**Chapter 20: The Hunter and the Hunted**
**Day 1,145.**
**Status: The Apex of the Food Chain.**
**Current Activity: Cleaning House.**
The problem with giving monkeys machine guns is not just that they might shoot you; it is that they inevitably start shooting each other over bananas.
I sat in the War Room of the Atacama Facility, the holographic globe spinning slowly in the center of the chamber. It was dotted with red lights. Since the implementation of the "Justice System" and the Red Skull designation, the world had become a hunting ground.
"Crime rates are plummeting," Zero observed, his avatar floating amidst the data streams. "However, the intensity of the remaining criminal activity has increased exponentially. The petty thieves have retired. Only the monsters remain."
I zoomed in on a cluster of data in Tokyo.
"The weak filter themselves out," I said, watching the heat signature of a high-level mana anomaly pulsing in the Minato district. "The ones left are the true deviations. The ones who looked at the System and saw a buffet."
The target in Tokyo was designated *Gourmet*.
He wasn't a bank robber like Viper. He didn't care about gold. He was a user of the *Biomancer* class—a derivative of the Healer tree that I had included for medical versatility. It was intended for regenerating limbs and curing diseases.
*Gourmet* used it to graft monster parts onto his own physiology. He was hunting low-level players, harvesting their dense, mana-rich muscle fibers, and sewing them into his own body.
"He has consumed forty-two players," Zero reported. "His threat level is equivalent to a Level 45 Dungeon Boss. The local police have ceased operations in his sector. They are welding the manhole covers shut."
"Welding won't stop him," I said. "He's not a rat. He's a cancer."
I swiped my hand, opening a direct channel to the one player who specialized in excising rot.
"Ren," I whispered into the quantum connection. "I have a job for you."
***
**The Real World: Tokyo**
**Roppongi District, Rooftop Sector.**
The rain in Tokyo always seemed to taste like neon.
Ren stood on the edge of the Mori Tower, the wind whipping his coat around his legs. The Black Box embedded in his chest hummed with a low, steady rhythm, syncing with his heartbeat.
**[Incoming Message: The Architect.]**
**[Priority: Alpha.]**
**[Target: 'Gourmet'. Location: Roppongi Hills, Underground Mall.]**
**[Bounty: Open.]**
Ren read the notification. He didn't smile.
Damon hunted for glory. Damon wanted the world to see him standing over the corpse of the villain, sword raised high. Ren hunted because he remembered what it was like to be helpless. He remembered lying in a bed, unable to move, while the world went on without him.
He looked down at the streets below. The civilians had cleared out. The rumor of the "Flesh-Eater" had emptied the entertainment district faster than any bomb threat.
"Zero civilians," Ren murmured. "Good. I don't have to hold back."
He checked his status.
**[Class: Void Walker.]**
**[Level: 41.]**
**[Mana: 100%.]**
He touched the *Twin Fangs* at his hip. They were no longer just steel. They were forged from Star Metal he had scavenged from the depths of the Mariana dungeon, infused with the essence of the Deep Sea King. They were black, drinking the light around them.
"System," Ren said. "Engage Stealth."
He didn't fade away. The light simply stopped touching him. He stepped off the ledge.
He didn't fall. He *stepped* down, the air hardening under his boots into invisible platforms of void energy. He descended into the concrete canyon like a ghost.
***
**Roppongi Hills**
**The Underground.**
The mall was silent. The emergency lights cast long, bloody shadows against the shuttered storefronts of luxury brands.
Ren walked through the main corridor. He could smell it. Not the scent of perfume or coffee, but the copper tang of blood and the ozone smell of warped mana.
*Squelch.*
He looked down. The marble floor was coated in a thin layer of biological residue.
"Come out," Ren said softly. His voice was amplified by the System, echoing down the empty halls. "I know you're hungry."
A laugh echoed from the atrium ahead. It was a wet, gurgling sound.
"Ren," a voice rasped. "The Walker. I saw you on TV. You looked... delicious."
Ren entered the atrium.
In the center, where a fountain used to be, stood *Gourmet*.
He was no longer human. He was a mound of flesh, standing eight feet tall. His left arm was the claw of a giant crab monster. His legs were thick, muscular pillars grafted from an Ogre type. His chest was open, exposing ribs that had been reinforced with steel plating.
But the worst part was the faces.
Embedded in his shoulders, pulsing with a faint, dying light, were the Silver Visors of the players he had consumed. They were fused into his flesh like trophies.
Ren felt a cold fury settle in his gut. It wasn't hot anger. It was the absolute zero of the Void.
"You're ugly," Ren stated.
Gourmet smiled, revealing rows of serrated shark teeth. "I am efficient. Why grind for XP when I can just take the hardware? Every Visor I eat adds their stats to mine. I am a Legion."
**[Enemy Analysis: Hybrid Chimera.]**
**[Level: 45 (Elite).]**
**[Danger: Extreme.]**
"You're not a Legion," Ren said, drawing his daggers. "You're just a loot drop."
Gourmet roared.
The sound shattered the glass storefronts of the Armani store next to him. He charged.
