The little shadow-wolf's change didn't just catch Gauss's eye—the massive wolf-beast noticed too.
"Activate Ironscale Bloodline."
The emerald color faded from Gauss's eyes, replaced by a noble molten gold.
The wolf-beast actually took half a step back.
From its perspective, the small enemy in the distance had suddenly changed again, radiating a kind of power it couldn't understand.
Gauss drew on his innate Flight Instinct. Supercharged by the talent, Fly erupted with astonishing force, hurling him through the air at breakneck speed.
It was his first time fully pushing the spell since acquiring the talent.
The mana drain was far heavier than normal flight—his reserves burned like diesel dumped onto a raging fire.
In his vision, the scenery blurred into streaks of color, flung behind him at terrifying speed.
He swatted aside the shadow-wolves along his path as if they were weeds—
Straight at the real target!
The wolf-beast's bulk swelled rapidly in his sight.
He could even see his own reflection in its ghostly green eyes.
"BOOM!!!"
Gauss brought the water-blade down from above in a chopping arc.
The weapon in his hands—this sanctified water given form—seemed to sense ahead of time how utterly incompatible it was with the demonic taint coating the beast, and its radiance flared even brighter.
Shhk!
The slim, glowing water-edge struck the wolf-beast's skull.
The impact sent a brutal force back into Gauss's arms.
The beast's entire body looked like it had caught fire.
It unleashed its bloodthirsty power, ramming it against the falling holy edge.
Blue and red energies clashed and roared.
Gauss's hair and robe snapped madly in the turbulent air. That chaotic evil current struck his protective wards again and again, forcing them to flare and absorb the force.
He narrowed his eyes slightly; the wind stung the skin along his cheek. But he chose not to retreat—instead, he pushed down harder with his hands.
On the other side, the wolf-beast wasn't doing well either.
Its fangs were clenched so hard blood seeped from its gums.
The water-blade pressing into its skull only grew heavier, and that sacred aura made something primal inside it recoil in fear.
The earth beneath its paws cracked, inch by inch.
It wasn't that it didn't want to swipe or bite at this human hanging a hair's breadth away.
It was that the pressure from above left it no room to spare any strength. The moment it diverted even a fraction into offense, the blade would finish the job and carve it into the ground long before it could reach Gauss.
Gauss could feel the blade steadily biting past that swirling barrier, carving gradually into flesh.
The blood-red power in the air surged desperately into the wolf's body as he cut.
Holy water really was the bane of demonic power—but it could only suppress, not erase, this kind of enemy with a single stroke.
First, this fragment of divine water was only a split-off piece of the lake spirit's essence, nothing like a full descent.
Second, a weapon's real power is limited by the hand that wields it.
For a mere Level 5 like Gauss to resist a shard of Yeenoghu's might at all was already remarkable—a feat born from stacking every buff he had. Swap in some random master-ranked combatant, and they might not even manage this much.
If anything, the more powerful "ordinary" master might fare worse; this kind of alien power was like poison to those who'd never faced it, and being able to use even half their normal strength would already be optimistic.
"This is… a bit of a slog," Gauss admitted inwardly.
Right now, he didn't dare pull away to try something else.
When you're locked in a tug-of-war at this depth, any half-hearted wavering means getting smashed by the rebound.
Sksssshh!
The holy power within the water-blade was constantly being chewed away, forcing it to draw more and more mana out of Gauss—as if it were a pump sucking the energy straight from his core.
The wolf-beast was in no better shape.
The blood mist around them had faded from crimson to a washed-out red, and the energy around its body was turning faintly pink. Farther away, more of the murderous fog rushed inward, trying to refill this "vacuum" zone.
As the whole blood-colored world churned violently around them—
Suddenly.
A sound like thunder cracked overhead.
The red sky split.
Gauss couldn't spare the focus to look up, but he could feel that something had changed, deeply, in this bloody realm.
The massive wolf-beast's pupils flashed with raw panic.
"Hm?"
The water-blade in Gauss's hand suddenly sank a few more inches.
It got weaker?
"Awoooo—!!"
