Sector Z was enormous.
When Dirga stepped into Sector Z, the atmosphere hit him with a strange déjà vu.
It looked just like the Z Sector he had entered when he first arrived in the city—same chaotic energy, same sprawling crowd, same faint scent of smoke and oil in the air.
But according to the map etched into his ID, this wasn’t the same gate. A different entrance. A different side.
Still Sector Z. Still wild.
But this time, he wasn’t here to find a way in.
He was here to carve a path out.
He walked to the check gate, handed over his ID card, and the system scanned him in silently. No questions. No warnings. Just a green flash and a beep.
He stepped past the archway—and into the sprawl.
Before him rose the outer defenses of the city.
Towering walls, three layers thick, carved with jagged runes and mounted with mana turrets.
Not meant to keep people out—but to keep the forest in.
They loomed, silent and watchful, like ancient gods waiting for chaos to test their patience.
Dirga exhaled sharply through his nose and moved forward.
The city behind him shrank with every step. Brick roads became dirt trails. Stalls vanished.
The crowd thinned. Civilization frayed.
And still, he walked.
"Why the hell didn’t I buy a vehicle?" he muttered, kicking at a rock.
Running on foot felt like a mistake... until he remembered where he was headed.
The Dusk Forest wasn’t a place for wheels.
He would’ve abandoned the ride at the first tree anyway.
With a small smirk and a grunt, Dirga broke into a sprint—then leapt.
With a flick of his fingers, his telekinesis latched onto the trees ahead like invisible grappling hooks.
He soared through the gaps, flipping over branches, bounding from one trunk to the next.
He looked like a beast. A blur of motion and pressure—half-man, half-force.
The leaves whispered around him. Bark groaned. The earth pulsed below.
He was entering the wild once more.
This time, he was the storm.
According to the ID map, the target location lay three days away—deep within the twisted heart of the Dusk Forest.
For now, his ID still worked, pulsing gently with data overlays and navigation threads.
But Dirga had read enough to know: the farther he ventured, the weaker the connection would get. T
he device likely used some sort of arcane signal—like a mystical version of Earth’s satellite tech—but it didn’t matter.
Once the forest swallowed him, he’d be on his own.
And that was fine. Isolation sharpened him. It always had. No noise. No politics. Just focus.
He moved swiftly, leaping from branch to branch, his movements clean and fluid.
With a flick of his telekinesis, he flung himself forward like a jungle predator—gliding between trees, dodging snarled roots and fungal blooms.
The wind roared past his ears, sharp with the scent of sap and something more ancient.
The Crimson Core, forged into a sleek ring on his finger, pulsed softly—thrumming with heat, as though it could sense violence brewing in the air.
Dirga activated Gravity Sense.
Movement. Pressure. Mass.
Something big—closing in fast.
From the underbrush, a mutated orc burst forth. Towering over four meters tall, its muscle-laced hide shimmered with bio-metal and rune scars. Its tusks jutted like cleavers. A primal growl shook the branches.
The ring in his hand unraveled—shifting, bending, folding into a gleaming black sword in less than a breath. He swung.
The orc didn’t even get to finish its roar. It split cleanly down the middle—body bisected, blood hissing against the hot edge of the blade. Both halves crashed to the mossy ground with a wet thud.
Dirga exhaled through his nose, calm.
"...Well, I expected more of a fight."
He stepped over the corpse, blade dissolving back into the ring around his finger with a hiss of gravity and steel.
And then, he kept moving.
The blood-red eye in the sky—the twisted mockery of a sun—blinked shut.
In its place came a pale blue orb, colder and quieter. Night returned to the Dusk Forest.
Dirga stopped near a root-entwined clearing.
His backpack expanded with a whisper of runes—unfolding into a modest tent surrounded by anchor glyphs. The fire pit lit itself from a spark rune.
Warmth bled into the air, though it did little against the creeping silence of the woods.
A soft crackle of flame.
The rustling of leaves above.
He sat beside the fire, cross-legged, letting the stillness sink in. It wasn’t bad. Not good either. Just quiet. Just solitude.
His mind drifted—not to comfort, but to readiness. He visualized the mental map of the forest, the pressure points of the terrain, the likely ambush zones.
Just clean lines of strategy.
Dirga lay down and closed his eyes.
He didn’t need comfort. He needed rest.
This was the life of a hunter.
The days bled together.
Creatures came and went—some lunging from foliage, others stalking from the mist. Dirga cut them down. Leaped ravines. Climbed cliffs.
Traversed ravaged paths swallowed by vines and fog.
And finally, on the third day, he arrived.
The land shifted. The air thinned. Trees curved unnaturally inward like they were bowing toward something. Even the wind hesitated.
Dirga stopped at the edge of a crag overlooking the basin below.
His gravity sense pulsed—echoing like sonar. Something stirred within the valley. Huge. Patient. Alert.
A beast. The one from the quest.
Its presence wasn’t overwhelming in strength—but in focus.
A weight that pressed not on his body, but on his mind.
Dirga narrowed his eyes.
There it was again—that strange sensation.
As if something... or someone... was watching him from beyond the treeline. The gaze wasn’t hostile. Not yet. But it was invasive, brushing against his thoughts like cold fingers tracing skin.
He steadied his breath.
From the quest data, he already knew:
This wasn’t just a physical hunt.
The creature he was after specialized in mental interference and fortitude.
And he was in its domain now.