Eclipse (3)
◈ Identification Code: WH-074
◈ Threat Rating: ★★★★☆ (Perceived ★★★★★+)
⚠ Caution: Its mental contamination ability is far more dangerous than its physical strength. With low mental resistance, it is effectively unkillable.
Primary Traits:
1. Powerful wide-area mental assault: Amplifies the target's trauma, anxiety, and fear to induce hallucinations and panic. Without resistance, instant combat incapacity.
2. Physical threat: Possesses above-average physical attack power and a hardened outer shell.
★★★ Strategy Core:
Trait: 【Mental Resistance】 strongly recommended (appears once Mental stat exceeds 100. Cannot be obtained through training alone — recommended combination: relics + single-use artifacts + Church blessings)
• Party should consist of at least five 4-star-grade heroes.
• High Mental Resistance tank/DPS holds aggro. All others provide ranged support.
• Focus physical attacks on weak points (crimson eyes, mouthless regions, etc. — still unconfirmed).
• Holy magic/items reported to partially mitigate mental contamination (verification needed).
Primary Drops (Estimated):
◈ Equipment: [Shadow Cloak], [Fear-Touched Ring] (Mental Resistance, dark magic-related options)
◈ Materials: [Essence of Whispers], [Shadow Fragment] (high-tier crafting materials)
◈ Special: [Eye of Terror] (accessory; grants mental attack capability or massively boosts resistance when worn — abysmal drop rate)
Ssssss…
At last, from within the darkness, it fully revealed itself.
The Whispering Horror. That grotesque form I had only ever seen in the game's bestiary now stood before my eyes. Its massive body rippled like formless shadow, and crimson eyes were set hideously into its seemingly hardened shell at irregular intervals.
Where a face ought to have been, mouths of every size jutted out at random, endlessly pouring forth ominous whispers in voices that did not match.
"—Answer the question—"
"—Do you repent your sins—"
It drifted toward a nearby soldier.
The soldier's eyes rolled back as he screamed.
"Y-you crazy monster bastard! Die! Dieee!"
Whoosh.
The soldier's swinging blade severed one of the Whispering Horror's fingers.
Relief flickered across the soldier's face. He seemed to cling to the hope that the thing could be cut.
And then—
"—Repent your sins—"
Thud.
The soldier's head separated cleanly from his body.
And just like that, it was absorbed into the aberration's mass.
His face melted away and vanished. Only the mouth remained, gaping open from within the creature's body.
"—Answer the question—"
"—Do you repent your sins—"
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
Why the hell was something like that showing up in Seorigol?!
Powerfully resists external mental contamination effects!
Even before the thing had fully appeared, soldiers were already losing their minds — some clamping their hands over their ears, some swinging their swords wildly at nothing, some falling to their knees and praising the aberration as they went mad.
"—Do you repent your sins—"
"I repent. I repent! Please, let me repent…"
And without exception, they were absorbed into the aberration.
As time dragged on, soldiers began walking toward it as if drawn by an invisible thread. Soon only their mouths remained, working open and shut from inside the creature's body — a landscape of pure grotesque horror.
The only ones still holding their ground against the mental contamination were Caelen.
And me, more or less.
Caelen was biting through his lip hard enough to send blood streaming down his chin; his condition was nowhere near good. Which meant that, for all practical purposes, I was the only one still sane.
How am I even holding on?
I had no idea.
But the reason didn't matter.
What mattered was surviving this.
"—Do you repent your sins—"
Its gaze finally found me.
"Urgh—!"
Vomit surged up from somewhere deep in my being. It felt as though someone had shoved a hand into my brain and started kneading.
But it was bearable.
At that, the creature's entire body turned toward me.
Those many crimson eyes locked onto me — Ian Darkest. In the middle of this slaughterhouse, it seemed to have taken an interest in the one existence that refused to break.
Yeah.
Good question.
What the hell am I?
What am I, that I'm stuck here going through this absolute nightmare?
Dozens of crimson eyes fixed on me in unison. It had taken a genuine interest in the sole being that could withstand its mental assault.
Dozens of mouths poured an even more powerful torrent of whispers straight at me.
Pain crashed through my skull as if it were splitting open.
But I could take it.
Stay sharp.
The second I drop this mental thread, it's not just my life — my soul gets stripped bare.
I'd rather die clean than end up stuck inside that thing, suffering.
"—Strange child, strange child—"
Irritated that I was still holding out, the Whispering Horror raised a massive shadow-arm.
Razor claws flashed in the torchlight. Since the mental assault wasn't working, it intended to pulp me with raw physical force.
"Damn it…!"
I threw myself into a roll, barely clearing the downward strike.
BOOM!
