Bena wasn’t special. It took a long time for her to know this.

  Bena’s parents were special people. Her mother was the guardian of the southern wall. Her father was an esteemed and well respected hunter of Ferric Meridian. Naturally, she grew up with stories about them.

  Her siblings lived up to those stories. Her brother became her mother’s sole apprentice. Her sister struck out on her own and secured a contract with the Ophidian Pact, becoming a high ranking executive of the company all on her own.

  Even as children the siblings excelled. Bena didn’t.

  For some reason, she was smaller than all her siblings at the same age. Even now, at eighteen years of age, just old enough for the academy, she didn’t even reach five feet in height.

  She didn’t put on muscle easily, like her brother did. She didn’t get much smarter, like her sister did.

  When she became a soulbound, she didn’t get a cool power, didn’t get scouted early, and just got the skill [clarity]. An uncommon skill that was basically an improved version of [scout]. It was better than the basic [scout] skill, sure, but it was nothing compared to the rare skills that her siblings got.

  Despite all that, it wasn’t like she was underappreciated. In fact, as the youngest child of the family, she was doted on constantly. She was loved. She was cared for.

  Her family trained hard. Worked hard, and pushed themselves to the limit. Mother and Father would train Bena’s siblings like their lives were on the line.

  Yet when it came to Bena, they didn’t do anything. They kept her like a pet.

  It suffocated her.

  Bena wanted to be someone, like her brother and her sister and her father and her mother.

  So at home, she honed her skill to the max. Every day, every couple minutes, she would boost her perception to the limit, over and over, draining her mana as soon as she got it.

  Using a skill over and over didn’t improve the skill in the system. The skill description was the same no matter how much you used it. It did, however, make you get better at using it. And if you realized something about the skill, like a revelation, you might get a skill evolution.

  A revelation was what Bena had found. Bena had realized she could focus her [clarity] with specific mana frequencies, scanning and forming pictures in her head of stuff that she couldn't even see. The system recognized this and evolved her skill into [true sight].

  Bena could hone her perception, now. She could filter out sounds, colors, temperatures, tastes, scents, and only focus only on her sight. [True sight] allowed her to ignore terrain if she put in enough mana.

  The first thing she watched were the neighbours' kids. They were training. Playing with their siblings.

  Days later, Bena watched them show an award to their parents. The parents hugged them, and the kid vibrated with joy.

  Bena turned away then.

  She saw blood as a soulbound criminal attacked someone on the street. Ophidian Pact enforcers quickly dealt with the criminal– on the spot execution.

  She saw a starving child.

  She saw a drug addicted mother.

  Bena’s parents still coddled her.

  She saw the lives of the lowest class guild-affiliated. Hated by everyone. Those on the streets and those higher up in their own companies.

  Bena’s siblings still treated her like a toddler, always fussing over the smallest little things.

  She looked over and over and all around her. Her siblings, at her age, were fighting in soulbound duels and gaining experience points. With her small body, she couldn’t train very hard with the sword. The system didn’t acknowledge anything but battle when it came to experience points. So she gained none.

  Then she went to the academy, and everything changed. She wasn’t coddled. She wasn’t told that she could have anything. She realized that if she wished, she could follow her own path. And maybe then, she would feel like she earned the praise her parents gave her. The care her siblings showed her.

  She just had to achieve.

  When blood was shed and tears flowed from the pain, when she and Thomas teamed up together to stab that guy in the back…

  When she saw Viviana, broken and bruised, the exiled heir to the greatest guild of Central…

  When she used her skill to hunt down the enemy, activating [true sight] at the last moment to see their expressions as they died…

  She revelled in it.

  This is it. What I wished for.

  So why do I still tremble?

  A part of her was still shackled by her family. A part of her wanted to go home, to a nice big house, to be cared for by her siblings, to be doted on by her parents. She felt that now.

  Maybe they were right. They never said it, but she felt it as she watched Thomas die on the blue side. Watched as Viviana sacrificed herself to stall the enemy, so Lucian and her could get away.

  They never discouraged me, never told me to give up, but I could tell they were saying it in their minds. Maybe I should have listened.

  Bena snapped back to the present. She had trusted Viviana and licked the sap on her arm, starting her shift. Her eyes widened as Viviana didn’t do the same. She watched as Viviana made a shooing gesture.

  Seconds later, the enemy appeared before her, and in a matter of seconds Bena and Lucian shifted away.

  They arrived on the blue side, right in front of Thomas’s corpse. In front of that was the remaining enemy who didn’t shift. He looked frightened. Did he not expect them to return?

