Chapter 307: Haunted Field

Kruger had been waiting for days, perched high in the branches, hidden under a cloak of leaves. The camouflaged mantle blended him into the canopy, making him part of the forest itself. From his post near the barrier gate he’d been camping, silent, patient. His mission was simple: wipe out every member of Allison Rhiannon’s group. The ones who had crossed to the other side, the ones plotting to escape this world. No one left unless he allowed it. For now, this place was perfect. His personal hunting ground.

The soldiers who once patrolled here had been sent away, replaced by Kruger’s own people. Like him, they had no interest in leaving. Most were cowards clinging to a twisted sense of safety; a few had actually grown to like this place. And among them were the criminals they’d recruited after Marshall’s death, a new gang built to crush future arrivals in next year’s tutorial. Controlling that criminal tide had turned out to be useful.

Kruger had chosen this spot as the kill zone for a reason. Hunting them in the capital would be reckless. Luke knew the city’s terrain too well.

Just thinking of him made Kruger clench his fist. That little bastard had humiliated him once, dared to stop him from punishing Angélica, then burned half his face with acid. The first fight had been a joke, really. A game he’d played with a rat. He’d held back his true power, his ranked skill. If he’d unleashed everything, Luke would already be a corpse. This time would be different. This time, he would savor it.

The ambush plan was straightforward: hit hard while they were disoriented. Kruger had numbers on his side. Far more than the eight in Rhiannon’s team. He had even considered using his own people as decoys, posing as the camp soldiers who had supposedly been sent away, and then slaughtering the eight when they arrived. Perfect on paper. But perfection came with two flaws. First, Kruger wanted them to know. He wanted their fear. To taste it. He wasn’t foolish. If stealth had been the best option, he would have done it. But fear was a spice, and he craved it. The second flaw had feathers.

The raven.

Jonathan had told them about Evangeline’s familiar, and suddenly everything fit. That bird alone threatened to ruin the plan. If Kruger and his soldiers pretended to be the old patrol, there was no telling what code or signal the original group might use once the raven came scouting. One wrong glance, one small hesitation, and the ambush would collapse.

So Kruger chose doubt instead. When the raven came, it would see nothing. An empty camp. A question mark. Doubt was a toxin, and Kruger understood poison better than anyone.

The best plan was the one that felt wrong on purpose. Stir up a sense of unease around Second Fortress, make them believe something was off. What other choice would they have? They’d have to cross here anyway, right into the trap. The ambush would be waiting underground, out of sight from the raven, beyond the reach of any shadow sensor Evangeline might be using.

Digging the tunnels had been easy. Trusted soldiers with the Miner profession opened them quickly, and the trap specialists built the hidden hatch covers afterward. The soldiers were stocked with food and told to store it in their storage items, with narrow air slits cut to let them breathe. Kruger’s teleportation skill allowed him to slip from one tree to another without ever exposing himself, the foliage swallowing him whole. He even slept inside one of the burrows while camouflaged scouts kept constant watch among the branches.

There was no room for mistakes against this group. They were the strongest of the tutorial, just as Kruger had been. And they weren’t just strong, they were armed with powerful skill items. Most of their skills had already been discovered or deduced. Ronan, the traitor, was an open book. Mason, the Bastion smith, had been partially mapped out, though new tricks might have surfaced.

But Luke was the real target.

Kruger had studied him in detail. The man could call roots from the ground to bind enemies, cast a mist to blind them, mark targets, and fire an arrow that unleashed an acid cloud. Luke had already killed some of Kruger’s assassins. By personally compiling the reports from the bandit attack he’d orchestrated on their Safe Zone, Kruger confirmed the acid cloud came from an arrow. He also learned two key weaknesses.

First, Luke’s acid skill required a bow. In combat, that meant watching for the moment he switched from kukris to bow, the telltale signal. Second, Luke never stayed near his own acid cloud. Every report placed him at a distance during use. The Safe Zone fight had practically confirmed it. If Kruger could force him into close range, Luke wouldn’t dare trigger it.

