"...Now."

"Let’s conquer this city."

"This time... properly."

With that vow etched into his mind—

Ethan began the hunt.

And in the darkness of Ashvarn...

The hunter had returned.

Carrying the Executioner Sword, Ethan Heart stepped once more into the streets of Old Ashvarn.

The silence was suffocating, the air heavy with despair and decay.

He turned left, then right... but found nothing, a faint frown forming on his face.

"How long was I unconscious...?"

There was no way to tell.

This buried city knew neither day nor night—nothing to mark the passage of time, no rhythm to anchor it.

At the very least, Ethan was certain he had been gone for over a day.

He had survived... but survival was not what weighed on his mind.

What troubled him... was the fate of the other hunters.

"This city is crawling with horrors... even powerful ones near its edges... so how many of them could possibly survive something like this?"

He walked forward without even bothering to conceal himself anymore.

One of his current goals was to find the others ... or whatever remained of them.

But his true objective lay elsewhere.

Glancing at his system interface, he noted his level—still stuck at twenty-eight.

Two levels away from thirty... two steps from stepping into the advanced realm.

"From everything I’ve experienced so far... Aura Armor is the bare minimum needed to survive this cursed place."

Anything less meant death.

Yet Ethan felt no fear.

After all...

There was no better hunting ground.

Fixing his goal firmly in his mind, he quickened his pace, his boots striking against the black stone pavement.

His sword was heavy ... each movement produced a loud, echoing clang that traveled far through the silent streets.

It was deliberate.

He wanted them to hear him.

He repeated it over and over ...

not just striking the ground, but pounding on doors, shattering windows, even calling out his companions’ names at the top of his voice.

A provocation.

And it worked.

Within minutes, the horrors came.

From alleyways, from inside buildings and houses...

the feral inhabitants emerged one after another, surrounding him from every direction.

Even the giants appeared—dragging black iron chains behind them like prisoners bound in eternal torment.

Seeing them, Ethan smiled... baring his teeth.

"There you are."

Taking a unique combat stance, he released the Executioner Sword—letting it float before him, controlled by telekinesis.

The crimson aura surrounding it thickened, pressing against the air itself until it felt heavy.

Yet the feral inhabitants paid it no mind.

They charged.

Their prey bled... and that was all they cared about.

Some screamed incoherently, others repeated the last words they still remembered.

With each passing second, the distance between them shrank.

"Ten meters... nine... eight... seven..."

Ethan measured calmly, waiting.

Until they were barely five meters away.

Then—he moved.

With a flick of his hand, the Executioner Sword spun...

faster and faster ... until it became a raging steel cyclone.

That violent vortex launched forward like a cannon shell into the mass of twisted bodies.

It pierced through the first.

Then the second.

Then the third ...

Continuing forward until it reached the limit of its range.

The distance may have been limited...

but the destruction was absolute.

The moment those creatures touched that spinning mass of steel ...

their bodies exploded.

Limbs, flesh, and shattered remains burst into the air, painting the streets in gore.

In a single attack, dozens fell—and Ethan’s soul count surged instantly.

But he didn’t stop.

Reclaiming his blade, he rushed the survivors.

Enhancing each strike with telekinetic force, he cut them down one after another—each swing lethal.

He couldn’t replicate Asterion Heart’s refined swordsmanship ...the blade was simply too heavy.

Instead, he relied on raw brutality—power without finesse.

A direct, overwhelming style built on sheer force alone.

And yet ...

Numbers overwhelmed courage.

Despite cutting down anyone who approached, he was soon surrounded again.

The giants drew closer as well—far more dangerous than the rest.

Ethan knew better than to face them head-on.

He played it smart.

Firing his grappling hook, he scaled the side of a building ...

then vanished from the battlefield in an instant.

The feral inhabitants chased him relentlessly ... but it was futile.

Now that he had regained his strength as a knight,

he was faster—more agile—better at escaping than fighting.

After long pursuits, the monsters would eventually give up, abandoning the hunt.

And in that very moment ...

Ethan would reappear.

