Cow Calamity

In an instant, I was surrounded by three elite mobs sporting full boss corrections.

Figuring this was probably a hidden dungeon designed so that early on—unless you had Small Luck—you could farm elite monsters at the same level as the average player, I poured out an ocean of Slaughter to push back against the flames.

With my left hand I unleashed a barrage of Chopsticks to pin one of them down, and with my right I raised my halberd and swung to meet the incoming attacks head-on. As the muscle cow charging straight at me filled my vision, the humanity clones inside me dumped spiritual power into my heart—

and the golden scanner, poking just its head out from my heart, let out a sharp beep! and spat out an aurora that punched clean holes through the muscle cow's arms with a series of sharp thwip-thwip sounds.

The Wheel turned.

"Hryaaaaaaaaah!!!"

The Spoon-buffed halberd carved through the cow's muscle and buried itself deep in its thigh.

At the same instant the power of Law activated, the halberd expanded and sheared the leg clean off—and in the same breath, the muscle cow that had dropped its axe from the holes in its arms kicked me square and sent me flying into the wall.

With the horrific sound of flesh cracking and bursting as Slaughter forcibly regenerated it—crunch, squelch—I immediately shoved myself upright and launched into the air like a spring. The massive axe that came flying into the spot where I'd been slammed smashed the wall apart, and flames roared up in the same instant.

"Bomb!"

The makeshift Slaughter hut collapsed as the bomb went off. Weak as the blast was, it was more than enough to turn the direction of the surging flames.

"Burrow! Burrow! Bur-row!"

Through a triple consecutive dash I snapped my trajectory into a zigzag with zero telegraphing, and in no time at all I'd broken through the encirclement of the muscle cows that had been surrounding me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and bringing their axes down. The cows licked their tongues of burning flame as they watched me go.

I'm going insane. Fuck.

They were simple monsters with nothing but disgustingly high physical stats, which only made them harder to deal with. Maybe I should just say screw the dungeon, use my transformation skill, and crush them with raw stats of my own.

My thoughts were endlessly slow for a cultivator, but the decision was fast—and putting it into action was faster still.

"Transform!"

A small baby giant rose to its feet.

The little giant, grown large enough that the muscular cow monsters looked like children, pulled a mace from midair—likewise shaped by Law into something the size of a siege battering ram—and swung it down.

"Huh?"

The mace bounced off like a lie.

As my gaze fell on the muscle cow dying with its axe shattered in half, I realized what had just happened.

"You parried that?!"

Even after the parry, the pierce damage had still killed the muscle cow—but the problem was that two more muscle cows were still standing, and they came crashing in on me the moment the forced stagger from the parry broke my stance.

No—one of them didn't even have a leg, and it was charging with an axe clenched in its teeth, both arms slamming against the ground to propel itself forward!

I frantically used Law to shrink my body, but in that split second the giant's ankles—made of Slaughter—were hacked to ribbons by the axe. Feeling the transformation skill about to cancel from the wreckage, I poured even more Slaughter into them.

Enduring the pain of barely-regenerating flesh, Yu Hee smashed the one-legged muscle cow with the Wheel and finally killed it—and in that same window the axe-wielding muscle cow bellowed.

"Mmooooooooo!!!!"

Flames surged as its muscles swelled even further, and the muscle cow locked burning eyes on me—

and in the span of a single gasp, blazing lasers erupted from both eyes, punched straight through my Slaughter, and hit my body, setting me on fire where I stood.

I thrashed desperately to get free, but a simple slight turn of its head was enough for the flame lasers to track me. The only thing I could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do to escape the agony of my entire body ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠burning was spin the Wheel, dump Slaughter into myself to force a tiny gap, and wrench my mouth open to spit out a single word.

"Re—call!!!!"

When my senses returned, I was back at the entrance of the secret realm where a single cow had been waiting.

"…Fucking hell. Seriously."

Exactly how many mods were stacked into this one hidden dungeon?

I could make out [Secret Cow Room], [Nepalem's Animal Farm], [Kanai's Herald], and [True Form of the Minor Calamity]—but the rest I had no idea about.

Either way, this whole mess was clearly the result of stacked mods.

