Sbinse lay sprawled on the ground, while Ma Jun stood beside him, calm and composed, as if the werewolf captain were nothing more than a corpse.
Leaning against Sbinse's massive, sturdy body, Ma Jun radiated confidence.
He brushed his hands together, and his arm returned to its original size.
"Bring me my cloak," he said with a smile, glancing at the two little maids.
The girls were already smiling so hard their eyes curved into crescents. They happily brought the cloak over.
"Master, you're amazing!"
"Master, you're incredible!"
"Sbinse is a general of the Hainsberg family—he got one-shot by Master!"
"Master, you're way too strong!"
The two maids crowded around him, chirping nonstop as they gently helped him drape the cloak back over his shoulders.
Meanwhile, the players watching nearby had long since gone stiff.
Their mouths hung open, faces frozen in shock.
They couldn't even speak.
A few seconds later, the courtyard erupted again.
"Instant… instant kill!"
"I didn't see wrong, did I? Ma Jun just one-shot the boss?!"
"Is this for real?!"
"Is he even a player?!"
"What kind of monster is he?!"
"So who's the real boss here, anyway?!"
The looks the players cast toward Ma Jun were filled with shock—and fear.
That was an instinctive reaction when facing someone overwhelmingly stronger.
Among them all, the most shaken were Jiang Han and Mu Chen.
Mu Chen clutched his broken arm, his face deathly pale.
Only now did he truly realize how laughable his former self had been.
In front of someone like Ma Jun—an absolute monster—he'd actually tried to act like the leader?
He must have looked like a mouse trying to command a dragon.
All that pride born from military training, natural talent, and background vanished without a trace.
Jiang Han's feelings were even more complicated.
She was the one who best understood just how terrifying Ma Jun's strength really was.
When she saw his speed earlier, she had already been left speechless.
At that moment, she'd thought Ma Jun could at least contend with the werewolf captain.
But the very next second—
The werewolf captain was down.
A one-shot kill on a mini-boss from a hard-mode dungeon.
If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would never have believed it.
Only now did she finally understand why, on their very first entry into a horror game, they'd been thrown straight into a hard-mode instance.
With someone like Ma Jun present, the fact that they hadn't been tossed directly into a nightmare-tier dungeon was probably already a form of newbie protection.
After putting on his cloak, Ma Jun turned around and calmly swept his gaze across the remaining werewolves.
The ones who had looked ferocious just moments ago now shrank back instinctively.
When Ma Jun's eyes passed over them, they all lowered their heads and retreated, fear written plainly on their faces.
Anyone who could enter the Werewolf Guard still retained basic intelligence.
They weren't stupid.
Seeing their captain knocked out with a single blow, none of them dared step forward to throw their lives away.
Ma Jun didn't bother with them.
They were just a bunch of poor devils—no clothes, no equipment, nothing of value.
Even if he killed them all, there'd be no benefit.
Instead, his gaze settled on the massive hammer lying nearby.
After going through all that trouble, not grabbing some loot wouldn't fit his style.
He glanced at Sbinse.
That earlier blow had only knocked him unconscious—he wasn't dead yet.
Ma Jun also had no intention of finishing him off.
If he actually killed Sbinse and provoked the Hainsberg family, he didn't yet have the confidence to deal with what came next.
Grabbing the benefits first was the priority.
He walked over and picked up the hammer.
[Hainsberg Heavy Hammer (High-Grade Replica)]
Quality: Blue
Equipment Requirement: Constitution 8
Attack Power: 20–30
Special Effect: Has a natural intimidation effect against the Hainsberg family's Werewolf Guard.
Just from its appearance alone, the hammer looked intimidating.
The handle was nearly 1.8 meters long, engraved with intricate patterns.
The center was concave, the sides raised—somewhat like an enlarged version of the Thunder God's hammer.
Ma Jun checked its stats. Not bad.
A blue-quality weapon.
For players just entering a horror game, this was something they could only dream of.
The awkward part was—
He couldn't use it yet.
His Constitution was only 6, not enough to meet the requirement.
So he temporarily stored it in his inventory as a backup.
With a casual flick of his hand, the massive hammer vanished.
That small action made the two maids' admiration for him grow even deeper.
"Master is truly miraculous."
"Let's go," Ma Jun said calmly.
"Yes!"
The two maids immediately took position at his sides, obediently following behind him.
Under the respectful gazes of the players, the three of them quickly departed.
Only after Ma Jun left did the werewolves rush forward to check on Sbinse.
To their relief, their captain was still alive.
They quickly lifted him up and fled at top speed.
That human was simply too terrifying.
They had never seen such a frightening human before—far beyond the limits of what their poor brains could comprehend.
In the blink of an eye, the once-menacing pack of werewolves scattered like frightened dogs.
The area in front of the castle finally returned to peace.
Only then did the players breathe a sigh of relief.
Soon, discussions broke out among them.
"So… is Ma Jun actually a player?"
"I don't think so. How could a player be this ridiculous? This is way too exaggerated."
"Who knows—maybe he's the secret heir trained by some powerful family?"
"The gap between us ordinary people and those freakish geniuses… is really that big…"
They all turned to look at Mu Chen and Jiang Han.
These two were seeds from the military district—people who were supposed to have answers.
Unfortunately, neither Mu Chen nor Jiang Han could give them one.
They couldn't be sure what kind of existence Ma Jun truly was.
They only knew one thing—
If he were merely the heir of some great family, there was no way he'd possess strength this terrifying.
Jiang Han let out a quiet sigh.
With a complicated expression, she said, "Hurry up and get back to work."
"Ma Jun has already done a lot for us. At least for the next couple of days, we don't need to worry about being turned into blood packs."
"As for everything else—don't think about it."
"The way geniuses think is something we ordinary people can't understand."
The players nodded in agreement.
That's right—what mattered more than surviving?
Thinking of geniuses, Jiang Han immediately thought of the widely acknowledged prodigy from the Southwest Military District.
"Even him…" she murmured softly,
"…he wouldn't be anything like Ma Jun."
A faint, bitter smile appeared on her cool, refined face.
Even now, she didn't know whether being assigned to the same dungeon as Ma Jun on her very first run was a blessing—or a curse.
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