The ogre chieftain was clearly the ruthless, tight-lipped type—he understood the timeless villain rule: the talkative one dies first.
After locking eyes with Gauss like a turtle staring down a fly, its thick legs bulged again.
Two deep craters exploded under its feet.
Boom!
The chieftain's massive body stretched into a blur—one blink, and it was already in front of Gauss.
That black cleaver, wrapped in terrifying energy, came down with a crushing, annihilating momentum.
Its message was simple: Gauss dies. Now. Immediately.
Luckily, Gauss was just as decisive.
Ironscale Bloodline and Ghoul Form activated at the same time.
The moment the ogre lunged, Gauss completed his wraith transformation.
His hair lengthened and drained of color.
A tough, icy-white current of energy wrapped his entire body.
With a crackling chorus of ka-ka sounds, his frame stretched longer and leaner.
Two sharp, curved white horns pushed up from his forehead.
Wing-like shoulder blades flared, forming a pair of pale energy wings.
In a way, his current form really did resemble the ogre chieftain's "wraith" state—at least superficially.
Mostly in the white hair and the horns.
In terms of looks, though, there was an unbridgeable gap.
Gauss's wings gave a single beat. No howl of wind, no surge of air—just a light flutter, and the light itself seemed to warp.
His figure blurred, leaving behind a fading white afterimage.
His true body had already blinked to the ogre chieftain's left side.
Fast.
So fast it exceeded what the naked eye could even track.
He'd used this stacked "maximum" state multiple times now. Even though his energy was still bleeding away quickly, compared to the last two times, he felt far more in control.
The ogre's giantification looked far flashier—its size was much larger than Gauss's—but the quality of the boost wasn't as good.
Probably because of "purity."
And the ogre's buff was mainly raw strength.
Gauss's was a full-spectrum enhancement—especially agility and burst speed.
An ogre's sheer bulk guaranteed it would never be truly nimble.
So its first, heavy-handed ambush failed.
BOOOOM!
The ten-meter cleaver carved a trench dozens of meters long into the ground.
Tonight, after killing so many ogres, Gauss's old title Giant Hunter had already upgraded into a higher tier:
Giant Slayer.
[Current effect: Weakpoint Strike – When fighting half-ogres, ogres, and related giant-kin, weak points are easier to discern; striking them deals additional damage.]
Beyond the original "Effect 1" from Giant Hunter, the upgraded title gained a second trait:
[Bane – Against half-ogres, ogres, and related evolved giant-kin, your damage increases by 20%.]
The moment Gauss flashed to the chieftain's side, both effects activated automatically.
Several red dots—large and small—appeared like brands across the chieftain's body, clearly reflected in Gauss's vision.
The Giant Slayer title was brutally direct.
It gave him a near "X-ray" style sense for weak points.
Nothing in the world is flawless. Even the toughest body has a soft spot.
But finding it isn't always easy—especially for bodies edging toward the transcendent.
Sometimes the "obvious" weak points aren't the true ones at all.
Head, eyes, throat, heart, organs—even the groin—might no longer be lethal.
As a body evolves, those areas get reinforced, gain special protections, and even regenerate better.
On the ogre chieftain, the red marks appeared at its eyes, spine, ankles, and knees.
But the largest, most critical weak point glowed within its torso—beneath layers of muscle, about three inches below the shoulder joint.
It felt like a hub: a conduit for power and energy transmission.
Damaging it wouldn't kill instantly, but it would be like sand in a precision gear assembly—severely disrupting the body's ability to channel strength smoothly.
Gauss didn't go for it immediately.
He could tell it wasn't the right moment.
That core weak point was buried under multiple layers of protection—hard to hit.
And if he missed, and the ogre realized he'd found its true weakness, the difficulty would spike.
He flicked his thoughts.
Level 4 spell: Control Water.
Sacred water split into countless threads, coiling around him.
"Thousand-Thread Severing Domain. Cut."
At the ogre chieftain's flank, Gauss condensed endless fine water-filaments.
The chieftain had sensed him, but it wasn't fast enough to react in time.
"Too slow!"
Screee—!
It twisted its torso, instinctively trying to hide the weak points.
Those thin water threads slashed into its body.
And instantly, something changed in the chieftain's brutal gaze.
Pain.
Real pain.
As a commander-class monster with special bloodline, it stood among the strongest of its tier.
The monster world was savage, but it still had rules.
