The closer we got to where Cha Sahyeon was, the more barren the scenery became.
That village where we’d run into the Wudang Sect had still had people left. But the nearer we drew to the place where they said the Heavenly Demon was coming down, the harder it was to spot a single human shadow, and everything was empty, as if everyone had evacuated.
Carried on Kwon Taehyuk’s back, I sensed the flow of the air change.
Not just me—Kwon Taehyuk, too, and the other S-ranks running behind us felt the same thing and lifted their heads.
At some point, a black shadow had drawn close and was covering the sky. With only a few steps’ difference, midday and night were split apart.
The difference from actual night was that this place had no moonlight at all—just pure darkness.
‘The speed... it’s far faster than I thought.’
We were already inside Cha Sahyeon’s skill’s range.
We hadn’t stopped running, sure, but even taking that into account, it was fast.
Staring at the shadow in the sky that kept spreading past us, I spoke to Kwon Taehyuk.
“Put me down.”
“But Hunter Cha Seohu.”
“It’s fine now.”
Reluctantly, Kwon Taehyuk set me down.
I pulled out the durumagi from my inventory. I took off the trailing outer garment they’d dressed me in inside this space, and put the durumagi over it. Then I took up my sword.
With my preparations complete, I used my skill immediately.
“Activate.”
Bzzzt!
《Hidden Skill: Silverlight’s Blessing (S-rank) [Activated]》
A brief surge of current snapped, and a stinging pain swept over my body. I closed my eyes at the pain that had become familiar, then opened them again, and my long hair had turned gold.
Under Cha Sahyeon’s shadow skill, I could become S-rank too.
I’d been helped by it many times in the past, but this was the first time the one I had to fight was Cha Sahyeon.
‘...Now that I think about it, the skill that turns me into S-rank is something I gained after regressing.’
More precisely, it was a skill the System gave me. A skill that lets me become S-rank in darkness.
Only now did a question rise in my mind.
‘Why darkness of all things?’
At first I thought I could only change at night, after the sun went down, but if I could change without any issue even when Cha Sahyeon’s shadow blocked the light like this, then the condition must be darkness itself.
If the System is an existence with enough power to turn a powerless, ordinary B-rank buffer into an SS-rank buffer and even grant new skills, couldn’t it adjust the activation condition of this “Silverlight’s Blessing” skill as much as it wanted?
If that was the case, it meant the System deliberately gave me this skill so that I could transform freely under Cha Sahyeon’s skill.
The connection felt strangely bizarre all over again.
Up until now, I’d only thought of it as convenient. If I was hurt, then as long as Cha Sahyeon was there, I could become S-rank and heal quickly. Even if I had to fight in a hurry, as long as I had his shadows, I didn’t have to worry.
But now—thinking that I’d become S-rank with help from those shadows, and that I now had to raise my sword point toward Cha Sahyeon...
“Hunter Cha Seohu? Are you all right?”
My train of thought broke.
I tore my gaze away from the sword I’d been staring down at blankly and looked back at Kwon Taehyuk. He was looking at me with a worried expression.
I must have seemed strange, staring at my sword without saying a word right after transforming. With no particular excuse, I simply shook my head to mean it was nothing.
“Let’s keep going.”
After fixing the scabbard at my waist, I kicked off the ground and ran.
With the shadow covering the sky and darkness settling over everything, the area was filled with a chilling presence. Within it, Cha Sahyeon’s presence still felt a little far.
Ryu Sunghyun followed and used his skill. A sphere of light the size of a soccer ball floated up into the sky and lit the surroundings like the moon.
‘It’ kept walking.
The unfamiliar voice that had spoken to it earlier no longer came.
Silence and stillness. For ‘it,’ now was familiar instead. Blending into the shadows and appearing again in repetition, ‘it’ kept moving forward without rest.
The unfamiliar voice had said not to stop, to keep moving.
All shadows are connected, so it should just follow its instincts.
‘Why?’
Even as it didn’t stop, ‘it’ held on to that question.
‘Its’ instincts and desires were extremely simple.
Break, swallow, delete.
That was obvious. It was the most natural thing in the world. ‘It’ was a being born to break, swallow, and delete, so it had to do that, and its instincts wanted that.
But now...
Something was strange. And the fact that it could feel something was strange was strange in itself.
