The eastern strip of the ruined city was a tangled labyrinth of collapsed skyscrapers and rusted metal.

Hide ducked under a thick, moss-covered steel girder, his boots silent against the overgrown asphalt. The humid air was thick with the stench of rot and wild mana.

A shadow moved above him.

Hide looked up just as a massive, avian beast dropped from the broken window of a third-story building. It had the wingspan of a small aircraft, its body covered in jagged, iron-hard feathers, and its beak was hooked like a scythe.

It let out a piercing screech and dive-bombed directly toward him.

"Shitty... annoying thing," Hide muttered, side-stepping the initial strike.

The beast’s talons gouged deep into the concrete where Hide had been standing a fraction of a second before. It didn’t pause, immediately flapping its massive wings to gain altitude again, kicking up a storm of dust and debris to blind him.

It was a pain in the ass. The flying beast refused to engage in close combat, preferring to dive, strike, and retreat into the canopy of the ruined buildings where Hide couldn’t reach it.

The beast circled once, locked onto Hide, and tucked its wings for another dive.

"Alright," Hide sighed, his grip tightening on the hilt of his short sword. "Let’s see if this works."

He didn’t dodge this time. He waited until the beast was thirty feet away, falling at terminal velocity. Then, he planted his back foot, channeled a surge of mana into his arm, and threw Night Singer like a javelin.

The black blade cut through the air with a high-pitched whistle.

It caught the beast directly in the center of its chest, shearing effortlessly through the iron feathers and burying itself to the hilt.

The beast’s screech was cut violently short. Its momentum carried it forward, but it was already dead, crashing into the tall grass mere feet away from Hide in a tangle of broken feathers and dark blood.

Hide walked over, pulled his sword free with a wet shhhk, and flicked the blood off the blade.

A holographic window flickered into his vision.

[Calamity Beast (Iron-Winged Harpy) - Eliminated]

Experience points gained: 200

Hide barely had time to read it before a second notification popped up right beneath it.

[First Phantom ’Zenith’ has eliminated a Calamity Beast (Armored Buffalo)]

Experience points gained: 100

Hide grinned. He had released Zenith the moment he was out of Evelyn’s line of sight, sending the towering phantom soldier down a parallel street to hunt on its own. The passive income was flowing perfectly.

Then, the pale blue window flashed, shifting into a brilliant gold.

[Level Up]

Level: 13 → 14

Exp: 20 / 3100

Level Up reward has been added to inventory.

’Finally,’ Hide thought, dismissing the notification.

He opened his main system interface, intending to allocate the new stat points. As the screen materialized, he noticed a blinking red icon in the corner—a notification he had neglected during the chaos outside the mansion.

He tapped it.

[Adaptive Override — Analysis Active]

3 star Talent - Deep View

Location: Whole Body

Source: B-Rank Human

Severity: Low

System Query: Initiate adaptation sequence for this specific attack type?

[Awaiting command.]

Hide blinked, reading the prompt twice.

Then it clicked. Back at the mansion, when Rol had held the knife to his throat, Hide had felt a strange, cold prickle across his skin.

The guy had been scanning him. Because Rol had been in such close physical proximity, and because his talent involved directly probing another entity’s mana structure, the System had registered it as a hostile infiltration attempt.

It was perfect. A skill designed specifically to counter Exterminators with sensory or analytical talents.

"Evolve," Hide commanded mentally.

[Adapting – 0%]

[15%]

Hide smiled. That was going to be incredibly useful, especially with the tournament coming up. The less the other people knew about him the better.

He closed the skill window and pulled up to his stat page.

With his recent level ups, he had accumulated 10 non-allocated points.

He looked over his current physical attributes.

Strength: 23

Agility: 24

Endurance: 15

Vitality: 15

Lately, he had been feeling a subtle, persistent exhaustion settling deep in his bones after extended combat. He originally thought it was just the physical toll of the gates, but he was starting to realize it was the passive drain of keeping Zenith manifested.

The Phantom Soldier was autonomous, but it was still anchored to Hide’s mana and stamina.

He made his choices quickly.

He allocated 2 points to Strength, bringing it to a solid 25. He dumped 3 points into Agility, pushing his speed and reaction time further. Finally, he placed the remaining 5 points directly into Endurance, bumping it up to 20.

A sudden, refreshing wave of warmth washed over his body. The lingering ache in his shoulders from throwing the sword vanished entirely, and his breathing leveled out.

’Much better,’ Hide thought, rolling his shoulders.

Suddenly, the sleek communication device tucked securely into his right ear crackled to life.

"Status update," Evelyn’s dry, professional voice echoed clearly in his ear, broadcasting to both him and Elara. "I have located the Gatekeeper’s general vicinity. It is entrenched near a large mall, its actually circling that ting like a dumb bitch."

"Roger that!" Elara’s cheerful voice chimed in over the comms, followed immediately by the distant, muffled sound of shattering ice.

"You’re both making good time," Evelyn continued. "Elara has already cleared seventeen beasts. Hide is sitting at nine confirmed kills as of now."

Hide frowned slightly. Only nine? Her system must not be tracking Zenith’s kills, since the phantom wasn’t a registered Exterminator or an approved summon.

That was actually a massive relief—it meant he didn’t have to explain why the beast count was dropping twice as fast as it should be.

"Continue the sweep," Evelyn ordered. "I will continue to monitor the structural integrity of the loop and analyze the Gatekeeper’s—"

The communication device let out a sharp, violent burst of static.

Kzzzt.

The comms went entirely dead.

Hide tapped the earpiece. "Evelyn?! Elara?"

Nothing. The line had been completely severed.