Tainted Ghoul (1)

Zaen felt someone looming over him. He quickly turned around, his dagger ready to strike. Only to see a ghoul drenched in the blood of his prey. A half-eaten severed arm dangled between its jaws, blood was still oozing out from the numerous bite marks. From the wounds and barely dried blood, Zaen could confer that the ghoul had killed someone not long ago.

However, it barely took a moment for Zaen to realise this wasn't the ghoul he had been looking for. So far, all the Camouflaged Ghouls he had encountered had a shred of resemblance for back when they were still human, but this Ghoul... it wasn't a Camouflaged Ghoul at all. If anything, it resembled a Hunter Ghoul. Even then, it looked a bit different, as if it had evolved into something else, into something stronger.

While the Hunter Ghouls he had encountered in the other dimension were big, with most of them being about 6 feet tall, the ghoul in front of him was easily taller than 6'5" as Zaen was about an inch shorter than the ghoul. Moreover, the ghoul's bloodied claws looked despicable, to say the least.

As soon as the ghoul saw Zaen, it spat out the arm he had been feasting on, before licking its lips with his tongue, eyeing to feast on the fresh meat. Its tongue roughly resembled the tongue of the Frenzied Ghoul. As soon as Zaen saw the tongue, his mind went numb. He might have successfully defeated the Frenzied Ghoul before, but it wasn't a foe he ever wanted to face again. He knew he had to take this ghoul out before fast. Just as Zaen was preparing to engage the ghoul, the artifact went berserk, throwing a bunch of notifications in front of him.

[Emergency Quest: Destroyer]

[Introduction: Looks like slaying the Frenzied Ghoul led to more complications than anticipated. The ghouls belong to the nether dimension and shouldn't have been able to enter the mortal realm under normal conditions. It would seem like killing the Frenzied Ghoul opened a temporary rift between the two realms allowing these ghouls to appear in the mortal realm. Not only that, since there was an abundance of prey here to feast on indiscriminately, this ghoul slowly evolved into something which shouldn't have been possible otherwise... It evolved into a Tainted Ghoul, an intermediate stage before evolving into a full-fledged Charred Ghoul or something even worse. Either way, it would be in our interest to eliminate this ghoul ASAP.]

[Task: Kill the Tainted Ghoul]

[Rewards:

• Special Weapon Box (Upon opening, the user can receive a weapon of Uncommon to Epic rarity)]

[Failure to complete the task would result in the birth of an unstoppable monstrosity.]

[Time Limit: 1 hour 59 minutes 59 seconds.]

As the notification flashed before Zaen's eyes, he quickly pulled out a throwing knife from his inventory before hurling it towards the Tainted Ghoul. He was hoping to end the fight as fast as possible, however, he wasn't expecting the ghoul to dodge the knife so effortlessly.

It was clear that this ghoul had more intelligence than the ghouls Zaen was used to fighting. Hell, it took even Charred Ghoul to evolve once before obtaining some semblance of intelligence, but this ghoul was already more intelligent. Zaen now believed what the artifact informed was true, this former Hunter Ghoul had evolved into something else by feasting on the countless souls of the slum-dwellers.

"So you're the reason why the slums look so... deserted," Zaen mumbled.

"Who are you talking to?" Aeron's voice broke through the speaker.

"No one. Just a nuisance that I have to take care of. You keep a lookout for the Special force. I have a feeling if the Impounders were to show up now, it'll get unnecessarily chaotic."

"Um... okay. Just don't do anything rash."

"Got it." Saying so, Zaen yanked the earphones off and pulled his dagger out.

He didn't care about the people who died at the hands of the monster, because well, he didn't know them. The only reason he was fighting the ghoul now was that he didn't want to deal with it when it got stronger. After all, it was better to nip in the bud before it grew thorns. Also, because he was interested in the rewards. Though he didn't want to get an Epic weapon because he was sure there would be restrictions that he'd have to fulfil first.

Just like the restrictions on the Charred Ghoul's armour. He once again threw a knife at the ghoul to get a rough idea of its movement patterns. As the knife flew towards the ghoul, it didn't move. The knife hit it point-blank in the head and fell on the floor with a soft clang. For the first time since this sh*tstorm hit Zaen's life, his trusty knife had failed to deal damage to the enemy upon contact.

Zaen was shocked for a moment, but then his shock turned into a smile, "This is going to interesting. Thankfully, I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve to take you down regardless."

The Ghoul snarled at him, brandishing its blood-drenched claws. It had killed so many people with little to no effort and wasn't going to let its get away from it.

The ghoul lunged forward, swinging its claws. But before its claws could even graze Zaen's skin, he vanished into thin air. The ghoul was infuriated. Despite the sunlight entering the room through the door, the room was still considerably dark. Hence, the ghoul had to rely on its sense of smell to look for its lost prey. Little did it know, that it was the one getting preyed on.

"Peek-a-boo, I see YOU!" Zaen yelled as he thrust his dagger deep into the back of the ghouls head with all his strength.

[Shadow Step (Level 1), Novice Slasher (Level 2), Powerhouse (Level 2) and Frenzied's Slayer effects applied. Damage against humanoid monsters increased by 140%. The Ghoul's armour is tougher than expected. Damage reduced by 200 points.]

[Total Damage Dealt: 808]

[Tainted Ghoul HP: 1192/2000]

[Skill: Corrosion triggered. Your target will lose 20 HP/second for the next 5 seconds. Target's armour is ignored. Total Damage Dealt: 100]

[Tainted Ghoul HP: 1092/2000]

"Dang it! If only Twin Edge would also have been triggered... it might have been enough to kill it!"