The Ultimate Regressor System

Chapter 47: Hunted

"Shit!"

Lucas bolted upright, heart hammering against his ribs like drums. The world around him had shifted in an instant—no longer the familiar confines of his locked room behind the faction’s walls, but the cool, damp grass of a lakeshore under a twilight sky.

Mist curled off the water’s surface like and the air carried that same stagnant, metallic tang he remembered all too well.

Trees loomed at the edge of the clearing, their branches thin and twisted, reaching toward the sky.

"Wait a minute..."

He knew this place.

Recognition hit him like a physical blow...

This was the lake. THE lake.

The one where everything had begun, where his first death had claimed him. Where his first ever beast— the Makara had killed him several weeks before.

The memory surged, flooding his mind in a torrent of memories, the mud caking his head, the desperate all or nothing fight afterwards, the way the system had dragged him back with a survival probability so low he wondered how he won in the first place...

Lucas shuddered violently, his hands digging into the mud as if to anchor himself to something real. His breath came in short, ragged bursts as his eyes darted around the forest.

"Shit. I’m here," he whispered, "I’m back at this damned place..."

A flicker of movement caught his eye—something shifting behind a cluster of trees a few yards away. It wasn’t the wind as the shape was too deliberate,cloaked in shadows that seemed to gobble up what little light existed.

Lucas’s stomach twisted as he pushed himself to his feet, legs unsteady, trying to calm his breathing...

[Ding!]

The system notification bloomed in his vision, the glitching crimson screen appearing in front of him.

[Skill: Ignition has been disabled.]

"Oh, hell no."

His fists clenched instinctively.

[Ignition]... the one ability that had pulled him through more shit than he cared to count, the uncontrolled fire that had become his only method of combat. Gone. Just like that. Before he could even curse the unfairness, another line appeared below it.

[Main objective: Survive for 30 minutes.]

Thirty minutes. The timer materialized in the corner of his interface, ticking down from 30 in taunting red digits. Lucas’s mouth went dry.

[Time remaining: 29:57]

A low hum filled the air, vibrating through his skull and above his head, crimson energy condensed like blood, forming a scythe, hovering just out of reach, its blade curved and wickedly sharp. The glow bathed him in an ominous light, pulsing in time with his racing heart before simply fading away leaving a crimson scythe on top of his head like a crown.

The figure stepped forward—not stepped exactly, it seemed to float forward...

It emerged from the trees with deliberate slowness, as if savoring the moment.

The figure was draped in tattered black robes that fluttered despite the lack of wind. Where a face should have been, there was only a void, an endless pit framed by the faint outline of a hood.

In its skeletal hands, it gripped a physical scythe, mirror to the one floating above Lucas, but far more solid. The blade gleamed, etched with runes that writhed as if it was alive...

Lucas stepped back, breath hitching.

’Okay... okay I could make this work. Distance.... Just keep your distance....’

If that figure was anything like the beasts he’d faced before, closing the gap meant death.

He had made up his mind. He would run, circle the lake and buy time until the timer hit zero— if he wouldn’t encounter any beasts, that is.

The Reaper raised its scythe in a fluid arc. The blade passing through the air, and a wave of crimson energy erupted outward the moment it sliced forward.

Lucas’ eyes widened. It was not a close quarters strike, but a crescent slash that tore across the distance between them in a heartbeat. Trees exploded in its path. Trunks thicker than Lucas’s torso splintered as the energy wave carved a devastating furrow through the forest.

The shockwave slammed into Lucas’s side, hurling him off his feet and sending him tumbling across the mud caked ground.

He rolled, gasping, pain flaring along his ribs.

’Fuck! It can reach me. Of course it can. Why wouldn’t it?.’

Panic clawed up his throat, raw as primal fear settled in his body. No safe distance meant no mercy.

"Shit shit shit!" Lucas scrambled up and ran.

His feet pounded the ground, lungs already burning as he sprinted along to the lake’s edge.

Mist whipped past his face and behind him, The Reaper moved. Not with frantic speed, but with purpose— floating along the ground with horrifying calmness.

Lucas glanced back once and The Reaper swung again.