The beast tried to force out a last desperate frenzy.
But the upheaval in the world clearly shook it as well.
Its power was draining away at alarming speed, while the human in front of it seized the perfect chance to beat a drowning enemy harder. The blade had now fully bitten into its body.
All around, the blood mist began thinning rapidly. Without the environment propping it up, the beast had no more capital to wrestle with Gauss.
There was no saving this.
A hint of unwillingness flashed in its eyes.
"Haah!!"
Gauss's slim, azure blade snapped downward, cleaving the wolf's head, top to bottom, into two halves.
Black smoke burst from the split skull.
Gauss braced, using the rebound from the cut sinking into the earth to steady himself.
Then he moved again—one slash, two, three… ten.
His sword arm blurred and sent more than a dozen arcs of shimmering blade-light whipping into what remained of the still-twitching beast.
Each slash made more of its body dissolve; the dark smoke boiled and then vanished.
By the time the final sword-ray faded, the wolf—once the size of a small hill—had been erased as if it had never been there at all.
Only a thin scattering of gray dust remained on the ground.
"…I… won?"
Gauss blinked.
He watched the spot it had occupied, wary for any lingering movement. When nothing else stirred, he finally let out a breath.
Then he looked around.
The red was draining away fast.
Green—true, living green—and crisp ice-blue frost reclaimed his vision.
He was back… in the real world.
"Gauss!"
"Sir Gauss!"
"Captain!"
Several excited voices came from behind him.
Gauss turned.
Alia and the others were jogging toward him.
Albena was in the lead. She didn't even slow down—she scooped Gauss straight off the ground into a crushing hug.
"E–easy…!"
"P–put me down—down first!!"
Exhausted after the clash, Gauss felt like his bones were going to come apart. He quickly protested.
Albena flushed red and hurriedly set him down when she realized he was struggling to breathe.
"Are you all right, Gauss?" she asked, worried.
"Cough… cough…"
Gauss gulped down a few lungfuls of fresh air, finally feeling human again.
"Alia…" he started to say.
"Where did you go?" Alia blurted first. "When we got here, we couldn't find you anywhere."
"In the end it was Shadow who found a glowing gnoll altar in the camp. We figured it had to do with you, so we smashed it."
As Gauss listened to them trade fragments of what had happened, the pieces clicked into place.
So that's why the blood-realm had suddenly wavered and collapsed.
It must've been the result of them destroying the altar.
Unfortunately, the demonic force had dragged him in so fast that once he appeared in that red world, there'd been no trace of an altar to be found.
"Then you've done me a huge favor," Gauss said simply.
He gave them a quick rundown of what had happened.
"There really was demonic power involved?"
"And you actually killed a demon inside that… strange space," Alia murmured, half in awe.
Gauss nodded and glanced at his Monster Index.
"Commander-class Demon: Wasted Wolf Slain ×1."
Just as I thought…
With that thing's strength, there was no way it would be classed as a mere elite.
In fact, Gauss had the impression that at full power it was probably upper-tier even among commander-class monsters.
The only reason he'd been able to stand against it at Level 5 was thanks to the water-weapon's holy restraint and suppression. An average master-level combatant dropped into that bloody world alone to fight it… probably wouldn't last long.
[Commanders Path Progress: Slay 5 Commander-tier species (5/5)]
To his surprise, that demonic wolf had finally ticked off the last box of the Commander's Path.
As a reward, having slain five distinct commander-class monsters, Gauss could now draw a random racial talent from among them.
[Commander-class monster types recorded: Goblin Chieftain, Basilisk Bull, Dragon-blooded Kobold, Brain-Thief Witch, Demonic Wasted Wolf.]
To be honest, Gauss would've been okay with any of those—though Basilisk Bull's toolkit felt a bit underwhelming compared to the others.
Still, if he ended up with its petrification ability, that'd hardly be a bad prize.
Not that he got to choose.
"Let's get this over with…"
He focused on the flashing text on his panel.
"Come on, give me something good…"
"Give me something good… anyone's talent is fine."
He found himself muttering it over and over in his head.
