Chapter 6: To Kill a Thought
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The Abyss Owl didn't fly.
It glided.
Soundless. Motionless. Like an idea moving through darkness.
For the first time in over eleven months, Tian felt the same fear he did the night Tang San tried to kill him — the fear of something more precise than him. Something smarter.
He had prepared traps, backup traps, and contingencies for every variable.
But this enemy?
This wasn't a beast.
It was a haunting.
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📆 Month 11, Day 2 – First Contact
The reports weren't wrong.
He found the Owl's nesting zone just after sunset — in a broken canyon overrun with shadow-fanged lilies. The local flora glowed faintly, creating a false sky of stars just overhead. It was beautiful. Quiet.
Deceptive.
> [Target: Abyss Owl]
Age: Estimated 2,750 years
Domain: Emotion Corruption, Spectral Class
Threat: High
Mental Interference: Level 3 (Moderate Instability Induced)
The moment Tian looked through the scope, he felt it.
A headache. A pulse behind the eyes.
His thoughts fractured.
He blinked and realized ten minutes had passed.
The gun was unsummoned.
His breathing was erratic.
His mind had looped on a single word: worthless.
"Damn... this is real mind pollution."
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⚙️ Plan Revision
Normal beasts could be stalked.
But this one stalked back — through your emotions.
He revised his plan:
1. Set layered traps not around the Owl, but on himself. If he went into a mental spiral, the pain would bring him back.
2. Create an aural scrambler: a low-frequency whistle using twin bramble reeds and wind tension, mimicking the Owl's own dissonance — to distort its precision.
3. Load a new neuro-modified bullet: base = Soul Rot + fragment of spider neurotoxin from an old kill. If hit, the Owl's body would lock for 2 seconds.
4. Build a dummy version of himself with dried flesh over a tree-bark skeleton — bait the owl into corrupting a false mind.
It took five days to assemble the new plan.
He hadn't cultivated.
He hadn't eaten more than scavenged fruit.
But this kill was worth everything.
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📆 Month 11, Day 10 – The Ambush
Night. Cloudless. No wind.
Perfect.
He activated the scrambler, summoned the gun, and lay prone beneath a ridge — the decoy version of himself twenty meters ahead, warm with a heat pouch and coated in human sweat.
The gun vibrated gently in his grip.
Not from recoil.
But anticipation.
> [Ammo Loaded: Neurobullet (Soul Rot + Mind Spike)]
[Scope Range: Rank 70 and below]
[Silencer Mask: Active]
[Spirit Power Remaining: 62/100]
The Owl appeared at exactly midnight.
It didn't fly in from above.
It manifested — out of fog, its wings unfolding like shadows given shape.
Its eyes glowed, and suddenly Tian felt doubt.
"Why live?"
The thought wasn't his. But it infected him.
BANG.
He fired the first shot — but missed.
The Owl didn't move — it phased. The bullet passed through it like through fog.
Not incorporeal.
Just smart.
"Damn it."
He took another shot.
BANG.
Hit. Left wing. Neuro-effect triggered.
The Owl twitched mid-air, wobbling, falling—
Then it screamed.
Not audibly — but into his mind.
Tian reeled. His nose bled. He tasted salt and steel. The world spun.
Everything inside screamed shoot again, but his finger wouldn't move.
Until—
Snap!
One of his pain-traps went off — a thorn lashing across his forearm.
Pain cleared the fog.
BANG.
Third shot.
Hit the torso. Energy bled from the Owl's body like liquid shadow.
BANG.
Fourth shot. Wing again.
It tried to flee.
Too late.
Tian jumped from cover, gun in one hand, dagger in the other.
He dashed forward, feet buffered by spirit force. AVATAR active.
He reached the Owl just before it reentered the fog — and stabbed the dagger straight into its left eye.
The beast screeched, shuddered, twitched...
And died.
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The ring floated above the corpse — dark violet, like twilight after a storm.
> [Abyss Owl Ring – 2,750 Years]
[Effect: Mindlock – Induces casting delay and ability failure chance]
[Secondary: Emotion Scramble (Randomized)]
[Absorption: Compatible – Success Rate 94%]
[Martial Soul Enhancement Eligible: SIG MCX Spear (M7)]
Tian fell to one knee.
His nose still bleeding. His mind still shaky.
But his hands were steady.
He summoned the gun.
> [Confirm Absorption?]
[YES / NO]
"YES."
The ring dissolved into motes of darkness, sliding into the barrel, into the chamber, into the soul of the gun.
A new rune path glowed.
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⚔️ SYSTEM UPGRADE
> [2nd Spirit Ring Attached]
[New Skill: Mindlock]
-- Effect: +1s cast delay on enemy skill activation
-- 30% chance skill fails entirely
-- Stacks up to 2x
-- Duration: 5 seconds
[Fusion Enabled: Soul Rot + Mindlock]
[New Bullet Type: Neurobullet]
[New Ammo Effect: Drain + Disruption]
[AVATAR Boost: Rank 60 Equivalent]
[Scope Boosted: T3 — Now sees through Illusion/Disguise/Stealth up to Rank 70 or 15,000-year beast age]
[Silencer Boosted: T3 — Mutes spiritual leakage, prevents detection by spirit senses below Spirit Emperor]
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Tian collapsed under a tree and laughed.
He didn't feel joy.
Just relief.
And rising calculation.
> "With Soul Rot, I could weaken. Now with Mindlock, I can interrupt."
> "The next? Something that explodes. Catastrophe-level."
His finger traced the growing rune lines on the gun's side. He could feel it evolving — not into a weapon.
Into a principle.
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📅 Month 12 — Year 1 Complete
Tian had survived one year in the wild.
He was now 7 years old.
He had:
2 Spirit Rings
Rank 15 Spirit Power
6 confirmed beast kills
1 confirmed human kill
Dozens of traps still hidden in active zones
He was no longer just prey.
But he wasn't the apex either.
That title belonged to the ones in the Mid-Zone and deeper — ones with spirit power beyond his reach.
For now.
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He packed up.
It was time to change terrain.
Not just for cultivation.
But for the next hunt.
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[End of Chapter 6 – To be continued in Chapter 7: "Catastrophe Code"]