The forest was endless shadow.
Even with the faint shimmer of moonlight filtering through the gaps in the canopy, Quinn felt smothered by its weight. The trees loomed like prison bars, their bark twisted and scarred, branches clawing at the sky like the fingers of corpses that refused to stay buried. The damp earth under his boots exhaled a steady rot-scent, heavy with moss and decomposed leaves. Every breath carried the taste of it.
He crouched low and stilled.
The fragment of silence pulsed faintly against his ribs, its muffling veil stretching outward, wrapping his steps, cloaking his movements in unnatural hush. Yet silence was never truly silent. Every rustle of leaves, every whisper of wings, every slither in the undergrowth pressed into his sharpened senses.
Noise wasn't absence. It was narrative. The forest was speaking—telling him who walked, who crept, who hunted.
Predator's patience, he thought. Listen. Let the sounds draw the map.
[ Quest Objective: Hunt a Fragment-bearing beast without being detected ]
The text floated in front of his eyes, stark against the oppressive dark.
He let a slow grin cut across his face. "Then let's hunt."
Once, hunts were pixels on a glowing screen. Missions logged and failed and retried. Monsters whose patterns could be memorized and countered after five attempts. This was different. This was alive. Here, there was no reset button—only consequence.
A faint tremor rippled through the earth beneath him. Not close, not yet. But heavy. Deliberate.
Quinn's breath slowed as he angled toward it, his perception fragment painting outlines invisible to human eyes. The world sharpened into overlapping layers: the chirp of insects, the pulse of night air, and beneath it all, the steady, measured rhythm of something that breathed deeper than the forest itself.
The goblin.
He slipped forward, careful, each movement an echo of muscle memory drawn from a thousand stealth runs in games. Crouch. Glide. Wait. Move. He skirted around tree roots slick with moss, pressed himself against trunks wide as pillars, his silhouette blending into their shadows.
Minutes stretched into eternities. The closer he drew, the more the goblin's presence thickened, like the stench of blood left too long in heat. It wasn't smell, not exactly. It was pressure—an oppressive awareness that gnawed at the back of his skull, warning him that this wasn't prey. It was a rival predator.
The first glimpse came sudden.
Through a tangle of thornbushes, he saw it: crouched by a stream, the goblin lapped water from cupped hands. Its skin glistened a greasy green, mottled with darker patches where scars had grown over old wounds. Its ears twitched constantly, rotating like radar dishes, and its yellow eyes flicked to the shadows with restless suspicion.
Quinn's body tensed. His grip tightened on the rebar staff scavenged from the ruins.
One strike. That was the instinct. Leap forward, end it before it could react. But he forced himself to wait. To watch.
The goblin moved again, and his patience was rewarded.
At its hip hung a shard. Small, jagged, glowing faintly red like an ember dying in ash. The fragment pulsed with every heartbeat of the creature, integrated into its flesh.
[ Detected: Fragment of Ferocity ][ Function: Increases host's attack power under bloodlust state ]
His chest tightened. That explained the aura. The fragment wasn't just integrated—it was awakening the goblin's predatory instincts. This wouldn't be a simple fight.
Quinn slid back behind cover, heart hammering. He needed a plan.
The old Quinn—the one who spent nights hunched over keyboards—would've charged in anyway. Excitement first, logic later. But he wasn't that boy anymore. Here, the forest taught him different lessons.
He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the other fragments within him pulse in quiet rhythm: strength, perception, silence. He had tools. He had an edge.
And he had patience.
The goblin rose from the stream, sniffing the air. Its head jerked suddenly toward Quinn's direction, ears twitching. He froze. The silence fragment muted his movements, but could it mask scent?
The goblin hissed low, yellow eyes narrowing. Then, with a snarl, it turned away, vanishing deeper into the woods.
Quinn exhaled, slow and controlled.
Good. It hadn't caught him. Not yet.
He shadowed it, slipping from tree to tree. Every motion was measured, rehearsed in his mind before he executed it. When the goblin paused to sniff the ground, Quinn paused. When it darted across clearings, Quinn waited, counting breaths, then followed.
The hunt stretched into a grim dance of patience.
Once, the goblin spun sharply, eyes wide, as though it had sensed something. Quinn flattened into the mud, barely daring to blink. Another time, the creature climbed onto a rock, scanning the night with suspicion. Quinn slid beneath a fallen log, heart thudding like a drum, but not a sound escaped him.
The longer it lasted, the more his nerves burned. This wasn't a quick encounter. This was a war of attrition, fought in shadows and silence.
At last, the goblin slowed, settling into a hollow between roots of a massive oak. It crouched, sniffing, and then lowered itself, curling its fingers around the glowing fragment at its side as though cradling a weapon.
This was his chance.
Quinn circled wide, choosing the angle of approach with care. His grip tightened on the rebar, its rusted weight grounding him. His perception fragment lit up faint trails in his mind—the goblin's heartbeat, the twitch of its muscles, the rhythm of its breath. He waited until the pattern was steady, predictable.
Then he struck.
He lunged from the shadows, staff arcing downward. The silence fragment cloaked the rush until the last instant. The goblin's head snapped up, too late. The rebar slammed into its shoulder with a crack, sending it sprawling.
It shrieked, twisting, claws flashing. The fragment on its side flared, bathing the hollow in a red glow.
[ Host entering Bloodlust State ]
The goblin surged upright, faster, stronger. Its claws raked the air, sparks flying as they scraped metal. Quinn ducked, pivoted, drove the staff forward into its ribs. It snarled, spit flying, and countered with a slash that nearly took his face.
Adrenaline tore through him. Every nerve burned alive. He parried, twisted, retreated, then lunged again, strikes echoing like thunder in his bones.
The goblin pressed harder, fueled by its fragment. Every blow carried feral weight, every movement wild yet precise. Quinn's arms ached with the effort of deflecting, his breath coming ragged despite the silence fragment masking the noise.
But he had perception. And patience.
He read its rhythm. Waited for the overreach.
It came—an overcommitted slash. Quinn twisted aside, staff lashing down. The goblin's knee buckled, snapping sideways with a sickening crack. It shrieked, stumbling, rage contorting its face.
Quinn didn't hesitate. He drove the staff through its chest, pinning it against the oak's roots.
The goblin writhed, snarling until the light faded from its eyes. Then it slumped still.
[ Enemy defeated ][ Fragment Acquired: Shard of Ferocity ]
The red shard tore free of the corpse, hovering before him, pulsing with heat. He caught it carefully, pressing it into his chest. Fire lanced through his veins, hot and brutal, settling into his muscles like coiled springs.
[ Fragment Integrated ][ Function unlocked: Temporary Strength Surge during combat ]
Quinn staggered back, chest heaving. His hands trembled, not from weakness but from the sheer flood of sensation—the battle replaying in every nerve, every ache, every scar.
He looked down at the goblin's corpse. Its face was frozen in rage, fangs bared, eyes wide. For a moment, Quinn saw himself reflected there: predator, survivor, monster.
The silence of the forest closed around him once more.
He wiped his staff clean on the moss, forced his breath steady, and straightened.
One hunt survived. One fragment earned.
But the weight of it lingered. He had won. Narrowly. By patience, by fragments, by instincts sharpened on a razor's edge.
And yet the thought crept into his skull, cold as midnight:
If this was only the beginning… what horrors waited in the chapters ahead?
The System's answer was merciless.
[ New Quest Unlocked: The Predator's Path ][ Objective: Claim three more fragments ][ Reward: ??? ]
Quinn bared his teeth in a humorless grin. "Fine. Let's keep hunting."
The forest swallowed his words, and he melted once more into its shadows.