[If you use force to wake him up, you could damage his brain, Host.]
No, deia didn’t want to damage his brain.
What if he suddenly forgot about her the mont he woke up, then left her, forcing deia to chase after him again and make him fall in love from the beginning?
[Host, have you been watching soap operas in hell?]
deia frowned. "What is that?"
[Forget it, Host. Your way of thinking is just too precious.]
She didn’t understand what the system wanted to say, but it wasn’t important because all of her focus was on Lucian right now. He was trying his best to keep moving forward despite deia holding him back.
"Lucian! No, you can’t go there!" deia struggled to restrain him—his body was much bigger than hers, and he was stronger even in his unconscious state. Fortunately, he wasn’t using his abilities, or she would have been turned to dust. "What are you chasing?"
Honestly, deia was really curious about what Lucian was seeing in his hallucination, especially since his expression kept changing in re seconds. Sotis, he looked so heartbroken that tears stread down his face.
And other tis, he seed frustrated and furious.
She suspected he might be seeing the mont his family was slaughtered—or worse, watching himself massacre innocent people in the cities.
However, deia wasn’t sure about that because Lucian was acting like he was trying to crawl toward sothing.
Whatever it was, deia knew it had to be sothing terrible, so much so that Lucian couldn’t escape the hallucination easily.
"Bear, hold him down!"
The wolf imdiately obeyed her command. It used its massive body to sit on top of Lucian, preventing him from moving any further. However, his determination to chase whatever he was seeing was so strong that he kept crawling beneath the wolf.
His fingers clawed at the ground, leaving deep scratches and made so of his fingers bleed.
"Stop it! You’re hurting yourself!" deia grabbed his hands tightly before finally deciding to use the venom dagger to paralyze him for a while. "I’m sorry."
She didn’t have the heart to hurt him, but rather than letting him fall into the abyss, it was better to scratch his skin with the dagger. As soon as the venom entered his body, Lucian stopped moving and struggling.
"Bear, watch him for ." deia placed the dagger between the wolf’s jaws. "If he starts moving again, stab him with this. Don’t worry, he won’t die just from this. Got it?"
Bear moved its head up and down, as if trying to say that it understood.
deia patted its head. "Good boy."
She then took a deep breath and scanned the entire forest carefully. "All right. Let’s hunt this motherfucking dog."
[Foul language detected! Penalty -20 C-Points!]
[Host, stop it! You’ve already escaped the nightmare. How much longer do you plan on cursing like this?]
deia clicked her tongue. "Oh, shut up. I need to curse as much as I can tonight," she said. "My brain stops braining if I try to hold it all in. Instead of lecturing , why don’t you help find the panther?"
"And I wonder ... if the Abyss Stalker hunts using hallucinations, why doesn’t it just attack our bodies while we’re trapped in them?"
[The Abyss Stalker doesn’t use its hallucination ability to hunt, Host. If it wanted to eat, it would be easier for it to just hunt down a big mammoth.]
deia frowned. "Then what does it use the hallucination for?"
[To grow stronger.]
[The Abyss Stalker is the guardian of the abyss, an underground that contains countless high-grade mutant monsters.]
[Unlike the Red Zone or Yellow Zone forests, the Black Zone forest usually has two layers. The monsters on the surface vary, but most of them are above Grade-S.]
[However, the monsters underground are above Grade-SS, and so of them are even imasurable. Or, like Lucian, their grade is read as Grade-SSS ]
"Oh? It’s unusual for you to give this much information for free." deia narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"
[Host, the system is not greedy! If you behave well, the system can provide plenty of things for free!]
Behave well? Hadn’t deia been cursing nonstop since she fell into the hallucination?
Thinking about it further, she realized the system had been treating her better for a while now. It wasn’t that it had suddenly beco gentle or allowed her to curse freely, but it hadn’t threatened her at all, despite how badly she had acted in the hallucination.
Did the system... sympathize with her?
