Ethan returned to Ethereal once more.
In his inventory, he found the long-sealed item:
[Demonhunter's Bonefang Necklace]
Tier: Iron
Level: 35
Dark Vision: 5
Attribute #1: Opens a portal to the Shadow Realm (only visible to the wearer). Portal lasts 5 minutes. Cooldown: 7 days.
Attribute #2: Temporarily transforms the wearer into a Carnage Faction player. Duration: 30 minutes. Can be dispelled at will. Cooldown: 1 hour.
All his lingering concerns were finally put to rest. At last, he could venture into Carnage Faction territory.
The item description ntioned it could open a gateway to the Shadow Realm—but he knew better. Once he crossed into Carnage-controlled lands, that attribute would shift to "opens a gateway to the Light Realm." So there was no fear of being unable to return.
Still, the seven-day cooldown ant that once he stepped through, he'd be stuck there for at least a week.
Before making the jump, Ethan restocked his supplies—potions, scrolls, engineering items—everything. He also packed a small bundle of random teleportation scrolls. Six in total. These were his safety net, his real source of confidence for infiltrating the Carnage Faction's turf.
On a sudden impulse, he sent a private ssage to Celia: "Sis Celia, does the guild have any random teleportation scrolls in stock?"
Celia replied quickly: "We have three."
"Let have them! I'll co pick them up shortly," Ethan responded.
Before long, he had secured three more scrolls from the guild, bringing his total to nine. Now he felt even more prepared.
As long as he wasn't instantly killed or hit with so lockdown skill that prevented teleportation, these scrolls offered a substantial safety buffer. Painful to the wallet, sure—but worth every coin.
With all preparations complete, he opened his backpack and equipped the [Demonhunter's Bone Fang Necklace]. He activated the skill. After a brief incantation, a purple-black portal shimred into existence before him.
Through the swirling energy, he glimpsed the other side—a dim, oppressive world where all vegetation had long since withered away. The land looked like it had been ravaged by elental disasters, then pumled further by the violent collision of two planets. It was a landscape locked in eternal twilight.
In that place, without enhanced dark vision, you'd be blind.
For Carnage Faction players, dark vision enhancents were standard—even common-tier gear had it. But on the Survivor side, such attributes were almost nonexistent.
Ethan stepped into the portal.
In a blink, the portal vanished behind him, and he disappeared from the guild headquarters.
He rematerialized in total darkness.
Fortunately, the necklace's Dark Vision 5 attribute kicked in. Though not ideal, it let him barely see his hand in front of his face. After struggling for a while to adjust, he still couldn't make out his surroundings clearly.
The realization set in—and with it, a flicker of regret. Maybe this had been too impulsive.
With no way to identify where he was, and unsure of what dangers might be nearby, he transford into Panther Form and imdiately activated Stealth.
And then, the world around him lit up.
His heart skipped. 'Panther Form granted shadow vision?'
He tested it—switching between forms. Indeed, all his beast forms vastly outperford Human Form in visibility. He couldn't be sure how this compared to Carnage players with gear-based vision boosts, but he assud it was comparable. After all, dark vision enhancents weren't exactly night-vision goggles.
Surveying the area, he realized he'd landed in a plains bio. It wasn't completely barren—strange, thorn-covered plants dotted the landscape. Nothing he recognized.
And the silence… eerie. This was a level 45 monster zone, but no monsters road nearby. It seed the Carnage side hadn't reached this level bracket yet.
Unlike the Survivor Faction, the Carnage side operated on entirely different principles. There was no order—just chaos. Player-versus-player combat was constant, and killing others didn't brand you with a red na. In fact, killing players not below your level awarded experience. Dead players lost XP as well—and there were no corpse revivals. They respawned straight at the graveyard with a 20% experience loss.
However, if a player managed to kill their killer within a certain tifra, they'd receive double XP in return.
To Survivor Faction players, this kind of brutal lawlessness was unimaginable.
There were no battle zones, no national borders. On the Survivor side, players were still confined by nation-based boundaries. But here, all Carnage players coexisted under one bloodstained banner.
This lack of division had bred strength. Their PvP skills were in a league of their own—sharpened by constant bloodshed.
Having just arrived, Ethan wasn't about to draw attention to himself. He kept Stealth active and began moving, orienting himself as best he could while heading toward his destination.
This trip had two goals.
The first was to collect as many Divine Ability scrolls as possible. This would cripple the Carnage Faction's top-tier strength.
In the faction wars that would co later, the Survivors could barely hold the line as it was. Offense was nearly impossible, largely because the Carnage side had multiple overpowered players wielding Divine scrolls—and, worse, they actually worked together.
Unlike the fractured Survivor Faction, where international rivalries lingered even during all-out war, the Carnage players had united early. Their coordination was tight. Add to that their growing desire to escape the Shadow Realm for the Light Realm, and their motivation was imnse.
His second objective was to find Master Blacksmith Ryan and accept her hidden quest.
But that seed increasingly unlikely. Even if he found Ryan, he didn't have the Wishbound Relic—he wouldn't be able to accept the quest anyway.
So for now, he focused on the more urgent task: acquiring Divine Abilities.
At the mont, he had only one: Teleportation.
That said, his bloodline had granted him four others:
[Focus (Divine)]: Skill effects increased by 50%
[Apocalypse (Divine)]: 10 distributable attribute points per level
[Growth (Divine)]: Monster and quest experience gain increased by 100%
[Fatal Strike (Divine)]: Critical hits have a chance to deal 5x damage
In Ethereal, regular critical hits only dealt 1.5x damage. With Divine Fatal Strike, his crits damage could spike to 5x. It was absurdly powerful.
He'd tested the ability while grinding levels with the Chase Siblings—and it had massively accelerated his farming speed.
The only downside? His critical hit rate was still low.
He often dread about the day he could achieve 100% crit chance.
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