Soze didn't know how he was able to approach The Monster while under the effects of [FEAR] but he wasn't going to question it. The unnatural terror was gone, replaced by raw fury, and he was aiming all of it at The Monster.

The blinded bear was completely ignorant of his approach and so he charged while aiming to stab the beast directly in its face.

Whether by chance or by skill, the bear turned its head at the last second, and the blade sank into The Monster's shoulder.

Realizing that he was right in front of it, The Monster roared and tried to claw at him, but Soze, feeling unimaginably light and agile, flipped himself over the bear's shoulder to land on its back, his hand still holding the Warrior Blade.

He ripped out the blade and was about to strike again when The Monster reared back, throwing Soze off. He managed to land on his feet and leapt back at the beast before it could turn around again. Soze slashed at the bear's undefended back, but the cut was shallow and dealt little damage.

*ROOOAAARRR*

The Monster bellowed as it used [BURNING RAGE] for the third time. Standing so close to it, Soze nearly felt his bones rattling from the force generated by the Skill-enhanced roar as he fell to the ground. Once again he felt his body freeze up as he was affected by [PARALYSIS], but the feeling of [FEAR] wasn't there.

The blinded bear turned its head left and right, searching for his immobile body and finding him rather quickly. The Monster was nearly standing over him as the debuff wore off.

Soze retaliated quickly, swinging around and slashing The Monster along one of its legs before scrambling to his feet. Now knowing where he is The Monster lashed out, missing Soze by mere inches and tearing up the ground between them.

Dashing forward, Soze stabbed the bear in its stomach in an attempt to gut it. However, there was no soft underbelly between the forward and middle legs. What Soze had thought was part of the bear's stomach was more like an extended chest area, a result of the Demon Bear's long torso. The Warrior Blade pierced deep but wasn't sharp enough to cut through the tough hide of The Monster's chest, throwing him off balance.

With a quick turn of its massive body, The Monster batted Soze aside. He felt and heard a terrible snap come from his arm at the moment of impact. His left arm was undoubtedly broken.

Landing on his feet, Soze grit his teeth through the pain and looked at The Monster. The Warrior Blade was still lodged in its chest as it turned to face him, swinging wildly as it struggled to find him.

Taking a breath, Soze noticed an opening between the swings and dashed forward. Quickly retrieving his weapon, Soze spun past the bear's side before slashing at its legs again. The Monster turned to swing at him, but by the time it did he was jumping toward its lower back which, thanks to the Demon Bear's strange anatomy, he was able to straddle like riding a horse.

"Just fucking die already!"

Holding on tight with his legs, Soze slammed the knife into The Monster's back. He felt it try to shake him off, but he ignored it and kept stabbing. Blood splashed across his face as more wounds were opened, partially blinding him, but he kept stabbing and shouting his frustrations.

"Die!"

"Die!"

"Die!"

"Di-"

Suddenly, the feeling of [FEAR] returned in full force, causing Soze to pause. For a moment he thought The Monster had used [BURNING RAGE] without him noticing, but then he realized that the body beneath him was still.

Breathing slowly, Soze wiped the blood from his eyes and looked down.

The Monster was dead.

The tension left his limbs, his body flooding with relief even as [FEAR] was trying to keep him on edge. This battle had been physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting, and now that it was over that exhaustion was hitting him all at once.

Soze climbed off The Monster's body before sitting down to lie against it.

