Unable to repay my student loans, I had no choice but to work part-time as a demon hunter.

Gray and Gordon stared at each other for a moment.

"Then you go first." Gordon didn't intend to talk to Grecop.

"The wisdom of the ancients tells us that the elements are light, darkness, and twelve elements. Of course, the specifics are not important."

"Then why are you bringing this up?"

"To make my words seem more profound, because the human body contains the source matter, which is essentially creating a miniature world that is directly yours. What elements and rules are in it is ultimately yours to choose."

Then, Gray placed a glass on the table and opened his small flask to pour some into it.

"Self." The wine in the glass rose to its full height.

"Force field." A few drops of wine spilled out.

"Domain." The wine overflowed from the glass, eventually soaking the entire tabletop.

The rich aroma of wine then permeated the air, seeping in and even infusing the wood with its scent.

"At the Domain stage." Gray put down the flask. "You materialize the Source Matter, centering it on yourself, and alter the surrounding reality. Its fuel is your spirit, will, and soul, and its manifestation is all the Source Matter you refine."

"Soul?" Gordon asked curiously.

"Yes, yourself, your most fundamental element. The essence will only amplify what you are, and it manifests in your domain. The essence can change, but once a person's domain has unfolded in this lifetime, it almost never changes again. So, if you want to cross that threshold, you must make your soul shine brightly and reveal your essence." Gray nodded.

Vera closed her eyes.

Breathe, settle, and discern the blood-soaked chain of fate within your body.

She once thought the answer was simple: she was a weapon. The hunter school's arrangements, the entrusted instructions…

Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, living in a daze.

Tearing apart fate...

Stray dogs bite because they have nowhere to run. Wild beasts open their jaws because they have territory to protect.

Yes, she has a place she wants to go back to, so anything that gets in her way must die.

She took Gordon's hand; their hands were not similar, yet they were clasped together.

Vera didn't know how she dared to do it; she only knew that if she let go now, she would have to continue pretending not to care.

Gordon also clenched his fist.

Some relationships are like this: a little courage can lead to more courage, and taking the initiative can make the other person take a step forward as well.

She and Gordon exchanged a glance, their eyes meeting.

Gray began to doubt his necessity in being there.

He just said that souls shine brightly, but he didn't mean for them to illuminate each other's lives here.

"...There's one more thing," Gray interrupted, "This is my emotional killer."

The gun is long and slender, and where the magazine should be is only a silver box with markings.

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["Emotion Killer." Its method of resolving emotions is to make you forget the story associated with those emotions.]

"This is the strangest thing I've ever seen," Gordon said, observing it.

"Its ammunition is emotion. Of course, it won't make you lose your joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, but rather the memories behind those emotions. The more real and intense those memories are, the more powerful the bullet."

"Forget your memories?"

"No, you know it happened, but you'll feel nothing anymore, no emotion whatsoever, like reading a stranger's notes. If you want me to fire, you'll have to provide high-powered ammunition."

He placed his hand on the gun handle, closed his eyes, and burned away a small, unpleasant fragment of his memory...

After opening his eyes, his gaze toward Gordon was much calmer.

"What did you burn?"

"I'm not sure. But it seems to have something to do with you. I know our first few meetings weren't pleasant, but I can't remember why we were angry."

"That's reasonable. We've always respected each other; no one's stealing your big business, and no one's accusing us of 'hoarding' you."

Gray thought there was nothing wrong with that statement.

This is the therapeutic effect of the "emotion killer".

After consuming memories and emotions, the patterns on the gun handle began to glow.

Vera took over the "emotional killer".

She didn't really want to burn anything.

To be honest, many of her memories were restored after Gordon underwent "health management," and even the mountains of corpses and seas of blood from the Source War were valuable to her.

She burned those cold, lonely thoughts that lingered beneath the bridge.

Vera put down the gun, her expression momentarily blank.

She knew she had once lived a life of homelessness and wandering, but she couldn't understand why she was so sad back then.

"Gordon," Gray nodded.

Gordon picked up the gun.

He burned the days and nights he spent sleeping in the dissection room.

