Fifteen minutes before the video went live on his channel, Do-Jin had already logged into LOST. He popped up on a slab of rock jutting out from deep inside a crack in the earth. He had crawled down so far that nobody up top could ever hope to sniff him out.

The gap between the walls was about three meters, but Anemone was built like a tiger on steroids. She used her front legs on one wall and her back legs on the other, climbing up and down like it was nothing.

Whether it’s a fight or hiding from one, I’d already be dead meat without Anemone.

Do-Jin tilted his head back. Moonlight leaked in through the crack above, thin as spider silk. He lit a mana cigarette and took a slow drag, letting it burn. Then he wolfed down some calories to top off his energy and pulled up his Status Window.

The numbers looked almost too good to be true. If he had logged out the normal way, his body would have stayed wrecked, and the fatigue would still be dragging at him. But he found a hole in the ground, put his avatar into sleep mode, and then signed off. Now every stat was full again.

This is what an endurance fight should be. In a drawn-out battle, the one still standing wins.

Do-Jin wasn’t just dangerous because he could fight. He had spent years bleeding through every kind of battlefield, learning how to read danger before it struck and how to squeeze every tiny advantage into another kill.

There’s about ten minutes until the upload goes live. Time to get moving, Do-Jin decided, a dangerous grin twisting across his lips. I guess I should go cash in on that little promise now.

By the end of the day, the Bloodshed Guild and the Rōnin idiots would regret ever hearing Do-Jin’s name.

***

It wasn’t by chance that Do-Jin had timed his video and login to coincide with the dead of night. With Silent Night cutting through every shadow, the darkness turned into his playground. Danumine Gorge was already half-shrouded even in the middle of the day, but once the moon rose, the whole place became smothered in black.

“Anemone, I’m counting on you,” Do-Jin said quietly.

“I’ll find them. You want me to track down where they’re hiding again, right?”

She climbed the cliff without breaking a sweat, pressing her paws against both walls. Once she reached the top, Anemone took in the wind. As a true wolf, she hunted by scent, locking on to the enemy’s position. Her ability was perfect when Do-Jin needed to stay hidden, but it was even deadlier when he wanted to cut the enemy off and set up an ambush.

“I can smell beasts and people all mixed together that way. It looks like they’ve got the same idea by trying to track us by scent,” she reported.

Do-Jin clicked his tongue. It seemed his opponents weren’t completely brain-dead. After getting run ragged by Anemone these past few days, they were finally starting to fight fire with fire.

“So they’ve dragged a Tamer into it. Then we take the leeward side. No way some under-leveled mutt pushes against the wind and catches us.”

The key was to stay where the wind worked in his favor. From there, all the scents blew past him instead of toward the enemy. Anyone trying to track him from the wrong side of the wind wouldn’t catch a thing unless they had someone like Anemone, a spirit made for tracking. Most Tamers below Rank 100 couldn’t get their mutts to push against the wind anyway.

“We start with the idiots tailing us,” Do-Jin muttered, gripping Anemone’s fur.

Her ears perked and she replied, “Got it. Hold tight!”

Although there was no saddle or Riding skill, as long as Do-Jin held tight, she could carry him at a speed no human could ever match. She was built for hit-and-run tactics.

As soon as Do-Jin stabilized himself, Anemone shot forward, cutting through the gorge like a bullet, twisting with the wind so their scent never reached the enemy. She moved with the silence of a lioness stalking prey too clueless to realize it was already dead.

Anemone growled when the shapes ahead finally came into view. “There. I’ve got them.” She slowed down, giving him space to leap off.

The moment his boots hit the dirt, he gave the order, “Draw their eyes, just for a moment.”

“I’ll circle wide,” she replied, already sprinting to the windward side so her scent would drift toward the enemy. The instincts of a wolf spirit burned through her, every stride sharp and sure.

Just then, the Tamer’s mutt caught her scent immediately and broke into frenzied barking, prompting the enemy party of five to whip their heads in that direction.

“Wait! Don’t just watch that side, check the other too!” one of them shouted, their voice strained with panic.

It was already too late. In a fight like this, even a brief delay could cost a life. Do-Jin had cast Flash Lance, and the blinding flash ripped across the gorge, knocking down the bowman like a puppet with its strings cut. His mutt went berserk, howling and charging in Anemone’s direction.

Do-Jin smirked as the beast raged. So that was the dog’s owner, huh?

It didn’t matter if it was a bow-wielding Tamer or some half-trained hunter. Whoever it was didn’t even get an arrow off before getting fried.

