The Hunter Monarch

They pushed deeper into the Sunken Library, the initial silence giving way to a low, unsettling murmur. It sounded like whispers from a thousand different voices, all speaking at once, just on the edge of hearing. The words were incomprehensible, a maddening white noise that grated on the nerves.

"Scribes," Li Mei hissed, her hand tightening on her bow. "They're close."

The party slowed their pace, their movements becoming even more deliberate. They were now in the main scriptorium, a massive, multi-tiered chamber even larger than the entrance hall. A grand, spiral staircase, slick with algae, dominated the center, leading up into the oppressive darkness. The whispers were louder here, seeming to emanate from the very walls.

Lin Yu stayed tucked behind the party, his eyes scanning every shadow. His knowledge told him the Scribes were ghost-type entities, ambush predators that tethered themselves to specific locations. They were most dangerous when they could attack from an unexpected angle.

"I'll take the lead up the stairs," Su Wan commanded. "Chen, cover our rear. Li Mei, Tao, stay between us. Lin Yu, you know the drill. Stick close to Tao."

They began their ascent, their boots ringing softly on the stone steps. The spiral staircase was treacherous, with no railing on the outer edge. A misstep would mean a long fall into the dark, murky water below. Lin Yu kept one hand on the cold, damp stone of the central pillar, his knuckles white.

Halfway up the first flight, it happened.

A section of the stone wall to their right shimmered and became translucent. A ghostly figure, clad in the tattered robes of a librarian, lunged out from the solid stone. Its face was a vortex of swirling shadows, and its hands were long, ethereal claws. It wasn't an elemental; it was a Sunken Scribe, and its target was the most vulnerable member of the party.

"Healer!" Chen bellowed, turning to bring his shield around.

But the Scribe was unnaturally fast, its ambush perfectly timed. It ignored the heavily armored Paladin and Warrior, its spectral form gliding directly towards the softest target: Tao. The young healer froze, his face a mask of pure terror, his hands fumbling with the holy symbol around his neck. He was too slow, too shocked to react. Su Wan was too far ahead to intercept, and Chen's shield was a fraction of a second too late.

Lin Yu saw it all unfold in a horrifying moment of slow motion. He saw the Scribe's ethereal claws reaching for Tao's throat. He saw the panic in the young man's eyes. He saw the party's perfect formation breaking down in the face of a flawless ambush.

He had no skills. No spells. No enchanted weapon. He had nothing but his own weak body, a bag full of monster parts, and a mind screaming at him to do something.

Acting on pure, unthinking instinct, Lin Yu reacted. He couldn't fight it, but he could impede it. He unslung his massive pack—the source of his daily misery, the symbol of his powerlessness—and with a desperate grunt, he swung it with all his might.

The heavy bag, weighing over fifty kilograms, arced through the air like a clumsy, canvas cannonball.

It didn't damage the Scribe. The bag passed through its ghostly form as if it weren't there. But that wasn't the point. The bag sailed past the Scribe and slammed squarely into the unsuspecting Tao.

"Oof!" The healer grunted as the impact knocked him sideways, off balance. He stumbled, his feet slipping on the wet stone, and tumbled away from the Scribe's path. The ghost's claws swiped through empty air where Tao's neck had been a split second before.

The diversion, clumsy and desperate as it was, had worked. It had bought them the one thing they needed: an instant.

That was all Su Wan needed.

With a furious cry, she spun around, her longsword blazing with a golden light. It was not a normal strike; she had activated a skill, one that allowed her blade to connect with incorporeal foes. She lunged past Tao, her movement a blur of deadly grace, and plunged her glowing sword straight through the Scribe's chest.

The ghost let out a piercing, soul-rending shriek that echoed through the entire library. Its form flickered violently before dissolving into wisps of black smoke, leaving behind only the lingering scent of ozone and old books.

Silence descended once more, broken only by Tao's ragged breathing as he scrambled back up, his face pale.

"Are you alright?" Chen asked, his heavy gauntlet resting on the young healer's shoulder.

"I… I think so," Tao stammered, his eyes wide. He looked at Lin Yu, a new expression on his face—not pity, but shocked gratitude. "It… you…"

"That was quick thinking, Lin Yu," Su Wan said, her own voice tight with the lingering adrenaline of the fight. She walked over and offered him a hand, pulling him to his feet. "You saved him."

Lin Yu's heart was still hammering against his ribs. "I just… threw my bag," he said, feeling foolish.

"You saw an opening and you took it," Li Mei added, giving him a respectful nod. "Doesn't matter how. A life saved is a life saved."

He was being praised. Praised for his quick thinking in a fight. The feeling was so foreign it was dizzying. But as the adrenaline faded, it was replaced by a familiar cold dread. His desperate act had worked, but it had also laid his own vulnerability bare. He had been close enough to be a target. His only weapon had been his luggage. What if there had been two of them? He would be dead. His life had been preserved only by the skill of those around him.

…

For a fleeting moment, the air in the scriptorium seemed to shimmer, like heat haze off hot pavement. High above them, on a tier that had been empty a second before, a ghostly, translucent image of another party flickered into existence. It was a rare and unsettling phenomenon known as a 'Layer Echo'—a brief, unpredictable overlap where two parallel instances of the same Layer bled into one another.

Zhao Hu, leader of "Tiger's Fury," stood within that shimmering echo. He couldn't hear them clearly, the sound distorted as if coming through water, but he could see the scene below perfectly: the dissipated Scribe, the terrified Healer, and the Zero being praised. He saw Su Wan give Lin Yu's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. The sight, viewed through the strange, ghostly filter of the echo, was infuriatingly clear.

"Look at that," he muttered to his lieutenant, his voice dripping with disdain. "The Zero saved someone by being a clumsy oaf. Even a broken clock is right twice a day."

As quickly as it appeared, the echo faded, and Zhao Hu's party vanished from view, their instance once again separate and parallel. But the image had been burned into his mind, the jealousy and contempt hardening into something colder and more dangerous. "Pathetic."