The gun gleamed brightly. A rapid clicking sound echoed from the emotional killer, like an unseen hand frantically loading ammunition.

He felt a sudden lightness in a certain part of his mind, and his spirits lifted.

He still knew he had slept on the wooden planks in the dissection room, and he knew that student loans had forced him to work part-time as a demon hunter, but he no longer felt pain, unease, or distress.

Those days are now just facts, no longer a painful memory.

"Full." Gray looked at the silver markings that were fully lit up, and for the first time, he showed an expression that was almost admiring. "240 rounds. Just how many unlucky memories do you have?"

Is that enough?

"That's enough." Gray toyed with the gun in his hand. "Will the Crocodile Man really come? I can't wait to blast him."

"That's not my decision." Gordon stomped his foot on the floor, where a dull, rhythmic mechanical pulsation emanated, like the slow beating of a brass heart. "What does this sound like to you?"

"Some kind of new equipment from the agency?"

"You could say it's an artificial uterus."

"You made this up too."

……

Time passed hour by hour.

With no enemies appearing, Gordon pushed the machine to its final stage, hoping to leave as soon as possible.

During the meal, they ate beef, bread, and canned beans, while Gray only drank half a jug of wine.

Gordon examined the cradle of life; the embryonic tissue had swelled, and golden lines were slowly moving on its surface, but there were no signs of labor.

By 10 p.m., the manor was completely shrouded in darkness.

They didn't turn on the lights, and in the darkness, they could only see each other's eyes.

"Perhaps the footprint you mentioned was just a passing by." Gray recalled the white crows that had flown out; the largest thing they had ever seen was a field mouse.

"The crocodile man walked out of the manor in the middle of the night in the light rain, stared at it for a few minutes, and then returned the way he came. He probably wasn't admiring the architecture."

"They might have given up." Gray looked out into the complete darkness.

Gordon also hoped that the enemy would not come.

"Nobody's here." Vera returned from patrol and placed the water compass on the table.

Gordon stroked the grayish-white bone on the table.

"What's that?" Gray looked at it.

"A clever little gadget that can track monsters."

For ten days, its line kept heading towards Lundnium.

Gordon triggered "string recognition" again.

The faint connection gradually unfolded, forming a taut string.

A thread suddenly extends, but no longer points towards the city.

It pointed straight towards the night sky to the south of the manor, and it was trembling and moving rapidly.

Something is approaching from that place.

Gordon suddenly stood up.

"They're here."

"Direction?" Gray flipped his hand and summoned a white raven.

"Due south," Gordon pointed out.

The white crows flew out quickly, passed through the window frame, and soared into the sky.

The White Raven that Brings Bad News: The Raven's Eye

Gray's eyes were open; his left eye remained emerald green, but his right eye had suddenly turned into a cold, bright yellow raven-like pupil, with the primal light spreading along the corner of his eye, revealing clear cracks.

...I saw it.

White crows swooped down over the hills, and under the cover of night, a massive dragon lizard demon traversed the countryside, with a group of wet-footed people clinging to its back, and a huge, terrifying figure sitting atop a bone crown on its head.

Crocodile Man... Kroger.

He carried a sword and a spear, went into battle bare-chested, his thick green scales and long snout fierce.

Upon seeing the white crow, he raised his hand to shoot.

boom!

Gray's right eye recovered quickly.

He picked up a gun and a sword.

"Cooperate with me."

"Fire the signal flare." Gordon handed the signal flare to Gray.

Gray accepted the gift, instantly switched places with the white crow outside the wall, entered the stable, mounted his horse, and left the manor.

A white crow appeared in front of Gordon.

"Caw." The white crow looked at Gordon.

"Take good care of your boss. He seems very afraid of getting his clothes dirty."

The white crow seemed to understand, and turned to fly into the night.

About thirty seconds later, Gordon heard a gunshot.

boom!

The two sides have already exchanged fire. The roar of the dragon lizard demon echoes through the night sky.

"How much longer?" Vera asked calmly.

"Almost there." Gordon strode to the kitchen, opened the trapdoor, and Blackthorn Lee tapped the steps repeatedly with his cane.

