mastermind behind this attack.
Then, he calmly stepped closer to the man kneeling before him, occasionally glancing left and right, anticipating the possibility that the man was pretending and would strike the moment Zavi let his guard down.
Zavi's suspicion was entirely correct. Unexpectedly, there was still one member of the Xlender hunters who launched a stealth attack on him. From behind, a dagger shot through the air at high speed, set to pierce his back just seconds later.
Just a few more inches and the dagger would have struck his body. The one who threw it smiled, convinced he would soon earn extra money at the end of the month.
That mile slowly faded when he witnessed the dagger he had thrown suddenly change direction and embed itself into the wall of the building that the bowler-hatted man had crashed into earlier.
"No way…" The dagger thrower's eyes widened. He was currently standing atop a tall, empty building beside the road, roughly a dozen meters away from where Zavi stood.
Zavi was shocked—along with the man kneeling in front of him. Both lifted their heads slightly, staring at the dagger lodged in the wall, feeling strangely familiar with its design.
"There's something I want to ask," Zavi said coldly, aiming the revolver straight at his head. "I will shoot… but before that, how many people are hunting me right now? Why do you want to kill me?" His expression remained unchanged—cold, but not cruel.
"There are—"
Before he could finish his words, Zavi calmly pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The gunshot echoed down the street. Activity in the nearby market came to a halt; heads turned, eyes searching for the source of the sound.
Several pedestrians across the street—along with those passing beside and in front of him—witnessed the brutal act Zavi had committed.
Only then did he realize how crowded the street was. Whether driven by emotion or panic, he covered his face to avoid being easily recognized, then turned and ran in search of a safe place. He had to get out of this district.
His escape did not go smoothly.
"Terrorist!"
The shout chased after him. Men and women echoed it, pointing in his direction. When Zavi turned onto another street, the voices only grew louder. On Buca's main road, residents who heard the shout reacted immediately.
Seeing someone behaving suspiciously, they moved as one, intent on capturing Zavi to protect the peace of their neighborhood.
Around ten people now surrounded Zavi, pressing him against a wall and trying to seize him. Yet their attempt failed. The target was right in front of them—so why? Their movements suddenly became strange, and the bodies of all ten people collapsed weakly onto the stone pavement.
Receivers. Prisoner, level one. Zavi could use his supernatural ability without consuming any herbal potion at all.
It should have been impossible. But he had ignored the law of Receivers that had existed for hundreds of years.
Yes. He could not use it—but he could not control it either. So whenever someone harbored malicious intent toward him, the ability activated on its own and restrained two vital senses of that person inside his pocket watch.
He did not fully understand it. When this happened, he was confused, watching the people before him grope at the stone pavement like someone trying to escape a room shrouded in darkness.
Other pedestrians—and the person who had earlier shouted "Terrorist" at him—approached. An unpleasant sight greeted their eyes and minds.
Fueled by surging anger, the pedestrians and residents rushed toward him with murderous intent.
"H-Hey, what's actually going on?" he muttered in panic.
Then he quickly turned, leapt over the people beneath him, and ran as fast as he could from that place. The situation was utterly chaotic; his body was already at its limit. His breath came in ragged gasps, as if he had run hundreds of kilometers, even though it had only been ten minutes.
He hid inside a large wooden crate in an abandoned house. His current location was not far from the border between the Chapena and Hava districts.
Holding his breath, his face drenched in sweat, he spoke weakly, "Damn it. Because of that guy, I ended up being chased like this. Besides, someone who has mastered and accepted a supernatural ability wouldn't die from a gunshot wound like that."
"Ah… I'm exhausted. Anyone, please help me."
After muttering to himself, he soon heard faint, steady footsteps approaching from afar. Zavi's eyes widened, his mind suddenly failing to function, unsure of what would happen next.
Thud!
The sound of something falling was enough to make Zavi's heart pound violently.
"What was that? Did the crate collapse? Or did those people find out I'm hiding inside?" he muttered, his voice barely audible in the darkness of the crate he occupied.
