Chapter 65: The Hunt Begins

Zion watched the hooded adventurer in the center passage step neatly around another hidden pressure plate.

"Of course you saw that one too."

The man continued forward without slowing much, completely unaware of the shadow moving several steps behind him.

The Shadow Panther crept along the wall with its body almost impossible to distinguish from the darkness around it. Even knowing exactly where to look, Zion occasionally lost sight of the beast whenever the torchlight flickered.

"Come on..."

The Panther did not attack. It simply continued following–stalking.

The hooded man passed another trap and moved deeper into the corridor, approaching a long stretch of darkness between two weak wall torches.

The moment he stepped into it, the Panther lunged.

There was no roar or warning. Its claws ripped across the adventurer’s back so suddenly that the impact threw him forward.

"What the hell?!"

His cloak tore open from shoulder to waist, exposing several deep cuts as blood immediately began running down his back.

The Panther attacked again, but the adventurer vanished before its claws connected and reappeared several meters behind it.

Zion’s grin widened.

"So you can still use that."

The man grabbed his injured shoulder while staring toward the beast.

This time, he looked genuinely rattled. His breathing had changed, and his eyes moved rapidly across the corridor as though he expected another attack from every patch of darkness around him.

He was afraid.

Zion felt a little more satisfied than he probably should have.

The Shadow Panther stared back at him before darkness began spreading across its legs. The black color climbed over its body until the entire beast seemed to collapse into the surrounding shadow.

"Oh, that is so cool," Zion exclaimed, watching the scene.

Even he had never seen the transition this closely. One moment the Panther had been standing in the corridor, and the next it had simply become part of the darkness.

The hooded adventurer clearly did not appreciate it nearly as much. He backed toward the nearest wall, still gripping his shoulder while searching the corridor for any sign of movement.

Then the stone behind him rippled. The Shadow Panther stepped directly out of the wall. The man spun around, but instead of attacking, the beast lowered its head and released a quiet, predatory growl.

The adventurer jumped and immediately ran.

The Panther followed at an almost casual pace, staying just far enough behind that the man could hear it without being immediately caught.

Zion watched for several seconds before the realization hit him.

"Oh my god." He pointed toward the instance. "It’s toying with him!"

The hooded man sprinted through the corridor with all of his earlier patience gone. Blood continued dripping from the torn cloak across his back, leaving small dark spots against the sandstone floor as he ran.

He reached a thin tripwire stretched across the passage and somehow noticed it even at full speed, jumping over without breaking stride.

The Panther passed behind him without touching the wire.

The man kept running through another turn and into the next dark passage until his boot finally landed on the wrong stone. A quiet click sounded beneath him.

Zion immediately recognized the trap.

"HA! Caught you!"

Several sections of floor dropped away at once. The man tried to jump, but the stone beneath him had already disappeared.

His body blurred for half a second as though he were about to teleport, then stopped.

Zion understood why almost immediately. The Shadow Panther stood directly behind him. Teleporting backward would put him right in front of it.

The floor gave way completely.

The adventurer fell, catching the edge with both hands for less than a second before the broken stone crumbled beneath his fingers.

The Shadow Panther walked to the opening and stared down into the darkness after him.

[Adventurer defeated.]

1

[Defeat Essence acquired: 25]

Zion threw both hands into the air.

"Nice work!"

He laughed as the notification disappeared. The Shadow Panther had already exceeded his expectations. The traps alone had barely slowed this party, and the Panther by itself might only have managed to injure one of them.

Together, they had eliminated someone.

That was exactly what Zion had wanted when he designed the floor.

"Go get the next one!"

The Panther continued staring into the shaft for another moment before its ears shifted. The defeated adventurer was gone now, and whatever the beast had been tracking seemed to disappear with him.

It lifted its head, searching the corridor, then stepped into a nearby patch of darkness and dissolved into the wall.

Zion followed its marker across the instance map.

It was hunting now.

A few chambers away, the second hooded adventurer had stopped beside another trap. He crouched near the floor and pulled out the same thin metal tools Zion had watched the party use throughout the upper section.

"This place is annoying," the man muttered while working. He carefully twisted one of the tools. "Why put so many traps everywhere?"

Zion stared at him. "Because it’s a trap floor, dumbass."

A shadow began forming against the wall behind him.

Zion immediately smiled as the Panther stepped out.

This adventurer reacted much faster than the first. He spun while still crouched and threw a dagger in one smooth motion. The blade flashed through the darkness, but the Shadow Panther twisted aside and let it strike the wall behind it.

"Oh? This one seems like he has better awareness," Zion said, leaning closer.

The man jumped backward and reached for another dagger, but the Panther disappeared before he could throw it.

His head snapped toward the nearest patch of darkness, then another, but the Panther was nowhere in sight.

The adventurer slowly backed away until a low growl sounded from somewhere behind him. He turned just as the Panther lunged.

The fight lasted longer than the first, though not by much.

The hooded man managed to avoid several attacks and even landed a shallow cut across the Panther’s side before it vanished into the wall again. Every time he tried to find it, though, the beast appeared somewhere else.

Behind him.

Above him.

Through the wall beside him.

Eventually, the adventurer became so focused on tracking the Panther that he stopped paying attention to the floor.

That was all the dungeon needed.

A few minutes later, another notification appeared.

[Adventurer defeated.]

[Defeat Essence acquired: 25]

Zion leaned back with satisfaction. "Two down, two to go."

His mood had improved considerably.

A little while ago, he had been wondering whether the entire floor needed to be redesigned. Now half of the visible party was already gone, and the Shadow Panther was still hunting.

Zion opened the instance map again.

Only the leader and the woman he still could not see remained.

He watched the roaming marker pause at another intersection, curious which direction the Panther would choose.

Then it turned.

Zion smiled. "All right. Who’s next?"