Tap.
With a single step, Kanzaki Rei crossed the distance from his estate in Moonwatch Territory and appeared directly behind the gray-masked creature.
"Are you planning to torture me?"
Pat. Pat.
The gray-masked being felt two light taps on its left shoulder.
Its senses immediately swept outward.
But they detected nothing.
Then it whipped its head around to look behind it—
And saw nothing there either.
What was going on?
An illusion?
Had it imagined the voice?
But for an eighth-tier monster to experience auditory hallucinations...
How absurd would that be?
Splurt!
Yet before it had any chance to verify what had happened, in the brief instant it turned its head—
Smack—
Green fluid splashed across its mask.
The trusted subordinate that had been standing beside it only a moment ago now had its massive head blown apart.
Green blood shot upward like a fountain, spraying onto the ceiling.
Three hundred million kilometers beyond Moonwatch Territory...
There lay a continent.
Originally, humans had lived there.
But after the monsters invaded, every person who had once inhabited that land had been slaughtered...
In the end, the monsters had occupied human territory.
And begun enjoying the human way of life.
In many respects, these high-tier monsters had become remarkably human.
And the gray-masked being was currently inside the imperial palace of that conquered nation.
"You!"
This time, the gray-masked monster finally saw Kanzaki Rei.
A young man with long black hair and eyes as deep and unfathomable as the underworld itself.
"You've actually studied magic. Magic requires extremely profound understanding to master and refine. Your intelligence has already advanced to the point where you've learned how to use magic?"
After dealing with magic for so long, Kanzaki Rei knew better than anyone how difficult that path was.
"Y-You... who are you?"
"Where did you come from?"
Compound Eye had been its closest subordinate—an eighth-tier monster.
Although Compound Eye, like the other monsters, had been force-matured and did not possess the complete strength of a true eighth-tier being, at most qualifying as a half-evolved eighth-tier—
No matter what...
It should never have died so casually.
To kill an eighth-tier monster as easily as crushing a chick...
The strength of the person standing before it was terrifying beyond imagination.
"Who I am."
"I don't think that's important."
Bzzzt!
A sound echoed from all directions.
The gray-masked monster's pupils contracted in utter shock.
This was the distress signal it had just sent out.
Yet now, every signal had been reflected straight back onto itself.
"Must you struggle?"
Kanzaki Rei's tone remained calm.
The gray-masked monster turned and saw countless threads interwoven like a spiderweb.
At the same time, those threads formed layer upon layer of magic circles.
This entire space had been sealed.
Not just space.
Even time itself had been significantly interfered with.
Trapped within this domain, there was only one possible conclusion.
Escape was impossible.
"Human..."
"How did you accomplish all of this? You appeared before me without the slightest warning and sealed this place completely."
"In all the intelligence I've gathered, I've never heard of a human like you."
Kanzaki Rei replied, "If you've never heard of me, then your information is outdated."
Yet even as he spoke—
Black fissures suddenly opened all around him.
Within each crack, a vertical eye snapped open in an instant!
Splurt—
Splurt splurt splurt splurt splurt splurt splurt splurt—
But from the gray-masked monster's perspective, it never saw Kanzaki Rei move.
In a single instant, every eye that had opened toward him—from the heavens above to the earth below—was pierced through.
In the blink of an eye, all of them were destroyed.
And at the same moment, the gray-masked monster lost its own vision.
Two long daggers had already been driven into its eyes.
The blades pierced straight through its mask.
And upon impact, they left numerous Marks throughout its body.
Kanzaki Rei could detonate them at any time.
"Sneak attacks are a bad habit."
"If you'd actually succeeded, I would have looked pretty foolish."
"You should understand by now the gap between us."
"I don't intend to kill you."
"I only want to ask you a few things about Euinri."
Kanzaki Rei opened with a decisive display of overwhelming force.
"Human!"
"Do you think I'd believe you?"
"After you get what you want, you're going to kill me to silence me anyway, aren't you?!"
Kanzaki Rei let out a soft sigh.
"You're just a monster. Why do you have to understand things so clearly? Wouldn't it be better to stay a little confused?"
"But if I say I won't kill you, then I won't."
"As for why I was able to appear here..."
A thought flickered through Kanzaki Rei's mind.
Then an idea emerged.
"Heh. Naturally, because of a problem within your own ranks."
"Thanks to someone's assistance, I was able to slip in here without making a sound."
At Kanzaki Rei's answer, the gray-masked creature visibly froze.
Monsters had always acted as one.
Their hierarchy was absolute.
Higher-tier monsters were inherently superior to lower-tier ones.
Even if the strong used the weak as disposable cannon fodder, lower-tier monsters were incapable of harboring resentment.
And precisely because of this strict ranking system—
Betrayal and suspicion were nearly nonexistent among monsters.
Yet upon hearing Kanzaki Rei's words, the gray-masked monster began to tremble.
"N-No..."
"Don't tell me... there's a traitor among us!"
"No, you're lying to me... right?!"
Kanzaki Rei gave a cold smile.
And while he smiled...
The Mana Sea rippled faintly.
One subtle mental spell after another spread outward, gradually enveloping the entire area.
Kanzaki Rei's methods of controlling minds were no longer as crude as before.
Now, instead of forcibly seizing control or implanting thoughts directly into another's sea of consciousness, he spread mental magic throughout the surrounding environment.
These spells did not overwrite free will.
Rather, they altered the atmosphere itself.
They shifted emotions.
They made the target feel as though every thought and action arose from their own genuine intentions.
Moreover, this approach left almost no trace.
The mental spells simply formed a field, without deliberately targeting any single individual.
As a result, this style of combat was extraordinarily difficult to detect.
Under Kanzaki Rei's influence, the monster's emotions had already begun to shift.
It no longer felt certain that Kanzaki Rei was deceiving it.
Instead, it began doubting itself.
"Could there really be a traitor?"
"The enemy... is actually hidden within our own kind?"
A nearly imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of Kanzaki Rei's lips.
"How about this? Tell me everything you know about Euinri, and I'll let you go."
"And in return, I'll also tell you exactly which one of your own kind exposed your secrets and delivered me silently to your side."
Kanzaki Rei revealed a mysterious smile.
"I'd be more than happy to watch your monsters tear each other apart."