The flower of the Death God clan. The Sentence of Death.
The alpha and omega of Black Magic. The scribing authority of the Great Stone Tablet.
Blah blah blah.
I used it just now and understood.
That an instant-kill skill is something those grandiose descriptions don't suit at all.
It was far too unremarkable.
Because.
People and death were completely fused together from the very beginning.
That boundary was made of something as flimsy as a wall of sand.
Pull out even a single grain of sand from it.
And it floods like a burst dam.
*Crack—!*
The Siamese twin of birth manifested.
From where the male swordsman's umbilical cord had once been attached, white somethings burst out in a mass.
Bundles of bony hands.
The hands of death's midwives, reaching out to receive a corpse.
They fell upon the man's entire body.
*Snap—! Snap—! Snap—!*
It was instantaneous.
As if they had been lying in wait since the moment this male swordsman was born. As if they had been watching for exactly this opportunity.
Once the momentum began, there was nothing left for me to do.
*Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—!*
Ankles.
Legs.
Waist.
Chest.
Shoulders.
Arms.
*Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—! Snap—!*
The bony grips seized every part of him—save for one.
His head.
With the only part of him still permitted to move, he twisted his face into an expression of utter despair.
"*S̵o̴ ̷y̸o̴u̷ ̵w̸e̵r̷e̸ ̴a̷ ̵1̵…*"
The next instant, the hundreds of hands gripping his torso clenched tight and dragged him down toward the floor.
*Crack, crunch—!*
"*A̷A̸A̴A̷A̸A̵A̴A̸H̷H̷H̸H̸H̵H̷!̴!̵!̷!̸!̴!̵!̷!̸!̴!̵*"
The bony grips sank below the floor, but the man's body could not follow.
*Crrrrrack—!*
Unable to overcome the friction against the floor, everything broke.
The sound of muscles tearing and a spine dislocating rang out.
And at last.
The man's torso was completely ground away.
Only his head remained, alone in the middle of a pool of blood.
Blood clung to the man's golden hair like rust on old iron.
The final bundle of bony hands began to close around his head—squeezing it completely shut, crushing it until it was hidden from sight—and then…
*Flash—!*
They vanished in an instant.
*Thud.*
*Roll, roll.*
Only the skull fell to the floor and rolled away.
Full circle.
It was the part of a human that first appears in the world, from inside the mother's womb.
And once more, that skull passed through the marble floor like a swamp and slowly sank down below.
*Thud.*
It was as if I could hear the sound of it falling.
I finally understood the true nature of the Plains of White Bones in the Death God Realm.
"Ah."
I stared at the whole scene in a daze, and I understood.
Death's midwives.
Those grips don't lurk only beneath that man.
They lurk beneath my feet too.
Within my shadow too.
Those terrible hands are always watching for a chance to drag me down.
A single moment of carelessness.
Poorly-placed sympathy.
A split-second misjudgment.
Any mistake at all, and those grips will seize my ankles and hurl me onto the Plains of White Bones.
I never exchanged a single blow with the male swordsman.
I did not indulge the arrogance of trying to measure his skill.
I felt it instinctively. That was what decided the outcome.
There is only one rule of survival.
Kill, or be killed.
"……"
It was then.
A hologram floated up in the air.
[*Sentence of Death – Sight* cooldown is now active.]
[Time remaining: 7 years, 6 months]
Seven years and six months of cooldown.
Outrageously long.
*Raising my magic stat will reduce it, they said…*
I was steadying my breathing with that thought, when
a massive burst of light exploded from the man's corpse and poured into my body.
[You have gained a massive amount of EXP!]
[Level Up! 60 → 61]
[Level Up! 61 → 62]
…
..
.
[Level Up! 70 → 71]
An enormous amount of experience.
It seemed the EXP from the female mage I'd gutted just before had been tallied up all at once as well.
I shot up 11 levels in one go, reaching level 71. Stat points had piled up to 33.
At the same time, my earring flashed blue. A particularly bright light.
[Magitech Cerulean Earring (+2 / Charge: 41%)]
I'd killed two people, and the charge had gone up by 6.
"Phew…."
I let my tensed shoulders drop and looked around.
But the situation wasn't over yet.
"There's still one left."
The woman—the very first one, whose arm and half her body had been sliced off by my scythe before she lost consciousness.
She had collapsed in a pool of blood.
Combat incapacitated.
Once I made absolutely sure to cut off her breathing, this unpleasant first battle would be completely over.
I readjusted my grip on the scythe and approached her blood-soaked form.
But.
The moment I took a couple of steps forward.
*Flash—!*
The woman who had been unconscious snapped her eyes wide open.
"……!"
I tensed and spread the black mist.
*Whooom—*
I used Black Shift to put distance between us, moving backward.
But the woman barely moved.
She only mouthed something in a small voice.
"*P̷l̸e̴a̷s̸e̵…̴ ̷s̸p̴a̵r̷e̸ ̵m̴e̷…*"
She was trembling, dragging herself along the floor with her one remaining arm.
She appeared to be begging for her life.
Of course, to my ears it came through as nothing but a grotesque metallic screech.
"……."
I stared blankly at that wretched sight.
I gripped my scythe again with a bitter expression.
I moved my feet slowly forward.
"I'm sorry."
I couldn't bow my head.
Not because I lacked the decency to do so.
It was because I had to keep my eyes on the woman's next move.
As I approached, the woman went into a full panic and frantically tried to do something with her remaining hand.