I'd only killed two of them, and already the experience, the volume of Slaughter flowing in, and the items dropping were all several times what you'd get from taking down a field boss on the open map.

It was best to think of it as a place where, true to a hidden dungeon, the drop rates and experience acquisition rates had completely lost their minds.

Even the boss designation wasn't just for show—every single dropped item was high-grade enough that the item filter was glittering so hard it was distracting.

Except for the part where the mods had been dumped on top of it all and turned the whole thing into a literal hellish stew of everything!

"Fine. They're only boss-designated—they're actually elite mobs, so they don't even attack until they aggro. Check area penalty."

Interpreting the area penalty: it meant that like a hack-and-slash game, the more you killed, the more cows would respawn even faster and come pouring out.

Two more had already popped out before I even finished fighting the first one—so basically this hidden dungeon was crawling with the damn things!

But thanks to the stacked mods, even three of these burning muscle cows looked like they could kill me. Was this for real?

I tried ramming them head-on again. I tried blowing up the entire map with the Bomb skill. No matter how I fought, the moment I was fighting more than two cows at once, I had no choice but to Recall.

Why?

"This fucking game. Seriously."

Just because they had a boss designation slapped on them, ordinary monsters were pulling off every kind of parry against a player. Did that make any sense?

And it wasn't technical parrying—body or weapon knocking an attack aside. It was game-style parrying, which was the whole problem.

It felt a bit like a just-guard system or a blocking mechanic. My attacks had high accuracy, high hit rate, and high crits on top of that—brutal enough attack power that even a successful parry still killed them with pierce damage.

But the patch that made getting parried put you into a [Defenseless] state—boss or player, no exceptions—was one I'd written myself and stuffed into the comprehensive patch mod.

"And my defense is already paper-thin as it is."

The moment two of them jumped me, I'd kill one and get diced to pieces in the process, so every time I just hit Recall. Bomb I'd already given up on for insufficient damage.

Probably because they got the same-level correction, these muscle cows were disgustingly tanky.

In theory, pulling them one at a time should have worked—but there were so many cows here that no matter how carefully I fought, I instantly pulled a mountain of aggro.

"And I can't even hand this off to Reason as a proxy anymore."

She'd decided to train alone, handed over even her golden spear—her weapon and her heart—and locked herself away inside me. I couldn't summon her out.

Not without crushing my own golden core with my own hands, that is.

In the end, it looked like I'd have to keep picking them off in dribs and drabs like this.

I could one-shot a monster even if it parried. The problem was my defense, which turned into shredded rags the instant a monster hit me.

No matter how near-infinitely my HP regenerated as long as I had Slaughter, if I took one or two more hits before the regen kicked in, I was dead for sure—so of course I had no choice but to Recall.

Ranged ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠combat was especially off the table, because the lasers those muscle cows fired from both eyes were disgustingly strong.

Just touching the trajectory of their gaze was enough to have your limbs chopped off in chunks.

In place of a fun hidden dungeon packed with same-level normal mobs and fat rewards, this was basically a budget version of the Abyss—rewards enormous, but every single hit from the elite mobs was vicious, and they were all wearing boss designations while cosplaying as normal monsters, packed in by the dozens.

"But the rewards are fucking insane, though!"

Every kill dumped rare gear and epic items in a cascade, legendaries showed up now and then, and even a black-silver—meaning ancient—item had popped out once.

Of course, I'd still ended up Recalling after that one too.

A hidden dungeon vanishes the moment you leave, so in the end I dug in here for a long stretch, clinging to the faith that a better worldline would come of it, and started my death struggle against the muscle cows.

Kill the first three cows in sequence, keep hunting if good gear dropped, otherwise Recall and try again—that was the loop.

Half like a machine, I kept repeating Recall, hoping a full set of legendaries with decent options would drop in bulk—

Main body! Main body! That one! Black-silver!

"Huh?!"

In the middle of infinite Recall farming, another black-silver glow appeared with a majestic sound effect, and I frantically scooped up the equipment and opened its options.

More than the name that all but advertised it only dropped in this hidden dungeon, more than it being bound gear you couldn't even use until you cleared an exclusive quest—

"Evolve to the next grade… so this is a mythic item?!"