With Vigan City secured as my resource base and contingency zone, it was time to move. The Red Gate was simply a farm; the global stage was the war. I needed intelligence on the Central Authority and the true source of the world's organized system.
My first target was the nearest major metropolitan hub: Solaria City, located three hundred kilometers to the north—a city ruled by one of the Grand Guilds, the original architects of the modern hunter system. Solaria was a massive Rank S territory, a place where Epic hunters were common and Legendary hunters occasionally walked the streets.
I didn't inform the Guild Master or anyone of my destination. I simply left a detailed, iron-clad schedule for my Volcanic Chimera harvests and my communication protocols.
My movement was a calculated exercise in invisibility. I used my Shadow Step and Silent Form abilities to leave Vigan undetected, bypassing the city walls and the external patrol zones. I wasn't traveling on roads; I was traveling through the Shadows of the Wilds.
I traveled only at night, navigating the wildlands by the energy signatures I saw using Specter Sight. I moved with the precision and speed of a professional assassin, not a hunter. I avoided all major Yellow and Red Gates that dotted the landscape, knowing they were likely being farmed by high-rank hunters who would see my Epic Gauntlet as a challenge.
I faced only minor environmental challenges—territorial Rare-rank monsters like Night Howlers and Earth Wyrms. My response was always the same: Immediate, Overwhelming Control. A single, precisely targeted Kinetic Pulse neutralized the threat before it could even roar, allowing me to bypass the encounter and conserve energy.
My physical movement was relentless, pushing my endurance to its limits, but my psychological movement was even more profound: I was leaving the game of local power and entering the game of global conquest. Solaria City was the battlefield where I would test my Epic power against the full force of a global Grand Guild.