Feeling fed up after hiding for several minutes, Zavi finally stepped out and walked alongside the stacks of wooden crates with silent steps, taking the initiative to check the source of the earlier sound.
Yes, he was inside a building that had once been used as a storage facility for goods shipped from outside the island during the golden age of Moran City. The warehouse had likely been abandoned for decades, still filled with empty wooden boxes and crates, with some corners overgrown by shrubs. There were black-feathered chickens—found only on the continent of Chynoria, particularly in the kingdoms of Norn and Nessevalius in the western part of the continent.
After passing through towering stacks of crates that reached the ceiling, he finally emerged and realized the sound he had heard earlier came from a group of black-feathered chickens searching for something in the area.
"Hush, hush…" Zavi whispered nervously.
Zavi tried to shoo the chickens away. Not quite shooing, rather, the chickens perceived his movement as a threat that endangered them.
Suddenly, one of the chickens crowed, its sharp cry echoing through the silent building. Then it charged toward him, lowering its head, ready to secure its target.
"Huh?"
At four meters from where Zavi stood, the chicken's body suddenly went limp, as if it had been shot from behind, yet there was not a single drop of blood, and it did not move afterward.
Its body stiffened. In the warehouse's silence, Zavi was once again left confused by what he had just witnessed.
"What the hell? Isn't this similar to what happened earlier?" he muttered in confusion, furrowing his brows.
Even Zavi himself did not realize that the anomaly originated from within his own body. The Prisoner ability was always active and would attack anyone who harbored malicious intent toward him.
Just like the black-feathered chicken earlier—and the ten people who tried to capture him. Didn't that count as malicious intent? The chicken wanted to attack because it felt threatened. The residents wanted to capture Zavi due to the misunderstanding that he had killed someone.
After thinking it through carefully, Zavi finally understood. If the supernatural ability he possessed, Prisoner—was extremely powerful and dangerous once he managed to unlock all of it from levels one through five.
"But… I can't control it," Zavi said in frustration. "How did Karl know about the ritual to receive the Prisoner ability?" he asked himself.
As for how the Prisoner ability worked, for now, if someone intended harm toward Zavi, the ability would immediately attack the target and forcibly shut down all five of that person's senses.
If Zavi consumed an herbal potion that increased the spiritual energy within his body, he would gain two benefits. First, the spiritual energy within him would increase. Second, the increased energy would allow his body to support the abilities possessed by Receivers, while also helping him fully control the ability.
At present, the cooperation he proposed to Moreira was none other than to seek information on the method and ingredients needed to create that herbal potion.
The ingredients for making the potion are rare, and the correct method of preparation is known only to a handful of people who are familiar with the ins and outs of this world. Each of the fifteen supernatural abilities has the same composition, depending on how much spiritual energy is required to activate or control that ability. For example, a Receivers, a Magician, must drink an herbal potion containing a mixture of blood that has been left to settle for a week.
Isn't drinking that disgusting? Of course it's disgusting—but if someone wants that power, they have to endure the disgust. Everything has its price.
If Zavi knew the composition of the Prisoner potion, which is the same as the Secreter and Prefence abilities, Veranica's abilities, the potion consists of a fine powder from a creature called Xie that can be found in the market, two cinnamon sticks, two lemongrass leaves, crystal particles, 5 grams of blue mint leaves, one spoonful of burnt terami flower powder, blue lotus flowers, grapes, fresh milk free from any animal, and must be drunk at midnight under the full moon.
"Thinking about it is endless. Better yet, I'll find it myself and do the collaboration." he muttered, nodding. "But where is that person now? Should I look for them or go to that house again?"
Because his head suddenly felt dizzy. And as the day grew late, he decided to go home. Before that, he went to a stationery shop, bought a pen, ink, two sheets of paper, and an envelope. He wrote an important message and placed it in the mailbox of that house, and another one he put into the mailbox at the entrance to the house where they gathered.