The notifications bloomed in Eis's vision just as he drifted into a satisfied sleep.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Master Thief]
[Stole vital resources from under the noses of over 40 Tier 3 warriors.]
[Reward: 100,000 AP]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Bitter Harvest]
[Acquired resources through the demise of three fellow warriors (Eaten by Black-Demon Wolf).]
[Reward: 10,000 AP]
He slept with a faint, cold smile on his lips.
The dawn was a grey, miserable thing. The leaves were still heavy with dew, and a bone-deep chill clung to the air. A strident bell shattered the pre-dawn stillness.
"COME ON! WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY! MOVE IT, MOVE MOVE MOVE IT!"
The sergeant's roar was like a physical blow. Groaning, sore warriors spilled from their tents, their breath fogging in the cold. They gathered in the center of the camp, a mass of grim faces and clattering gear. The commander, his own armor hastily donned, stood on a crate.
"Okay, gentlemen! This is it! We had a good night's rest, we'll relieve the night watch, and we will go out there and show those beasts our strength and our power!"
A half-hearted, sleep-addled cheer went up. "Yeah! Warrrrr!"
They moved out in a ragged column, the mood more resigned than resolute. The path to the forward defensive line was short. The silence that greeted them was the first warning, a complete, unnatural absence of the expected sounds of a night-long skirmish.
The second warning was the smell. It hit them like a wall: iron-rich blood, both human and bestial, mixed with the foul, coppery stench of corrupted organs and voided bowels.
Then they saw the field.
It was a charnel house. Almost half of the fifty-strong night watch were dead, their bodies not just slain but savaged, torn apart, crushed, partially consumed.
The other half were barely alive, moaning in the mud, missing limbs, clutching at wounds that seeped life into the churned, bloody earth. The ground was a horrific mosaic of red human blood and the thick, oily black ichor that passed for blood in the corrupted beasts.
The beasts themselves were mostly gone. Only three remained, standing amidst the carnage like kings surveying a conquered land.
Two were massive black tigers, each the size of a wagon. But they were wrong. From their hindquarters sprouted thick, muscular snake tails that lashed and coiled restlessly. They were Peak Tier 2, their fur matted with gore, eyes glowing with malevolent intelligence.
In the centre stood their leader. A true monster. A black tiger of immense size, but with not one, but a single, larger serpent tail tipped with a venomous-looking barb.
Its aura was a palpable pressure, a promise of violence that made the air hum. A Peak Tier 3, teetering on the very brink of evolution.
"Reinforcements are here! Now we can win this! YEAHHH!" The commander's voice was strained, trying to inject hope into a scene of pure despair. "Charge! Aim for the eyes! Dodge their strikes! Work together!"
The charge was more of a desperate lunge. Eis didn't join it. He melted into the tree line, a shadow among shadows, his [Battle-Sense] analysing the flow of combat, waiting for the currency of chaos to reach its highest value.
The battle was a brutal slog. Swords sparked against hardened hides. Men screamed as serpent tails wrapped around legs and crushed them, or fanged maws closed over shoulders.
After ten minutes of bloody trade, a coordinated strike finally brought one of the lesser tiger-serpents down. A ragged cheer went up from the warriors.
The victory cry was their doom.
The central leader, the Peak Tier 3, let out a roar of pure, incandescent fury. "GRAAAAAWR!" In a blur of motion, it turned its head and bit the other lesser tiger-serpent beside it.
Not a killing bite, but a sharp, commanding nip on the flank.
The bitten creature's reaction was instantaneous and horrifying. It twisted and, with terrifying submission, offered its own neck. The leader clamped down and, with a sickening crunch and tear, devoured its own kin, head, body, and tail, in three monstrous gulps.
"GRAAAAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!!!"
The roar that followed was a physical wave of sound and energy. Warriors clutched their ears, blood trickling from their eardrums. The very air shimmered around the beast.
"It's evolving! Oh, gods, we can't fight that! I have a family! I HAVE A FAMILY! RUNNNN!"
Panic is a contagion more virulent than any plague. Honour, strength, camaraderie—all evaporated. It was every man for himself. Some shoved others into the path of the evolving beast as they fled.
"No! Please! Help meeee!" a warrior begged, his voice cut short as a lashing snake-tail snatched him up and the monstrous maw swallowed him whole.
When the energy subsided, the beast that stood before the fleeing remnants of the company was transformed. A Tier 4 Black-Scale Devourer Tiger. It was larger, its muscles coiled under plates of bony, black armour that had erupted from its skin. Three powerful, independent snake tails now writhed from its hindquarters, each tipped with a different cruel implement: a barb, a blade-like bone, and a crushing club.
Soon, the battlefield was empty save for the dead, the dying, and the monster. The forest was eerily quiet; most trees within a hundred-yard radius levelled to splinters.
Then, slowly, Eis stepped out from the deep shadows. Slivers of pale dawn light pierced the canopy, illuminating motes of dust and blood in the air. He walked calmly into the centre of the devastation, his staff tapping lightly on the torn earth.
