The heavy smog and dark clouds in the sky above the Outskirts of NSCQ split. Revealing a pale and harsh sun and white sky.
The clash that caused this awe-inspiring phenomena was between two monsters. Or rather, a Terror and a Tyrant.
Ever since Ascending, Gehrman had grown slightly arrogant. Of course, he knew that he was far from being strong enough to contend with the entities he would eventually have to kill. But he started to think that nothing in the Waking World would really pose a threat to him.
He was wrong.
There was a fact that was often repeated but never fully understood. And that was "The higher Rank a Nightmare Creature is, the larger the disparity there is between previous Ranks".
In other words, 5 Dormant Beasts could likely take down an Awakened Beast. 5 Awakened Beasts might be able to do the same to Fallen Beast. But the chances of 5 Fallen Beasts killing their Corrupted counterpart were slim to none.
For this reason, though Gehrman was easily able to take care of a Fallen Terror, he was currently on death's door fighting a Corrupted Tyrant.
In truth, even Transcendent Humans would find such a creature harrowing, and it was likely they would request assistance from an Ascended or two before engaging.
Nevertheless Gehrman was a singular existence, so he believed that he could defeat the creature so long as he was careful.
And he had fought exceptionally. He had single handedly wiped out all the other Nightmare Creatures that poured from the Category 4 Gate.
The more abominations he slayed the more blood he had access to, and thus he was able to create a giant saw blade that could cut through Fallen creatures with relative ease.
While the other Divine Aspect wielders–Sunny and Nephis–had a decent amount of Versatility in their Aspects, everything that Gehrman had access to was for the sole purpose of slaughter.
Though his new abilities allowed him to gain more knowledge and increase his creations, their sole purpose was still killing Nightmare Creatures.
For this reason, he was able to perform feats of destruction that even those who stood at the pinnacle would struggle to replicate.
Even still, the power of a Corrupted Tyrant was…tyrannical.
The slums, poorly constructed buildings, and scrappy infrastructure was completely wiped out in a kilometers radius.
The smell of gas, rust, and rot that permeated throughout the Outskirts was overwhelmed with the stench of violence and death.
In the ruins of this area, roughly 200 bodies were littered about.
And in the center of it, a monstrosity let out a trembling roar.
The thing resembled no creature that Gehrman knew of. It was more akin to a Great One than an animal. Of course, it was nowhere near that power.
Still, it was incredibly annoying.
It was a walking mass of razor sharp fangs that rotated and cut like a blender. Its massive maw took up 80% of its body. The rest of the creature seemed to be made of pulsing, pus-filled boils.
They would erupt at random times, causing liquid that had the tenacity of magma to shoot out at incredible speed.
Gehrman quickly picked up the pattern with which it would use this attack. And he also figured out how he would exploit it.
Despite this creature being a Tyrant, and thus having a decent amount of intelligence, any time it tried to change its patterns to throw Gehrman off was met with failure. It might have been smart, but when it came to battle IQ, no creature or human in this world could top Gehrman.
He had decades of battle experience that had brought him to the brink of death, and some even pushed him past it.
It was simply unfair to compare other humans to Gehrman in this regard. No one else could possibly have the same amount of experience as he did.
Still, there were plenty who held greater strength.
This particular Nightmare Creature had been the size of a two-story house. And it wielded the strength of a mountain.
At the moment, it was as big as a large shed. Yet its power had not decreased.
It grew back the boils after consuming other creatures. Gehrman learned this the hard way after it started to eat the corpses of its fellow Nightmare Creatures and took away most of his hard work.
Not only that, the thing had a comparatively tiny amount of blood. It seemed to exist only beneath the fangs in its gaping jaw.
In order to reach it, he had to take out some of its teeth. Unfortunately, those regrew in a matter of seconds. On top of this, if the fangs were still intact when they hit the ground, they would sink into the dirt and a dog-like creature would rise. They were roughly as strong as Fallen Beasts, but they lacked Soul Shards.
If they did, Gehrman would have considered "farming" them and accumulating a mountain of Ascended Shards.