  Bena shook her head, clearing her negative thoughts. She’d think about what she wanted in the future. For now, there was something she had to do. She couldn’t let Viviana’s sacrifice be in vain.

  With a smile on her face, and a shout, she exclaimed: “Let’s jump this clown!”

  Lucian knew of Viviana’s plan. Buy time so the enemy couldn’t shift back, and use that bought time to get their flags back.

  What he was contemplating, now, was betraying them.

  Bena and Lucian simultaneously attacked the only enemy on the blue side. He was the only one that stayed on the blue side and didn’t shift to the red side to hunt them down, so for a few moments it was Bena and Lucian versus him. That of course meant Viviana was fighting three versus one on the other side. It wasn’t looking good for her.

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  In anycase, that didn’t matter. The guy in front of Lucian and Bena right now had all the flags– the flags the guy originally carried, and the flags looted from Thomas. Lucian counted three flags in total. Lucian still had his own team's flag, so…

  If he killed this guy, then killed Bena and ran, he’d have four flags in his possession. Additionally, Viviana was most likely dead on the other side. Killing Bena would give him additional points for eliminating a team, probably. And then… he’d probably try to rescue his teammates.

  Lucian had thought about it before, but Viviana had ventured deep into The Follower’s territory. If they didn’t experience any signs of the monster, it was safe to assume it was dead. If they were, taking his teammates off of a corpse tree would be trivial.

  Yet a part of him didn’t like it.

  Betrayal was the logical decision, yes, but Lucian was sick and tired of betrayals. How could he do that to them? Use and discard them, just like what happened to his family?

  Lucian still remembered the day that left his twin sister and him orphans. After everything his parents did for the guild company Adler-Stern, they discarded them. It was the day he and his twin turned hard. Scavenging on the streets of Central, looking for any jobs soulbound could do. Gang enforcers. Robbers. Bodyguards. They did it all.

  It was a cutthroat business, and not one for the faint of heart. Backstabbing and fraud were commonplace. Lucian took part, like any criminal that wanted to live another day.

  Eventually they had a lucky break. Underground pits provided his twin a hidden sponsor. Lucian simply tagged along, because she insisted. He wasn’t proud of what he did. He wasn’t proud of how he escaped that life. He hated Adler-Stern for doing all that to him. He wanted revenge.

  Yet he was realistic. What could a slum dog like him do to the greatest guild to ever walk the shattered earth?

  So a part of him thought. If he eliminated Viviana’s team now, maybe that’d be enough. Maybe that would drop her rating a lot. Maybe that’d get her kicked out, to live like he did, on the streets.

  Maybe he could get his revenge in some other way. Maybe he’d do the impossible. If he kept Viviana's trust, he could use her.

  Lucian couldn’t focus on the fight in front of him. It was a mixture of these conflicting thoughts and the strain on his mana from using too many skills.

  I’m tired. I don’t know what to do.

  It felt like an eternity, but Bena finally dealt the finishing blow.

  [You have slain a level 1 Soulbound.]

  [+1 exp] [shared]

  He pushed the system notification out of his mind as he thought about betrayal once more. How his parents were betrayed. How he betrayed his friends, his colleagues on the streets of Central. He decided against it on a whim.

  I’m tired of betrayals, after all.

  His decision was rewarded when a singular figure shifted in front of them. Viviana Adler-Stern.

  She was bleeding from half a dozen wounds. She was missing a hand. In her other hand, she held a blue pulsating orb of flesh. Her eyes were just as blue as the alien world around them.

  “Hunt,” she said. She held out the orb. “There’s one left.”

  Viviana woke up in the grass to gentle morning sunlight caressing her skin. And to screaming and sobbing. Oh, and also system notifications.

  [You have slain a level 1 soulbound.]

  [+3 exp]

  [You have slain a level 1 soulbound.]

  [+3 exp]

  [You can distribute (1) stat point.]

  It looks like the system granted her the experience for destroying their blue hound organs, which lead to their deaths.

  Now that she was alive, she realized that the people she killed would revive as well. Unfortunately for them, they’d revive on the red side and without air-filtering organs, killing them again.

  She sat up, observing the world around her. She was in the inverted plains, on the blue side. It looked like night had passed. The plain still glowed with bioluminescence, but the sun lazily dyed the world yellow.

  Lucian was standing next to her, silently observing the scene in front of her. “You up?”

  She nodded wearily. She was still feeling the effects of using so much mana and resurrecting from the dead.

