The sun had long set. The smiling moon and glittering stars had taken over the sky and painted it black. Under the veil of night, Robert had successfully infiltrated into the Dark Zone.

The Dark Zone was a restricted area, opened only to Hunters due to the dangers that lurked within the sinister forest. Hunters worked day and night in this forest, either to subjugate or scavenge. Monsters were more than just threats. In their death, parts of their bodies could be turned into various benefits. Their hide could be turned into armor or apparels, their talons, claws, or fangs were forged into weapons, their organs and some body parts were used as ingredients for medicines and potions, the list of their usefulness spanned the distance between heaven and earth.

Hunters were free to come and go through the Dark Zone, regardless of day or night.

However, due to the recent rise of anomalies and aberrations, a limit was imposed. The Dark Zone was now forbidden to everyone after night had descend. Naturally, this had greatly affected the economy especially when some materials and ingredients came from monsters who were only active during the night.

Anyhow, those weren’t Robert’s headaches. He managed to slip past the patrols guarding the entrance to the Dark Zone, with ease. He wondered if the guards at the entrance were only pose there for superficial reasons.

He had yet to use any sort of concealment-type Magic or skills but he’d already made his way into the outer layer of the Dark Zone. During these moments, he didn’t sense any human patrols in the Dark Zone itself. Robert thought there would be some elite patrols in the Dark Zone to capture anyone who dared to sneak in. But there was none. A negligent management but in a way, cautious. The nocturnal monsters were significantly stronger than the ones during the day. Only Hunters with plentiful of experience and strength hunted at night.

The Dark Zone was a given to be flourished with monsters but as far as Robert’s eyes could perceive, there were none in sight. This wasn’t due to the anomalies but it was in fact, Robert’s own doing.

Animals and creatures were believe to possess a sixth sense, a strong instinct. They could sensed natural disasters long before they struck. And right now, this sixth sense of theirs, was telling them to avoid the boy who was dashing through the forest, Robert Ross.

These monsters had preyed on Hunters of all ranks and abilities. They were not unfamiliar with humans. They were aware of how much threat Hunters could pose but they weren’t overly afraid of them. Yet, none of them approached Robert. They only watched from afar.

Not that Robert was complaining. With none of the monsters getting in his way, he could safely reached the inner layer of the forest, where he felt an unprecedented force of energy, bearing an uncanny similar feeling to the partitioned force within himself, with the only difference being that the partitioned force wasn’t emitting any ominous apprehension.

After blandly running past the outer layer and into the middle layer, Robert was given the same reception from the monsters. They all stayed a good amount of distance away from Robert but he knew the status quo was bound to change if he went any further.

He double-checked his gears. He was wearing simple clothing with room and some resistance for extreme maneuvers, layered on top with leather vest, bracers, and knee pads. His top had conveniently come with a hood. Along with the hood, he donned a mask. It was gray and devoid of any patterns safe for two eye holes.

For weapons, he had a spear, a short sword, two daggers, and a few throwing weapons, all enchanted with the spell, Return. A neat little gimmick that returns the weapon to the wielder. He was suppose to have another sword but due to the unusual materials he requested to be made of and the unforeseen circumstances Tann mentioned, it took longer than the others to prepare. He also had four daggers made of normal steel.

All of these weapons were store in his Storage Ring. These type of rings were consider artifacts. Their history was long lost in the endless stream of time. Only a few craftsmen possessed the knowledge to craft these artifacts. Out of all the things Robert had request from Mr. Smith, this ring was the most valuable.

Even so, an artifact had its limited range of uses. It was a support item. It wouldn’t help much in an offense.

Robert would be lying if he said he didn’t felt nervous. After all, it was a long time ago since he last used Magic in an actual combat. He had a unique constitution but it didn’t mean he was impervious to death. Furthermore, he was aware of how frail his body was. On an unrelated note, his face was plain and he didn’t have any notable features. His height was actually in fact a little lower than the average boy of his age.

“Why was I bestowed with such a body?”

This was something that had always lingered in his mind. He had tried to made his own body sturdier through various means but his body was too frail. The only way was to let his own body grown slowly and steadily. Now that he was in this forest clouded with death, he wished he had concentrated on strengthening his offense rather than his knowledge. Steeling his nerves, he revised what he knew about Magic in his head.

Magic bore multitude of functions and was repeatedly revered as near-omnipotent. Before anyone was to dwell deeper into the understanding of Magic, they would need to learn the two basic and core application of Magic. Infusion and Conjuration.