Two monsters of similar strength rarely fought to the death.
And anything stronger—true transcendent monsters—usually wouldn't bother it, thanks to its patron: the Green Dragon Queen.
"Beat the dog, and you still have to respect the owner."
With a powerful ogre tribe behind it, the chieftain hadn't met a worthy opponent in ages.
In its senses, Gauss shouldn't have been a real threat yet.
But now, that "small human," wrapped in that pale, familiar-yet-strange energy, was cutting through its prized iron hide.
The pain was vivid—needle-sharp, undeniable.
It had forgotten what that felt like.
Zzzzt—zzt—zzt!
Its tough outer skin gained white slash marks that deepened into blue-tinged wounds.
Then, with a dull pfft, the deepest cuts split open, revealing dark blue flesh beneath.
"ROOOAR!"
In the span of a blink, its body was riddled with wounds.
"Die!"
Bloodshot veins crawled into its eyes.
Pain—long denied—only made it more desperate to smash this annoying insect into pulp.
Even if it was "slow" compared to Gauss's wraith-speed, once whipped by pain, its muscles writhed like giant serpents, forcing out more speed and power.
Force surged from feet to hips to shoulders to the massive arms gripping the blade.
With monstrous strength, it swung that ten-meter cleaver—
A heavy arc from below, slicing up toward Gauss's side.
The strike was devastating.
As the blade passed, the air compressed so violently it screamed, then detonated into a pale shock-current wrapped around the edge.
A physical titan like this could afford mistakes. It didn't prioritize dodging—it prioritized immediate counterattack.
It wanted Gauss dead. Now.
Not only because Gauss had humiliated it with pain—
But because that strange bloodline fire inside it was urging it to kill Gauss and steal his blood.
A whisper like a devil in its ear, clouding its mind until only Gauss existed.
Hunger.
On the other side, Gauss had to pause his offense.
That blade was too fierce to face head-on.
Blocking it meant death or ruin.
His pale wings snapped once, and he shot backward at the last instant.
BOOM!
He barely cleared the cut.
It was so close he still felt violent tremors in his arms.
The white energy scales on his forearms spiderwebbed with tiny cracks.
One hesitation and he'd have been cleaved in half.
But he was locked in—mind sharpened to a peak.
That wasn't luck.
It was his highest-grade talent, Duskfall Hour, passively boosting him:
[Duskfall Hour] (Excellent, Purple): When facing evil creatures, your Mental state increases by 20%, making it easier to overperform.
Combined with wraith-dragon stacking, his body was also at its peak.
Right now his flesh, mind, and battle rhythm were at maximum.
Unless someone could outright crush him on raw strength, even a clear disadvantage wouldn't stop him from seizing the few windows that mattered.
In this state, he was a born monster-killer.
The ogre's massive strike missed—another failure—its blood surged, anger boiling higher.
This was the second time its attack had been dodged.
In its mind, all it needed was one hit.
Just one.
But the human was like a maddening white fly—slipping away at the last heartbeat every time.
The frustration was unbearable.
Gauss took a few breaths.
The cracked energy scales repaired themselves with each inhale.
It's rushing.
He caught it—the enemy's mind was unstable.
Is that because of you?
He felt the abnormal bloodline boiling inside himself too.
At close range, a flash of savage impulse had surged through his mind—
And he'd crushed it immediately.
Partly because his Ghoul Form wasn't alone—Ironscale steadied him, limiting that influence.
Partly because his spirit was strong, sharpened further by Duskfall Hour.
If the ogre chieftain had his stability, it could've resisted too.
But it couldn't.
Gauss understood in an instant.
"DIE!"
The chieftain ignored the pain and launched into a frenzy.
Its legs swelled, the ground collapsed outward in a radial burst of cracks, and its body shot up like a cannonball—
Crashing down at Gauss.
Its advantage was simple: size meant strength, reach, and destructive radius.
Sometimes even the shockwaves could smash an enemy to pulp.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The chieftain hammered the earth like a meteor striking again and again.
Crater after crater formed.
Even Gauss's team and nearby monsters had to retreat farther to avoid the fallout.
And in its rage, the chieftain crushed over a hundred of its own troops in the collateral damage.
Monsters scrambled away in terror, watching the battlefield like a natural disaster unfolding.
The ground split into deep, jagged fissures. The once-flat terrain became a broken landscape with barely anywhere safe to stand.