Its body was flowing the way the voice commanded, and the way instinct led, but its mind, for some reason, kept rejecting its body and bringing up other thoughts.
Like this... it felt like it couldn’t go on like this.
It didn’t know what it would meet where the shadows were leading, but a non-logical, ominous premonition kept shaking its mind—telling it that it couldn’t meet it in this state.
‘No.’
From deep within, someone whispered. The trembling voice was terribly unstable.
‘Don’t go.’
A childlike voice murmured sadly.
But ‘it’s’ feet didn’t stop. Reason was far too weak to block instinct.
A being that had existed leaning on instinct for so long—reason, newly awakened after a long time, was not enough to grab hold of it.
A bee and a butterfly being drawn by the scent of flowers, a predator moving as it smacks its lips at the smell of blood.
Instinct was more intense and more certain than anything. Reason had no room to wedge its way in.
‘It’ moved. Without rest, endlessly. Dyeing the sky and earth in darkness.
And after it moved like that for a long while—
A land where all living creatures had fled and withered away. From far across, it sensed a new presence.
Sensing the aura of Awakeners sharply, ‘it’ came to a stop.
A golden light was illuminating the Awakeners standing opposite it. It was weaker than the light it had glimpsed earlier, but even so, inside the darkness ‘it’ created, it still burned bright and clear.
Slowly, ‘it’ lifted the head it had kept lowered.
Rustle—its long hair that had been covering the front slid aside, revealing its field of vision. Green eyes, clearer than ever, turned toward the other side.
There were five Awakeners facing ‘it.’ Among them, the man standing at the very front drew ‘it’s’ gaze especially strongly.
Long hair fluttering in the wind caught the light floating above and glittered in brilliant gold.
A pure white durumagi fluttered along with that hair, wrapping a slim frame, and even from far away, clean, pale hands moved slowly to grip the sword hilt.
Holding the hilt, the man paused.
Silent as if measuring something in that posture, the man... soon drew his sword from its sheath.
Only after confirming that the sword tip was aimed at itself did ‘it’ shift its gaze.
It looked straight into the man’s eyes.
Was this instinct, or reason?
What meaning could there be in looking at the face—meeting the eyes—of a being that would soon be swallowed and erased under its power anyway?
And yet, as ‘it’ found itself doing something it had never done before without thinking, ‘it’ realized.
The man’s black eyes. That solid gaze that did not avoid it, staring straight at it.
When it met those eyes—those pupils that seemed to pierce through even what lay inside it from a great distance—‘it’ had no choice but to understand.
‘Run.’
The young voice that had been ringing in its head all along.
‘You have to run.’
A trembling voice, seized by anxiety and fear.
‘Hyung, please.’
That was—
That was...
‘Run away from me.’
It was its own voice.
If I loosened my strength even a little, it felt like the hand gripping the hilt would start shaking violently.
The hand holding the sword was already damp with cold sweat.
“...Hunter Cha Seohu.”
Behind me, Ryu Sunghyun called to me with a rough, bitter look.
It was a call filled with worry for me, and the question of whether I was really okay. Instead of answering that I was, I said,
“Get ready.”
Thankfully, my voice didn’t shake the way my hand did. It flowed out calm.
Blades appeared around Kwon Taehyuk standing beside me. Far more than usual.
“We’re all gonna die here, fuck.”
Feeling the presence coming off ‘Cha Sahyeon’ standing far away, Kwon Seoyul clicked his tongue and muttered.
Because he had to protect Hyun Dowoon if anything happened, Kwon Seoyul fell back to the very rear, and Kwon Taehyuk, Ryu Sunghyun, and I stood in front.
That was when—
Kiiiiik!
A high, sharp cry rang out. It was the shadow bird, which had been hiding in my shadow since we arrived at the village and hadn’t shown itself.
The shadow bird burst up from the ground, screeching as it flew high.
With the owner of the skill nearby, I assumed it was going back. But instead, I stared at the shadow bird in confusion as it flew in the opposite direction.
Kik—kik!
As if answering something, the shadow bird cried briefly, then pierced through the shadow covering the sky and disappeared somewhere without hesitation.
And ‘Cha Sahyeon’ standing far away watched that quietly.
He did not stop the shadow bird leaving him, nor did he erase it.

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