He wasn't too upset that they didn't, however. As he was barely holding his own even without an army of dog-golems to deal with.
The thing had too many weapons.
The boils, teeth, and its minions all compounded on one another to be a serious issue. Not to mention its raw power. A Corrupted Tyrant could move unbelievably fast, and the weight behind its attacks defied the laws of physics.
It had the ability to kill Gehrman in one well-placed blow.
But even with all this thing's dreadful power, Gehrman had several advantages as well.
For one, [Eyes on The Inside] allowed for an easier time finding out its attack patterns. He could see the creature's ghastly Soul Cores, its muscle movements, and even its strange bones. All of this gave a hunter like him a supreme advantage.
And at this point, he was able to get enough of the things blood to activate his [Burial Blade] [Forged by Blood] enchantment. With the blood of the 4th Rank coating it, he was able to break its teeth consistently.
However, he was unable to deal lasting physical damage.
Baiting out the boil attacks was his current strategy, as the thing slowly became less mobile as it lost mass.
But Gehrman had an additional, insidious card up his sleeve. And that was the new enchantment [Reaping Blade] on his blade (which was currently in the form of the Curved Greatsword).
This enchantment allowed the blade to deal Soul Damage. And though the creature's Soul was incredibly vast and dreadful, he was slowly chipping away at it with each scratch.
Still, Gehrman was running out of blood to heal himself with. And he was constantly being assaulted by Madness.
Fortunately, the current Madness afflicting him was something he already understood as "Obsession".
In his current state, he was losing spatial awareness, but gaining unprecedented focus on the Tyrants movement.
Still, this was Madness, and it was slowly deteriorating his mind and spirit.
Yellowish-orange aura seeped out of him in concentrated waves. Afflicting the Tyrant, but only making the thing more obsessed with killing the thing in front of it.
Gehrman's breathing was ragged and his pupils dilated. The rings of Madness in his eyes seemed to vibrate with intensity.
Another boil popped. Like many times before, it was cleverly timed in conjunction with another attack, forcing Gehrman to take a portion of the blow.
That was enough to take out his arm.
Despite the [Hunter's Attire] being Transcended and now having the [Ageless] enchantment, it was still frayed and split in certain places. Though it was repairing itself fast, it was augmented only with Fallen blood, and so it was getting consistently destroyed.
Gehrman pulled on the blood from a far away corpse, this time an Awakened Devil. The blood directly entered the stump of his arm and the bleeding halted. The recovery process was quick, and he would have a new arm in half a minute.
But in a fight like this that would be a long while.
Several blows were exchanged each second, and Gehrman was getting pressed back.
Though he had severely wounded the Corrupted Tyrant, the tides had finally turned and Gehrman was faltering.
…Then a black blur pierced one of the boils with a cruel shriek.
In his Obsession, Gehrman did not notice the arrival of a new player. And when he did, he was unsure what to make of it.
A flock of carrion crows circled above, and several of them dive-bombed the Tyrant causing moderate damage.
Gehrman's eyes adjusted and he recognized what this was.
"Cor."
The Government Transcendent that had interrogated and almost killed him had come to his aid.
A Corrupted Tyrant was something that would undoubtedly be announced on city-wide news channels. It had the potential to reap massive damage to the entirety of NSCQ.
The only reason that there hadn't been assistance sooner…was because this was the Outskirts. A place filled with people without citizenship who lacked any real rights. Though they made up the majority of the labor force, a decent chunk of it being destroyed was not as big of an issue as a Category 2 or 3 Gate opening inside the city.
Though this was explained to Gehrman, he thought it was absolute bullshit.
He had handled a dozen Gates in the last week alone. And he had never listened to the "priority" that the Government had pushed.
Still, he had saved thousands of lives in that single week. And the higher-ups had no room to complain.
In fact, he was already being treated with reverence and fear. This was likely the reason that the Transcendent Champion had arrived to assist him.
He had already proved himself to be an invaluable asset.
With the addition of this flock of crows, or rather, the Saint in his "Transcendent Form", the fate of this creature was sealed.
A minute later, Cor had dealt the final blow to the creature.