Infusion was the augmentation of one’s body or an item through the infusion of Magic, which was where the name derived from. A magic-infused body could punch harder and move faster. A magic-infused sword would cut better. Conjuration was the act of conjuring Magic outside of a medium, namely the body. Launching a Magic bolt out from the palm is the basic of Conjuration. Basically, Infusion was internal, Conjuration was external, and with one more difference and a rule of thumb, Conjuration costs more Magic to use than Infusion.

And there was Specialization Magic. Any Magic that went beyond just Infusion and Conjuration was considered Specialization Magic. On average, it would took an individual up to twenty years to learn Specialization Magic but exceptions were made for those with a unique bloodline or talent.

Therefore, Robert’s quick-dressing skill was a Specialization Magic but it was nothing profound nor significant. It was just a parlour trick. With that logic, his hyper-cognition ability could also be considered Specialization Magic but one factor excluded it from the category. His hyper-cognition ability wasn’t Magic but purely a result of his unique constitution. To put it into perspective, a Sentry would lost it’s detection abilities under certain Magic-nullifying effects but that wouldn’t be the case for Robert.

It won’t be hyperbolic to say his hyper-cognitive ability was his lifeline in this situation right now should his intimidating presence failed him.

As Robert made his way through the forest, he thought about a certain monster. Before he came to the Dark Zone, he read up thoroughly on the reports of the Dark Zone from Tann’s dossier. One of the pages pertained the possible sighting of a new breed of monster.

Raksa, the name the Hunter Association had given it. From the rough sketch the report came with, it had the appearance of a werewolf but many features were wrong. The most prominent being its lower jaw. It was able to split it into two. With a slanted body, it could be mistaken as an overgrown raptor if it wasn’t for its head and fur. And there was its tail— It had no resemblance to a wolf’s. It was as long as its body, or even longer. It was tapered. It looked like a reptilian’s tail with fur.

It was repeatedly sighted at the edge between the middle layer and inner layer.

Robert could only sighed. With how things were going, he was sure that he would bumped into this Raksa if he tread any further. Not like he had the option of backing away now. He had a job.

Even if he didn’t encounter this Raksa, there were other monster he would need to be concerned of. The deeper into the Dark Zone, the more aggressive and stronger the monsters would be. The one golden rule for all Dark Zones.

“Hmm… strange…” muttered Robert. The monsters were staying faraway from him but the deeper he went, the further they stayed away. He thought it would be the opposite as the monsters only get stronger further in.

“Maybe it’s not me they’re staying away from.”

Robert’s worries eventually came true when he reached the halfway point of the middle layer. It was still far from his eyes but he picked up a few presences in front of him. None of them felt friendly in the slightest or even remotely human. Even at this distance, the three presences’ hostility was clear.

He came to an area where the trees were slightly further apart from one and other. There were humanoid figures crouching over a half-eaten carcass of a wolf-type monster. They were feeding on it.

Rather than being a humanoid, it would be more accurate to say they were human figures but their decayed flesh and dark eyes told Robert enough of their current condition. Their clothes were ragged and armor rusted beyond repair. Even the weapons dangling on their belt were no longer in a usable state.

“They must be the missing Hunters.”

They were obviously dead, given the few holes on their bodies if one ignored their decaying flesh.

“Ghouls…?” Robert then noticed something odd about them.

Ghouls were resurrected beings through the use of Dark Magic. They were robbed of their will and obeyed only their summoner. These dead Hunters were certainly Ghouls but—

— Robert found no traces of Dark Magic nor any Dark Magic-users in the vicinity. The summoner would need to be within range for the Magic to function. Leaving the limited range would turn the Ghouls back into mere corpses.

Robert thereby arrived at a conjecture, “a byproduct of the anomalies.”

The Ghouls had notice Robert’s presence. They turned to face him, snarling. And it was then, he noticed another deviation of a standard Ghoul. Their heart was still beating despite of their decomposing body. Ghouls were essentially dead. The heart should not be beating.

“Go… home…”

Robert raised eyebrow at the hoarse and sore sounding voice, voided of any living essence.

“Let… me… go…. home….”

It came from one of the Ghouls, reaching its hands out to Robert. Its mouth or jaws weren’t moving but Robert wasn’t mistaken, the voice came from it.

“Are they repeating the last lines in their final moments?” Robert pondered.

“I want… to go… home…” as it finished its sentence, it lunged at Robert with a cry befitting of a decaying throat.

