The Wanderer

"Hee... ha."

The laughter sounded like a tape stuck in a broken recorder.

Stuttering, strange, piercing, as if the window had suddenly lost its soundproofing.

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A chill exploded from Zhou Kai's tailbone and instantly crawled across his entire back.

This... this was...

Uncontrolled fear instantly enveloped him, making him forget even the instinct to step back.

The edges of his vision began to darken, and the world spun around him.

The sword hilt in his hand was already soaked with cold sweat.

A slender, pale hand devoid of all color pressed against the floor-to-ceiling window. Like a blind person feeling its way around, it slowly, inch by inch, found the window latch.

It... could open the window?

It.

Was coming in!

Click.

A soft sound accompanied Zhou Kai's increasingly violent heartbeat.

The floor-to-ceiling window opened.

Whoosh!

Zhou Kai's lips trembled as he barely forced out a breath.

Crash!

The long-gathered storm seemed to have found an outlet, smashing into Zhou Kai's face.

The huge raindrops carried a rotten stench.

Yet Zhou Kai relied on sheer ferocity and forced his eyes wide open!

Creak... creak...

The sound of bare feet stepping on the wooden floor rang out, wet and sticky.

Those footsteps had no rhythm, staggering unevenly.

The Oil Lamp had run dry and gone out, leaving the room pitch-black.

Boom!

A ghastly bolt of lightning exploded at that very moment, and the brilliant light tearing through the night instantly flooded the entire room.

In that brief illumination, lasting less than a second.

Zhou Kai saw the thing before him clearly.

It was thin as a bamboo pole, its back hunched, yet its shoulders nearly touched the ceiling.

A massive, rotten head whose original features could no longer be made out looked down at him from above.

Two gray-white eyeballs had been forcibly squeezed out of their sockets by tangled flesh buds, hanging outside.

At the center of those eyeballs were two pupils the size of melon seeds.

Those pupils were filled with lofty scrutiny and mockery.

That gaze was like someone bored out of his mind deciding how to crush an ant beneath his foot.

The absolute suppression of a creature at the top of the food chain made goosebumps rise all over Zhou Kai.

His body was afraid.

That slender, pale hand slowly rose and pressed down toward Zhou Kai's head.

Its palm was nearly three times the size of his head.

Zhou Kai did not move, as if nailed to the spot.

Boundless despair and fear fermented and churned within him, eventually brewing into savage fury.

Huff...

Zhou Kai suddenly sucked in a huge breath. The blazing rage and adrenaline in his chest instantly returned control of his body to him.

The hand paused in midair, then abruptly accelerated and slammed down with a howl of wind!

But!

Whoosh!

The recovered Zhou Kai was faster!

He twisted at the waist and swung his sword. The heavy Two-Handed Sword carved a rusty-red arc of death through the darkness, striking later yet arriving first as it viciously slashed at that pale hand!

He drove the nearly three-kilogram greatsword to its limit. Some of the rust on its blade was shaken loose by the violent force, revealing the black metal beneath.

Carrying Zhou Kai's fury and killing intent...

One sword strike cleaved through the endless night!

Boom!

Another flash of lightning lit up the room, turning it blindingly white.

The blade cleanly severed the pale hand, then crashed into a fallen screen without losing momentum, producing a piercing bang.

"Gah!!!"

The towering monster let out a heart-rending shriek.

This time, that strange sound could no longer shake Zhou Kai in the slightest. His movements did not pause at all.

Using his right foot as a pivot, his body unleashed terrifying rotational force, driving the greatsword through a massive arc of more than two hundred and seventy degrees!

Clang!!

Pushed to its limit, the blade's front third was forcibly wedged into the monster's waist, cutting more than two-thirds of the way through!

The monster instantly lost its balance and staggered headfirst into the bedroom wall.

Bang!

Zhou Kai planted a foot on the monster's waist and used the leverage to pull out his sword.

Perhaps because the blade was too rough, it was firmly stuck in the monster's bones. Despite pulling hard, he failed to wrench it free.

"Damn it, my strength is still nowhere near enough..."

Zhou Kai's face twisted as he cursed.

A faint light flashed in his left hand holding the sword, and the Blood-Stained Axe appeared out of thin air.

He gripped it with both hands!

Boom!

Boom!

Thunder rumbled as lightning flickered.

Zhou Kai's frenzied shadow was cast over the monster like an evil ghost.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but Zhou Kai saw a fleeting trace of fear in those needlepoint pupils.

But he did not hesitate in the slightest. He raised the axe high and viciously chopped down at that rotten head!

The heavy axe blade crashed into the monster's skull with an impact like muffled thunder.

Its face instantly caved inward. Gray-white brain matter mixed with viscous bodily fluids splattered outward like bursting pulp.

Once!

Twice!

The axe blade became a raging storm, falling madly.

Bodily fluids flew everywhere.

Zhou Kai was like a frenzied beast, venting fear that had been suppressed to its limit.

It was precisely because humans had fears to overcome that courage was born.

And the monster's vital signs had completely vanished the moment the first axe fell.

"So that's all you've got!"

A dozen seconds later.

Aching pain spread through Zhou Kai's shoulders. Only then did he stop chopping, lean against the wall, and gasp heavily.

He was covered in gray-white slime. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair had been blown into a complete mess by the storm, and he looked utterly wretched.

[You killed "The Wanderer" and obtained Universal Experience Points *7]

[Thanks to Occultism Skill Lv.1, unexpected gain: a Memory Fragment]

Huff...

Zhou Kai exhaled shakily and could not be bothered with the axe deeply embedded in the brain matter.

He staggered toward the balcony window.

Letting the torrential rain pour over him, washing the filth from his face and head.

The biting cold made him clearer-headed than ever before.

And more excited than ever before.

By the occasional silent flashes of lightning on the horizon, Zhou Kai looked down into the distance.

His gaze passed over the dark figures wandering the streets and saw the Clock Tower at the center of town, a corner of the distant lake, and the enormous Manor by its shore.

He saw the forests and mountain peaks beyond the town. He saw an unimaginably huge palm slowly rising from behind the mountains.

He saw, atop another mountain peak, a Gothic structure piercing the clouds, so immense that it seemed like the dwelling place of gods and demons.

This was the first time Zhou Kai had taken in part of Soraka Town's appearance at a glance.

"That hand... fine. I just killed a minor mob."

That colossal palm instantly wiped away the joy of victory that had just arisen in his heart.

At the same time, he noticed that more dark figures seemed to be approaching.

Zhou Kai decisively retreated indoors, closed the floor-to-ceiling window, and drew the heavy curtains on either side, which had somehow not rotted away.

[You consumed Universal Experience Points *1]

[The Oil Lamp's fuel has been replenished, but making its light visible only to you will require investing more experience points]

When he replenished the Oil Lamp's fuel, Zhou Kai realized that light was useful not only to him, but to the monsters as well. So he had the idea of making this light exclusive to himself.

The subtitle prompt told him that this idea was possible... but the cost was considerable.

"Later."

"Now, it's time to deal with the loot."

After lighting the Oil Lamp again, Zhou Kai turned up its brightness slightly.

At last, he could carefully examine the monster called "The Wanderer."

It wore tattered clothes completely unsuited to its size. Its limbs were impossibly slender, like normal human hands and feet stretched and enlarged five or six times.

Its body was hunched, supporting a height of more than two and a half meters, but its waist was pitifully thin, no thicker than an ordinary person's.

The strangest thing was still that enormous head...

Only then did Zhou Kai discover that the monster's teeth were actually two rows of rusty-red iron nails forcibly driven into its upper and lower jaws...