Old Ashvarn was turned completely upside down as a savage hunt tore through its streets.

Ethan Heart swung again and again between rooftops, moving from one to the next—sometimes sprinting across them in a desperate attempt to stay alive, and at other times leaping away the moment he found himself cornered by the city’s inhabitants who had appeared out of nowhere.

In such a dire situation, his Legion Arm was nothing short of a lifeline.

Using the grappling hook, he swung like a spider from building to building, barely escaping each time.

Throwing himself through a narrow window—one that barely allowed his body through—Ethan landed inside and gasped for air, struggling to breathe.

But nothing entered his lungs...

Except the stench of clotted, rotting blood.

Peering out the window, exhaustion written clearly across his face, he saw more and more of them rushing toward him, surrounding the very building he had entered.

They carried nothing but torches and crude weapons ... yet in his current state, they might as well have been weapons of mass destruction, as he had no way to properly defend himself.

"There’s no end to them..." he muttered, tense, glancing left and right in search of an escape.

From the rooftops. From the streets. From inside buildings and homes.

The feral inhabitants poured out from everywhere ... as if escape had never been an option to begin with.

Fight them all and survive...

Or die.

And right now—

Fighting wasn’t an option for Ethan.

Turning toward the door, the sound of their footsteps grew louder with each passing second, making it painfully clear ... they were coming for him.

Ethan stepped back toward the window, his expression dark, gripping his Legion Arm tightly.

"The only offensive capability I have right now... is the Onslaught Stake."

His metallic fingers fidgeted with the hidden mechanisms embedded between them as hesitation crept into his thoughts.

"This is a huge gamble... Unlike the grappling hook, the stake takes a long time to recharge..."

Looking outside at the swarm, Ethan understood one thing clearly ...

These were likely the weakest creatures in the city.

And something like that black-furred giant could appear again at any moment.

"I need to save it... in case something shows up that I can’t escape from."

Abandoning the idea of using the Onslaught Stake, Ethan leapt out the window once more, firing his grappling hook and swinging over the heads of the feral crowd.

The moment they saw him, they began hurling their weapons at him, trying to strike him down and drag him into their midst.

But Ethan moved like an irritating fly—constantly slipping through their grasp.

The chase continued.

And the grappling hook had now become his only lifeline against the monsters that sought to tear him apart.

He ran.

And ran.

Swinging relentlessly for what felt like an eternity.

The creatures behind him showed no signs of fatigue ...

But neither did Ethan.

Despite running for so long without pause, he didn’t slow down, nor did he show any sign of exhaustion.

His demonic body granted him inhuman endurance.

Glancing back slightly over his shoulder, casting a look at the pursuing monsters from the corner of his left eye, Ethan smiled faintly.

"Chase me all you want... I can keep running all day if I have to."

As long as his body held out, Ethan believed he could cling to life until the very end.

But that faint smile couldn’t fully conceal his tension.

Because right now—

He was only a single mistake away from death.

One misfire of the grappling hook...

One wrong decision in choosing his path...

And it would cost him his life.

Ethan understood that perfectly.

While running, he raised his hand and opened the Player System interface, trying to see how much time remained before he could fight properly again.

What he saw...

Did not please him at all.

...

[Class change at will]

Time remaining until next use: 2:01:33

...

"Only one hour has passed...? I thought I’d been running for several!"

Ethan’s mind raced, searching desperately for a solution.

He considered hiding—but it was pointless.

They always found him, no matter where he tried to conceal himself, their overwhelming numbers making it inevitable.

It was almost laughable.

The city seemed endless ...

Yet he couldn’t find a single place to hide from them.

"How the hell do they keep finding me?!"

Ethan shouted, grabbing the back of his neck.

The curse mark wasn’t reacting—so it wasn’t the cause.

Which meant...

Ethan’s eyes slowly widened as a realization dawned on him.

"...Someone is telling them where I am."

Frowning, he lifted his gaze, searching for the highest point in the city ...

A place high enough... to see everything.

Fortunately, there was only one structure that fit that description.

Which made it easy to find.

"...The Clock Tower."

A towering structure that seemed to pierce the very sky, standing silently above the city.

"Wise Raven’s insight."

Activating his visual ability, Ethan’s eyes erased the distance between him and the tower—allowing him to see what stood at its peak.

His instincts told him one thing ...

If something was watching him...

It would be there.

And this time—

His instincts were right.

He couldn’t see it clearly...

But he caught a glimpse of it.

A grotesque creature loomed atop the Clock Tower.

Smaller than the black-furred beast... yet far larger than the feral inhabitants that had been chasing him.

It clung to the walls ... its body twisted, its form unnatural crowned by a massive, thick, rounded head from which dozens of eyes had sprouted.

No mouth.

No nose.

Not even ears.

Only eyes.

Eyes that watched everything from above.

"...So it was you."

Having uncovered the reason the monsters kept finding him, Ethan shifted his trajectory ... rushing straight toward the ancient Clock Tower, intent on eliminating that thing.

"I can only use the Onslaught Stake once... My only chance is to kill that thing with it—then hide immediately before the others catch up."

If he took it down, Ethan was confident he could escape and disappear using the grappling hook.

"I can do this !"

Firing the hook toward the peak of a nearby building, he swung violently ... launching himself into the sky.

With the aid of Wise Raven’s Vision, his precision sharpened to an extreme.

He fired the line again and again, crossing vast distances in mere moments.

This bold maneuver quickly created a wide gap between him and his pursuers ... enough for him to exhale in relief, a laugh breaking free from his lips.

"Ha... ha! I’m starting to feel like a Spider-Man."

Everything flowed smoothly.

The wind struck his face with each swing.

His vision granted him near-perfect accuracy.

The grappling line—thick, unbreakable—left no room for failure.

Within minutes, he had drawn dangerously close to the Clock Tower...

And to that creature.

Everything was going exactly as planned.

But Ethan had overlooked one crucial detail.

That monster... was not stupid.

He got too close.

Close enough to trigger a reaction.

The creature’s dozens of eyes lit up at once with a strange, eerie glow.

As if something had shifted.

Ethan felt it too late—

The change in the air around him.

He had been swinging forward without a care .. And in a single instant ...

Everything flipped.

As he reached the edge of a rooftop, something emerged behind it.

A hideous figure.

As if it had been waiting there all along... for the exact moment of his arrival.

Its body was massive—twisted, elongated, hunched forward.

Large enough... to block his path entirely.

Ethan was mid-air ...

No escape.

The giant lunged toward him, jaws opening wide ... ready to swallow him whole in a single bite.

Its yellow, blood-soaked teeth reflected in Ethan’s eyes—

And in that moment, he understood.

He had been walking into a trap... from the very beginning.

A trap set by that cursed, many-eyed creature.

’I’m in the air... I can’t dodge this...’

There was no escape.