Robert conjured a simple Magic shield in his left hand. Large enough to cover only a face.

He bashed the lunging Ghoul with it. With his other hand, he infused Magic into his straightened palm before piercing into the Ghoul’s forehead like a pseudo-blade.

“Fuck me,” Robert cursed as he realized the blow wasn’t fatal to the Ghoul. Going for the head was the staple trick in felling any undead-type monsters. However, this Ghoul which had its head carved in, was still moving.

The Ghoul let out a dreadful and sharp screech that even twisted Robert’s usually composed expression.

The two other Ghouls were spurred by the screech. They began charging at Robert’s way.

Retracting his hand, Robert swept the Ghoul away with a kick to confront the other two. He noticed one of the two approaching Ghouls was dragging behind with a broken leg.

“Then, you shall be first.”

He dove under the first Ghoul’s swiped of its hands which had disfigured into claws. He then rush for the Ghoul dragging behind.

“Don’t… leave… me…!” the dragging Ghoul let out.

Robert wasn’t so easily shaken.

The dragging Ghoul had slower movements. Its reaching claws were easily avoided by Robert. The Storage Ring glowed and a short sword manifested into his hand.

“If the head isn’t the weak point, then there’s a high chance that decapitation wouldn’t work either. Which leaves only one possibility—”

He thrust the sword through the Ghoul, impaling its heart.

The Ghoul froze— before giving off a loud screech as its dying breath. And it withered as it fell to the ground.

“Just like the reports, a dried-up husk.”

With not a moment lost, he made a sharp turnaround, barely in time to evade the Ghoul’s claw by tilting his head aside. He cut off the arms and went for the heart, plain and simple.

“Cowards…! Come… back…!” The Ghoul gave its last screech before withering into a stale corpse.

There was no time for Robert to rest. The Ghoul he shoved aside with a sweeping kick had gotten back up. The wound on its head was splitting further apart. Something was crawling out from that crevice.

“Are those feelers? Or hands?”

Deeming it useless to cerebrate, Robert infuse his feet with Magic and shot towards the Ghoul with the splitting head. The feelers darted at Robert who then sliced away every last one of it. He took out the spear through his Storage Ring and thrust at the Ghoul’s heart, pinning it into the tree behind it.

After a brief struggle and more screeches, the Ghoul finally succumbed to its wound and withered.

“That was… unexpected”

After cleaning the spear of any stains with a random cloth, Robert stow it back into storage.

Although it was something to be reassured of, a hint of dread lingered in the corner of his mind. He had a feeling he had forgotten about a piece of important information. It was recent. He racked his brain for the answer—

It took the combined effort of three Elite to finally did the job.

The harlot-dressed professor, Lily’s words flashed in his mind.

That was it.

These three Ghouls were too easy. Taking down a single one of them would not even need a Magic-user. Normal means could easily kill them if one know where to strike.

Which meant— there was something much stronger. From the way Lily reported, the hysteric Hunter must not have looked like a Ghoul. If he had, the officials would not had carelessly approached him.

This realization wasn’t much of a good news. It just meant Robert had more than one type of enemy to worry about.

Left without any other options and riddled with duty, Robert pressed on deeper into the forest.

Not even ten minutes had pass, Robert began hearing twigs and branches snapping and leaves rustling.

“More of them, huh.”

A dozen more Ghouls appeared. They came from all directions.

With prior experience, he dispatched all of them without much trouble. He used the short sword to disarmed the Ghouls, literally, before piercing their heart with the spear. If the Ghouls were too close, he switched out the spear for a dagger. All the while killing the Ghouls, he didn’t completely stop his movements. He was always moving forward to the inner layer.

Robert wanted to take a few more moment of breather but reality wasn’t so generous. He had already sensed another hostile presence closing in. This one gave off a more threatening feeling than all the other ghouls by tenfold.

A towering monster with a near-humanoid appearance stepped out of the shadows. Robert slid to a stop as he witnessed the emerged creature.

“Yeah, that’s absolutely not terrifying at all.”

It wasn’t just its size. It was a monster in a truest sense, a creature of spliced-up humans, most likely all the missing Hunters. Robert couldn’t even tell heads and toes from this thing. The thing did its best to retain a humanoid shape despite being a crumpled-up of many humans where hands were sprouting it from the had, legs growing on the chest and back, and faces plastered all over its body.

Worst of all, the body parts, the faces, they were all still moving, expressing and voicing out their last moments of their life. The jumbled-up pleas and cries created a voice that one would only expect from the most eerie of nightmares.