Another crescent of crimson tore toward him. He dove left, instincts screaming, and the slash obliterated the spot where he’d been standing. Water from the lake erupted as the energy hit the shallow side, sending a spray of water raining down like blood in the crimson light.

He pushed harder, legs pumping, weaving between trees that offered little to no cover. Branches whipped at his arms, drawing thin lines of blood.

’Thirty minutes. Just survive, damn it!’

[Time remaining: 27:30]

The chase became a nightmare of motion and sound. The Reaper gained on him twice in the first ten minutes.

First, when Lucas’s foot caught on a root hidden in the undergrowth. He stumbled, momentum flinging him forward, and the Reaper closed the gap with terrifying swiftness.

Its scythe whistled down in a vertical strike. Lucas threw himself sideways at the last second, feeling the blade’s wind brush his shoulder like the kiss of death. The ground where he’d fallen erupted in a crater, dirt and stones pelting his back.

"Fuck! Keep moving!" he snarled to himself, voice lost in the wind of his flight. He rolled to his feet and sprinted again, heart threatening to burst.

The second time came near a cover of denser woods. Lucas tried to lose the Reaper in the shadows, darting low under hanging branches and for a precious few seconds, the pursuit seemed to falter.

**CHING**

The scythe swung in a wide horizontal arc. Trees fell like dominoes around him

One massive trunk toppled directly into his path. Lucas leaped, muscles screaming, clearing it by inches as the Reaper’s form materialized through the settling dust.

It was toying with him. The realization sent ice down his spine.

[Time remaining: 19:12]

The timer ticked steadily. Legs heavy, vision spotting at the edges. Sweat stung his eyes and every breath felt like knives in his lungs.

"Come on, come on!" Lucas muttered through gritted teeth, forcing a burst of speed toward a rocky outcrop near the lake.

If he could climb it, gain some height, he could maybe buy a few seconds to think.

His hands scraped against stone as he hauled himself up, fingers slipping on moss slick surfaces. The Reaper followed, unhindered, its form gliding up the incline as if gravity were an idea it decided against.

Halfway up, it struck again. The energy wave sheared the rock face beneath him. Lucas lost his grip, sliding and tumbling down in the shower of gravel that followed. Pain exploded in his body as he hit the bottom, but he kept rolling, using the momentum to regain his feet.

The forest seemed endless, a looping hell designed to get him killed once and for all.

He splashed through shallow streams feeding the lake, the cold water shocking his system awake for brief moments. The Reaper’s presence pressed on him like a physical weight.

Minutes bled together in a haze of exhaustion.

[12:45] on the timer and Lucas’ pace had become a stumbling jog. His body was at its limit, muscles twitching and vision blurring.

It gained again, and this time it lunged, raising the scythe in the air as it prepared to strike.

Lucas twisted desperately, but the blade caught his side. Not a full hit, but enough. Fire tore across his ribs, hot blood soaking his shirt. He cried out, staggering with his hand clamped over the wound. It wasn’t deep enough to kill, but it slowed him critically.

’This is it.’ The thought was calm, almost resigned, ’i’m really going to die now. For good this time...’

The Reaper loomed over him, scythe raised for the finishing blow. The crimson glow from the mark above his head flared as time stretched as he saw the blade descend in slow motion, death... final death inches away—

[Ding!]

[Objective: Survive for 30 minutes has been completed]

The world fractured. White light swallowed everything, yanking Lucas backward through a vortex of sensation—weightlessness, vertigo, the distant echo of a frustrated shriek from The Reaper.

Then, nothing....

He slammed back into his body in the darkened room, gasping violently.

The familiar ceiling stared down at him. His side burned where the wound had been, but the wound was gone as the phantom pain lingered, a reminder etched into his nerves.

Lucas sat up slowly, chest heaving and sweat drenching his clothes. The timer had vanished, but the memory of those thirty minutes played on repeat in his mind: the lake, the mark, the memory of him being hunted.

He swung his legs off the bed and stood, pacing the small space. Sleep? Impossible. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that void face. He saw that scythe...

He stayed awake the entire night, back against the wall, staring at the door. The distant shrieks of Bora beyond the Relic’s barrier filtered in occasionally, but they were nothing compared to the terror that had hunted him personally.

The Grim Reaper didn’t need hordes or breaches.

It came for him alone....