How ridiculous.
deia chose not to talk about that again. "Then, what about the Abyss Stalker? Why is it called the guardian of the abyss?"
[The Abyss Stalkers thrive on fear and despair. That’s why they lure humans into falling into the abyss, then watch them die in terror from above.]
deia hissed. "What a fucking psycho." Goosebumps crawled all over her skin. "Its nature reminds of my ex-husband. So damn annoying."
[You can’t compare them like that, Host. The Abyss Stalker does it to survive and grow stronger, but your ex-husband? He does it just for fun.]
Now, this is getting interesting.
deia was right—the system was starting to sympathize with her! It even sounded like it held a grudge against Lucifer.
Well, he was insufferable anyway. deia never understood why so humans worshiped him like a god and built countless temples in his na.
"They’re like hell’s guards, then," deia said.
[Yes! You can call them that.]
"I don’t have a problem with hell’s guards. The Abyss Stalker can allure as many humans as it wants, and I wouldn’t care. But—" deia cracked her knuckles. "It chose the wrong person."
"My husband is not a snack."
As soon as she finished speaking, she shifted her gaze toward the dark forest. The panther could blend seamlessly into the night, but that didn’t an its presence was completely undetectable.
deia had a way to find it. "Can I use the Mystical Compass to track the panther’s location?"
[You can. But due to its speed, the compass might not be entirely accurate.]
"That’s fine." deia pulled the compass out of her pocket and commanded, "Activate the compass to locate the Abyss Stalker that cast the hallucination on Lucian."
She had to be specific, or the system would deliberately track a different Abyss Stalker. It wasn’t that she completely distrusted the system, but who in their right mind would trust sothing that constantly tried to find ways to rob them?
It might be acting nice now, but who knew what it would do later?
[Activating Mystical Compass.]
[Target: Abyss Stalker (The one who cast the hallucination on Lucian)]
The needle of the compass began to spin erratically, never settling in one place. It was a clear sign that the panther was deliberately shifting its position to avoid detection.
But deia had never intended to track its exact location in the first place.
"Activating Demonic Strength."
[Skill Activation: Demonic Strength]
[Countdown: 00:25:00]
A sharp hiss escaped her lips as a pair of horns erged from her head. Even after multiple transformations, the pain still tore through her like fire.
But. the horns were nothing compared to the wings. It would tore her back, and with her current pain tolerance, she didn’t even want to thing about it.
deia was grateful the system hadn’t burdened her with wings. If it had, she doubted she’d be able to function through the sheer agony.
[What’s the point of transforming if you can’t even find your target?]
"Shh ... shut up," she muttered, narrowing her eyes.
Her gaze locked onto the compass, tracking the frantic movents of the needle. At the sa ti, she heightened her senses, sharpening her hearing to pick up the faintest sound of movent in the dense forest. The panther was fast, but no prey could stay hidden forever.
A whisper of movent.
A rustle in the bushes. The faintest crunch of branches.
There.
deia didn’t hesitate. She steadied her stance before launching herself forward. Her feet barely touched the ground as she surged ahead, her abyssal sword radiating a dark, ominous aura in her grasp.
As her eyes locked onto the panther, a wide grin spread across her face, almost unsettling, like a ghost lady who hunted the n for fun.
"Trying to run?" Her lips curled into a smirk, sharp little canines peeking from the corners of her mouth. "Too bad."
She had read every one of its movents just by watching the compass earlier. Because of that, she could predict exactly where the panther would go.
As the beast twisted and turned through the dense forest, deia adjusted her stance, cutting off its escape route before it could even change direction.
The panther snarled, its glowing eyes filled with frustration. It realized too late that its hunter was not rely chasing—it was herding.
"Co here, little kittie." deia’s voice was gentle, almost sweet, but there was sothing in her tone that could send shivers down anyone’s spine. "I just want to teach you a lesson, know your place and never play with soone stronger than you."
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