A Hunter Made from Shadows

7

There was no hesitation in Michael’s eyes. “Yes,” he answered silently in his mind.

The moment he confirmed, an overwhelming surge of information flooded into his brain.

It wasn’t images, and it wasn’t sound. It was pure knowledge and logic.

Freud’s psychoanalysis. Jung’s collective unconscious. Neuro-linguistic programming. Erickson’s hypnotic therapy…

Countless obscure psychological theories were broken down into their most basic elements and forcefully imprinted deep into his memory.

The structure of psychological suggestion. Practical methods of mental induction. Systems for reading the human heart through micro-expressions and subconscious behavior.

This knowledge was no longer something written in books.

It had become instinct.

Michael closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat. His brain tingled painfully, as if pricked by countless needles from the overload of information. Fine beads of sweat formed along his temples.

The immersion had begun.

Michael’s method of entering a role was far more painful and dangerous than anyone could see.

If playing a “doctor” meant learning the cold precision of a scalpel, then playing Laurence meant cutting open his own soul.

His consciousness was pulled by an unseen force, sinking into a dark, endless sea.

He saw it. He saw Laurence’s childhood.

A small boy who learned to hide behind obedience and smiles while enduring endless arguments and psychological abuse from his parents.

He saw Laurence’s youth.

A brilliant psychology student who discovered he could easily manipulate others’ emotions, and who found his first true sense of satisfactionnd security in their pain and struggle.

He saw Laurence’s “judgment.”

He slowly guided the mentor who once humiliated him into paranoia, until the man was disgraced and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.

He destroyed his first love, subtly pushing her into gambling addiction, until her family was ruined and she jumped from a building under crushing debt.

Scene after scene.

Piece after piece.

Laurence’s twisted, sinful life replayed in Michael’s mind as if it were his own.

Every successful manipulation. Every moment of pleasure in watching prey collapse. Every time he stood in the shadows, admiring his own masterpiece.

These dark emotions spread like toxic corrosion, eating away at Michael’s will.

His heartbeat quickened.

A cruel, sadistic impulse rose from deep inside his chest.

The corners of his lips even twitched, wanting to form Laurence’s gentle yet merciless smile.

Deep in Michael’s subconscious, his own humanity let out a final warning.

He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.

The sharp pain dragged him back to clarity.

He could not be swallowed by Laurence. He was only playing Laurence.

Fifteen minutes.

In the spiritual world, it felt like a century.

Outside the command vehicle, Ashley stared at her watch, counting the final seconds in anxious silence.

Inside, Michael slowly opened his eyes.

The rain had stopped. And so had the world he knew.

Before, Michael’s gaze had been sharp and cold like a predator’s.

Now, his eyes were deep, gentle, almost compassionate.

He sat quietly, but his entire presence had changed. He carried no aggression, only the calm warmth of polished jade.

Yet anyone who met his gaze would feel as if their soul had been completely seen through.

A cold system tone echoed in his mind.

[Role immersion complete.]

[New skill acquired: Spiritual Resonance.]

[Spiritual Resonance: You can form a deep mental connection with a target through voice, eye contact, environment, and other stimuli, allowing you to perceive and influence their emotions and subconscious.]

Michael raised his hand slowly, studying his long fingers.

He could feel a new power flowing through them.

He lifted his gaze toward the rain-washed, neon-lit city beyond the window.

He knew the game had already changed.

The door of the command vehicle opened. Michael stepped into the doorway.

His face was calm. His gentle, deep eyes swept across Ashley and the officers waiting anxiously outside.

To him, the world was no longer the same. The tension in their bodies, the fear in their expressions, their hushed conversations, 

They were no longer just sights and sounds. They were readable signals.

Living emotions, and open doors.

They became a chaotic tide of emotions, anxious, fearful, uncertain, spreading invisibly through the air.

And above that restless background, Michael caught something else.

A faint melody.

It came from somewhere deep within the city. Soft, stubborn, yet impossibly clear, it cut through the noise and reached straight into his awareness.

It was the murderer’s melody.

Michael returned to the riddle.

“The Heart of the Forest of Steel.”

This time, he didn’t analyze the words.

He listened to the emotions clinging to them.

First came a dull warmth, the scent of old wooden walls, the yellowed smile in a fading photograph. Nostalgia.

Then, without warning, a sharp sting pierced his consciousness. Cold. Desolate. Like a child abandoned in a corner of the world, crying in silence.

Finally, it swelled into a near-maddened cry, the tearing loneliness of someone standing alone on an empty stage, desperate for applause.

A hunger to be seen.

These three emotions twisted together, forming a dangerously unstable emotional coordinate.

Ashley watched Michael stand motionless, staring into the distance with hollow eyes. Her heart sank.

She hurried to his side, her voice low and tight with tension.

“Michael… what did you find?”

Michael slowly lifted one hand, signaling her to be quiet.

Then he closed his eyes.

The world faded.

The command vehicle, the officers, the night wind, the distant city lights, all vanished from his senses.

His consciousness sharpened into a single probe, tuning itself within the chaotic sea of emotions flowing through the city.

He searched for that one frequency, woven from nostalgia, pain, and longing.

“Forest of steel…”

The words echoed inside his mind.

But now, they were no longer tied to the cold outline of skyscrapers.

That nostalgic pull guided him deeper, toward something older.

Something buried.

A vast image unfolded before him.

A gigantic web, slowly spreading through darkness.

Each strand was forged from cold steel, plunging into the earth, threading through the veins of the entire city.

The subway system.

This was the murderer’s “forest of steel.”

Ancient, carrying the memories of generations, matching that sense of nostalgia.

Cold, hidden deep underground, distant from the world above, echoing that pain.

And it waited, silently, at the heart of the city.