For the first time in his life, Mir felt that waiting for something to happen wasn't all that bad. The longer the wait stretched out, the more time he had to think of appropriate sentences to write in the diary. The longer it took for the Hybrid Transformation to begin, the higher the chance of Murray reaching the Witchweed was.

Mir headed in and out of his Soulslot as he sat anxiously on the hilltop, feeling the sunlight getting hotter and hotter outside his jacket. He had rarely been out in the sun for so long. Going inside the tent wouldn't be a wise decision for now, because he needed to keep an eye on the surroundings. If someone approached this peak, he would bolt in a heartbeat.

With shaky hands, he sent another message to Murray, the third time in the last twenty minutes.

"What's your position right now?"

"I've covered 30 percent of the distance already. I need to be a bit careful in this section of the river. Our pursuers might still be around here."

Murray's reply came immediately.

"Keep an eye out for the Stormfront Crows," Mir wrote back before dropping the communicator.

Murray would need at least one more hour to track down the hiding spot of the Witchweed. Of course, this one-hour timeframe was applicable for the best circumstances. If any of their pursuers caught sight of Murray, the timeframe could very well stretch to two or more hours.

Murray could get caught too, in which case, Mir's hopes of surviving the catastrophe would drop by a great margin. But Mir trusted Murray's capability. His older brother had turned out to be overwhelmingly good at avoiding any enemy.

Mir couldn't help but wonder if Murray had had some unusual experience during his fifteen months in jail. But whenever he had approached the topic in the past, Murray always avoided going into too much detail.

Shaking his head, Mir focused on the diary again. His earlier 'wishes' were occupying the top half of the first page. At the bottom half, he had written some templates with blank spaces here and there to be filled up immediately when the disaster struck. At that time, the opportunity to write out a complete wish may not be present.

As he wondered once more whether there existed any other type of wish to help him overcome the looming issue, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.

Mir's heart almost leaped out of his ribcage. Throwing the diary and the communicator in a bag, he jumped up and began to hobble toward the edge of the hill. The wound on his leg tore open once more from the exertion, leaking fresh rivulets of blood down his knee.

Groaning, Mir attempted to kneel past the edge of the peak and grab onto some vines leading downward, only to hear-

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Bang!

"Ahhhgghh!"

The sound of a muffled gunshot was followed by a searing pain in his other leg. Mir lost his grip on the vines and almost slid forward past the edge. But a powerful grip around his knee yanked him back, sending him tumbling over toward the tent.

Mir felt the world growing dark for several moments, but he persisted to stay awake. Blinking repeatedly, he shook his mind out of the daze caused by the pain and shock.

Two square-shaped shoeheads appeared in his vision as it cleared up. Mir's eyes traced their way to the feet occupying the shoes, then above toward the person to whom the feet belonged.

This person was a short, but stockily built man, wearing a shimmering silver helmet that looked like it belonged inside a chemical lab- with half a dozen tubes attached to two mini air purifiers around his mouth.

The mask was silky-smooth and featureless, almost like an egg, hinting at highly professional craftsmanship, probably industrial-grade.

The man wore a full-body jacket just like Mir, but a heavily modified version. There were numerous slim gadgets attached all over the jacket. For example– a glowing coil of tubes on his chest, two camera lenses on each of his shoulders pointed at his sides and back, and what appeared to resemble test-tube holders on his upper arms, displaying multiple tubes holding colorful chemicals.

Looking at his hands, Mir realized which weapon had injured him. Both of his forearms were equipped with Pulsars– one of the cutting-edge weapons in the market right now. They came in the form of long bracelets, covering the forearms like shields while hiding a series of ammunition that electrocuted the target upon impact. The wearer could also electrify the upper body of the bracelets and fight with mutant beasts with just his hands, continuously shocking the beast into submission.

He looked at his left leg and saw a centimeter-wide metal ball attached to his thigh, stuck above the clothing of the jacket as if his thigh was a magnet.

Was this guy another hunter sent by the Ravensworth Family?

The man silently went through the contents of Mir's bag. But to Mir's surprise, he did not focus on the red diary sitting inside at all. Instead, he pulled out the three dead Glutton Boas from the bottom of the bag one by one, examining the corpses carefully.

"Hey-AHAGGHH!"

The moment Mir tried to address the man, the metal ball on his left leg sent out a jolt of pain coursing through the entire leg. Even his genitals weren't spared.

Mir lost his ability to process information for a moment as the pain overloaded his brain. His breathing began to hitch, and the left half of his body went out of control for a couple of seconds, muscles contorting painfully.

"Fucking busybodies ruining everything!" The man finally began to speak.

"It's one of the most well-hidden areas in the entire sacred ground, and yet, every day, I have to deal with you assholes who keep walking into it like someone's telling them to. Speak up, boy, who did you hear about the Glutton Boa valley from?"

The sheer absurdity of the question made Mir's focus shift for a moment. The pain in his leg receded as swiftly as it had appeared.

Ignoring the dull ache in his lower body, he replied, "The Glutton Boa valley? That's what you're...never mind. My brother found it while exploring this area last month. Who would tell us about such a treasure trove if they knew about that valley? Even as ordinary explorers, we were able to kill so many snakes! Others would go crazy if they found a place like this exists in the peripheral area of the sacred ground!"

Due to the mask, he couldn't read the man's expression. But he distinctly felt that the man hadn't been convinced by the explanation.

The man leaned closer to him and hissed, "Ordinary explorers? The grade- 3 Glutton Boa was stimulated out of its pseudo-hibernation by ordinary explorers? You should have come up with a better explanation, boy."

Thump!

Mir never saw the fist coming. The power behind the punch made him roll over a couple of times. His breathing pipe felt blocked for several seconds.

The man finally picked up the diary from the bag while Mir was wheezing for breath.

"A sacred artifact from the Church of Sunbreaker, eh? You're no member of their ranks. A trainee deacon? Or was this stolen from a trainee deacon?"

The man flipped through the pages and realized that only the first page had anything worth looking at.

Mir wanted to say something in his defense. But he suddenly felt a stinging sensation spreading inside his brain.

Alarmed, he took a peek at his Soulslot.

The Hybrid form in the dark space had mutated further, now barely humanoid in appearance. But that was not the alarming issue.

The Hybrid had its eyes open, and its pitch-black, pupil-less irises were focused right on him.

Mir did not know what he looked like inside his own Soulslot, but upon seeing him, a slow, deliberate smile began to spread across the Hybrid's mouth, revealing four rows of barbed jaws.