"That is no monster. Just a human."
A hooded figure walked forward with steady steps, stopping a few meters from the fire where Ito sat.
The figure pulled back her hood—pale face, sunken cheeks, long silver hair cascading down. Her pupils were pitch-black, like bottomless wells. On her forehead was a scar—etched like an emblem in an ancient language.
The scar looked... alive.
Ito said nothing, observing every detail of the woman. Her robe was old, dusty—its fabric whispering of forgotten times. There was a faint scent of aged blood clinging to her.
"Return the eye," she said. "Or I'll tear it from your body myself."
"Why do you want it?" Ito asked flatly.
She gave a bitter, thin smile. "Because only with those three eyes... can I survive the hunters. The ones coming tomorrow. Or the next day. Because in the end... we're all hunted."
She stepped closer. "The Hell Hunt System doesn't raise heroes. It breeds hunters only to turn them into prey. I know this. Because I was once like you. I was once an Official Blood Hunter."
Ito frowned. "So?"
"I want out of this cursed cycle. And for that, I need your eye."
"Prepare yourself, young hunter. You're about to taste what it feels like… to be hunted—by the shadow of your own future."
She raised her bone staff. Its tip trembled... then shattered into fragments of dim light, swirling around Ito like nightfire fireflies.
"Prepare," she whispered.
"Curse Technique: The Cycle." Her voice was barely a breath.
"You will fight your own memories."
Suddenly, one of the shadows lunged.
Ito dodged—a fraction of a second before the claws could reach him. He didn't strike back. He watched—measured—as if reading the rhythm of the illusion.
"I won't fall to some ancient technique," he said coldly.
"If you truly wish to escape the System," she hissed, "then kill me. But if you do… the System will brand you with the hunter's mark. And you will replace me—as the next hunted."
Ito inhaled deeply.
His soul began to question the meaning behind her words.
"Your Clan once stood with ours. But when the Northern Clan fell… the East chose silence. That silence became your inherited sin."
Ito lifted his chin, calm. "And the Central Clan chose to lead the destruction."
She smiled, bitterly. "I'm not here for history. I came for your eye."
A scythe-shaped shadow swept toward him.
Ito kept dodging.
"I've sealed over 400 fugitives into my weapon," she said. "What about you?"
As if pretending not to know Ito had just been recruited.
Ito didn't flinch. "The people of the Central Clan were always destined to be arrogant."
"And you should also mention," Ito added, "that the fugitives you sealed vanished along with the explosion in the Northern Region."
The woman withdrew her magic.
"True," she hissed. "The System keeps track of that number. Because once you reach 1000... you're free to hunt anyone. The System believes it's impossible. Until the Northern Hunters hit the maximum limit..."
"And then war broke loose."
She fell silent for a moment, as if possessed. Her pupils dilated.
"What do you see?" she asked, breathless.
Ito stepped forward, suspicious of her sudden shift.
"This isn't about my eye. This is about what you're hiding."
The woman began pacing erratically, fingers raking through her hair. Then she glared at Ito, flashing that wicked smile.
"You know, don't you?" she whispered. "What really happened in the North."
Ito said nothing. His eyes tracked her hand movements, not her words.
"I didn't come to kill you," she went on. "I came to stop you from spreading what you've seen. If the other hunters find out that Zhen has started his hunt—and that he has a System of his own... the war will begin again. And his vengeance… is terrifying."
Ito chuckled—not out of amusement, but in bitter disbelief.
"That's funny. You claim you didn't come to kill me, yet you show up in the dead of night, speaking in riddles, and launch an attack the moment you arrive."
The woman shook her head, disagreeing.
"You don't understand yet, Eastern Hunter. You think this is just about the three eyes you found? That's trivial. You've seen and followed someone cursed beyond reason. So I came to warn you."
Ito slowly stepped to the side, circling like a predator sensing the battlefield—his eyes never straying from her.
"But I don't trust you."
"This is too neat for a warning. Too theatrical to be a coincidence."
Ito was stalling—preparing a tactic beneath his calm.
"Never trust a woman."
Ito remembered it—at exactly the right moment.
The woman narrowed her eyes. "So you won't believe anything I say?"
"Trust takes time," Ito whispered into her ear, "especially from someone I don't know."
Then he struck.
With a swift motion, Ito threw a handful of salt from his pouch straight into her face.
"Broukhirakh—take her mind."
The woman recoiled in pain, her eyes burning—blood streamed down like tears.
Ito moved closer, analyzing her, searching for openings—measuring her reactions.
He was burning with questions. All the ones he had buried until now. This was a rare chance. And if the tales were true, entities from the Central Clan—souls twisted by envy and pride—were vulnerable to mind-magic.
"So... I'm curious about Likh."
The woman slowly turned to him. "What?"
"The Warden of Hell. The recruiter of Official Blood Hunters. The Head of Oliga Academy. You know him?" Ito clarified.
The night's silence dragged a broken branch across the wind.
Ito waited for her answer in the stillness.
"Likh doesn't recruit," she finally said. "He chooses. Just as Hell chooses its victims."
Ito watched her face—there was no lie in her expression.
"And he's part of all this, isn't he?" he asked.
"The Northern Clan's destruction. The rise of the System. The lies taught in your academy."
Her stare sharpened.
"You know, don't you? That the Northern Clan didn't fall because one of its hunters went mad, or because they were cursed—as the rumors claim?"
She let out a bitter, quiet laugh.
"The Northern Clan… they knew too much. And they were too strong."
Ito squinted. "Explain."
The woman took a deep breath.
"The Hell Hunt System—the one you think exists to seal demons—is actually… a gate. That prison wasn't built to keep them locked away. It was designed to release them. One by one. Monsters. Demons. Dimensional aberrations. Curse-bearers. All of them were intentionally let loose…"
"For what?" Ito murmured.
"To find two things: Goldi, and the Northern Hunters," the woman said.
"Goldi is power. Those who own Goldi are worshipped. And Northern Hunters... are Victory itself. And victory is the key to the final gate of this world. The Wind-Eye World has already written this fate. That's the truth—because war demands a victor. And the Northern Clan was the key." A twisted smile formed on her face—hatred pulsing behind it.
Ito began to understand. "And the Northern Hunters?"
"Like a key," she said softly.
"They can open and close the System. So the other four clans agreed… that the Northern Clan must be destroyed." She laughed then—a shrill, bone-chilling sound.
"And now," she said, staring deep into Ito's eyes,
"Zhen is the last Northern Hunter. And that is why... the System rises again with him. To erase the key once more."
Ito gritted his teeth and stepped back.
"I can't trust you."
"You don't need to," she said.
"But when your clan is hunted like deer in winter... remember—you were the one who rejected the truth."