Just like that, a Category 4 Gate was contained.
…
"You were exceptional," Cor muttered. "No Ascended should have lasted that long. In fact, they shouldn't have been able to damage it as much as you did. I reckon that you actually had a chance at killing it by yourself if I hadn't intervened."
Though it might have been reasonable to be upset with Cor for "kill stealing". Gehrman realized that this was optimal. After all, this man had a chance of receiving a Memory, or even an Echo. Either of which would be considered treasures of the Government.
"I don't think it's worth complimenting. Look at the destruction," Gehrman gestured to the area around him. "I'll actually use that "communicator" you gave me next time there is a Corrupted Tyrant. I don't want to fight something like that by myself for a while."
"The damage would have been at least one hundred times greater if you hadn't been here. Having this be the fallout be this miniscule is..." Cor trailed off. The Transcendent narrowed his eyes as Gehrman crouched down and picked up a piece of a ruined building.
"This place is kind of a shit hole, isn't it?" Gehrman asked in a low voice. "This material isn't just mundane, it's poorly refined and poorly maintained. This building would have fallen down in a year or two even without this whole mess."
Cor scoffed.
"The people here aren't citizens. It is a luxury for them to even have this." he cast his gaze to the side. Looking over the kilometer of empty land, he pierced the eyes of a few mundane people poking their heads out of a building. Though they couldn't see him, they suddenly felt a terrible chill and ran back inside.
Frowning, the Transcendent continued.
"It's not ideal, obviously. No one wants their fellow human to suffer. In simpler times we would undoubtedly offer more aid and help make this place more…bearable," he winced as the heavy air he breathed in caused his throat to tense slightly. The pollution was so heavy that it gripped everything in the area.
"But the Nightmare Spell has forced us to make sacrifices. In order to make the most efficient society for killing Nightmare Creatures, a lot of innocents have to suffer. They have to work in terrible conditions to earn just enough money to stay alive. Their suffering is constant, but the benefit they bring humanity is endless. Without them, we would all be dead."
"Efficient?" Gehrman said. The single word hung in the air between them.
"I am not asking you to come up with a perfect society, nor do I blame you for doing nothing in the face of such inequality. It is the nature of humans to only cause change when it benefits oneself in some type of way. Those at the bottom are stepping stools for those at the top to live a fulfilling life. There is no need to pretend like this is anything new," the Hunter stood up to his full height and turned his head to the sky.
"But this is not efficient. Not by a long shot."
Cor's gaze turned heavy as he considered the boy, or rather, the man before him.
"It would be unwise for you to try and change anything about this system. Humanity's hanging on by a thread, even if whatever you have in mind benefits those in poverty for a moment, it will expedite our apocalypse," his voice was gravely serious. Surprisingly, he did not talk down to Gehrman, he did not berate him for being an idealist. Instead, the old Transcendent simply said what he believed to be the truth.
"I am not a good person, Cor," Gehrman's eyes turned and locked onto the other man's. "Everything I do is to become a better, stronger Hunter. Trying to make sense of this mess is pointless…however, sometimes I do find myself doing things that others might consider charity. But make no mistake, if I help another, it is only to ensure that more beasts are slain."
The tension in Cor's body eased.
Though it was wildly unprofessional and insulting to address one of the Two Government Saints by their first name, he was mostly worried about Gehrman's intentions.
Additionally, Cor had witnessed him fight a Corrupted Tyrant by himself. He was under no illusions, and considered this man to be an equal worthy of addressing him in such a manner.
It was not a respect between colleagues, but one between warriors who had fought for decades.
So the man knew very well that Gehrman was telling the truth.
After a beat of silence, Gehrman recalled something.
"I know I only just started work, but I am going to need a day off."
Cor raised an eyebrow.
"Awakened like us aren't really held to a schedule. We are given assignments and deadlines. Right now your only directive is to contain as many Gates as possible. It was expected that you stop three or four, but you are well past that. If you need to take a day off then that's fine. Just don't take too long."
Gehramn nodded and offered a smile.
"Then do you, by chance, know where the Han Li residence is?"