"I'll just...catch my breath for a moment...."

~~~~~

When Soze opened his eyes again, he was back in the village. More specifically, he was in the Kitchen, getting his arm treated by one of the players with healing magic.

"Thn yh," he slurred, apparently too tired to form proper words.

"Feeling okay?" she asked, not sounding particularly worried. "Last I checked you don't have any debuffs."

"Im fin- I'm fine!" he said firmly, shaking his head slightly. "I'm just...a little spent after all that."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Yang said, sitting down next to him with a thump. "I hear things got pretty fucked out there. Sis said it had a name when you found it?"

"Mhhm. Honestly, if that thing had been named when it showed up we would probably all be dead right now."

"Yeah... but luckily that didn't happen, and everyone is in mostly one piece. Speaking of which," Yang turned to look at the healer. "How's his arm?"

"The bones have been set and mostly reattached," she said before yawning. "I'd finish healing them myself but I'm almost out of MP. You can either find someone else to finish it off, or you can just wait a week for the Weakened Bone debuff to wear off."

"I'll probably just get Loran to do it," Soze said as the healer started to stand up. "Thanks by the way."

"You're welcome!" She said cheerfully as she walked off.

'If only we had this shit in real life,' Soze thought mournfully. "What happened to Yin and the others?"

Yang's eyes narrowed. "They're recovering. No one was hurt but they've all been shaken pretty badly. Only Yin and Bates were able to talk when you all came back."

Soze's eyes widened for a moment, but his shock quickly faded. The [FEAR] debuff truly was a traumatizing effect, it wasn't strange for them to need time after experiencing it. It was unfortunate, but this was probably the best possible outcome.

"Congrats on the new Skill by the way," Yang said suddenly.

He turned to look at her confused. "What are you talking about?"

Her brow furrowed. "You don't know?"

Curious, Soze opened his menu and sure enough, there was a new Skill at the bottom of his Skill List.

[VENGEFUL SPITE] Lv.1

(Active Cost: 10 SP/sec) A Unique Skill created by Soze. Invert or negate the effects of Debuffs applied by enemies.

"When did I..." Soze vaguely recalled receiving a notification when he started fighting The Monster with his Warrior Blade, the same time as the [FEAR] debuff stopped affecting him. "This is what let me finish it off."

He thought about the debuffs given to him by The Monster's [BURNING RAGE] Skill, and realized that this Skill practically was practically a hard counter to it. [STUNNED] wasn't able to stop him from activating it, and [FEAR] not only had its movement restriction disabled but the Dexterity reduction had been reversed, boosting his control and damage.

"You really didn't know?"

"The system just gave it to me, I didn't even need to use any Ability Points. I just activated it unconsciously."

"Lucky you then. So it really stops all debuffs then?"

"No, or at least not completely," Soze said, recalling the events of the fight. "I was still paralyzed whenever The Monster used its Unique Skill. I guess there are limits to it."

"That also might just be because it's at Level 1, try upgrading it. You should have a bunch of EXP from killing it right?"

"Oh yeah," Soze said with a small smile, his menu telling him he earned 20,000 Experience Points from defeating The Monster. "Time to max this baby out and see what it can-" his eyes widened. "Nevermind, each Level requires 10,000 EXP, holy shit!"

"No fucking way," Yang said, her mouth hanging open slightly.

"It says it right there!"

"That... is honestly insane," Yang said as she regained her composure. "But it also means this thing will be really powerful once you level it up. You might even end up immune to debuffs like The Guardian Elder was!"

It certainly sounded impressive. Yang had told him about how The Guardian Elder's Unique Skill caused its wounds to heal to prevent it from getting [BLEEDING] debuffs, and he began wondering how [VENGEFUL SPITE] would work once it was maxed out.

'It doesn't remove debuffs, so injuries probably won't heal, but would bleeding actually heal me? Loran's crippled hand and broken bones come with stat reductions, but would the Skill also fix the structural problem.' The idea of having been given a Skill that might make him faster with broken legs had a bitter irony to it that brought a small smile to his face. 'Figures that I would get a Skill like this, but I guess that's why it's called Unique.'

"Soze, is something wrong?" Yang asked concern radiating off her.

"It's fine, nothing you need to worry about," he said, knowing she wouldn't believe him. The [GOAT WHISERER] Skill caused tiny bits of body language to become obvious emotional cues, so lying became much harder unless you were completely calm. Fortunately, she was willing to drop the topic. "Anyway, I know I got a notification with this earlier, time to see what it looks like."

Opening the notification log, he saw a lot more than he was expecting. Feeling a little overwhelmed, he decided to just start from the top and work his way down. Scrolling up for a second brought him to the notification related to his new Skill.

[YOUR ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR HAS BEEN NOTICED BY THE PIONEER SYSTEM]

[PERFORMING SCENARIO ANALYSIS]

[...]

[AFTER ANALYSING YOUR SITUATION, EMOTIONS, THOUGHTS, AND MEMORIES, THE PIONEER SYSTEM HAS RECOGNIZED YOUR ACTIONS AS WORTHY OF A UNIQUE SKILL]

[...]

[THE UNIQUE SKILL {Vengeful Spite} HAS BEEN GENERATED]

"It went through my memories?!" Soze said, eyes wide.

"That's...a little intimidating," Yang said slowly. Then she shrugged. "But companies already record basically everything we do online, is it that surprising that a death game would go farther?"

"You're surprisingly calm about this. I would expect Loran to be chill about this but not you."

Yang shrugged. "I've pirated enough games from shady websites for long enough that I'm already used to the idea of my personal shit already being out there. Besides, wouldn't Loran say 'It's not like we can do anything about it' or something."

"I guess," Soze said quietly. 'This explains why the Skill felt so tailored to me...'

Shaking his head, Soze returned his focus to the notifications. After the part about his Unique Skill there was the normal kill notice from defeating The Monster, but that was quickly followed by something many players had expected.

Named monster rewards.