[Randomly selecting racial talent… adapting to host physiology…]
…
Nothing changed for quite a while.
It was the longest draw Gauss had ever experienced.
He even had time to split his attention, directing his companions to sweep the area for stragglers and clean up the battlefield.
By the time he looked back at the panel and, under the excuse of "resting to recover," waited a while longer, the text finally updated.
[Selected…]
[A random talent from commander-class monster…]
[Brain-Thief Witch: Parasite Mastery.]
[Adapting into racial talent "Witching Hour".]
A band of violet light pulsed along the entry—a sharp, radiant purple.
[Exceptional-grade Racial Trait: [Witching Hour] (Initial)
When facing evil creatures, your mental state is boosted by 20%, making it easier to perform above your usual limits.
If your enemies feel fear toward you, their overall combat performance will suffer a significantly greater drop.
Additionally, when you slay evil beings, there is a small chance of ripping a fragment of power from their body and converting it into a corresponding skill and its proficiency for yourself.]
It was Gauss's first purple-quality racial talent, and its effects couldn't be clearer.
In short: when fighting evil foes, you get stronger, they get weaker—and on top of that…
He could sometimes steal what made them strong.
Transforming monster power into his own skills, even at a "small chance," was ridiculous.
After all, Gauss would never stop killing monsters. With enough kills, even tiny odds become near certainties.
This talent would only become more valuable as he kept adventuring.
[Next Racial Talent Draw: unlock at 20 commander-class monster types.]
[Future commander kills will grant Commander Points to upgrade certain talents.]
"Not bad… not bad at all."
As for the fact that it only applied to evil creatures?
Gauss had no complaints.
Most monsters weren't exactly "good neighbors." His Manual, his abilities, his entire toolkit were built to deal with enemies like that.
He closed the panel.
The others had already finished their rounds.
That was when he noticed Alia and the silver wolf a little ways off.
Alia was trying to pry open the wolf's jaws, and calling urgently:
"Ulfen, spit that out! Spit that thing out right now!"
Ulfen looked up at her, innocence plastered across his face, a smear of yellow dust still stuck at the corner of his mouth.
"What's going on?" Gauss walked over, curious.
His attention had been entirely on the Manual just now.
"Ulfen… he, uh… he ate the demon ashes from over there."
Gauss followed her gaze to the patch of ground where the Wasted Wolf had vanished.
Logically, there should've been a little heap of grey residue.
Instead there was only a small shallow pit.
Judging by Alia's traumatized expression, the wolf had swallowed the ash and the dirt in one go.
"He… ate it?"
A muscle twitched at Gauss's eye.
That pile of ash looked nothing like food.
And Ulfen wasn't usually like this—normally, he only ate what they gave him or what he hunted himself. He'd never shown any urge to gnaw on strange junk.
Which meant…
Maybe something about that ash had attracted him.
While Gauss was still mulling it over, Alia seemed to make up her mind.
"If it really comes to it, we might have to… do surgery and get that filthy stuff out of him…"
At her muttered words, Ulfen went from "pretending to be innocent" to full-on panic.
His tail clamped down; he took one, two, three steps back.
"Ulfen! Don't blame me, I'm doing this for your own good. You're the one who eats everything you see. This is what happens when you swallow weird things!"
The wolf looked about two seconds from fainting. He jerked his head toward Gauss.
He knew exactly who had the real final say in this party.
"Forget it, Alia," Gauss said at last.
"What's eaten is eaten. Let's just watch him for a bit."
"Even if it's demonic residue, I already used the lake spirit's blessing to scrub out its evil taint. It might not be a bad thing anymore."
He didn't like the idea of cutting the wolf open either.
If it were truly harmful, the residue's original demonic nature would've hurt Ulfen's body already.
The difference in "tier" between him and the Wasted Wolf was huge—and besides, Gauss had already felt that the ashes weren't radiating any malice.
The holy water's aura had already purged the corruption from that body.
He had thought about storing it to study later.
Now that it was in the wolf's belly… well, so be it.
"Work with Serandur and check him over thoroughly," Gauss added. "See if there's any negative reaction."