Chapter 153 - One Shot, One Kill: Into The Swamps arc (8)

"Talos, report."

"None of the eight teams have found anything yet, master."

"Alright, keep looking and immediately inform me if you find anything." Arnold recited his orders and ended the call, "On second thought, widen the search range and look for the missing people as well."

"As you wish, master."

It had been an hour since Arnold send his summons to look for the anonymous monster, but they didn't have any success. Arnold then tried to raise a platform using his Earth elemental control ability and look for the monster that way, but the forest had a dense canopy which didn't allow him to do so, Even if that wasn't so, the fact that the sun was long gone, would've made it nearly impossible for him to locate the monster in that manner.

As he had requested, Nathan's men had also been evacuated from the forest for their safety, but as Arnold had thought, a couple of them were missing, most probably they had fallen prey to the monster's hands, even if that was the case, they had to look for their bodies and that's why Arnold told Talos and the others to do so.

'If only this was a trans-dimensional dungeon and not the real world, I'd have burned the entire forest down and force the monster to come at me... Just like the last time.' Arnold wanted this to get over as soon as possible but it looked like the monster had decided to play hide and seek with him instead.

If this had happened inside a trans-dimensional dungeon Arnold would've already found the monster and be done with it, but he couldn't do much here because Nathan had stopped him from doing anything reckless like burning or freezing the forest. unlike the wastelands, he couldn't do as he pleased to. His hands were tied, Cerberus and the hounds were his only hope right now.

According to whatever Rob managed to mumble out while panicking, the group of teenagers wasn't the ones who had attacked or provoked the monster, it was the other way around. So the question remained, how did the monster found them? It could've been a coincidence or maybe not? Well, he didn't have the time to figure that out, but he did have the time to use his ace. The [Foresight].

"Nicole, mind keeping a lookout for a minute?" Arnold requested Nicole to do so as he won't be able to do anything while he was using the foresight, he requested her to do so because she was stronger than his summons.

"Sure, but where are you going?" Nicole asked her brother.

"Nowhere, I'm just going to meditate while my summons search for the monster." Without wasting a second Arnold sat down on the forest floor, surrounded by people with confused looks in their faces and a single thought running through their minds.

'Who the fck starts meditating in between a mission?'

They all looked at Nathan, who just shook his head. Even though he could request him not to, Nathan felt like it wasn't his place to stop him.

Arnold's conscience left his body, as everything went quiet around him. Once the skill was in effect, he immediately rushed towards Cerberus, as he was certain they'd have a lead in finding the monster. Instead what he saw was completely different from what he had thought.

Cerberus and the other hounds were chasing after each other in a track shaped like a number '8'. It looked like the monster had managed to confuse hounds by continuously running in the shape of '8' and leaving its scent there. Since the scent was concentrated at that place, they got stuck there and didn't move ahead.

'... at least now I know what I have to teach them next.' Arnold thought, 'Looks like I'll have to search for the monster myself.'

Arnold decided to return to where his body was and resume the search from there. Once he was back and was about to leave to look for the monster, something shiny above a tree caught his eyes. Something or someone was sitting on the branch of a tree, it's small eyes fixated at Arnold's body. A silvery sword in its hands, ready to jump and kill his target.

'This bastard was here all along and we were looking for him in the forest! And that Cerberus couldn't even find him?' Arnold couldn't control his mouth but he felt like it was twitching because of what Arnold was thinking.

The monster was gazing at Arnold looking pleased but, little did it know, his target was looking right at him too. Rather than going back inside his body, Arnold went towards the monster. Just like what the survivor had told them, even Arnold had never seen or heard about such a monster before.

Arnold looked at Its face which was frozen in time, its two thin eyes were examining the surroundings from their broad sockets. A small nose rested below, but it was the long mouth below that took all of the attention of its spectator. It's wide smile, which extended from one ear to the other, revealed rows of eerie looking teeth and a long tongue that were hidden inside. Thin flappy ears sat on each side of its massive, angular head, which itself was covered in rows of small horns.

Its long hefty body was hunched over while he sat on the tree branch. Two lean arms dangle at its sides and in the end were webbed hands with thick fingers which were useful for climbing, knife-like nails extended from each of his fingers. He wielded a sword in one of its arms. Its legs were long and straight, each ending in crooked feet. Its body was covered with bruises from unknown origin, Arnold guessed it was probably from a monster, and its shoulders were narrower than its pelvis.

But something was weird, the monster's overall appearance and body shape weren't like a monster but more like a human, maybe he was an inhuman just like Bad-Breath, experimented and turned into a monster by someone. (Author's note: In case you're having trouble imagining what the monster looks like, it looks similar to Ryuk from death note.)

'Is it a human?' Arnold mumbled and quickly used the probe skill on it.

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CLASS: Human (Mutant)

NAME:

LEVEL: 89

RANK: A+

ROLE:

AFFINITY/ABILITIES :

• Death Swipe (Active skill)

• Silence cloak (Passive skill)

• Camouflage (Passive skill)

HP: 12000/12000

STRENGTH (STR) : 93

DEFENSE (DEF) : 89

STAMINA (STA) : 65

INTELLIGENCE (INT) : 78

AGILITY (AGI) : 98

ACCURACY (ACC) : 65

EVADE (EVD) : 75

CHARISMA (CHA) : --

Damage Resistances: Magical attacks deal only 80% of total damage.

Condition Immunities: Exhaustion, Frightened, Burnt, Poisoned.

Weak Against: Physical attacks.

THREAT LEVEL: Mediocre

REMARK: It seems like a human was foolish enough to have consumed a lot of beast crystals and their body couldn't adapt to the rapid changes that occurred due to the consumption, hence ended up becoming a monster as well. An interesting observation to say the least. The Good thing is, at least now you know what happens when a human consumes beast crystals.

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Before he could comment upon his findings, the duration of [Foresight] ended and Arnold was pulled back to his body. Just when he was about to open his eyes, the monster leapt from his hiding place and dived towards Arnold, the silver sword came rushing towards him like a javelin.

Nathan and the others rushed towards Arnold but they were quite far away and weren't prepared for a sneak attack. Arnold, however, had been waiting for the humanoid monster to do something like this.

Just as the humanoid was about to slam his sword onto Arnold's head, a portal appeared in between them, and through it, came a giant hammer. The monster didn't expect something like this to happen, thus wasn't either prepared for it nor was there anything it could've done to dodge the hammer while he was suspended midair. A moment later, the hammerhead slammed the humanoid's head and a notification appeared on Arnold's interface.

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Your summon has activated the weapon skill [The Barbarian from hell].

The skill was successful. Target was killed in one blow.

[Storm Crusher] has gained +2 strength (STR) due to the effect of weapon passive [Pleased to kill]

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