*Flash—!*
Green light burst from her wounds.
It seemed she was casting a healing spell.
After that, a golden magical barrier spread out, wrapping around her entire body in a sphere.
Inside the barrier, she crawled backward on all fours, struggling and thrashing as she tried to flee toward the staircase.
I stepped in front of her escape route and raised my scythe high.
*Bang—!!*
I struck the barrier hard, but only sparks flew—not even a crack appeared.
*It's incredibly tough…*
She kept casting healing magic from inside the barrier.
I didn't know for certain, but if she succeeded in stopping the excessive blood loss, she might actually have a chance of surviving.
Obviously, I couldn't allow that.
*Bang! Bang! Clang!*
I brought the scythe down in rapid succession.
But it seemed my Strength stat wasn't enough to smash through this barrier.
*What do I do?*
*Sentence of Death – Sight* was on cooldown.
What remained was *Sentence of Death – Slash*.
But that one seemed to require the target to actually be touched by the scythe directly—not through a barrier like this.
It might not be the case, but now that I knew the scale of the cooldown, I wasn't keen on experimenting.
*I need to break this right now…*
If she made it to the entrance, I couldn't chase her any further.
Letting a survivor escape was the worst possible outcome.
I couldn't afford to drag this out.
Whether I could beat this mage in a proper one-on-one without an instant-kill skill wasn't certain either.
Without my instant-kill skills, I was nothing but a trash mob with a high magic stat.
*Should I put points into Strength?*
It felt like just a little more would be enough to shatter it.
I still had 33 stat points remaining.
They'd also said the cooldown on Slash depended on the Strength stat.
It wasn't like Strength would become completely unnecessary.
Putting a few points in wouldn't turn me into some mishmash build.
And above all else, Strength had never betrayed me.
*Alright.*
I opened the hologram status screen and invested one of the 33 remaining stat points from the level-up into Strength.
[Strength increased by 1.]
I swung the scythe immediately after.
*Bang—!*
The barrier rippled ever so slightly.
The woman's eyes trembled as she felt that vibration.
I raised another stat point.
[Strength increased by 1.]
*Thud!*
Still intact.
I kept repeating this.
[Strength increased by 1.]
*Bang!*
[Strength increased by 1.]
*Crash—!*
With every blow I landed, the expression of the woman desperately maintaining her barrier was dyed moment by moment in despair.
The scythe strikes growing stronger with each swing.
Her only lifeline cracking and fracturing apart.
[Strength increased by 1.]
[Strength increased by 1.]
…
[Strength increased by 1.]
The moment I invested exactly 11 points into Strength and my Strength value reached 48.
*Crack— crrrack!*
The barrier reached its breaking point and showed signs of imminent collapse.
*I need to be careful.*
I tightened my focus.
This moment when the barrier shattered would be the timing when the mage would launch a desperate all-or-nothing attack.
*Crash—!*
The very instant the barrier shattered.
Sure enough, the woman was moving her hand, seemingly about to pull some trick.
I gave her not even a sliver of an opening.
"Black Shift."
I moved through the black mist to behind her back.
And simultaneously, I cut her throat.
*Thud. Roll, roll.*
The woman's body crumpled to the ground.
[You have gained EXP.]
[Level Up! 71 → 72]
[Magitech Cerulean Earring (+2 / Charge: 43%)]
"Phew…."
And at the same time, a hologram message I'd never seen before appeared.
[You have successfully repelled an intruder.]
[The Demon King's bounty reward will be paid out!]
A bounty reward, huh…
I couldn't believe it.
[Calculating difficulty…]
[Calculation complete.]
[204,500G disbursed!]
"Tw… two hundred thousand…"
Two hundred thousand gold in one go.
A fortune that high-floor Gallery users above floor 800 would need over twenty years to accumulate.
Was the male swordsman just that strong? Or was the bounty itself generous?
I couldn't know, but either way, I had absolutely nothing to worry about for the next Golden Carriage's payment.
That was the moment I was still reeling from the surprise.
[The Demon King's reward vacation has been granted!]
[Guardian duty is temporarily suspended for 23:59:58!]
Better than the two hundred thousand gold.
The reward I had wanted more than anything had arrived.
"A reward vacation…."
Only then did the tension drain out of me.
I wanted to collapse flat on the spot right then and there.
But not yet.
"Let me document the scene."
I pulled up the hologram panel.
Then I turned on the camera and started photographing every corner of the situation, leaving a thorough record.
After finishing the photos, I pressed the write post button.
___
Title: Killed my first 3 intruders.
Author: Anon (60F)
{19 photos of the blood-soaked floor-60 combat scene}
I began writing the post.
First I uploaded the photos.
Then I started writing the content, and…
I stopped.
"……"
As I was describing the scythe swings, I was overtaken by an emotion I couldn't put into words.
No.
Actually, it was the easiest thing in the world to put into words.
I was feeling the most ordinary, most predictable emotion possible given the situation.
Guilt.
"…"
I looked down at my two hands.
White, slender hands.
With these hands, I had made someone spill their entrails, and cut the throat of a woman begging me to spare her life.
I bit down hard on my lip.
My sense of purpose sharpened.
"I have to climb higher."
Originally it had been to survive, but now one more reason had been added.
I don't want to go through the experience of killing someone again.
Being driven into a situation where I had no choice but to give my all to killing—it was a horrifying thing.
"For now, I just need to reach floor 100…"
With that resolve, I steeled myself and submitted the post.
A little while later, I hit refresh.
Then.