He was fast for something so massive. The Ogre legs propelled him forward with the force of a freight train. He swung the crab claw—a massive, chitinous pincer capable of snapping a tank turret.
Ren didn't dodge.
**[Skill: Void Phase.]**
Ren's body flickered. He became intangible for a microsecond.
The claw passed through Ren's chest as if he were smoke.
Ren materialized instantly behind Gourmet.
*Slash.*
The *Twin Fangs* bit into the back of the monster's knee.
It felt like cutting a tire. The flesh was dense, reinforced with mana. Ren's daggers sparked, carving a deep groove but failing to sever the tendon.
"Tough," Ren noted, backflipping away.
Gourmet spun around, his other arm—a tentacle mass grafted from a deep-sea dungeon mob—lashing out.
Ren parried with his daggers, sparks flying. The force of the blow slid him backward ten feet, carving tracks into the marble floor.
"You can't cut me!" Gourmet gloated. "I have the *Iron Skin* of a Vanguard! I have the *Regeneration* of a Troll! I am the perfect build!"
The wound on his leg hissed and knit itself back together in seconds.
Ren narrowed his eyes. *Physical damage is useless. He out-heals the DPS.*
"Fine," Ren whispered. "Let's try displacement."
Ren sheathed one dagger. He held his left hand out, palm open.
**[Skill: Gravity Well.]**
A black sphere manifested in the center of the atrium.
The debris—glass, benches, water from the ruined fountain—was sucked inward. Gourmet felt the pull. He grunted, digging his massive claws into the floor to anchor himself.
"Gravity?" Gourmet laughed, straining against the pull. "I weigh two tons! You can't move me!"
"I don't want to move you," Ren said calmly. "I want to open you."
Ren clenched his fist.
The Gravity Well collapsed.
*CRACK.*
The air pressure in the atrium dropped to zero. The sudden vacuum imploded.
Gourmet screamed as his massive frame was compressed. His ribs cracked. The grafted flesh tore at the seams.
But he didn't die. A burst of green healing magic flared from his core. He expanded, breaking the gravity hold with sheer biological mass.
He lunged at Ren, faster this time.
The tentacle caught Ren's ankle.
Ren was slammed into a pillar. The concrete crumbled. Pain exploded in his back—real, agonizing pain transmitted through the Black Box.
Gourmet reeled him in like a fish.
"I'm going to eat your legs first," Gourmet hissed, lifting Ren up. "I heard they're new. Tender."
Ren dangled in the monster's grip upside down. Blood trickled from his nose.
He looked into the monster's eyes.
"You have too many parts," Ren gasped. "Let me help you... declutter."
Ren's eyes flared violet.
**[Class Ability: Spacial Rend.]**
Ren didn't attack the monster. He attacked the space *inside* the monster.
He focused on the seam where the giant crab claw met the human shoulder.
*Separate.*
Ren swung his free hand.
A line of absolute darkness appeared in the air, slicing through reality itself.
It passed through Gourmet's shoulder.
There was no blood. No sound of cutting flesh. The claw simply fell off. It hit the ground with a heavy thud, severed at the molecular level.
Gourmet stared at his stump. For a second, his brain couldn't register the missing limb.
Then, he screamed.
Ren dropped to the floor as the grip loosened. He didn't pause.
**[Skill: Blink Strike.]**
Ren vanished.
He reappeared in mid-air, driving both daggers into the monster's remaining eye.
Gourmet thrashed, blind and maimed. He swung wildly, smashing pillars, bringing down the ceiling of the mall. Dust and debris rained down.
"Collapse the structure!" Gourmet shrieked. "If I die, I take the city block!"
The monster began to glow. A pulsating, unstable biological light. He was initiating a *Mana Overload*. He was going to detonate the stored energy of forty-two devoured players.
"Ren," The Architect's voice whispered in Ren's ear. "He's going nuclear. Yield is estimated at 2 kilotons. Roppongi will be a crater."
Ren looked at the swelling, glowing monster. He looked at the ceiling, knowing that above him were thousands of apartments, thousands of lives.
"Not today," Ren said.
He sheathed his daggers.
He walked toward the bomb.
"Zero, divert all power to the Void Engine," Ren commanded his own interface.
**[Warning: This will drain your Life Force. Risk of True Death: 90%.]**
"Do it."
Ren placed both hands on Gourmet's heaving, glowing chest.
"You want to consume?" Ren whispered. "Fine. Consume *This*."
**[Ultimate Skill: Event Horizon.]**
Ren turned his body into a portal.
He didn't push energy out. He pulled it in. He opened a gateway to the empty, infinite void between dimensions directly inside his own chest cavity.
The explosion triggered.
Gourmet detonated.
But the fire didn't go outward. It spiraled. It warped.
The blast wave, the biological shrapnel, the blinding light—it was all sucked into Ren.
Ren screamed. It was a sound of pure agony. He felt the energy tearing at his atoms, trying to rip him apart from the inside out. He was swallowing a nuclear bomb.
The mall shook. The ground above Roppongi Hills buckled. The asphalt cracked in a perfect circle with a radius of three hundred meters.
