Chapter 62: Night Hunt
The city of Arcadia at night was nothing more than a neon-soaked blur. Scar tore through the streets like a phantom, riding the slipstream of displaced air. The Talaria X hummed around his ankles, flaring in perfect synchronization with his strides. At speeds approaching a thousand kilometers per hour, the futuristic architecture of Arcadia was stripped of its finer details. The road became solid ribbons of light; towering skyscrapers stretched into elongated, glowing shadows. And thanks to his accelerated perception—now passively heightened by the visor Alicia gave him—his mind easily processed the rapid influx of data, allowing him to weave effortlessly around abandoned transport hubs and sharp corners without losing a fraction of his momentum.
He reached the perimeter of the hunting grounds in a matter of seconds. The massive steel gates were locked tight. The place was usually closed at this hour. No sane person hunted at night; the beasts were infinitely more aggressive, and visibility was practically non-existent.
But Scar didn’t even break his stride. He ran towards the gate with no intention of stopping.
Then, he routed a surge of kinetic energy directly into his leg musculature, and just as he reached the gates, he slammed his foot against the concrete and launched himself upward. The resulting superjump propelled him fifty feet into the air, completely clearing the imposing barrier. He hung suspended in the night sky for a split second before plummeting down, landing on the soft earth of the forest floor with a heavy, concussive thud.
Instantly, he drew his weapons; his signature dagger appearing in his right hand, while his pistol materialized in his left. Then he called out mentally to the system and activated on of the features of Eye of Horus.
[Skill Activated: Eye of Horus; Thermal Imaging]
The pitch-black forest instantly transformed. The system overlay washed his vision in spectrums of temperature. The dense foliage, ancient trees, and damp earth rendered in cool shades of deep blue and violet. Against that cold backdrop, living creatures burned like beacons.
Less than a hundred meters away, ten radiant signatures of crimson and blinding yellow were prowling through the brush. Bloodhounds. All E-Rank.
Scar dropped his center of gravity. His baseline speed, now sitting at a comfortable 840 km/hr, was easily doubled by the passive enhancements of the Talaria X, pushing him into the 1600 km/hr threshold. He was faster, and more lethal.
Without thinking twice, he exploded forward.
To the Bloodhounds, he wasn’t even a shadow; he was a sudden, violent gust of wind. Scar breached their perimeter before the closest beast could even flare its nostrils.
His innate accelerated perception kicked in, and with the visor passively filtering out all visual noise and drag, the world plunged into an absolute crawl. The first Bloodhound, a massive creature with exposed bone-plates along its spine, turned its head with agonizing slowness.
Scar stepped inside its guard and drove the dagger upward, burying it cleanly under the beast’s jaw and piercing its brain. Its glowing thermal signature instantly began to cool as Scar ripped the blade free, indicating that it was already dead.
[+50 Exp]
Two of the hounds lunged from his blind spot. Scar pivoted on his heel, his momentum carrying him into a fluid spin. He fired the pistol twice, the suppressed rounds punching through the glowing red skulls of the beasts in mid-air. They hit the dirt lifeless.
Three down.
[+150 Exp]
Just then, the rest of the pack finally registered his presence, breaking into a frenzied scramble. Four hounds rushed him simultaneously from the front. Scar didn’t back away; he accelerated. He slid on his knees beneath the snapping jaws of the lead beast, dragging his dagger across its underbelly and spilling its steaming intestines. As he popped back to his feet, he aimed his pistol left and right, firing two point-blank shots into the temples of the two flanking hounds. Then he finished off the fourth beast with a brutal, reverse-grip stab to the spine. The four hounds fell to the ground simultaneously, all dead in a matter of seconds.
Seven down.
He wasn’t done yet
Scar dashed laterally, his boots leaving scorching tracks in the soil, and intercepted the eighth and ninth hounds. A quick feint left one biting at empty air, allowing Scar to kick its legs out from under it and put a bullet between its eyes. Then he used the dead beast’s mass as a springboard, vaulting over it to land directly on the back of the ninth hound, quickly driving his dagger deeply into the base of its neck. The beast crashed to the ground as Scar leapt of its dying body.
He landed in a crouch, his eyes scanning for the final thermal signature. But he was surprised by what he saw: The tenth Bloodhound was retreating. Terrified by the instantaneous slaughter of its pack, it was sprinting desperately into the thickest part of the woods, weaving frantically between the dense, blue-hued thermal trees.
Scar slowly stood up. He didn’t chase it. He simply raised his pistol, aligning the iron sights with the fleeing beast. Then—
[Skill Activated: Eye of Horus; Precision]
The skill engaged instantly, and the world snapped into a terrifying, hyper-focused clarity. The system’s precision synchronized flawlessly with his ocular nerves, while the visor passively maintained absolute visual stability. The shadows of the night peeled away, replaced by mathematical certainty. He could see the individual muscles contracting in the hound’s hind legs. He could read the wind resistance bending the grass. The system calculated the distance, the drop, and the exact trajectory needed. A glowing red crosshair locked onto the back of the beast’s skull.
Scar exhaled softly, his finger squeezing the trigger.
Thwip.
The bullet traveled perfectly along the predicted path, bypassing three thick tree trunks and severing the spine right at the base of the hound’s skull. The beast dropped dead instantly, sliding violently through the dirt.
[+300 Exp]
[You have gained +500 Exp in total]
[Exp: 980/1800]
Before Scar could even lower his weapon, the ground suddenly vibrated and a massive, searing white-hot thermal signature stepped into the clearing.
It was a D-Rank Bloodhound, twice the size of the others, its fur bristling like steel wire, its jaw dripping with corrosive saliva.
The Alpha.