Illusion Report

He was about to leave the Black Abyss. He could feel it.

In the darkness, Chaisi slowly stroked his hand.

The hard knuckles, the slightly raised veins, the faint pulse beneath his wrist... He pushed his sleeve up slightly and felt several long scars running from his forearm down to his hand.

’It’s all back.’

’I’m almost home.’

"Later, I told you to stop wasting your energy. You’re one of the 99 percent of humans without a Path... No matter how hard you try, you’ll never get into a Nest. I’ve never forgotten the look on your face back then."

Uncle Kai’s voice grew closer, though Chaisi still couldn’t see any source of light or an exit.

"How old were you then? A junior in college, right? You could already hold your own within the Family Faction."

By then, Chaisi had long since accepted his good luck.

He must have somehow siphoned away everyone else’s good luck. He’d traded his mother, who died in a car crash, for a few minor fractures. He’d used her death to wedge himself into a life of comfortable luxury. He’d taken Damian’s place, ensuring he would never have to risk his life fighting in the Nests.

If that was the case, he had no reason to hold back.

He could toss this life of his into the world with abandon, just to see what kind of waves it would make.

Before he was even twenty, Chaisi began participating in the Family Faction’s operations.

He lived inside the body of a twenty-year-old, feeling as though he were wearing a stolen suit of clothes. At times, he would even be startled by the youth of his own reflection.

But others just saw a wet-behind-the-ears kid who had gotten incredibly lucky.

Wresting power and influence from the older generation of Hunters from Kai Luonan’s era was another matter entirely. Uncle Kai, however, knew that story inside and out, and when he recounted it, he even filled in many details Chaisi hadn’t been privy to at the time. This kind of power struggle, however, came naturally to Chaisi.

Then again, saying it came naturally might not be accurate. Looking back, that period of his life felt more like weeding a garden.

It was time-consuming and strenuous, a task that had to be done, and one that occasionally required a bit of cunning. Nothing more.

Ever since he was thirteen, very few things in the world could make him feel flustered, anxious, or utterly at a loss. Likewise, there were very few principles or boundaries he wasn’t capable of violating.

When a person becomes as hard, sharp, and impassive as a shard of rock, they become an enemy from a nightmare.

"I once had my reservations about your methods... But I figured there was no harm in letting you give it a try. Time has proven that you’ve forged a path not everyone can walk."

Within a few years, the Kai Family Hunters had undergone a transfusion of fresh blood, and their methods became ruthless and uncompromising.

While other Hunter Family Factions were transitioning into modern corporations with contract-based employment, the Kai Family did the exact opposite, rapidly swinging to the other extreme:

Starting with the selection of Core Hunters, Chaisi, as their leader, gradually forged a pack of hyenas. They were unwaveringly loyal companions to one another, and when they attacked as one, there was no prey in the world they wouldn’t—or couldn’t—tear to shreds.

To do this, he had to find just the right kind of people.

Background, experience, personality... He had to reach deep into a person’s life, sniff out their scent, and crack open their shell. Only then could he find the hyenas scattered throughout the world, one by one.

As it turned out, he seemed to have a real talent for it.

The Kai Family’s Core Hunters operated with the viciousness of a street gang, yet they never openly violated the laws of the human world. While other Hunters prioritized efficiency and results, the Kai Family could spend over thirty days sending wave after wave of Hunters into Nests and the human world, tracking a target relentlessly, all because a Kai Family member had been double-crossed in a trap by another Family Faction.

Once they built a reputation that said, "Cross anyone you want, but never cross the Kai Family," it was like putting a new edge on an old knife. It cut deep into the Hunter World, carving out an invisible territory for the Kai Family.

Chaisi had no Path, so he had to be more ruthless, more perceptive, and more decisive than anyone else. For his entire life, it seemed he would have to rely on luck and ferocity to compensate for his own deficiency.

"Sometimes, you even scare me."

Uncle Kai’s voice and Chaisi’s footsteps both faltered.

"You’re the only son I have left. I’m an old man now. I don’t think I could bear to go through something like that again... But you, you seem willing to trade your life for anything at all. Important or not. Information, clues, Illusions, missions... even the life of one of your own men."

’Han Liuyue.’

As Chaisi gradually returned to his former self, his memories of Han Liuyue came flooding back, one linking to the next.

’After I get out of here, how will I find her?’

’If I use Uncle Kai’s method—calling out to her in the darkness, telling her story, helping her remember who she is... would that be enough to bring her back to her senses?’

Chaisi stopped in his tracks and glanced back into the boundless darkness.