But the fire never broke the surface.
Inside the atrium, Ren held the line. His skin cracked, glowing with violet light. His veins turned black. He was a conduit for forces no human should hold.
*Hold it. Hold it.*
Gourmet's scream faded as his entire physical form was dragged into the singularity Ren had created. The monster was spaghettified, stretched into infinite thinness, and swallowed by the void.
Then, silence.
Ren fell to his knees.
The purple light faded. The atrium was dark, save for the moonlight filtering through the cracks in the ceiling.
Smoke rose from Ren's body. He was still alive.
He coughed, spitting out a mouthful of black ichor.
**[Target Eliminated.]**
**[Threat Contained.]**
**[Bounty Claimed.]**
Ren looked at his hands. They were trembling.
"I'm full," he whispered deliriously.
***
**The Atacama Facility**
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
The sensors indicated that the energy spike had been contained. Ren had essentially turned himself into a black hole for three seconds and survived.
"The structural integrity of the Roppongi district is compromised," Zero reported. "However, civilian casualties are zero."
I looked at the feed.
News helicopters were already circling the massive sinkhole that had formed in the middle of the city. They couldn't see into the darkness below, but they could see the destruction.
"They see the crater," I said. "But they don't see the monster."
I tapped the console.
"Broadcast the replay," I ordered. "The world needs to see what happened down there. They need to see that the Order cleans up its own mess."
***
**Global Feed**
Every screen in Tokyo—and soon, the world—flickered.
Footage from the mall security cameras (which I had accessed and enhanced) played.
They saw the monster. The chimera made of stolen parts. The horror of what *Gourmet* had become.
And they saw Ren.
They saw the young man in the black coat stand before the detonating beast. They saw him absorb the explosion that would have leveled the district.
They saw him fall to his knees, alive, victorious.
In the streets of Tokyo, silence reigned.
People watched the screens with hands over their mouths. They were terrified. The power on display was godlike. But underneath the terror, there was something else.
Awe.
And relief.
Because the monster was dead. And the boy in black... he hadn't asked for thanks. He hadn't asked for a reward.
The feed cut to a live view from a drone hovering over the sinkhole.
Ren climbed out of the rubble. He looked exhausted. His coat was tattered.
He looked up at the drone.
He didn't wave. He simply touched the Black Box on his chest, a gesture of salute, and then stepped into the shadows.
**[System Announcement: The Corruption has been purged.]**
**[The Order of Truth stands vigilant.]**
***
**The Aftermath**
**Tokyo Safe House**
Ren collapsed onto his bed. He didn't even take his boots off.
His body felt like it was vibrating. The residual energy from absorbing Gourmet was settling into his cells, changing him.
**[Level Up!]**
**[Level Up!]**
**[Current Level: 48.]**
**[New Title Acquired: The Sin Eater.]**
**[Effect: Resistance to Corruption +50%. Capacity for Void Energy increased.]**
Ren laughed weakly. "Sin Eater. Great. Now I'm a garbage disposal."
His phone buzzed.
It was Damon.
"I saw the feed," Damon said. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet.
"Did I beat your DPS?" Ren asked, closing his eyes.
"You swallowed a nuke, Ren. That's not DPS. That's... insane."
A pause.
"The public is freaking out," Damon continued. "But the government... Miller just released a statement. They're officially recognizing the 'Bounty Hunter' class as a legitimate law enforcement auxiliary."
"We're deputies now?"
"We're necessary," Damon said. "That monster... the army couldn't have stopped that without nuking the city. You proved that we are the only firewall left."
"Good," Ren whispered. Sleep was dragging him down. "Because the real fire is still coming."
"Rest up, Ren," Damon said. "We're hitting the Moon next week. I need you at 100%."
Ren hung up.
He touched his chest. The void inside him felt calm. Sated.
He had stared into the abyss, and for the first time, the abyss had blinked.
***
**The Atacama Facility**
I stood by the window, looking at the moon.
The first phase of the plan was complete. The players had established a hierarchy. They had established a justice system. They had proven they could handle extinction-level threats without losing their humanity.
Ren was ready.
"Zero," I said. "Initiate the launch sequence for the *Moon Gate*."
"The portal construction is complete?"
"It is," I said. "In three days, we open the door. We invite the strongest warriors of Earth to the Sea of Tranquility."
I looked at the stats on the screen.
**[Tithe Received from Ren: +0.05%.]**
This Tithe was different. It was heavy. Dense. It tasted of sacrifice.
I felt a shift in my own body. The 10% growth hit me—Day 1,145. But the instability was gone. The energy Ren had fed me acted like lead shielding.
I was stable.
I looked at my hand. I flexed my fingers.
For the first time in three years, I felt like I could touch something without breaking it.
I reached out to the glass window. I pressed my palm against it.
It didn't crack. It didn't melt.
It just felt cold.
I smiled. Tears pricked my eyes.
"Thank you, Ren," I whispered.
I turned back to the room.
"Now," I said, my voice hardening into the tone of the Architect. "Let's go kill some aliens."
**Chapter 20: The Hunter and the Hunted**