"Hey," he said, his voice calm, almost conversational. "This isn't what I'd call a fair fight." He glanced at the corpses. "Damn. The rewards aren't the same either. I die… You don't get much. But if you die?" A cold, hungry smile touched his lips. "Well. I'll be a pleased man. You must be wondering what I'm talking about, right? You seem hungry. Let's get this over with."
He didn't wait. He exploded forward, then leapt high into the air, twisting his body into the same spinning, piercing strike that had killed the Armoured Boar the day before. It was a move designed to concentrate all his force into a single, unstoppable point.
The Tier 4 beast looked… bored. As Eis descended, it simply raised one armoured forepaw and swatted.
The impact wasn't a block; it was a dismissal. Eis felt the world upend. The force hit him like a landslide, hurling him across the clearing. He smashed into a jagged outcrop of rock, the air blasting from his lungs in a spray of crimson.
He slid to the ground, coughing, bright red blood splattering the stone.
Shit. He pushed himself up, his expression one of genuine shock. The difference was astronomical. He grabbed his staff, its wood warm and familiar in his grip.
He looked up just in time to see the beast already in the air, a black comet of annihilation descending upon him. He crossed his staff above his head, bracing with every ounce of his Tier 2 strength.
CLANG!
The claw, sheathed in black armour, met the enchanted wood. The staff held; it did not break. But the force it carried was transferred entirely into Eis's body.
He was driven into the ground like a nail, the earth cratering around him. Then the shockwave lifted him and sent him tumbling, a ragdoll of broken momentum. He heard the sickening crack of ribs giving way before he skidded to a stop, his vision swimming with agony.
No time. He gritted his teeth, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. System. I want the most powerful explosive you have. Now.
A menu flashed.
[Item: Void-Core Grenade]
[Description: A sphere of stabilised annihilation. Creates a containment field upon detonation, focusing all explosive force inwards for maximum internal devastation. External signature minimal.]
[Price: 120,000 AP]
[Notice: 120,000 AP has been deducted from the host.]
The weight of a smooth, cool, obsidian-black sphere appeared in his palm. It hummed with a deep, unsettling frequency.
He stood up, clutching his broken ribs with one arm, the grenade in his other hand. "Well," he wheezed, blood dripping from his chin. "You're like a burnt marshmallow.
Hard and crusty on the outside…" He grinned, his teeth stained red. "But soft and gooey on the inside."
The Devourer Tiger didn't appreciate the critique. It blurred forward again, a follow-up strike meant to end the insect that dared still stand. Eis brought his staff up in a desperate parry.
CLANG!
He blocked the claw, but again, the force was catastrophic. He was launched backwards, his body sailing through the air. He saw the beast already pursuing, its central snake-tail spear-tip aimed for his heart.
Timing…
His back slammed into the thick trunk of a surviving oak. The wind was knocked out of him for the second time. A fraction of a second later, the beast's serpent-tail stabbed forward, punching completely through the tree trunk and impaling Eis through the abdomen.
"GRWAAAAAARRR!" The roar of victory vibrated through the wood and into Eis's bones.
Eis coughed, a torrent of blood spilling from his lips. He was pinned, a specimen on a spike. Yet, his smile didn't fade; it grew wider, more manic. He looked the beast in its glowing, triumphant eyes.
"Your breath," he gasped, each word a bubble of blood. "Stinks. Five days… eating humans… You need… a mint."
With the last of his strength, he lobbed the Void-Core Grenade in a gentle, underhand arc. It flew straight into the tiger's still-roaring maw. Instinctively, the beast swallowed, the hard sphere sliding down its gullet.
For a moment, nothing. The beast tilted its head, confused.
Then, a deep, sub-audible THUMP emanated from its core. Not a loud bang, but a profound, internal concussion. The tiger's eyes went wide with an alien shock.
Its armoured body stiffened. From its mouth, nostrils, and ears, thin wisps of black and purple energy leaked out. There was no external damage, no ripped-open stomach.
The containment field had done its job—all the fury of the void-core detonation had been contained and focused within the beast's body, turning its organs, bones, and muscles into soup.
The light died in its eyes. The massive body trembled once, then went rigid. It was dead on its feet.
The snake-tail retracted from the tree, slipping free of Eis's body with a wet, sucking sound. The colossal corpse of the Tier 4 beast toppled sideways, hitting the ground with a final, earth-shaking thud.
Eis slumped down the trunk of the oak, landing in a heap at its roots. Agony was a white-hot fire in his gut and chest. A deep, spreading pool of his own blood darkened the soil beneath him, and the hungry earth seemed to drink it greedily.
Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision. But before it took him, a cascade of golden text, more brilliant than any before, flooded his mind.
[SLAYING ACHIEVEMENT: Giant Slayer]
[Defeated a foe four Tiers above your own through tactical ingenuity.]
[Calculating Bonus…]
[REWARD: 850,000 AP]
The System's voice was the last thing he heard, a sweet lullaby of promised power, as unconsciousness claimed him.