A gunshot rang out. Both Ash and Sonia dove in opposite directions to avoid the bullet.
But in mid-air, a sharp explosion erupted—the hunter's bullet fragmented into a spread of shrapnel. Neither of them escaped unscathed, the fragments grazing them both.
Ash braced for pain, but as the bullets passed through his body, he felt... off. It wasn't pain but more like something had been taken from him, leaving him with the drained feeling of finishing a 400-meter sprint.
Then it clicked—this wasn't his physical body. In this state of pure consciousness, being hit didn't wound him physically. It simply drained his soul energy.
Unlike Ash, who was having a lightbulb moment, Sonia was already familiar with this concept. She'd attended advanced Void Realm classes, after all.
Wasting no time, she charged toward the hunter, raising her wooden sword high. A dim white glow gathered around the blade, forming into a crescent-shaped wave as she swung it down.
"Wave Blade!"
This was the Wave Blade, the secret weapon of the Voslada family. A rare long-range sword technique that could evolve into powerful combat miracles like Rift Slash and Silver Wheel Burst.
"Three thousand skills, one rifle: fast and unstoppable, sharp and unmatched!"
The hunter dodged as he chanted, his rifle barrel glowing faintly. Somehow, he fired off another bullet, despite wielding what looked like an old flintlock gun!
But this time, Ash and Sonia were ready. Ash clumsily rolled out of harm's way, while Sonia, in a single smooth motion, sheathed her sword and executed a flawless iaido strike. A spinning Rift Slash burst forth.
Clang!
The bullet ricocheted away, and the hunter staggered as the spinning slash struck him hard. The impact was so severe it severed the barrel of his rifle.
Ash, wasting no time, lunged forward to grab the hunter in a bear hug. Sonia closed the distance in a heartbeat, her wooden sword gleaming as she brought it down in a brutal arc.
There was no sound. Under the crushing blow of her sword, the hunter dissolved into a thick mist. All that remained was a leather-bound journal lying on the rocky ground.
"Whoa, you almost took my head off!" Ash yelped, staring at the wooden sword now embedded in the rock mere inches from his face. He rubbed his head nervously.
"It was close, but not too close," Sonia said, her tone tinged with disappointment. She bent down, picked up the leather journal, flipped through a few pages, and handed it to Ash.
Ash took it, flipping through the pages. It was… a hunting log.
The first page documented a mouse. It listed the mouse's weight, size, fur color, and cause of death. There was even a photo of the mouse pinned to a wall with an arrow.
The second page featured a spider. The third, a rabbit. The fourth, a deer.
It wasn't until the tenth page that things began to shift. The prey was no longer harmless animals but a wild wolf, a dangerous carnivore. This was also when the journal's owner noted learning a new skill—trapping. The wolf had been killed by a carefully placed trap.
By the twenty-third page, the entries featured a fully armored beastman soldier armed with a rifle.
For the next twenty pages, every entry described beastman soldiers killed by the journal's owner. The weapons changed too—gone were the bow and arrow. Instead, the owner had adopted the rifles they looted from their prey, combining firearms with forest traps to wage a deadly guerrilla war.
The journal offered no details about its owner's identity, but a narrative emerged between the lines:
A young boy, born into a family of hunters, raised in a forest village. Life was simple but satisfying—until a beastman army swept through, destroying everything. Their once-proud skills with bow and arrow were useless against the beastmen's armor, while the beastmen's firearms easily decimated their fragile bodies.
The boy abandoned his bow and learned the ways of the rifle at a staggering pace. In the familiar forest that he knew better than his own reflection, he became death incarnate, hunting beastman soldiers and avenging his people.
The expressions on the beastmen's faces told the story. The first few died with blank stares—caught unaware while relieving themselves. Later, their faces twisted with terror, clearly slain while fleeing. The last beastman abandoned his weapon and hid in the underbrush, praying desperately to avoid the hunter's gaze.
When the beastman soldiers were no more, the journal's owner seemed to drift into a state of confusion. The entries became inconsistent. Their prey included animals, humans, beastmen, goblins, aristocrats, bandits, prostitutes, and ordinary civilians alike.
Then, around page 100, a shift occurred.
From then on, the hunter's prey was exclusively beastmen.
The journal contained over 300 pages detailing the deaths of beastmen, each recorded with precision.
Although the journal provided no direct commentary, Ash gleaned clues from the entries:
1.Every beastman was killed with a Reverer Model 5 Rifle.
2.None of them died from a single shot—each bore multiple bullet wounds.
Ash deduced the owner had likely joined a military force, using the chaos of war to unleash vengeance on beastmen, regardless of age or gender.
But they didn't stop there. The journal described the deaths of children, women, elders, even comrades-in-arms.
Through it all, the weapon never changed. A single bullet always brought an end to their victims.
Later, the journal suggested a more stable life. The prey shifted to rabbits and deer, while the human casualties were limited to servants, slaves, and maids.
Yet the rate of death among the servants was troubling.
Ash surmised the owner had acquired an estate and a staff but remained haunted by the scars of war. They kept a rifle with them at all times, ready to kill at the slightest suspicion.
Eventually, a new figure appeared in the journal—a frail old woman.
Ash guessed she was the owner's wife. Her expression in the sketches wasn't fearful or confused. It was pitying.
Pitying the man who had written this bloody record.
The final page shocked Ash.
The entry described the death of the journal's owner:
Name: Carbin Story
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 56
Weight: 72kg
Height: 1.76m
Distinguishing Features: Brown skin, thick hair, body odor.
Cause of Death: Shot through the head with an arrow.
The sketch depicted a weary old man in fine clothes, holding up his rifle. But he hadn't fired—the arrow had pierced his eye before he could pull the trigger.
Ash couldn't tell who had killed him. Perhaps an old enemy? A stepson? A thief? Or maybe he'd underestimated the weapon he had once abandoned.
At the end of the journal was a small iron medal. Ash picked it up, feeling a warm current flow into his hand as the game screen flashed:
"Rapid Fire"
One-Winged Spirit
Requirements: Must have a ranged weapon.
Base Effect: Fire an additional shot immediately after the first.
Passive Effect: Increases ranged weapon accuracy.
"Sometimes, the seconds you lose can cost a lifetime."
Another notification popped up:
"A currency has been detected. Would you like to exchange it for points?"