  “I saw how you dealt with the enemy team. You targeted the blue hound organs in their mouths, and shifted out to safety. You left them stranded on the red side to breathe the toxic air. You made me and Bena shift first to ensure we took minimal damage, that way we could outnumber the remaining guy and deal with him easily. Your plan was working, but when you saw you couldn’t deal with all three, you took one of the remaining organs and gave it to us to finish the job.

  “You thought all of that in less than fifteen seconds. All while under extreme mental fatigue from using your lightning traps, and using [dash] in the previous fight.”

  Viviana nodded again. Lucian said nothing for a bit.

  She then heard Bena’s voice. “That’s what you get for killing Thomas! Wahahaha!”

  “Bena…stop!....don’t hurt him….” said Thomas. He was alive and well.

  Bena was poking a guy with a sword, who was tied up to a tree with makeshift ropes made out of the thick blue grass that grew everywhere here.

  The poor guy was bleeding from a dozen different cuts and crying his eyes out. Thomas looked like he was about to cry too.

  Viviana moved her hands to rub her eyes and found that her severed hand was reattached. A piece of grass was expertly tied around her hand, securing it in place so soulbound regeneration would kick in and do the rest. Thomas must have done this.

  In any case, now was a good time to look through her system menu.

  [Welcome, Viviana Adler-Stern.]

  [Soulbound Lightning]

  [Level 2]

  [Experience: 15/200]

  [Unallocated points: 1]

  [VIG=2; MIN=1; END=2; STR=2; DEX=2; WIL=1]

  [Equipped Skills]

  [Lightning Trap] [Dash]

  With one unallocated point, she decided to put it into MIN, increasing her total mana slightly. The buzzing in her head cleared a little. She probed her mana, trying to feel out the quantity. She’d probably be able to squeeze out one or two more [dash] uses compared to last time.

  She was also at seventeen experience points. Three more and she’d get another point to allocate. Nice.

  Bena noticed Viviana was awake and instantly stopped torturing the prisoner for some reason. “I wasn’t doing anything! Promise!”

  Viviana nodded idly, not really comprehending the past couple seconds. She was normally good at mornings, but resurrecting did a number on her. “You guys got him alive. Good work,” she said. “I was fine with you guys killing him, but this is better.”

  Lucian shrugged, leaning on his sword that was stuck in the ground. It clearly saw some use. “I’m not sure how much better. What information can you even get out of him? His team’s all dead.”

  “I’ll try then,” said Viviana. She hoisted herself up to her feet, noticing that one of her teammates placed her sword back in her sheath. She dropped it on the other side, so someone had to have retrieved it. She would thank them later.

  The guy tied to the tree sniveled and shuddered and then stopped. He noticed Viviana walking towards him.

  A nasally, pathetic voice came out of him. He was even less clear than Thomas. “Stop…! I don’t wanna die!”

  Viviana raised an eyebrow. She didn’t even do anything. “Where’s the other team with the Blue Hound organs?”

  “I don’t… I don’t know! The Hunter! The Hunter doesn’t tell me!”

  Viviana suddenly moved forward, slamming her sword into the tree. She took off his ear. Bad move. She could smell the scent of piss. “Tell me or die,” she said. A weak threat all things considered, but he wasn’t thinking straight.

  “I said… I said I don’t know! The Hunter didn’t say anything!”

  Viviana looked at her teammates. They shrugged, except for Thomas who was looking away. She moved her sword sideways, pressing it into the side of the guy’s head. He screamed. “Who’s The Hunter?”

  At this, the guy suddenly sharpened up. Fear. Not for Viviana, not for the situation he was in. “I… can’t tell you…”

  She drove her blade deeper. “Who is The Hunter?”

  “...”

  Viviana sighed. “This isn’t working. I don’t wanna do this anymore. Bena, Lucian, whoever caught him can kill him for the experience.”

  Lucian nodded, walking towards the tied up guy. But as he raised his blade, before he could deal the finishing blow, the tortured man let out a choking gasp. He spoke, clear as day amidst snot and snivel.

  “You think you’re so strong, huh?” he said. “You think you’re clever, exile? Just because you beat my team?... You’re wrong. The little strategy you used… the swordsmanship you used…stealing and breaking our blue hound organs, leaving us stranded on the red side…it’s nothing compared to what The Hunter is. He’s coming for you, Adler-Stern. He’s coming for all of you! You… you-”

  The man looked at Lucian as he readied his blade, eyes widening. One swift stroke. Lucian killed him.