Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Hunt (I)

  The blade sliced across its neck. The body in his hands tensed and convulsed violently, trembling with a force disproportionate to its small size, as if trying to burst forth every last drop of life within. Warm, rank fluid dripped into his mouth, and the quivering in his fingers faded, then vanished entirely. Ethan squeezed the mountain rat relentlessly, not caring that its stomach contents oozed out alongside. Only when the final drop of fluid trickled down did he cast aside the mangled, twisted rat, sticking out his tongue to lap the blood from his lips.

  I don’t want to die.

  The stench of blood rose from his stomach. His throat let loose a low, guttural growl—muffled, indistinct, and hauntingly long. It didn’t sound like it came from a mere organ, but from some crevice deep within his soul.

  He remembered that sound. When he was three, he’d hidden in a tree and watched several village hunters corner a wounded wolf. He’d been shaken by the wolf’s low growl—not out of fear, but because it felt like the deepest string in his soul had begun to resonate with it. For a time afterward, he’d been obsessed with understanding the language of animals.

  Now he understood: that sound had meant nothing at all. It was merely life’s scream in the face of death, the overflow of raw survival instinct and near-feral madness spilling from the heart.

  Three days of feeding on blood and fur, of extreme tension, of pushing his body to the brink. The threat of death nipping at his heels and his own desperate will to live had nearly turned him into a beast, pure and simple. But fortunately, reason still governed every action.

  Ethan knew full well the gap in ability between himself and his pursuers. He remembered vividly how the heads of those two infantrymen from the Third Squad had burst like watermelons in the first instant of confrontation. Now, the only advantage he had was his ability to read their intentions.

  The pursuers weren’t chasing him at full speed. This wasn’t a hunt to kill quickly, risking injury in a desperate clash with a cornered beast. This was a hunt to hound their prey, letting fear and exhaustion wear it down until, with absolute certainty, they could step forward and crush him like a mouse—then cut off his head. Neither he nor his pursuers had any illusions: he couldn’t outrun them, not in terms of strength, nor in skill at surviving these marshlands and dense woods.

  Over these three days, Ethan had feigned the frantic, desperate flight his pursuers expected to see. His physical strength had dwindled just as rapidly as if he really were running for his life. No fire meant no proper food; eating raw meat from any creature in the Lizard Marsh was suicide—the parasites within were deadly to the human body. Instead, he could only scavenge for non-toxic insects to eat raw. While animal blood was safe and provided meager sustenance, it was far from enough to replenish the sweat and energy lost to constant movement. The lack of salt and food had pushed him to the very edge of his endurance. It was time to end this elaborate charade he’d woven over three days, with a move that allowed no room for error.

  By some good fortune, he soon found three non-poisonous worms among the surrounding grass and shrubs. Each was as thick as a finger, wriggling vigorously in his palm. He pinched one by the head and slowly squeezed—green droppings oozed out. It was a delicate skill: applying just enough pressure to expel the potentially toxic waste without bursting the worm and spilling its nutrient-rich juices. After days of practice, Ethan had grown adept at it.

  The soft worm flesh quickly turned to a thick paste between his teeth. A slimy, bitter taste clung to his taste buds, as oppressive as the marsh air sticking to his skin. Ethan ground it carefully with his molars, using his tongue to sift through the paste for any missed chunks, ensuring every bit of the worm was broken down into the smallest possible particles for easy digestion. Every drop of nutrition was precious—fuel for what came next, a lifeline to survival.

  He dug a hole about a foot deep in the ground and buried the mountain rat’s corpse. Over these three days, every time he’d killed an animal, he’d spared the precious energy to bury its remains.

  Slinging the knife over his back, he checked himself over, smoothing out every bulge in his clothing. Like a cautious sentry stepping onto a narrow watchtower, he gingerly stepped onto the freshly buried mound of the rat, then slowly crouched, lay down, and began inching toward a nearby puddle of murky water—moving like a large, misshapen worm.

  He focused all his attention on this unsightly motion, carefully controlling every muscle in his body to keep himself as flat to the ground as possible, leaving no noticeable trace on the soft mud. A single clumsy or uncoordinated move would render the past three days’ scheming worthless.

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  Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and slowly slid into the chest-deep water, making not a single splash. The weight of the knife kept him from floating up as he paddled through the muck on the bottom, heading in the direction he’d memorized. This puddle fed into a temporary stream formed by the rainy season—a spot he’d chosen deliberately, just as he’d chosen this terrain to bury the body. Everything was going to plan.

  A few spots on his body prickled faintly—leeches had latched on. Ethan paid them no mind. They’d release their grip once full of blood; yanking them off now would leave their suckers embedded in his skin, risking infection. The priority was to swim as far as possible under water before he needed to surface for air.