“You son of a bitch!” someone screamed.

Do-Jin’s eyes flicked over the rest of the lineup. There were two dagger-wielding thieves, a clown swinging a twin-blade, and a warrior dragging around a halberd. The sight almost made him laugh out loud. Even with healers and tanks being incredibly rare, ending up with a party that mismatched was absurd. Once their only ranged dealer was gone, the rest of them were nothing but moving targets. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

“Cut him down!” one of them roared.

The order barely left his mouth before the halberd warrior was swallowed in a violent blast from Flame Spear, the explosion lighting the rocks. Without giving him a chance to crawl out of it, Do-Jin dumped two more Flame Spears into the warrior and reduced him to a smoking heap.

Meanwhile, the two dagger punks and the twin-blade idiot darted in, zigzagging to make themselves hard to pin down.

Pretty slick. It’d be tough for most mages to land a hit on movement like that.

Do-Jin hurled three Fireballs in quick succession, all aimed square at the twin-blade wielder. His target managed to roll away from one and barely slip past the next. The third, however, was waiting at the end of his dodge, detonating right in his face and forcing a scream out of him.

Hmm, you still got enough air in your lungs to scream? Fine. Here, have another one.

The Fireballs blasted out of his hands like grenades from a launcher, hammering into the dual-blader. Locked in place by the shock, he barely had a chance to twitch before the last blast burned him down.

“There we go,” Do-Jin said with satisfaction.

However, the two thieves weren’t wasting time either. They closed in fast, blades flashing as they lunged at him.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going!” Anemone shouted, bursting out in a blur from where she’d been lying in wait.

She slammed into one of them and clamped down hard. The unlucky thief was dragged to the ground, his body sliding across the jagged rocks of the gorge, his face grinding against the stone. Blood streaked the uneven ground as Anemone shook him around like a rag doll.

The final thief came straight for Do-Jin, taking the fastest route with the most straightforward strike. Although the attack was clumsy, it was still faster than Do-Jin could cast. However, the thief froze as the sound of metal striking metal rang out as sparks flew. He looked with wide eyes at the dagger, which hadn’t sunk into flesh but had been caught by a metal gauntlet.

The Magic Gauntlet wasn’t just for channeling spells. It could double as armor, and right now, it was all he needed. The system weighed the thief’s offensive stat against Do-Jin’s defense, and the numbers crunched out in real time. Do-Jin’s health bar dipped hard from the catch, but it wasn’t anywhere close to killing him.

Sensing danger, Anemone lunged from behind and clamped down on his neck, her weight driving him to the ground. The thief struck the rocks hard, the impact jolting his skull and spine. His vision spiraled, and a groan escaped his throat. Two or three full seconds passed before his sight began to clear, an eternity in the middle of a fight.

Then pain lanced through his hand as an Ice Arrow punched clean through his palm. A fresh wave of agony hit when Anemone’s paw slammed into his chest, driving the breath from his lungs until every groan sounded like it might be his last. By the time he managed to pull his thoughts back together, there was nothing left to rally. He was already done.

“Ohayo, motherfucker.” Do-Jin flashed a grin as he mangled the Japanese, every syllable twisted to rub salt in the wound.

The thief’s face twisted. “I’m with the Bloodshed Guild. I’m not some fucking Jap.”

Do-Jin shrugged. “Yeah, and I don’t give a shit.”

He made a little flourish with his hand, like he was presenting the man on stage. “Go on, say hello to everyone.”

The thief frowned, still trying to process the words.

Do-Jin leaned in, eyes gleaming with amusement. “You’re live, asshole. Everyone’s watching.”

The thief started to push himself up. “What kind of bullshit—”

He didn’t get to finish. Anemone bore down on him with her full weight and smashed him flat against the rock. His body twitched once before it went limp. Maybe her strength slipped or maybe his HP was already hanging by a thread. Either way, he was gone.

Anemone looked up at Do-Jin, who gave her a nod and a thumbs-up, as if to say she’d done fine. He then turned his attention to the chat that was already blowing up.

“Evening, folks. Do-Jin here. I’m currently being hunted down and harassed by the Bloodshed Guild and the Rōnin Guild.”

The chat exploded with question marks, but he ignored them all and kept talking.

“You know the saying: pile on enough shit and something’s bound to bite back. So I figured it’s time to go live and show you exactly what that looks like. Quick heads-up, though. Don’t even think about stream sniping me. I’m having way too much fun with this right now, so if anyone tries to crash the party, I’ll just turn it off.”

He gave a short laugh before concluding, “So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.”