"Roar!"
The mutated three-fingered monster let out a frenzied roar.
The sound waves were so powerful they shook the entire wooden cabin, sending dust falling from the ceiling.
Bound to her chair, Nina writhed in pain as blood slowly seeped from her ears, leaving her mind filled with nothing but a deafening ringing.
Spreading its arms wide, it lunged at Sephirot like a rampaging bear. Judging by its stance, it seemed intent on giving Sephirot a lethal "bear hug."
With every step the three-fingered monster took, the floor trembled slightly.
Sephirot shifted back as magic power surged within him, coalescing in mid-air into a giant, violet-glowing hand that snatched the charging three-fingered monster.
"Hm?"
He felt a flicker of doubt. The Devil Bringer, which had been invincible until now, met with immense resistance; the opponent's body felt like a solid ball of iron.
The shotgun appeared in Sephirot's hands once more.
BANG!
The magic-infused pure silver bullets slammed into the monster's body, sinking deep into its flesh.
The monster didn't make a sound, merely covering the wound with one hand.
At that moment, black fog emerged from the antlers atop its head. The mist surged toward the wound, sizzling and emitting a puff of white smoke.
A moment later, the squirming muscle forcibly squeezed out several bullet heads, and the wound began to heal.
"Tough bastard."
Sephirot's gaze quickly swept over the monster's body. He looked at the fleshy antlers on its head and the reaction they had just triggered in response to the injury, his eyes narrowing slightly.
There was a reason a certain predecessor was known as a horn-breaking demon.
The giant violet hand suddenly exerted force.
But this time, he didn't use it to attack. Instead, using the opponent as an anchor, he yanked himself forward, pulling his body toward the monster at extreme speed.
Seeing its prey delivering itself to its doorstep, the three-fingered monster swung its massive, basin-sized hands, bringing them crashing together in a heavy clap.
If that strike landed true, an ordinary person would likely be turned into a puddle of gore instantly.
Just as he was about to collide with the monster's chest, Sephirot kicked off the air, his silhouette soaring upward.
As Sephirot flew over the monster's head, his hands precisely gripped the pair of fleshy antlers coated in unknown slime.
CLAP!
The monster's palms slammed together in front of it with a dull thud, the resulting shockwave sending nearby floorboards and dust flying.
Suspended in mid-air, Sephirot gripped the antlers deathly tight, slamming his feet onto the monster's back. Violent magic power poured into his limbs as the giant violet hands overlaid his own arms.
"SCREECH!"
Feeling the agonizing pain from the top of its head, the monster let out a shriek that made one's hair stand on end.
Its thick arms reached upward, attempting to tear Sephirot off its back.
Seeing this, Sephirot kicked off with his legs, putting the strength of his core and his entire body into a single twist.
"...Come... OUT!"
To the sound of bone tearing from flesh, he forcibly wrenched the antlers, roots, meat, and all, out of the monster's skull.
The base of the antlers was even connected to half of a blackened brain. Having lost its source of power, the monster's massive body deflated like a punctured ball, collapsing into a heap of foul-smelling, rotten meat.
[Ding!]
[Killed mutant deformity. Reward points: 300]
[Current points: 5,000]
Seeing the notification in his mind, Sephirot didn't even stop to catch his breath before an expression of delight crossed his face.
He turned his head toward the remaining deformed men in the room and offered them a kind, gentle smile.
At that moment, Nina's brain had completely frozen.
She had witnessed that hideous deformed man rise from the dead and transform into a terrifying monster.
Then she had seen that Asian man use an even more violent and perverse method to rip out the monster's antlers and brain by force.
Afterward, with a look of fervor on his face, the man reached out toward the rest of the deformed men.
Watching the deformed men die miserable deaths one by one, she felt a sense of satisfaction mixed with terror.
This was because, after finishing off the deformed men, the man shook his head in disappointment.
He looked at the corpses littering the floor as if he hadn't had quite enough fun yet, then turned his gaze toward her.
Nina trembled in fear, her body writhing frantically against the chair as tears streamed down her face.
Sephirot found her frantic behavior a bit strange.
*What's there to be afraid of? It's not like I'm some man-eating monster.*
He felt a bit dejected.
After the remaining scrawny deformed men died, none of them underwent any mutation; it seemed to be a matter of physical constitution.
In this group, only the three-fingered deformed man from before had been strong enough to endure the demonic power. The other rejects simply stayed dead once they were killed, without a trace of demonic aura.
He walked up to Nina and looked at the woman tied to the chair.
Nina's eyes widened in horror. She saw the man's lips moving slightly as if he were saying something to her.
But her world was filled with nothing but a constant ringing; she couldn't hear a single sound.
Seeing her blank expression and the blood near her ears, Sephirot understood.
Her eardrums must have been damaged by the monster's roar earlier, causing hearing loss.
"Forget it."
He shook his head and unfastened the chains around Nina.
Looking at her cheap clothing, he figured she was just another unlucky soul.
No need for one broke person to make life harder for another.
Sephirot didn't linger any longer. He turned and left the wooden cabin.
The deeper he ventured into the forest, the more eerie the surroundings became.
Even though it was currently spring, the season when all things bloom, the ground in this area was covered in a thick layer of withered leaves.
The bark of the trees was pitch black and the branches were skeletal, without a single hint of green.
Sephirot slowed his pace, carefully observing the environment.
Every so often, high up on the bare branches, he could see corpses hanging upside down in mid-air with their internal organs hollowed out.
There were carcasses of wild animals as well as humans dressed in modern clothing.
The victims had died gruesome deaths, and teeth marks were visible on the remains. His eyes narrowed slightly; this looked like the work of some beast staking a claim to its territory, a means of warning outsiders.
After walking for a while longer, he noticed that the surrounding tree trunks were all carved with the same rune.
The lines of the rune were very simple...
A closed diamond at the top, with its two lower edges meeting and extending outward, forming a pattern that resembled a fish (ᛟ).
Stopping in his tracks, Sephirot studied the rune carefully for a moment, lost in thought.
He didn't recognize it.
Continuing forward, a solitary little cabin soon appeared before his eyes.
Rotting wooden stakes were scattered around the building, which looked as though it had been abandoned for a long time.
As he pushed open the door, a foul stench rushed out to meet him.
In the center of the room, an eerie scarecrow had been placed, facing the door head-on.
The scarecrow had no head, and its arms were raised above its shoulders in a gesture of surrender.
In place of where hands should have been, several curved branches had been attached; from a distance, they looked like a pair of antlers growing from the arms.
Sephirot frowned slightly, finding it somewhat familiar.
But since this kind of thing was a staple element of horror movies, he couldn't recall which specific dark god it was meant to represent at the moment.
"Tch."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, deciding not to overthink it. He searched the cabin but found no clues regarding demons, and even traces of human activity were rare.
He was forced to return to the scarecrow, hoping to find some other lead.
As he moved behind the scarecrow, a wooden floorboard beneath Sephirot's foot suddenly tipped up.
Prying the board away, a set of stairs leading to a cellar appeared.
(Translated by yourtl.app)