The dark red light spun like a violent tornado, tearing through the mist.
Bones cracked and flesh tore, echoing across the silent graveyard like the wet, sickening sounds of a butcher's shop.
Arthur stood firm, his pitch-black eyes reflecting the bloody storm. The sheer pressure of the corrupted magic made the air thick, turning each breath into a struggle against suffocation.
The System was aggressively resisting the forced combination. A Level 1 basic skill logic was violently clashing with the dense, raw mana of a Level 8 Boss corpse.
Fuse, Arthur's mind roared, pouring his absolute, terrifying willpower into the storm.
Then—the storm collapsed.
The red light shattered like glass into countless dark sparks.
When the dust settled, Arthur's breath caught. In the center of a small, smoking crater stood a monster born from a nightmare.
Over two and a half meters tall, its skeletal frame of black steel—the Iron-Bone Knight's core—was now wrapped tightly in thick, pulsating, corrupted red muscle fibers. Its massive bone blade had mutated into a heavy, jagged cleaver, glowing with a dark, blood-red aura.
Its hollow eyes didn't burn with calm blue fire anymore. They burned with a raging, unstable crimson inferno.
[Ding!]
[Irregular Synthesis Successful!]
[You have created a new species.]
[Name: Blood-Iron Ghoul Fiend]
[Level: 10]
[Tier: Rare]
[Skills:]
- Brutal Cleave
- Blood Frenzy
- Absolute Loyalty (Unstable)
Level 10. Rare Tier.
Arthur's eyes widened slightly. He had just created a monster capable of annihilating an entire squad of Level 10 Awakened students—and he was only Level 3.
"Perfect," he whispered.
The Blood-Iron Ghoul Fiend slowly turned its massive head toward Arthur.
Its crimson eyes flared. For a fraction of a second, the raw, untamed hunger of the dead Ghoul completely overpowered the command chains of the System.
It gripped its heavy cleaver. A low, guttural growl vibrated in its mutated throat.
It didn't kneel. It took a heavy, aggressive step toward its creator.
Arthur didn't step back. He didn't blink.
But deep inside, a cold, alien thought surfaced in his mind.
It's defective. Break its legs. Eat its core.
Arthur's right hand moved.
He didn't consciously give the command, but his pale fingers curled into claws, twitching upward toward the beast's chest. His mouth watered, a sudden, sickening craving for raw mana flooding his senses.
He stopped his hand midway.
Arthur gasped, his entire body trembling violently as he fought to rip control of his own muscles back from the parasite embedded in his soul. He gritted his teeth, forcing his hand down to his side, his nails digging into his palm until it bled.
[Notice: Empathy Suppression Active. Corruption Level: 2%.]
He wasn't fighting a beast. He was fighting his own expanding existence.
Arthur poured the oppressive, heavy weight of the anomaly inside his soul outward, crushing the air in the graveyard.
"Down," Arthur commanded, his voice dropping into a terrifying, abyssal echo.
The System's [Absolute Loyalty] violently fought the beast's instinct, acting like an invisible, spiked collar.
With a heavy, earth-shaking thud, the nightmare collapsed onto one knee, groaning in resistance before bowing its massive head to the mud.
Arthur took a step forward, but the moment he moved... his vision violently fractured.
A sharp, blinding pain stabbed directly into his brain like a heated needle.
Arthur stumbled, falling hard to one knee, his fingers digging desperately into the wet dirt. A drop of warm liquid fell onto the back of his hand.
He touched his upper lip. Blood. His nose was bleeding heavily, painting his pale skin crimson.
[Warning!]
[Host's Mental Energy severely depleted.]
[Irregular Synthesis places a massive burden on the soul. Current Level and Intelligence stats are too low for frequent use. Please rest to recover.]
Arthur stayed on his knee, his skull pounding with an agonizing migraine. It felt as if his brain had just tried to swallow a star.
He wiped the blood away, his breathing slowly steadying. Instead of fear, a faint, cold smile crept across his pale face.
"So that's the limit," he muttered, tasting copper. "No mana cost, but playing God strains the mind."
It was a logical limitation. If he could fuse hundreds of dead monsters at Level 3, the world would be his by tomorrow. Now he had a clear goal: level up, strengthen his mind, and build a container strong enough to hold the void.
He looked up at the towering Blood-Iron Ghoul Fiend. It stood perfectly still now, broken to his will.
Return, Arthur commanded in his mind, sparing his voice.
The massive beast dissolved into a dark shadow, sinking seamlessly into the darkness beneath Arthur's boots.
But the shadow didn't settle immediately.
For a terrifying half-second, the darkness around Arthur's feet continued to writhe. A faint, guttural whisper echoed directly into his mind.
...Hungry...
Arthur's eyes narrowed, but he ignored the whisper. He walked over to the Ghoul's original death site and picked up the faintly glowing green orb.
[Item Found: Corrupted Ghoul Core (Uncommon)]
Five thousand credits. It was enough to escape another meal of stale academy bread.
Arthur tucked the core into his deep pocket, pulled the hood of his worn jacket up over his bloodstained face, and quietly slipped out of the graveyard, disappearing into the dark streets of the city.
...
Fifteen minutes later.
Two upper-year students wearing the silver Academy Patrol badges entered the Beginner's Graveyard. Both Level 12, clad in shiny, well-maintained armor and wielding enchanted weapons.
"I swear I heard a massive roar coming from here," the swordsman said, holding a glowing lantern high.
"It's just the Beginner's Graveyard, Mark," his mage partner yawned, rubbing his eyes. "Probably a slime popping. What's the worst that could—"
He stopped. His voice died in his throat.
"What is it?" Mark stepped forward, his eyes widening in sheer horror.
In the center of the graveyard, the ground was heavily cratered and shattered. Tombstones were reduced to dust. Massive puddles of black blood pooled across the dirt, and a thick, mutated, severed arm lay beside a broken grave.
"That... that's the Elite Ghoul's arm," Mark stammered, all the color draining from his face. "The Level 8 Boss. The teachers warned us to avoid it until the graduation exams!"
The mage trembled, pointing a shaking finger toward the center of the crater.
The Ghoul's massive, mutated head lay split perfectly in half. A single, clean, devastating strike.
"One strike..." the mage whispered, his breath hitching. "Impossible. Only a high-level instructor or a Silver-Rank Guild Master could do this..."
Mark swallowed hard, staring at the silent, empty graveyard. The mist seemed to curl around the blood like a warning.
"Who... who the hell was here?"
Unbeknownst to the two terrified students, high above the graveyard walls, a mechanical, glowing red eye tracked the carnage.
A tiny, sleek drone, no larger than a raven, silently recorded the shattered earth and the severed head of the Boss.
Miles away, in the dark, heavily encrypted monitoring room of the Awakener Association, a single red alert flashed on a massive holographic screen.
[Target: Beginner's Graveyard.]
[Anomaly Detected. Combat Signature: Unknown.]
[Dispatching Internal Affairs Division...]
[Lead Tracker Assigned: Inspector Vance (Level 38)]
[Specialization: Hunting Anomalies.]
For the first time since he awakened... Arthur was no longer the hunter.