A gigantic claw slammed into the ground where I'd been standing, gouging out a crater. Dirt and stone shrapnel sprayed in every direction.
I scrambled back to my feet and swung my sword at what looked like one of its legs.
CLANG!
A dull impact sent the blade bouncing off. The shock nearly shattered my wrist. Its outer shell was harder than I'd imagined.
Goddamn aberration bastards!
The longer I fought it, the more buried information floated up from the depths of my memory.
Whispering Horror.
Its weakness was definitely sharp, precise physical attacks.
How the hell is physical force a weakness?!
No matter how hard I swung, all I got was clang, ching! — and a hand that hurt worse every time.
Meanwhile, a single graze from its attacks would finish me. I moved with everything I had. My clumsy swordsmanship couldn't even scratch that shell. The only thing I could do was hold its attention and buy time.
I tried to lure it toward the trap zone I'd spent a full year preparing.
"Over here, you monster piece of shit!"
It seemed to respond to the taunt, slowly turning its head.
Then it came striding forward. The trap of sharpened wooden stakes?
It crushed them underfoot without so much as a pause and kept coming.
"Son of a bitch!"
I rolled sideways, dodging another descending claw. At the same time I yanked an oil pouch from my belt and hurled it.
Splash!
Oil soaked a portion of its body. I snatched up a torch and flung it.
"Please work!"
Fwoosh!
The oil caught, flames roaring violently across the black shadow. But the creature only flinched for a moment, as if it felt no pain at all. If anything, even more unpleasant whispers of mockery spilled from its many mouths.
"—Foolish thrashing—"
"—Pointless—"
It swept an arm out as if swatting a nuisance.
I'd been entirely on the offensive. There was no way to dodge.
THUD!
A crushing blow to my side knocked the breath out of me and sent me flying. A few ribs had to be gone. A coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.
"Gah…!"
Before I could even collect myself, its massive foot came down to crush me.
No strength left to dodge. No way to block.
This garbage game.
How do you fail this hard at balance?
Dropping a city-grade aberration on the shittiest backwater fief in existence — is that even allowed?
"Haha. Fuck."
A hollow laugh slipped out.
Dark fantasy really was dark fantasy, huh.
I'd prepared. And it still wasn't enough.
And then—
"Lower your head!"
A shout cut through the chaos.
Caelen's voice.
Somehow, even through the mental storm, he had dragged himself together. Pouring out whatever strength he had left, he charged the Whispering Horror.
His blade erupted with blue sword-aura and carved across the creature's flank. Darkest family swordsmanship. He couldn't match the eldest son, but his technique still stood at the level of a first-rate master.
At least a 3-star hero, easy.
…KRAAAAGH!
For the first time, the Whispering Horror screamed in genuine pain. Something like black blood welled from its side.
But that was as far as it went.
Enraged, the Whispering Horror lashed out with a shadow tentacle and skewered Caelen clean through.
"Guh…!"
Caelen's eyes flew wide with disbelief. He coughed blood and slowly sank to his knees.
Then he toppled over and did not move again.
"Sir Caelen…!"
I called his name, but he no longer stirred.
It was truly over now. No one left to protect me. No one left to buy me time.
Having disposed of the nuisance, the Whispering Horror turned its attention back to me. Irritation and naked killing intent burned in those crimson eyes. It raised its massive foot once more. This time, it meant to finish it.
The enormous shadow-claw came crashing down toward me once more. There was no dodging it this time. My body was already at its limit, and the brief window Caelen's sacrifice had bought me was gone.
…So this is as far as I go.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Nine hundred ninety-nine deaths. And now the thousandth. Maybe this was simply my fate.
…
……
………?
The pain I expected never came. Instead, every sound in the world simply stopped.
I opened my eyes onto a sight I could not believe.
Directly above my head, mere inches away, the Whispering Horror's gigantic claw hung frozen in place. My hair, which had been whipping in the wind — the crackling flames of the torches — even a single mote of dust suspended in midair — all of it had stopped dead.
"........?"
Had time… stopped?
I was lost. Was something like this even possible inside Teore?
And then, from the chaos of my thoughts, a single name tumbled unbidden from my lips.
"Linea. Linea Judith."
Tales of Legend.
One of the heroes I had poured tens of thousands of hours into trying to keep alive.
The sole inheritor of space-time magic.
Linea Judith.
"…But how?"
She was a hero.
One of the vanishingly few 5-star heroes even the Empire could claim.
What possible reason would a hero like that have to come to a fief that didn't even rate a single star?
And after the previous regression, she should have lost her memories entirely.
Time, frozen solid.
— Step.
From far off in the distance, the faint sound of footsteps began to approach.