The leader monster stood among the carnage of its decimated army, its multiple eyes wide with disbelief and growing terror.
The tomb floor was painted red with the remains of five hundred of its strongest warriors, and this supposedly weak creature stood at the center of it all like a nightmare given flesh.
"Who are you, human?!" The monster's voice cracked with desperation and confusion.
"How can a being so low level like you be so strong that you touch the threshold of the law?"
Nox tilted his head, the tentacles from his opened mask swaying gently like underwater plants. The surgical tools they held caught the dim light, still dripping with the blood of the fallen.
Huh? What does that mean? Nox thought
Well, I suppose Body of Pure Horror is a unique constitution Nox thought.
Maybe it's part of the law... then what law does it touch? Don't tell me it's something like Law of Horror or Law of Disgust, for fuck's sake.
Nox's distorted laughter echoed through the tomb. "What am I? Well, I'll tell you."
The monster waited with growing anticipation, its fear momentarily overshadowed by curiosity. What manner of being could slaughter an army single-handedly? What dark power flowed through this human's veins?
"I'm your great grandfather, you abomination," Nox said simply.
The monster blinked all of its eyes simultaneously. "What?"
But Nox was already moving. His mana reserves were critically low he could feel the familiar exhaustion creeping through his limbs. The Gatling gun and tentacle transformation had drained him nearly dry. He reached into his inventory and pulled out a revolver, its metal surface etched with runes that pulsed with a different kind of energy.
This weapon didn't use mana to fire. It used HP instead.
"Bang!"
The shot rang out across the tomb like thunder. The bullet, infused with Nox's life force, struck the monster directly in the forehead. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the creature began to disintegrate, its form breaking apart like sand in the wind until nothing remained but empty air and the fading echo of its confused final thoughts.
"Hah, that was too close," Nox muttered, checking his status screen.
Mana Remaining: 10
"Yeah, it really was too close."
He let out a long breath and allowed his mask to close with the same mechanical sound it had opened with. The tentacles retracted, and his face returned to its normal human appearance, though sweat beaded on his forehead from the strain. His masked close and become plague doctor mask once more
The tomb fell silent except for the distant drip of blood from various surfaces and the heavy breathing of the three surviving humans.
Henry was the first to break the silence.
"WOW NOX THAT WAS SO COOL!"
His voice cracked with excitement, jumping up and down like a child who had just seen his first superhero movie. His eyes were wide as dinner plates, and he couldn't seem to stand still, shifting his weight from foot to foot as adrenaline and amazement coursed through his system.
"Did you see that? Did you SEE that?!"
Henry spun around to face Irene and Old Hans, gesturing wildly at the carnage around them. "He just—BOOM—and then the gun went BRRRRRR and all the monsters just exploded! Like actual explosions! And the tentacles! Holy crap, the tentacles with the surgery tools!"
He mimed the movements, pretending to fire a Gatling gun while making sound effects. "DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA! And then they were all like AAAHHHHH and he was like 'I'm your great grandfather' which doesn't even make sense but it was AWESOME!"
Henry grabbed his own hair with both hands, looking like he might vibrate out of his skin.
"I mean, I knew you were strong, Nox, but this was like... like watching a one-man army! No, better than that! It was like watching a god of war just decide that those monsters didn't deserve to exist anymore!"
He started pacing back and forth, his mind forgotten in his excitement.
"And that revolver at the end! What is that an S rank weapon?
Your inventory is like a magic bag of S rank weapons! First a Gatling gun, then surgical tentacles, then a revolver that just makes things stop existing!"
Henry suddenly stopped and pointed at Nox with both hands.
"You're like a real-life video game character who maxed out all his stats and collected all the legendary weapons! This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life!"
While Henry continued his enthusiastic rambling, Irene stood frozen in place, her face a complex mixture of emotions. Her cheeks were flushed, but not from embarrassment this time. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, knuckles white from the pressure, and her breathing was shallow and quick.
She stared at Nox with an expression that was part awe, part fear, and part something else entirely. Her usual sharp tongue seemed to have abandoned her, leaving her speechless for perhaps the first time since they'd entered the dungeon.
"That was..." she started, then stopped, her voice barely above a whisper.
The power she had just witnessed wasn't just impressive—it was transcendent. She had seen hunters fight before, had watched skilled warriors take down dangerous monsters, but this had been something else entirely. This had been art painted in violence, a symphony composed of destruction and death.
Her mind kept replaying the moment when Nox's mask had opened, revealing those writhing tentacles. Most people would have been horrified, disgusted, afraid. But Irene found herself fascinated by the controlled brutality, the precise application of overwhelming force. There was something beautiful about it, in a dark and terrible way.
She touched her throat unconsciously, remembering how easily those surgical tools had carved through monster flesh. The scalpels moved with such precision, such deadly grace. And the way Nox had controlled them, like they were extensions of his own body, like he had been born to wield such instruments of destruction.
"I never knew," she said quietly, more to herself than to anyone else.
"I never knew a S rank Hunter could be that strong."
Her usual cold demeanor was cracking, revealing glimpses of genuine emotion beneath. She found herself wanting to ask questions, to understand how he had achieved such power, but the words wouldn't come. Instead, she just watched him, studying every detail of his posture, his breathing, the way he moved even while exhausted.
There was something magnetic about power like that, something that drew her in despite her better judgment. Or perhaps because of it.
Old Hans, meanwhile, stood perfectly still, his weathered face pale and his hands shaking slightly. His reaction was perhaps the most honest of the three—pure, unfiltered terror mixed with grudging respect.
He had lived a long life, seen many things, survived encounters that would have broken lesser men. But what he had just witnessed challenged everything he thought he knew about the limits of human capability.
"Sweet merciful gods," he whispered, his voice hoarse with shock.
"What have we been traveling with?"
His eyes darted between the massive bloodstains on the floor and Nox himself, as if trying to reconcile the quiet man he had been talking with with the terrifying force of destruction he had just observed.
"Five hundred," Old Hans said, shaking his head slowly.
"Five hundred monsters. Dead. In less than ten minutes."
He had fought in wars, had seen armies clash and heroes rise and fall. But even the greatest warriors of legend had never accomplished anything on this scale. This wasn't just superior skill or better equipment—this was power that bordered on the divine.
"The stories they tell about the ancient heroes," Hans continued, his voice growing steadier but no less awed. "The ones who could split mountains and dry up rivers. I always thought they were just stories, exaggerated tales to inspire children."
He looked directly at Nox now, and there was something approaching reverence in his gaze. "But you... you're like them, aren't you? You're something out of legend."
The old man's survival instincts were screaming at him. Every fiber of his being that had kept him alive through decades of dangerous living was telling him to run, to get as far away from this walking catastrophe as possible. But at the same time, he recognized the incredible fortune of being under Nox's protection rather than standing against him.
"I've never been more terrified," Hans admitted with brutal honesty. "And I've never felt safer."
He gestured weakly at the destruction around them.
"No monster in this dungeon, no matter how powerful, could stand against what you just did. We're probably the safest people in the entire kingdom right now, just by being near you."
But then his expression grew more serious, more concerned.
"The question is, what happens when we leave this place? What happens when other people see what you can do?"
Nox listened to their reactions with a Pale face, the adrenaline from the fight finally wearing off. Henry's childlike excitement was endearing, Irene's complex response was intriguing, and Hans's honest fear was probably the most rational reaction of all.
"You guys are overthinking this," he said simply. "I'm drained out of mana the acting is just a facade. I almost collasp."
I'm not as stong as you think I am Please don't exaggerate anymore