Those cracks yawned like mouths—fall in, and you'd be ground into paste by the seismic churn.
Even elite monsters would die in the ripple zone. Only commander-tier creatures could endure it.
At the center, the ogre chieftain panted, steam hissing off its overheated body like a white fog.
And yet…
This frenzy still hadn't achieved what it wanted.
Gauss was too hard to pin down.
More than once, it felt like it had hit something solid—yet he still slipped away.
Sure, even dodging meant he sometimes got grazed by shockwaves or blade-wind—
But never a fatal hit.
That pale "fly" had regeneration too.
Unless it smashed him completely, the pale energy would heal him in moments.
Gauss chewed mana stones like chocolate and swallowed.
His stomach was burning—hot pain curling in his belly.
He forced the ache down and demanded calm.
The more deadly the moment, the more you needed reason.
The ogre was proof of what happened when you lost it.
If it hadn't been blinded by desire, it could've fought smarter:
Target Gauss's teammates, force him to defend.
Or drag the fight out, wait for Gauss to burn out.
Either could've won it.
But that required intelligence and information.
Maybe in an ogre's worldview, "companions" weren't real.
Maybe it couldn't imagine Gauss risking death for others.
Maybe it didn't realize Gauss's stamina limit—because that required noticing his constant "eating," his careful resource cycling.
In short:
Whatever the reason, it failed to seize Gauss's weakness.
It was ruled by bloodlust.
It was no longer a commander—just a beast with a big blade.
After a brief pause, the chieftain attacked again.
BOOM!
One blow finally sent Gauss flying back.
The chieftain's single eye flared with joy.
At last—an opening!
It roared, slammed its foot down, and surged after him.
But when it saw Gauss beat his wings and rise into the air, fear and urgency flashed through its eye.
At some point, their battlefield had drifted far from the main command-tent area.
Was he trying to escape?
Its pupils shrank.
The bloodline hunger inside it panicked.
If Gauss truly fled, it might not be able to stop him.
Straight-line bursts favored the ogre—but Gauss was too agile.
If he gained altitude and vanished, it would be over.
Desperate, it forced a second peak output—
Ignoring the strain ripping at ankles and knees, muscle fibers snapping under the load.
It leapt high, swung, and sent a blade-wind slash to cut off Gauss's ascent path.
At that speed, Gauss would die.
But the next instant—
Gauss vanished from the ogre's blood-red eye.
Gone?
Thrum.
A faint ripple.
The air tore again—
And Gauss reappeared behind the chieftain.
Gauss wasn't escaping.
He feared that if he disengaged, the ogre would redirect its fury into his teammates.
So this "retreat" was bait—pure knife-edge choreography.
This time, the chieftain had fully exposed its back.
In its frantic leap, old force was spent and new force hadn't formed yet.
Vulnerability bloomed.
In Gauss's vision, that weakpoint mark burned like a star.
Its death omen was flashing.
This was the moment he'd waited for.
His focus sharpened to a needle.
"Control Water!"
Water coiled around his arm.
The blue-gold sacred water intertwined with pale wraith energy, shaping into a razor-sharp, multicolored spike.
Moonlight on Gauss seemed to twist.
Like a sky-knight with a lance, he beat his wings and charged.
The chieftain's eye widened to its limit.
It felt it—the cold, slicing death from behind.
It tried to turn, to block—
But now was its weakest breath.
Pshhk!
The condensed spike punched through its thin, rushed white glow and sank deep into iron-tough muscle—up to the hilt.
Time truly froze for a heartbeat.
"AAAAAAGH!"
The chieftain's scream tore the air apart.
A chaotic wave—pale and filthy black—exploded outward from the wound.
Its boiling power lost its source and began to thrash wildly, out of control. The white steam around it turned sickly gray.
It tried to twist around, hatred and disbelief flooding its eye—
But the mountain-moving strength inside it was already draining like a breached dam.
A purifying, destructive force was eating its body from the inside out.
Gauss didn't linger.
His pale wings snapped, and he ripped himself free with a backward burst, dragging a line of blue-black viscous blood and energy sludge behind him.
That ghost-white bloodline energy poured out of the ogre and flowed toward Gauss like it was being stolen.
Below, monsters watching this went pale with horror.
Their invincible chieftain… had been killed by a human.
And with that, the monstrous "army presence" that had been looming over the battlefield collapsed in an instant.