"Where the hell did he go?"
Plum and her five teammates stood frozen. They spun in circles, eyes wide, but the forest edge was empty. Silas had vanished.
The party's Assassin, a tall man who had prided himself on his "professional" class pick, looked bewildered. "Was that a stealth skill? Starting with stealth... what kind of broken class is that?" He had chosen Assassin specifically for that fantasy, but he didn't even have a smoke bomb yet, let alone true invisibility.
After searching fruitlessly and fearing the monsters beyond the fence, the group retreated toward Shell Town, bitter and shaken.
"It's too dangerous out there," Plum said, her voice tight. "We've already lost half our lives. We need to find something in town, a chest, an NPC, anything, to bridge the gap."
"Right, right," the long-haired girl whispered, her face still pale. "There has to be a hidden quest or something."
The tall Assassin tried to play it cool. "Look, don't be so tense. This 'lifespan' talk is probably just flavor text for the game. Once we respawned, we should have just gone back and finished that beast off. It was almost dead!"
"We didn't even take off half its health," Plum snapped. "That guy? He's probably hiding in a bush. He's either going to stay invisible until his timer runs out and die, or he's already been eaten."
Silas didn't care about their choices. He knew Shell Town was a hollow shell, a cage for the timid.
With Shadow Cloak active, the world became a muted, grey canvas. His footsteps made no sound; his heartbeat was a silent rhythm; his breathing didn't even stir the air. This was the "Arbiter's" grace. In the early stages of this world, nothing, not even the predators, possessed the sensory "Anti-Stealth" needed to see through his +1 Stealth Rank.
He moved a hundred yards into the blackened woods. There, crouched near the base of a twisted tree, was the silhouette of the Crawl-Beast.
[Crawl-Beast (Level 1)]
Rank: Common (Evolving...)
"So, this is what killed them," Silas narrowed his eyes.
The beast was a faceless, grey-skinned humanoid with elongated, spindly limbs. It was draped in a faint, ashen mist, unprocessed Lifespan fragments stolen from Plum and her team. The creature was greedy; it had already harvested enough to evolve, but it stayed, waiting for more "batteries" to wander out of the town.
"I'll take that back. Along with your life."
Silas found a blind spot. As his first cloak flickered out, he instantly recasted it. The transition was seamless.
He crept forward. The stench of rot and ozone hung heavy around the creature. Silas moved behind it, his Scrap Iron Dagger gleaming with a cold, Isu-blue light. He targeted the base of the skull, the primary neural junction of the biomorph.
Strike.
The blade was a blur of silver. It sank deep into the beast's "neck," a weak point that amplified damage by 1.5x.
-372! (Weak Point Critical)
A spray of grey ichor hit the dirt. The Crawl-Beast didn't even scream; it simply collapsed, its evolution cut short by a single, surgical blow.
[You have slain 'Crawl-Beast (Level 1)'.][Gained 10 XP.]
A sphere of pulsing ashen light hovered over the corpse. Silas reached out, crushing the mist in his palm.
[Gained 3 Days of Tradeable Lifespan.][Gained 54 Years, 155 Days of Non-Tradeable Lifespan.]
Silas shook his head. "Plum's team lost over a century between the five of them. Only fifty-four years recovered... the conversion rate is brutal."
Non-tradeable lifespan was just a countdown to death; it kept you in the game. But Tradeable Lifespan was the key. Three days was a pittance. He needed months, years, centuries of it if he wanted to bring his Isu-tier powers into the Great Federation.
He looted the remains. Two items tumbled out:
Rot-Hide Boots (Inferior): Grey Quality. Physical Defense +3, Movement Speed +5%.
Skill Book: Ice Bolt (Common): White Quality. Mage Class.
"Double drops. Decent luck," Silas muttered, pulling on the boots. They were ugly, but the 5% speed boost stacked with his Agility.
He didn't wait. He reactivated Shadow Cloak and pushed deeper into the forest. He needed Evolution Points, and Level 1 trash wouldn't provide them.
As Silas vanished again, the first wave of other players began to trickle out of Shell Town. A young couple stumbled upon the area where the Crawl-Beast had died.
"Look! Someone already killed a monster!" the boy laughed, pointing at the dissolving corpse. "See,? I told you it wasn't that hard. Don't be so nervous."
"You're right," the girl smiled, clutching his arm. "If something comes out, you'll protect me, right?"
"I'll slaughter it! Just watch!"
They didn't notice the massive, dark shape shifting in the branches directly above their heads. The hunt had only just begun.