Parker had tracked Kai’s shoe-prints until they became chaotic where a second set of prints appeared.

He had come to the place where Kai had killed a man in self-defense.

Before analyzing anything he scanned the surroundings in case anyone was tailing or watching him before studying the crime scene.

He found a bone dagger, wrapped with a filthy cloth at one end as a hand grip, it was still stained with blood despite the pouring rain.

Strangely, there was no dead body.

Only one set of prints were leading away, but Parker couldn’t help but shiver as he noticed something else.

Six smaller shoe-prints were traveling up a wall alongside a trail of blood, going into the smashed-out window of a two-story building.

Parker sighed mentally as he shook his head, knowing he was about to investigate whatever horror this was. He didn’t know if the corpse was Kai’s or not, so he had no choice.

While the mana signatures appeared as six shoe-prints because of his magic potion, it didn’t mean they were made by humans. Due to the nature of illegal experimentation and unspeakable magics, any sort of abomination could be dwelling in the den sector.

Parker moved to the front of the building and waved his hand over the door, silently chanting a detection spell.

“Good… no hidden alarms” Parker nodded.

The door of the crumbling building was barred with a few planks of wood. Parker lost the element of surprise as they squeaked and creaked when he removed them, so he simply marched up the stairs to the second level to investigate, giving up the element of surprise, though he had his dagger in one hand with his dash spell ready.

Getting upstairs, he couldn’t see a thing, and all he could hear was the rain outside.

The seeing sphere on his shoulder turned to face forwards, and with its eye-link allowed him to see a little better as its ruby-gaze pierced the darkness.

The top of the stairs formed a balcony along some entrances to rooms.

Walking along the top of the stairs, he came to the room that would have been the one he was looking into from outside.

Creeping slowly to the side of the wall, he peered inside the room.

A gust of wind and some light came through as there was a hole in the ceiling of the room as well as the smashed window.

The first thing he noticed was that more of the smaller shoe-prints were leading between the hole in the roof and the window - meeting only at a corpse in the middle of the floor.

Parker pulled out an luminous orb from his inventory, channeling some mana into it to let out a soft glow.

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He added just enough mana to be able to see the corpse properly.

The corpse was pale, almost white. It seemed to be oddly dry despite all the rain around.

A small hole was in its neck, but there was no blood as it had all been sucked out by something.

“Weakling.” Parker shook his head in disdain, and he smiled as he realized this couldn’t be Kai.

Based on the other brats he saw at the cult compound, who were all fair-skinned and clean, this guy was way too old and far too grimy.

His tattered clothes and hair didn’t match the description either. As for his eyes, well, they were gone.

“Probably eaten by whatever dragged him here and sucked his life out.”

Parker was about to turn to leave, but suddenly his intuition was screaming at him, sending alarm bells in his head as it told him to put his guard up.

He jumped back towards the door, raising his needle dagger and readied for an attack.

His magic shield was still up, so he would just have to land a few stabs before it could be broken. The magic dagger would do the rest.

Finally he saw something.

“The ceiling.” his eyes squinted.

A large round pair of white eyes gazed at him, both of them the size of fists, attached to a triangle bug-shaped head. Some long black hair began to drape down, pulled by the pouring rain.

Parker gazed back, waiting for it to make a move.

The two hunters were locked in a stare, sizing each other up.

After a moment, the head suddenly raised back up into the ceiling, its hair following and disappearing just as quickly.

Only the pouring rain filled the silence.

It was gone.

“Smart.” Parker thought, seeing that it decided not to challenge him, disappearing into the darkness and rain.

To survive the den sector, one had to be brutally aggressive when it was required, but smart enough to know when to flee, and that creature was both, making it many times more dangerous.

Parker left the drained corpse and returned to the street, following Kai’s tracks again.

After traveling through different alleys and streets for a while, Parker was surprised at how the kid made it this far without dying.

More than a few times he had to dash past some prying eyes in random buildings that were monitoring the streets below.

He kept the seeing sphere facing backwards at all times to check his tail - and it had seen a few things so far.

Something had followed him through a few alleys - but something else had followed it, and it was slayed before Parker had to do anything about it. The predator became the prey.

It only made Parker more vigilant and tense.

“All the vile things come out at night. Especially with no people around.” he pursed his lips, cursing the chilling rain.

Yet Parker kept his mind focused on the prize.

“This will be worth the gold.” he kept telling himself.

Soon, he entered the shadow of the bridge; following Kai’s foot-prints as it led directly underneath it.

“Huh. Probably the worst place he could possibly choose… other than the sewers anyway.” Parker shivered, thinking about the mist walkers lurking below.

Following the shoe-prints under the bridge, he noticed they led straight back out again.

“Ah, he’s learning?” he raised a brow.

Parker didn’t actually know there were flesh-plaque rats living in the trash piles under the bridge, but he knew it would be a place where there would be, comparatively, a lot of foot traffic as it was a natural thoroughfare - and meeting anyone in the den sector would never be a peaceful affair, while there were no shoe-prints of the rats as they were simply too small.

Before Parker or the flesh-plaque covered rock rats could learn of each other's existence, he had already left again.

The shoe-prints Kai left behind were getting brighter, meaning he was catching up.

“Can’t be too much further behind him now…” he thought with a cunning smile.