The Creator of the Ruin Beast

"Get lost!"

My form was solid now, my control practiced—so a mere flick of the wrist was enough to launch a volley of red chopsticks that turned the elite monster into a pincushion.

It wasn't even worth treating as a real elite. The thing carried Terror, one of those garbage prefixes that had nothing to do with words like Sturdy or Mighty, and it shut down before the chopsticks buried in its body even had a chance to detonate.

I reclaimed the half-broken chopsticks, recovered a scrap of spent spiritual energy, and let myself enjoy the decent chunk of experience that came with something that was, at least on paper, an elite.

A trash prefix like Terror? Instant free kill.

There was this useless prefix that boosted attack power and slapped a two-stage Fear debuff on every hit—at the cost of tanking your own defense. And they stuck that garbage not on a ranged unit, but on a slow-walking melee grunt. Pure pew-pew energy.

In this dumpster-fire of a game, the rarest and best buff you could get was a defense shred. So a prefix that shredded its own defense? Of course it was treated like absolute trash.

Defense was the product of level scaling, stats, and skills all rolled together—basically a damage reduction rate. Naturally, once that armor got shredded, the damage output went through the roof.

Even regular mobs needed the chopsticks to explode before they died. This elite dropped dead just from getting them stuck in it. Calling that prefix irredeemable garbage wasn't an exaggeration.

But that wasn't why I'd nearly had a heart attack.

If the best-performing prefixes existed, the worst-performing ones did too—and of course both were rare. Seeing a top-tier prefix felt great. Seeing a bottom-tier one felt like finding every kind of bug crawling around your house.

In other words: my luck was bad.

In this absolute shitshow of a game, bad luck meant an Eok-kka event could fire at any moment. Veterans who'd lost characters to those forced unfair events—or had to reroll from scratch—reacted with pure visceral dread.

Even with mods, the best you could do was drop the event rate below fifty percent. You could cheat yourself into the most broken character imaginable, and one Eok-kka event would still slice that character clean in half. No wonder half the player base took one bite of this game, decided whether it was a game or a scam, and spit it right back out.

Anyway. That wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the important part.

"Fucking hell. Is this because I rolled that trash earlier?"

Subjectively, unlucky events were popping more often, and dungeon drops felt stingier than usual. Probability rigging wasn't supposed to be a thing in reality—but it still put me in a foul mood.

"I should stay away from the boss room for a while."

If an Eok-kka event went off in there, I was finished. So I resolved to play the coward, stick to regular mobs, and grind levels—then went back to hunting monsters with practiced ease.

My level smoothly broke past 150. If it hadn't been for that innate ability of mine, the insight I'd gained at my first Foundation Establishment breakthrough could have carried me all the way to 149. In a way, I was only just now catching up to where I should have been.

Once I realized insight itself could grant levels, I'd tried meditating instead of sleeping. Experience did trickle in—but smashing one monster in the same amount of time still paid out more.

Though, to be fair, the slaughter energy I'd earned killing neutral NPCs in this dungeon still outstripped everything I'd farmed from the monsters themselves. Part of that was because the dungeon's monsters were non-living constructs.

And that was exactly why even a stronger, blood-and-sweat-trained version of me still refused to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠go anywhere near the boss room.

A non-living boss mob estimated to be strong enough to crack the skull of something at this dungeon's level cap of 199?

If an event fired on top of that, I was dead. Not permanently dead—but the unit of time I'd have to spend sealed inside this dungeon could jump from months to centuries.

"If my gear were stacked, I'd try it. But other than one rare item, I've got nothing to show for it."

One rare pair of boots. That was it for real income. The unique helmet with the Terror prefix wasn't even equipment—it was a cursed item. I wanted to yank it out of my inventory and smash it, but cursed items could block certain Eok-kka events once, so I'd shoved it into a corner and left it there.

By simple math, I'd spent a few months training, and maybe a month of actual hunting. One rare a month? In two or three years I could theoretically assemble a full rare set, right?

I quietly swept the possibility of duplicate gear and pure trash drops out of my mind, clung to a hopeful future, and kept hunting. Before I knew it, half a year had passed.

"You fucking garbage game."

I spat curses at the fifth unique weapon that had just dropped.

Three unique weapons. One unique pair of gloves and one unique top. Two rare accessories and one rare pair of boots. Those were the best results of half a year's work—judged by options, at least.

"Bottoms and helmets just refuse to drop, for fuck's sake."

I still ached for magic-tier bottoms and a helmet. You needed every piece at rare or above just to unlock the rare set bonus.

I was still stuck on the lowest magic bonus. It was almost funny. That was exactly why I'd wanted to wrap myself in shop-bought rares and go hunting. The rare equipment bonus was a full thirty to all stats—three times the difference.

For reference, unique started at a hundred, and past that point the raw stats on the gear usually outclassed the set bonus entirely, so people stopped caring. But for me right now? It mattered a lot.

I set the disappointment aside and looked toward the boss room.

It was time to finish this dungeon.

"To think a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator made it this far."

"…?"

"Excellent. With you as material, I could craft a magnificent puppet. Come now—become mine!"

"Oh, for fuck's—"

The boss monster was a living being. The lore clicked into place at once—he was the creator who'd built every monster in this dungeon—and the second I realized this bastard was the reason I'd been stuck grinding non-living constructs the whole time, my skull rang like a struck bell.

"Hmm. Looking closer, you've wantonly smashed every last one of my works. Ordinary creations won't be enough to catch you. Very well—behold! The masterpieces I forged from Core Formation cultivators!"

I was shaking so hard from the shock that I couldn't even get a proper curse out. He must have taken it for terror, because he kept monologuing as he summoned six minions all at once. Only then did I finally claw my mind back together and draw up my spiritual energy.

It was a boss monster, so Auto-Battle was off the table.

But unlike every non-living construct I'd fought so far, this one was unmistakably alive.

I wrapped my body in red spiritual energy, charged in like a brute, and swung the massive axe I'd pulled from my inventory, smashing the two minions blocking my path.

The Shock prefix forced a knockback that sent the minions flying. I ignored them and switched weapons mid-charge, bearing down on the boss who was still watching me.

The axe in my hands became a massive demon lance, red spiritual energy coiling around it until it burned like a living flame. Even then, the boss monster didn't move from his spot. He just sneered.

"As if a mere Foundation Establishment insect could pierce this body's defensive Dharma Treasu—"

My head went hot. Power poured from the Dharma Treasure binding my hair—the Mighty Sinew headband—raced through my entire body, and gathered into the demon lance.

The One-Point prefix on the demon lance multiplied the first attack's power by 1.5 and flat-out added twenty percent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠critical chance. On top of that, the Dharma Treasure's power activated—one of this game's absolute best prefixes, a single-strike three-hundred-percent attack boost that ballooned the hit to a full four times normal.

The recoil alone felt like it would shatter my entire body. The weapon in my hands screamed under force far beyond my level and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠realm, its durability plunging toward catastrophic failure in an instant—I felt every second of it.

And then the demon lance, red spiritual energy whirling around it, crushed through the boss monster's barrier like a fist through soft tofu and drove straight into his torso.

"Ugh—?!"

Hands seized my body from every direction. Even with the boss dead, the minions hadn't vanished—and only then did I realize that under this reality patch, unlike the game, killing the boss did not clear the adds.

The left arm bracing the demon lance was torn clean off as the price of twisting my body away from a monster's hand driving for my heart.