“I should just aim for the heart like always but…”

The Spliced Ghoul had multiple hearts, one for each Hunter it consumed and assimilated. There were twenty-five hearts in total, Robert counted with his hyper-cognition.

The over-sized creature ran as if its tumbling forward at Robert. The hands were flaying randomly around but that was only at hindsight. Robert knew those hands would try to grab him if he got too close. Maybe it wouldn’t be a certain death if the he did get too close. The hands weren’t that fast.

Robert drew out the spear and stabbed straight into one of Spliced Ghoul’s heart.

“Shit.”

The spear had only manage to take out one heart. The thick flesh and bones had stop the penetration. Robert attempted to pull it out but it was fruitless.

Synonymous to a single heart destroyed, one of the faces and a pair of arms and legs on the Spliced Ghoul withered away. Robert could tell the Ghoul had even shrunk by a little.

The Spliced Ghoul, with twenty-four of its mouths, unleashed a deafening screech of agony. It grabbed onto the spear still stuck in its body and snapped it into two as easy as breaking a toothpick.

“If pointed weapons don’t work, how about blunt force?”

Robert switched to his fists, infusing both with Magic. He moved in while the Spliced Ghoul was still distracted over its lost. One punch only staggered the Spliced Ghoul. The second punch sent it stumbling back but its multiple legs help kept its balance. Wasting not an opportunity, Robert sent a third punch with a battle cry, sending the Spliced Ghoul went sprawling across the dirt.

With its numerous limbs, the colossal monster was soon back on its feet.

“Okay… that didn’t work,” Robert mused, “how about this?”

Robert instantly flung two throwing disc both infused with Magic at the Spliced Ghoul.

The countless hands on the Spliced Ghoul reacted to the flying discs. They reached out to intercept but only to be sliced apart. The discs were unhindered by the frail flesh which came into their path. It continue to travel even after gouging into the Ghoul’s body, and both of the discs made their exit through its back.

The Ghoul screeched louder than before as it lost two hearts.

Instead of a grimace, Robert smirked, “two hearts down, twenty-two more to go.” He made a flicking gesture and the discs flew back into his hands.

All the eyes on the Spliced Ghoul shot towards Robert. Each eyes were fuming with rage.

“Ugh… fuck me…” uttered Robert as he shrugged. He was feeling the shivers.

The Spliced Ghoul screamed at Robert before charging at him with its massive body and quaking steps.

Robert threw the discs again, yielding the same results as before. He continued with this strategy until he shaved the faces down to fourteen. His luck ended there. The Spliced Ghoul caught the two discs.

“Huh, it got faster? Nice…” Robert made the conclusion that while the Ghoul was losing its size and strength, its speed increased.

Although it was considerably smaller than it was, the Spliced Ghoul still had a strong grip. It prevented Robert from willing the discs back to him. With a short but loud screech, the Ghoul crushed the two discs with all of its hands.

The Spliced Ghoul looked around its feet until it stopped at dead log half its size.

“Oh…shit,” Robert had a bad premonition.

It picked it up and tossed it at Robert like it weighed nothing.

“Son of a—!” Robert dove out of the way as the log broke into splinters when it hit the tree behind him.

“It still has that much strength?”

The Spliced Ghoul picked up another log a portion of its size and tossed it again. It wasn’t just strong, it was fast too. Its movements was quite swift for a thing of such size. Its speed prevented Robert from retaliating.

But even if Robert was able to retaliate, there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was much faster now. It was able to intercept to discs. And other weapons wouldn’t be able to pierce through its natural defense.

When it ran out of logs, the Spliced Ghoul flung a boulder nearby towards Robert. It was much slower but no less lethal.

Infusing his legs with Magic, Robert leaped onto a tree branch just as the boulder crashed into his former position.

“What to do… what to do….?” Robert muttered while tapping his chin.

It wasn’t as if Robert did not have any means to kill the Spliced Ghoul. In fact, he had many methods. He had Magic.

However, his main concerns were the aftermath. Even if he kill it, what happens then? What if another similar tier of monster appeared? This monster surely wasn’t the only monster in this vast forest. His meagre pool of Magic did not allow him to be imprudent, which was why he had avoid using Conjuration Magic all this while.

Rummaging through all of these possibilities, ideas, and outcomes, he arrived to a plausible solution to this conundrum.

“Its tossing ability isn’t the main problem,” Robert rubbed his chin, “the quantity of the ammunition is. If that’s the case, let’s change the battlefield.”