  He replayed every detail in his mind, examining them closely. No flaws. A surge of elation—of imminent escape—welled up. The only remaining concern was the mountain rat’s corpse: it needed to decay enough, to emit a strong enough stench, before the pursuers arrived.

  All I need now is luck with the rot.

  Ethan paddled through the muck—formed from decaying matter—like a scavenging lizard, praying fiercely.

  That afternoon, the sun made a rare appearance over the Lizard Marsh.

  Sunlight, sliced to fragments by tree branches, spilled down. The damp ground turned the sun’s warmth into a lingering veil, swirling between the foliage and the earth. In this sweltering, humid shroud, all marsh life grew fast, died fast, and fed the growth of other life—even rapid decay seemed vibrant with energy.

  The pursuer watched silently as a horde of scavenger lizards eagerly fought over a mountain rat corpse. He detested the slimy stench of these grotesque scavengers; it was overpowering to his keen sense of smell. A larger lizard triumphantly seized the corpse and scurried off, the others swarming after it into the trees, leaving only a dug-up pit and scattered traces behind.

  For a human, this prey was quite impressive—good speed, agility, strength. The pursuer was interested, and fairly confident he could kill him in a head-on fight.

  But “fairly confident” wasn’t enough. This wasn’t a battlefield; it was a hunt. One had to turn “fairly confident” into “absolutely certain.” Starting yesterday, the footprints had grown weak, unsteady.

  Now, the pursuer felt he had absolute certainty.

  Yet this was a strange prey. Despite being chased, the footprints lacked the chaos and desperation typical of a hunted creature. There was a strange resolve beneath the faltering steps—not mere flight, but something else hidden beneath.

  He’d done well to cover his tracks over these three days, but he’d kept making a foolish mistake—burying the blood-drained carcasses. It had backfired entirely: lizards, drawn by the stench of decay, would dig up the bodies and devour them. The pursuer barely needed to do more than follow the reek of the lizard hordes.

  An incomprehensible mindset, a stupid error—and yet a faint thread seemed to connect them. The thought niggled at the pursuer, but only faintly. Once he caught up, killed the prey, and lopped off its head, there would be no more room for puzzlement. No creature could outrun him in these marshlands. Of that, he was absolutely certain. Absolutely.

  But in the next instant, the pursuer froze, startled: all traces ended here, with no sign of continuing in any direction.

  The air reeked only of the marsh lizards’ distinctive, pungent odor. The pursuer dropped to his haunches, scanning the ground for the faintest clue. The lizards’ scrabbling and feeding had churned the earth into a mess, but to his sharp eyes and seasoned experience, the prey’s traces remained visible. A little time, and he would comb every inch of the surrounding area clean.

  Footsteps, unsteady but not panicked. No sign of backtracking by stepping in his own prints. Only a few loops through the nearby brush—likely searching for food. The pursuer could even pinpoint where he’d found his first meal: beneath two horned ferns, probably a bug. The front halves of the footprints there were slightly deeper, indicating a forward shift in weight as he bent to reach. But beyond that, nothing. The tracks ended abruptly at the pit where the body had been buried.

  This defied every bit of wisdom passed down through his tribe’s generations. Fleeing, hiding, a dwindling stamina… The pursuer tried to piece it together with his own wits, groping for sense beyond what he’d been taught. But a mind unaccustomed to logic stumbled over the task. And then, the realization hit: he was stepping, step by step, into a strange trap—exactly as the fugitive had intended. A volcanic rage erupted, seizing his thoughts entirely.

  A lizard waddled back, snuffling around the pit, hoping for scraps. It became the target of the sudden fury. A violent blow sent its bulky body hurtling upward, then crashing into the stagnant pool, sending a geyser of murky water and muck spraying everywhere. When the muck settled, a few leeches slithered onto the bank, their bloated, blood-filled bodies wriggling clumsily toward the water. The pursuer noticed them, plucked one up, examined it closely, then crushed it between his fingers with a pop. He tasted the fluid that oozed out. A feral grin spread across his face—one no other race could have interpreted.

  Pressed close to the ground, the keenest sense of smell across the entire continent finally picked out, from amidst the pungent stench of lizard mucus and the putrid odor of soil, a hint of the scent he was hoping to find. This scent stretched toward the stagnant pool.

  He would tear out the heart while its owner was still alive, rip that warm, still-throbbing thing apart with his teeth, swallow it down his throat along with the freshest blood contained within, and turn the cunning it held into his own strength.

  The skull must not be damaged. He would slowly scoop out the brain from the eye sockets to eat, strip off the flesh, and have the finest craftsmen grind and polish the skull. This perfect trophy could be placed on the tomb of his ancestors. As a sacrifice, it would be a testament to the further advancement of the tribe's proud hunting skills.

  You are my excellent prey.

  A long-unfelt excitement filled the running pursuer's entire body—this was the same feeling that had surged within him when, just after he had matured, he had chased the most beautiful female in the tribe.