Four days had passed since the fall. Luke was still wandering through the depths of that underground labyrinth—a forgotten world buried beneath the earth.

The scale was staggering. Hollow-trunked trees stretched between moss-covered rocks, their bark emitting a faint, unnatural green glow that lit the cavern like ghostlight. Streams traced along the walls, flowing like veins through a living organism, feeding into pools of cold, crystal-clear water that reflected the ceiling like sheets of glass.

It wasn't just a cave. It was an ecosystem. Fully formed. Wild. Isolated from the surface in every possible way.

But the deeper he ventured, the clearer one truth became—there was no path leading back up. Every tunnel, every fork, pulled him further down. He hadn't seen an incline in hours. Maybe days.

A cold weight settled in his chest. No matter how long he searched, the only exit... was still the tunnel guarded by the mantis.

And yet, stopping wasn't an option. Survival demanded exploration.

The place wasn't empty. Shadows shifted constantly, revealing the presence of predators lurking just beyond sight—mostly insects, mutated into monstrous versions of what nature intended. Quick, aggressive, but predictable. Their movements were mechanical, patterns easy to read. Easy enough to counter with a blade if you stayed sharp.

The real enemy wasn't the creatures. It was time. Isolation. The slow grind of knowing that everything he set in motion above—the flooded dam, the crushed orc outposts, the scattered army—meant nothing down here.

It had opened a path forward. A chance to escape. And yet, here he was. Trapped.

Not even chaos had bought him freedom.

At least food wasn't an issue. Some of the underground trees produced bulbous, heavy fruits—thick-skinned and blue, shaped like swollen pears. Suspicious as hell. They smelled sweet, but scent meant nothing in a place like this.

Luke sat beneath one of the glowing trees, kukri laid across his knees, and bit into the fruit with cautious tension, one hand already on a healing potion, ready to counter whatever came.

Nothing came. No dizziness. No fire in his veins. No paralysis. Just a deep, earthy sweetness—rich, strange, like something that had never once tasted sunlight.

Still, he ate slow. His body could handle almost anything. His mind... not so much.

The silence was the real enemy. It crept in at the edges of his thoughts, settling in his bones, waiting for him to let his guard down. It wasn't the kind of quiet that brought peace. It was the kind that made you feel like something was watching. Always.

If there was any comfort, it was the thought—the hope—that the orcs believed he was dead. Drowned in the flood. Eaten by whatever crawled out of the river once the dam broke. Anything that kept them from searching for him.

Because if they ever found out he was still alive...

Yeah. He knew exactly what kind of hell would come for him. Not that it mattered. They'd never find him down here.

Hell—he didn't even know where he was.

***

Centipedes burst from the ground—huge, bright green, their segmented bodies twitching as dozens of legs clicked against the stone. Fangs snapped, glistening, dripping venom. Hungry.

"Go, Charlie!" Luke shouted, already sprinting into position.

Charlie spun without hesitation. Her twin blades whipped outward in a perfect arc, activating Whirlwind Strike, the edges carving clean through anything in reach. Chitin split. Legs flew. Segments collapsed in piles of twitching flesh.

Luke darted in behind her, kukris flashing. His movements were fast, precise—every slash aimed to kill. Blades found joints. Veins. Soft spots. No wasted motion.

[You have slain a Cave Centipede – Lvl 19]

[You have slain a Cave Centipede – Lvl 19]

[You have slain a Cave Centipede – Lvl 18]

Blood splattered across his face. He wiped it away with his forearm, barely breaking focus. No hesitation. No wasted time. The last hit always went to him. It had to. The experience was his. Growth was everything. Every fight was one more step toward getting stronger.

Then he heard it. A sound that didn't belong.

Shrill. Deafening.

The bats.

Not normal bats. These were bear-sized monstrosities, jet black, with fangs like daggers and wings that seemed stitched from nightmares. Luke had dealt with them before—Children of the Black Bat. Annoying on the ground. A nightmare in the air. Worse, they dove underground and struck from below when least expected.

Fighting them from range was brutal. Kukris worked, but hitting a moving target at full speed in near darkness? Hard. Stupid hard. Even with Demonic Perception feeding him snapshots of movement, there were limits. Past a certain range, it was guesswork.

A shadow dove toward him. Too fast.

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Luke rolled sideways, barely dodging as claws tore into the dirt where he'd stood. He lunged on the recovery, kukris spinning in his grip. The bat flapped, trying to lift off, but Luke was faster.

"Now!" he barked.

Charlie raised her hands. Spectral chains erupted from the ground, snapping around the creature's limbs, locking it in place.

Luke dashed in, blades a blur. He slashed, stabbed, twisted—over and over until the creature stopped moving.

[You have slain a Child of the Black Bat – Lvl 18]

Another screech hit his ears. Another shadow dove. Luke hit the ground, spun, and hurled his kukris. The blades sliced clean into its wings. The creature faltered midair.

Luke surged forward, leapt, landed square on its back. He stabbed deep. Twisted. Tore. The bat shrieked, spiraling out of control, slamming into the ground.

Luke flipped midair as the creature crashed, kukris snapping back into his hands, pulled by magnetic tether. The bat writhed, screeching, its skin glossy black, its fangs like jagged stalactites.

Without pause, Luke extended his hand, circling it in a tight motion.

Basic Blood Regeneration activated.

+1 HP per second.

His blood... was his again.

Another bat dropped from the shadows. Charlie intercepted it midair, her fist connecting with a heavy thud. The creature spiraled, disoriented.

Luke moved in. Blades flashed—crossed once—then twice.