Kruger had been there during that attack, cloaked in silence thanks to the skill he’d gained when he reached peak rank. He’d watched and waited, adding each detail to the hunt.

[Forgotten’s Invisibility (Rank F)]: Born of a desire to vanish from the world, of a soul warped by rejection and silent fury. This skill is a reflection of what was buried and embraced. The user becomes partially invisible, their form blurred as if slipping through dimensions. Anything they carry, armor, weapons, even fresh blood, is absorbed into the distortion. This isn’t illusion. It’s deliberate absence. A walking void. A ghost in flesh. A final reckoning made visible, not by form, but by consequence.

The skill had its flaws. It worked best when he stayed still; movement weakened the invisibility. Even so, it had been invaluable for confirming information during the Safe Zone raid.

The knight traveling with Luke had been trouble. She wielded a chain pull and some strange skill that made an enemy’s body explode, or so Kruger suspected. She also carried a barrier skill. Back then, trying to kill Luke would’ve been risky. He’d been flanked by the knight and by Eleanor, the traitor. Kruger’s orders had been to kill any member of the core group, but only if they weren’t backed by someone just as strong. So he’d let that chance slip away.

Not now.

Now he intended to unleash everything, to turn chaos into blood and take his revenge. Rage still burned at the thought of Luke daring to think himself superior. During the Safe Zone incident, Kruger had only been playing with him. He’d needed Luke to cause chaos so Bartholomew’s narrative would stick. But here, no strings held him back. He was free to kill the bastard who’d scarred him with acid.

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Kruger would prove his supremacy as an assassin.

His ranked skill, combined with his epic class and profession skills, made him the ultimate predator in single combat.

His epic class skill was:

[Haunted Field (Epic)]: The Phantom Assassin embraces their own hauntings and unleashes a shroud of pale mist that blankets the surrounding area. Inside this spectral fog, targets begin to see multiple illusions of the Phantom Assassin emerging from the shadows, advancing with murderous intent. These phantoms move and strike as if real, overwhelming the senses, breaking concentration, and making it impossible to tell the true assassin from the false ones. Enemy attacks have a chance to miss due to the disorientation, while the real Phantom Assassin moves freely among the mirages, poised for the killing blow. The minds of the weak may crumble into madness even before the blade finds them.

Combined with his invisibility, it was lethal. Inside the Haunted Field, his stealth sharpened to something almost supernatural. Enemies thought they were countering his strikes, when in reality the real Kruger was invisible, sliding between their perceptions.

But that wasn’t his only card. He had one more trump for Luke, his epic profession skill:

[Toxic Zone (Epic)]: When activated, an imperceptible toxic mist spreads across the area. All poisons used within this zone become vastly more potent, doubling their effects and drastically cutting the time needed to take hold. Enemies exposed to poison experience symptoms almost instantly—paralysis, delirium, convulsions, or total collapse, depending on the toxin applied. Natural or magical resistances to poison are partially bypassed within the Toxic Zone. Prolonged exposure steadily weakens enemies even without direct contact with toxins. It’s the perfect environment for relentless, unseen hunting.

The skill itself only weakened enemies slowly, its effect creeping in as long as they stayed close. But if the target had already been poisoned by him, that was when the real potential revealed itself.

Kruger felt a smile creep across his face at the memory. Nothing compared to the satisfaction of killing someone under the weight of his skills.

No one ever truly understood his powers. Even if he didn’t lift a finger after poisoning a target, the Epic skill would magnify the venom as long as he stayed nearby, and staying invisible gave him the perfect edge. How many tear-streaked faces had he watched crumple? How many pleas had he heard dissolve into silence? Music to his ears.

This was how a real assassin worked. Waiting. Thinking. Calculating.

If the group in the capital died to the threats lurking there, so much the better. If they didn’t, he would finish the job himself. He doubted they’d all die, maybe one or two, but the fact they’d come with such a small team meant they were confident or desperate. Nobody walked into that territory without a plan. Maybe they were just chasing levels. It didn’t matter. He was still the deadliest thing in this tutorial.