His train of thought halted, his mind gripped by a momentary void.

’...Beyond the darkness, deep within it, someone is there.’

’It feels as if someone is standing right behind me. I don’t know how long they’ve been there.’

But when Chaisi stared hard into the black, he couldn’t see or feel anything at all.

’Did I imagine it? Could that old woman have been following me all this time?’

"Chaisi," Uncle Kai said softly from the distance. "It’s time to come back."

’I know, Uncle Kai.’

Chaisi turned his head and started walking again, following the sound of the voice.

He walked for an unknown length of time in the darkness. When Uncle Kai spoke again, his words didn’t seem to be for Chaisi. "Like this? Will he be able to hear me? It’s been days. Is there still time?"

Kai Luonan’s voice was dry and hoarse, as if he’d been speaking for a long, long time without a break.

A woman’s voice answered, "I don’t know... I’ll wait with you."

The voice was familiar. He felt as if he had heard it just a short while ago...

’It’s Mai Mingle.’

’Wasn’t she just in the Nest, escaping a trap with Suo Beihua? How did she get to Uncle Kai’s side?’

’How much time has passed in the real world while I’ve been out of it?’

Chaisi quickened his pace, letting the waves of darkness beat against him. He was like a man about to drown at the bottom of a dark sea, struggling toward the light above. ’I don’t know how many chances at rebirth I get in this life,’ he thought. ’But I probably don’t have to worry about running out of them.’

After all, his luck was always exceptional.

First, there was a sudden flash of light. In that moment, he understood the terror of a newborn being thrown into a strange new world.

He was about to leave the unconscious, unfeeling darkness, the void without memory.

’Mama, I’m falling back into that world of the living again.’

Then, a large hand gripped his own, squeezing so tightly it hurt. Someone drew a sharp, quiet breath. There were footsteps, colors. The air had warmth and a scent. Someone murmured, "My son."

The ceiling tilted and slid away as the floor rushed up to meet his body. Just as Chaisi realized he was falling backward, a hand caught his back.

He fell into Uncle Kai’s arms once again.

The last time this had happened, he was five years old. This time, he was so tall and heavy that even Uncle Kai couldn’t fully support him. His uncle staggered under the weight, finally half-catching, half-guiding him to a sitting position on the floor.

Chaisi blinked, remaining in a daze for a long moment.

He looked down and saw he was still in the same clothes. In front of him was the same humanoid black hole.

"Get up," Uncle Kai said.

Chaisi pushed himself up from the floor. As he rose, he discovered that his knees felt as if they were about to give out and shatter. For an instant, he thought his legs would buckle backward like a collapsing building.

There was an empty chair nearby. He staggered into it and belatedly realized it must have been the one Uncle Kai had been sitting in while calling out to him.

"You’re back," Mai Mingle said softly, leaning down beside him. "How are you feeling?"

She seemed to restrain herself just in time from placing a hand on Chaisi’s forehead to check his temperature.

Chaisi stared at her blankly before his gaze shifted to Uncle Kai.

’Now isn’t the time,’ he knew. He had so many questions. How long had he been gone? How did Uncle Kai know how to call him back? Could Han Liuyue be saved the same way?

Every single one of those questions was more important and more urgent than the one on the tip of his tongue. Besides, Mai Mingle was here—and even if she was the reason for his rescue, she was still an outsider.

But Chaisi asked anyway.

Ever since he was a small child, from that moment he saw his mother walking toward their apartment building from afar, he had known he wasn’t a calm or rational person.

"Uncle Kai... back then, when you saved me... was my mother... already dead?"

The five-year-old Chaisi, like a persistent ghost hiding inside the body of a thirty-year-old man, peered out tremulously at Uncle Kai through eyes that had seen far too much bloodshed.

He had always held on to a memory of his mother entrusting him to Uncle Kai’s care. But when Uncle Kai recounted the events of that day, he had said that Daiju Monroe was already dead.

"Yes," Kai Luonan said gravely. "By the time I fought off the residents, she was no longer breathing."

So, the Chaisi Monroe of back then had simply been lying across from his mother, just watching her, imagining the words she would have used to comfort him.

His mother had never entrusted him to Uncle Kai... She hadn’t had enough time. She never got the chance.

But did that matter?

Chaisi slowly doubled over, crying silently, not knowing for whom or for what. He pressed his palms to his face, tears streaming past his hands, his breath trapped in the small space between.

He was back. Back in the world of the living.

Perhaps his entire life would just be a cycle of owing his life to Kai Luonan, over and over again.