[You have slain a Child of the Black Bat – Lvl 16]

He pulled back, breathing steady. The last bat wasn't dead yet. Broken wings dragged against the stone. Its claws scraped helplessly, trying to crawl away, but it was already finished.

Luke didn't stop the drain. Its vitality was his now. Little by little, its life seeped away, siphoned straight into his veins.

Ironic. A blood hunter... feeding on something that called itself a predator.

He sat down on the cold stone floor, legs crossed, hands extended toward the twitching creature. Eyes sharp. Focused. Charlie stood over it, silent, one heavy boot pressing down on its back.

The bat dragged itself a few inches, claws scraping desperately. It was pointless.

Three minutes later, it stopped moving. Hollow. Drained from the inside out.

[Health Points (HP): 1024/1070]

Ninety-eight HP recovered. Not bad. Enough to survive the next ambush.

This was the game now. Sleep was dangerous. Walking around with low HP was suicide. The caves were a living organism—predators in every corner, every shadow.

Every fight was a math problem. Every serious wound was a slow death sentence waiting to happen. But with Basic Blood Regeneration, Luke had something the caves didn't expect.

He could keep going.

Fighting.

Enduring.

And hunting.

***

Luke sat beneath the shelter of a gnarled tree, chewing slowly on one of those heavy, blue pears. The fruit tasted sweet, earthy, almost calming. But nothing here ever truly felt peaceful. Grotesque centipedes crawled in the distance but didn't come closer. They couldn't burrow beneath the ocean of tangled roots covering the floor. It was as if these trees, with their thick, pulsing trunks and armored bark, were natural sanctuaries. Safe zones in the middle of the infestation.

By his side, Princess Charlie stood guard. Silent. Vigilant as always. Luke was vulnerable. Not physically, mentally.

He'd activated Meditation.

His mana and stamina were regenerating at high speed. Crucial in a place like this. But the cost was steep. Nearly all his skills were suppressed or severely weakened while meditating. His Perception shrank into a dull, foggy blur around him. The suffocating darkness of the cavern pressed in. If something crept close right now, he might notice too late. Even so, he stayed. Breathing deep. That was the price of Meditation. This was why Charlie was here—to watch over him.

Luke used the time to organize his thoughts. To mentally map the labyrinth of caves. To plan his return or his invasion. Because deep down, he already knew there was only one path that led out of here. The mantis tunnel.

Luke bit off another chunk of fruit, chewing as his mind wandered to the people back at the Haven. Most of them had been trapped in this world for years. Years. Sitting on levels so embarrassingly low it was almost comical.

Why? Because no one was as insane as him. They were survivors, sure. But passive. Cautious. Human.

He, on the other hand, had been forged in hell. The Forgotten Temple had stripped every weakness from him. Every day, he dove headfirst into the Wild Zone. Hunted monsters others only saw in nightmares. It was almost certain that, right now, he was one of the people who had killed more Orc Captains than anyone else in the tutorial. And in record time. While others saw an Orc Captain maybe once in an invasion, Luke fought them constantly. Killed them constantly.

Not that it made him the strongest. Far from it. He knew better. There were people stronger. People scarier. But this had become routine. Killing monsters at that level was just another part of his day.

Still, he wasn't arrogant enough to believe he was untouchable. The Devourer Mantis had made that crystal clear. A creature that absurdly fast, that absurdly lethal, would've killed anyone. Even him. If not for precision. If not for surgical decision-making. Skills like Demonic Endurance, Wraith Form, and his carefully balanced stat distribution. Those were the thin line between survival and death.

Luke glanced at his status window. His mana bar was full now. With full mana, he had exactly 690 MP.

Basic Blood Regeneration consumed two mana points for every single point of health drained from the enemy. In theory, that meant he could drain up to 345 HP from a target. In certain monsters, that might've been enough to kill. In theory. In practice, the skill was anything but efficient.

The drain was slow—only 1 HP per second. That meant nearly six full minutes of continuous channeling to pull the full 345 HP, assuming he didn't use a single other skill during that time. Impossible in real combat. In a fight, every second was movement. Dodging. Slashing. Dashing. Decision after decision. There was no luxury to just stand there, bleeding an enemy for 1 HP per second while it tore him apart.

And worse, most monsters had more health than him anyway. Draining 345 HP wasn't going to drop anything significant. Not fast enough. In a direct fight, Basic Blood Regeneration was useless. But in the quiet, it was perfect. A predator's tool. Like venom. Not a warrior's skill. Not for open combat. It was for an assassin. For someone who hunted in the dark. Wrapped around the throat of his prey like a slow, constricting serpent. Draining. Suffocating. Bit by bit. Until it was far too late.

"Eeeeeek." The sound came from above.

Luke looked up.

A massive silhouette spun lazily in the air. Its wings sliced through the silence like blades. With one final heavy beat, it latched onto the cavern ceiling, upside down.

[Black Bat (Captain Beast) – Lvl 26]

Luke smiled, raised his hand, and activated the skill. Mana began to drip away. And so did the creature's life. The bat didn't even react. Its hulking body barely noticed the tiny drain. And that—that was the beauty of it.

The bleeding debuff was still active, lingering for some reason. This species took an unusually long time to recover from blood loss. Not that he was complaining. Luke had been doing this for a while now. Drain its vitality until his mana bottomed out. Rest. Meditation. Do it again. Over and over. A ritual. A slow-motion execution. Not rage. Not blades. Patience. The shadow that never left. The weight that suffocates without warning. Poison that only reveals its lethality at the very end.

Soon the bat would fall. And then he'd strike.

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