The scorching air hit us in the face, making it even more stifling than before.

The steam engine was struggling violently, nearing its limit.

The brass connecting rod reciprocates, pushing the crank, and the black pointer of the pressure gauge moves beyond the normal range.

The "cradle of life" is accelerating.

The elliptical core expands and contracts, simulating the vibrations before childbirth.

The silver-plated copper plate bulged slightly due to the internal pressure, and the bolts groaned under the strain, enduring a sharp pain as if their bellies were about to be torn apart.

Gordon rushed to the observation window.

Behind the mica sheet, the blue amniotic fluid was no longer transparent. Gordon felt as if he were on a large ship sailing in the eternal night, looking out at the boundless black ocean through the porthole.

Giant waves repeatedly lifted the silhouettes of the city, and he saw clock towers, bridges, and unfamiliar palaces... These buildings swept across the water one after another, only to be swallowed up and disintegrated by even larger tides, eventually sinking into deeper waters.

Every high tide brings forth a new world, and every low tide erases a piece of history.

The proto-embryo is suspended in the middle of this sea area.

"Flat beans," Gordon said, pressing his hand against the observation window, "Why aren't you breaking the cauldron yet!"

boom!

A heavy thud came from the outside, the tremor spread outwards, penetrating the ground, and dust fell from the vaulted ceiling. Beakers collided with each other on the worktable.

Immediately afterwards, Gordon heard the dragon lizard demon's piercing roar.

Gray's gunfire then intensified, becoming incessant.

The next moment, a red signal flare rose into the night sky with a piercing whistle.

"I'm going to join the war." Vera slung the black spiked belt over her shoulder.

"Take this with you." Gordon took the eel bone amulet off his own neck, walked to Vera's side, and put it around Vera's neck.

Her presence gradually faded.

Then, he put the small glass bottle containing the amniotic fluid from the warm bed into her hand.

"Smash it if necessary; it will attract the monster's attention."

"Understood." She took out a bottle of her most treasured combat potion from inside her clothes, uncorked it, and drank the liquid in one gulp.

The pungent medicinal properties spread throughout my body, and my heart rate increased rapidly.

She turned and stepped onto two steps, then stopped.

"Gordon".

"Um?"

"I..." She walked down the steps, bent down to look at Gordon, and hesitated for a long time. There was a sentence stuck in her chest, and she couldn't say it.

"I like you, and you like me." Gordon suddenly leaned forward, hugged the back of her neck, and kissed her on the cheek, his lips lingering for a moment.

Her body trembled violently, and Gordon's image was reflected in her gray eyes.

Yes...that's good, that's all.

To confirm why I went to the battlefield and why I had to come back.

She then turned and went up, her figure disappearing in a flash.

As she took her first step, the chains of fate within her began to tremble; by the second step, her body had already leaped out of the house.

Gordon looked back at the cradle of life.

The steam engine's flywheel is slowing down!

He frowned.

The coal is still there, and the transmission structure is intact... so why is the steam engine slowing down?

and many more.

This machine has completed its mission.

A certain "rhythm" took over the entire system from within.

Boom!Boom!

This beat is so familiar.

Gordon once used a divine thread to repeatedly tap lentils, a form of so-called prenatal education.

At the time, he himself thought it was a joke.

Now, it's responding at the same pace!

Behind the observation window, the Black Sea surged.

The waves first swirled around the embryo, then rose upwards, forming a vast vortex that connected heaven and earth, drawing in all the fragments of history, which flowed in the same direction.

He seemed to hear the mermaid's song...

The sound was ethereal and distant, like a chant from the depths of the ocean, or like a lentil uttering its first cry to the world in this way.

The pressure gauge needle crosses the red line.

boom!

A cracking sound came from below the machine.

Click!

A splash of water erupted, shattering into sparkling droplets.

My water broke.

Behind the observation window, all the liquid swirls into the source medium.

The amniotic fluid in the warm bed, the spiritual essence of water, the ancient life information carried in the mermaid scales, and even every drop of steam inside the machine... were all drunk up by this newborn source substance.

At that moment, Gordon saw an image even grander than the "sea".