The moment Adrian Vale and Raven Shaw came face-to-face with the Greenback Croc, attention surged in from all over the world.
Dragon Nation wasn't some unknown small country—it was the world's second major power after Miracle Nation.
So the instant its competitors ran into an E-rank predator, people piled in to watch.
And plenty of them came for one thing:
To laugh.
"Hahaha! Those idiots really showed up!"
"An E-rank beast and they're walking right into its face? Dragon Nation's picks don't look too bright."
"Can't wait to see Dragon Nation get wiped—LOL."
It wasn't just ordinary viewers.
Behind the scenes, national leaderships were watching too.
Especially the Eastern Isles—a country that had been hostile with Dragon Nation for years.
The Eastern Isles' original plan had been simple:
Have their own competitors "snipe" Dragon Nation's team inside the Forbidden Zone.
Old grudges. Old hatred.
But before they could even issue the order…
they saw the live feed.
An E-rank Greenback Croc.
Dragon Nation's two competitors, stepping right into its territory.
In the Eastern Isles' top-level meeting room, a balding, heavyset man smirked.
"Heh. How stupid. Looks like our competitors won't even need to lift a finger."
The officials below him joined in, grinning.
"Exactly. Dragon Nation is finished. No one survives an E-rank beast."
"Perfect. Saves us the trouble."
Their thinking was brutally pragmatic.
Everyone had seen what happened to Indus Nation.
If a nation's competitors died in the Forbidden Zone, that nation's resources would be reduced by 50%.
And a nation without resources—even with advanced technology—was already on the road to collapse.
So if Dragon Nation's two competitors died here…
the Eastern Isles could celebrate without firing a shot.
Miracle Nation had been thinking along similar lines.
Dragon Nation's rise had been too fast—too frightening.
If it continued, "world #1" wouldn't stay theirs forever.
They'd also considered targeting Dragon Nation's competitors.
But now?
It looked like the Greenback Croc would do the job for free.
Of course, Dragon Nation knew none of that.
All they saw was their team facing a nightmare.
In Dragon Nation's highest meeting room, the atmosphere tightened.
Expert teams ran calculations—plans, routes, contingencies—anything they could think of.
But there was one fatal problem:
Adrian Vale and Raven Shaw had never once turned the livestream comments on.
So every warning, every strategy, every shouted instruction…
never reached them.
Back in the oasis, the Greenback Croc stared at the two intruders with open hunger.
Today had been a good day for it.
Competitors had wandered in again and again, and it had eaten its fill.
Now two more stood right in front of it—clean, soft, fresh.
The croc let out a low hiss.
To the beast, it was a threat.
To Adrian Vale—
it sounded like a meal announcing itself.
He wouldn't have described it out loud.
But his body did.
The ghoul instinct answered instantly:
Delicious.
On the commentary show, the hosts were panicking.
Sienna Blake's face had gone tight as she turned to Captain Cole.
"Captain Cole… in a situation like this, what's the best move?"
Before he could respond, Derek Vaughn cut in—smug, satisfied, and completely tone-deaf.
"Do we really need to watch? We should be preparing so we aren't helpless when resources get taken. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the few to save the many. The key is protecting elite talent for the future—high-quality men like me…"
The studio went dead.
Even Sienna Blake looked like she wanted security.
None of that mattered.
Because in the oasis, Adrian Vale finally stopped holding himself back.
Crack.
He calmly snapped his fingers—one by one—until the joints popped with sharp, clean sounds.
A smile crept onto his lips.
And beneath the eyepatch, his left eye darkened as black-and-red spread across the white like ink bleeding through water.
Something inside him shifted.
A switch flipped.
The part of him that wasn't human—
stirred.
Gurgle… gurgle… gurgle…
No one saw it clearly at first.
But at the base of his spine, beneath his clothes—
a blood-red shape began to push outward.
A living weapon.
A kagune, unfurling like a heartbeat made visible.
This was the moment the oasis stopped being the croc's hunting ground—
and became a table.
Because even if the Greenback Croc's hide could deflect bullets and shrug off explosives…
what would it do against a ghoul's kagune?
Adrian Vale's gaze sharpened—hungry, pleased, almost gentle in its certainty.
For the first time, the Greenback Croc hesitated.
Its intelligence wasn't high, but instinct didn't require intelligence.
It felt the cold edge of something it couldn't understand—
a pressure that didn't belong to prey.
A brutal aura rolled off Adrian Vale, and the beast flinched.
Then it snapped into anger.
Humiliation.
Two tiny humans… radiating this kind of threat?
Impossible.
With a furious roar, it came forward anyway.
Step by step.
Closer.
Ten meters.
Eight.
Five.
And then it reached Adrian Vale.
Its jaws opened wide—
a wet, serrated cavern of teeth—
and it lunged to swallow him whole.
Dragon Nation's viewers felt their hearts drop.
A wave of helpless dread rolled through the chat.
Was this it?
Had it only been a day… and Dragon Nation was already heading toward ruin?
SHING—!
A blur cut across the screen.
A figure flashed forward—fast enough to smear into a streak—
and shot straight at the Greenback Croc.
Someone had moved.
And the hunt had finally begun.
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