Striking again from nowhere, cutting down as many as he could while they were off guard.

The Executioner Sword grew darker with blood ... the slaughter increasing with every cycle.

He would kill...

Then be surrounded...

Then flee again ...

Beginning another chase.

Sometimes lasting an entire hour.

But always ending the same.

Because with that grappling hook ...

Ethan was like a spider in the city of death.

And no matter how many came for him ...

They could never catch him.

With that grappling hook, he moved like a spider ... untouchable, unreachable.

No matter how fiercely the transformed inhabitants pursued him, none could ever truly catch him.

He was always just beyond their grasp, slipping through their fingers like a phantom.

A hunter dancing above their reach.

This hit-and-run tactic repeated itself over and over.

So much so that Ethan could execute it five... even six times in succession before fatigue began to creep into his body.

Yet even that exhaustion never lasted long.

His demonic body burned it away with unnatural endurance.

"This... is the perfect hunting ground I’ve always dreamed of..."

Hidden within the shadows of an abandoned building, drenched in blood and filth, Ethan let out a low laugh as he checked the souls he had gathered.

In a single night, he had reached level twenty-nine...

Only one step away from breaking through.

For a moment, he forgot everything ...

the other hunters, their fate... all of it.

Leveling up became his sole obsession.

But success demanded adaptation.

He was sleeping among monsters now—breathing in danger with every second.

So he forced himself to learn... how to rest without ever truly letting his guard down.

He reduced his sleep to the bare minimum, relying on his demonic body to sustain him.

And he hunted like a madman.

Time lost all meaning ... he no longer knew whether it was day or night.

He slept only when his body demanded it,

his biological rhythm completely shattered.

The first day passed.

Then the second.

Then the third.

And Ethan remained the same ..

repeating the cycle of pursuit and escape, slaughtering as many creatures as he could each time.

Yet despite the effectiveness of his strategy,

a major flaw revealed itself.

"Those feral inhabitants... they barely give any souls..."

After hunting the same creatures repeatedly ...aside from the occasional giant ...

Ethan realized the returns were far lower than expected.

Leveling up was becoming slower... far slower than he had anticipated.

His movements had been confined to the outskirts.

He hadn’t dared venture deeper into the city, fearing the emergence of monsters far beyond his ability to handle.

But now... with such meager results...

He began to reconsider.

Returning to one of the buildings he had turned into a temporary refuge,

Ethan reviewed everything—his movements, his strategy... his next step.

"After hunting here for several days... I’ve come to understand this territory completely."

The outskirts were dominated by weak feral inhabitants ...

along with the stronger but mindless giants.

And occasionally... the vampires, who rarely showed themselves in the open.

From time to time, something far more dangerous would appear ...

like that fur-covered monstrosity from his first day.

But such creatures were anomalies. Rare... unpredictable.

"This is just the outskirts... the outermost layer of one of the largest Legacy Dungeons I’ve ever encountered..."

Even after all his time in this world game,

Ethan had rarely seen anything on this scale.

He had already figured out where the deeper zones lay.

And more importantly...

There was no exit.

No matter how far he ran in the opposite direction ....

escape was impossible through conventional means.

After several days, his supplies began to run out.

He was forced, at times, to eat the flesh of monsters just to survive ...

to stave off exhaustion and hunger.

The situation was growing harsher by the day.

Yet Ethan chose to remain in the outskirts...

For now.

He occasionally searched for other hunters ... but found none.

At least... none alive.

"Every now and then... I come across bodies. Torn apart... scattered... some even decapitated..."

"Their heads mounted on spears... carried by those feral inhabitants..."

Yet none of them belonged to his team.

Which meant one thing ...

They had already ventured deeper into the city.

The strong were pushing forward ...

challenging the most dangerous monsters, searching for a way out.

But Ethan felt no urgency to follow them.

Gripping the Executioner Sword,

he stepped out of his shelter once more.

Back into the hunt.

Until he reached the level he desired...

the power he sought...

Ethan chose isolation.

To hunt alone ... cut off from the world entirely.