The thick fog and ash suspended in the air of the Falus Forest parted exceedingly slowly, not by the blowing of a natural wind, but as if an overpowering physical force was compelling the air molecules themselves to separate. The scene unfolded as if the curtains of a colossal cosmic theater were leisurely drawn back, revealing the true protagonist of this cruel world... or rather, its absolute, undisputed villain.
From among the deep shadows that pierced the giant trunks, the entity causing those seismic pulses emerged. It wasn't merely a predatory beast like the ones swarming the forest; it was a living, physical incarnation of the nightmares that haunt humans in their darkest nights. It was a terrifying, hybrid creature resembling the "Minotaur" of lost ancient myths, but exponentially larger and more horrifying. It stood upright on two legs ending in cloven hooves the size of mountain boulders, and its height at its broad shoulders easily exceeded ten meters. Its body was a colossal mass of muscle, brutally twisted, with tendons intertwining like giant ship cables, all covered in a dense layer of pitch-black fur and coarse skin.
But it wasn't an ordinary black, nor one familiar to the human eye; it was an anomalous black, a black that literally "absorbed" light. Every stray moonbeam, every residual flicker of Dex's fire, or even the faint starlight that dared to approach this entity, vanished instantly into the fur as if swallowed whole. This absolute light absorption made the boundaries of the monster's body appear blurry, indistinct, and fragmented, as if a black hole had torn out from the fabric of space and come to walk upon the earth, devouring all surrounding colors and life.
Its head was horrifying by all standards; a skull resembling a demonic bull with sunken eyes, from the sides of which protruded two massive horns curving forward like two black scythes designed to harvest souls. On its extremely broad forehead, which looked like an unbreakable slab of volcanic rock, there was a distinct, glowing mark etched into the bone: an inverted white crescent moon. This crescent radiated a pale, cold, funereal silver light, representing the only visual contrast in this absolute blackness enveloping the entity.
"The Eclipse Minotaur - Rank S+."
This terrifying name flashed in Dex's mind like a thunderbolt. He had read about it once in the legends of the novel. It wasn't classified as a huntable monster; it was categorized under "Living Natural Disasters." Forgotten myths stated that the Eclipse Minotaur doesn't reproduce, but "forms" and incarnates from the accumulation of dark, dead mana once every hundred years, possessing an innate and absolute ability to manipulate the laws of gravity and mass in its vicinity. It is not a creature that lives in the world, but a creature that forces the world to bow to it.
The black Minotaur was not running, nor did it let out a savage roar to assert its dominance like lesser beasts do. It didn't need to. It walked with a slow, regal pace, with heavy, calculated steps, with a coldness that cared nothing for whatever stood in its path.
The massive beast passed over the area that had witnessed the grinding battle just minutes ago, where the corpses of the "Black Claw" guild mercenaries were scattered.
Dex watched, his eyes wide with pure terror that paralyzed his limbs, what happened to those corpses. The Minotaur didn't step directly onto any of the corpses with its colossal hooves. It didn't touch them. But the moment the beast approached, and when the bodies entered an imaginary circle with a radius of about two meters around the Minotaur's body, the impossible happened.
Suddenly, without any prelude, the bones of one of the mercenary corpses shattered completely and simultaneously, emitting a collective cracking sound akin to the snapping of hundreds of dry branches. Human tissue and flesh exploded and squeezed out as if a wet sponge had been compressed with unimaginable force, and the steel plate armors covering their chests crumpled, folded in on themselves, and caved in as if an invisible hydraulic press weighing thousands of tons had crushed them from all directions at once. Blood splattered briefly before being violently pulled back and pasted to the muddy ground, refusing to scatter in the air due to the crushing gravity. The corpse, along with its weapons and armor, became nothing more than a flattened, mashed patch glued to the earth, no more than a few centimeters thick.
"A domain... a crushing gravitational domain..." Dex whispered with difficulty, swallowing his saliva, which felt like thorns. His throat was as dry as a barren desert at noon. "It doesn't need to fight... It surrounds itself with an intense, independent gravity field... crushing anything, be it flesh or steel, that gets close to it without even having to touch it."
Dex felt his knees tremble involuntarily, a sensation he hadn't experienced since his early years in the torture cells. For the first time since his strange transmigration to this fantasy world, and for the first time since acquiring the Phoenix Core, he felt how insignificant and truly small he was in this vast universe. His bloody victory over Rank (B) mercenaries, his tactical genius, his acquired power, and his ability to endure pain... all that clever planning now seemed like a ridiculous joke, mere child's play in a backyard, before this cosmic giant.
In that harsh moment, Dex realized that Rank (S) isn't just a magical grade higher than (A) or (B) in the adventurers' guilds; it doesn't adhere to the same numerical scale. It is an entirely different dimension of existence. It represents the terrifying gap between the flame of a small matchstick trying to light a room, and a category-five hurricane uprooting entire cities.
"This... this is not a monster," Dex said to himself, his blue eyes, which had been radiating confidence just moments ago, unable to tear away from watching the beast's path. "This is an absolute, brutal law of nature walking on the earth. And the biggest problem with the laws of nature... is that they don't speak, they don't negotiate... and they possess no concept of mercy."