"Finish it!" I shouted at Artemis while I waited to deal the finishing hit to complete half of the mission.

Her head turned, silver hair snapping like a whip, those emerald eyes narrowing as if she had just been ordered by a cockroach. The bowstring thrummed; another arrow of moonlight lanced from her grip, spearing through the Minotaur's chest. The beast staggered, bellowing, its massive hands clawing at the radiant shaft that burned its flesh from the inside out.

But it didn't die.

No, of course it didn't. The System's urgent mission prompt still flickered at the edge of my perception, mocking me. Final blow required by Host.

"Damn stubborn cow," I hissed, gripping my hand into a fist. My Conqueror's Will stirred, that pressure bubbling at the edges of my consciousness like it wanted to burst free again.

The Minotaur's knees buckled. It slumped forward, arms dragging against the ground, leaving a trail of blood so thick it steamed against the stone. Its eyes still burned red, still locked on me like I was the only thing in this ruined plaza that mattered. Not Artemis, not her holy arrows, not the divine pressure suffocating the air—just me.

"Pathetic." Artemis's voice cracked the silence, dripping with venom. She raised her bow again, already stringing another arrow. "I'll end this blight."

"Don't you dare," I snapped before I could stop myself.

Her gaze snapped to me, and for one horrifying heartbeat, I swore I saw murder flash behind her eyes. "What did you say, mortal?"

I forced myself not to back down. "I said—don't finish it. That thing's mine."

The Minotaur roared, as if in agreement. Or maybe just out of spite.

Artemis lowered her weapon slowly, the air around her crackling with restrained power. "You presume to command me? You—a parasite clinging to the wreckage of a once-great bloodline?"

Her words were daggers, every syllable sharpened with centuries of disdain. My jaw clenched. But I unhear her words and focused everything of my being on the sharp edge of Muramasa. Blade was siphoning my HP by a landslide as black lightning started arcing all over the blade's length, eating away at me with every heartbeat.

[Trait Activated!]

[Blade Resonance: Due to synchronisation between the user's Conqueror's Will and the bound weapon Muramasa, resonance effects are as follows: 1000% Critical Attack.]

[Title Activated!]

[Dances With Wolves: When facing animal-type monsters, all your Stats will increase by 40%.]

LETS FUCKING GO!

This bull falls under the animal-type monster category.

The moment the prompts flared, my lungs seized like I'd just inhaled molten iron. My vision tunnelled—System notifications burning in the corners of my sight while the Muramasa pulsed with a hunger that wasn't entirely mine.

The Minotaur lurched, one horn cracked, its body a bleeding ruin, but its eyes never wavered from me. Those crimson pupils locked, unblinking, defiant. It was like staring into a mirror of rage.

"Move," Artemis said, her tone low, cold, final. She didn't even aim this time. The aura around her flared as though simply existing near me, and the beast was beneath her patience.

I took a step forward instead. My grip tightened on Muramasa's hilt until my knuckles cracked.

"I said," my voice came out like gravel ground through steel, "it's mine."

Her brows arched, and for a flicker, she looked less like a goddess of the hunt and more like a predator calculating whether I was prey or something far more dangerous.

The Minotaur's chest heaved, ribs breaking under its own laboured breath, and in that instant—Muramasa screamed. The black lightning exploded off the blade, arcs gouging cracks through the plaza stones, leaping like living shadows.

"Fine," I spat blood into the dirt, the taste copper and heat. "Let's end this."

I lunged.

The world blurred, black lightning carving a jagged path as I shot forward. The Minotaur reared its head, bellowing one last time, its cracked horns catching a gleam of the moonlight—then my blade met its nape as I pivoted behind the beast's massive frame.

Muramasa cleaved through flesh, sinew, and bone with a shriek that wasn't just steel—it was hunger. Black lightning detonated outward, bursting from the wound like a dam collapsing under a tidal wave. The Minotaur convulsed, its roar choking into a gurgle, the smell of scorched meat flooding the air.

[Critical Strike! 1000% Damage Amplification!]

[Urgent Mission Objective Achieved!]

...

...

...

The prompts slammed into my vision as the Minotaur collapsed forward, its head half-severed, blood spraying in an arc that hissed when it touched the cursed lightning still dancing across my blade.

I staggered, coughing up another mouthful of blood, legs threatening to buckle under me. Muramasa throbbed in my hands like a heartbeat not my own—hungry, furious, satisfied all at once.

The System's cold voice cut through the haze:

[Urgent Mission Complete.]

[Rewards: Calculating…]

"Impossible."

Artemis's whisper sliced into the silence. Her bow lowered, eyes wide—not in pity, not even in scorn this time, but in something dangerously close to disbelief.

I wrenched the blade free, the Minotaur's body collapsing fully with a ground-shaking thud. My chest heaved, every breath ragged, but I forced myself to meet her gaze.

"Looks pretty possible to me." My lips curled into something between a grin and a snarl, blood dripping down my chin.

Now it's her time.

I hoped to see [Number of foes defeated: 1], but I saw—

[Number of foes defeated: 2]

Wait, What?!

The notification pulsed in my vision like a second heartbeat, jarring, wrong.

Two?

My head snapped back to the corpse of the Minotaur. It was definitely dead. No tricks, no second wind, no demonic regeneration bullshit. Its blood painted the plaza, steaming in rivers. That was one.

So what the hell was the second?

I swallowed hard, throat raw, chest burning. Muramasa's black lightning hissed quieter now, but the blade still vibrated with a hunger that made my skin crawl. My eyes darted instinctively to Artemis.

She was still frozen, her bow lowered, emerald eyes fixed on me with that rare expression I hadn't thought her capable of—hesitation.

[Hidden Condition Triggered.]

[Foe Registered: God of War – Ares (Avatar).]

[Defeat Count: 1 + 1.]

That counts.

So Ares really had been riding shotgun inside that bull.

The System's voice slammed into my skull again, cold and merciless:

[Hidden Objective Cleared: Avatar Slain.]

[Additional Rewards Pending.]

[Avatar Termination Confirmed.]

[Residual divine fragment consumed by bound weapon: Muramasa.]

[Warning: Contamination Threshold Rising.]

My knees almost gave out. "No… no, no, no—" My eyes darted back to the Minotaur's corpse. Its bulk hadn't shifted, but something else had. The shadows beneath its ribs still flickered, faint motes of crimson light dripping upward like reverse embers, sucked into the humming black edge of Muramasa.

And suddenly it clicked.

That wasn't just a monster. That wasn't just flesh and rage. That was a vessel. A container. A… proxy.

"Ares," I whispered, throat dry. My pulse hammered in my ears, louder than the fading crackle of the lightning.

Artemis's stare sharpened, disbelief snapping into something far uglier. Her bow trembled—not from weakness, but from fury she hadn't expected to feel. "You… fool. Do you understand what you've done?"

I forced a grin, blood staining my teeth. "Yeah," I rasped, lifting Muramasa as its edge hissed with lingering hunger. "I stole your kill."

Her aura flared, silver light boiling across the plaza like a second dawn. The air warped under it, hot and suffocating.

"No," she hissed, eyes burning brighter than the moon itself. "You've declared war on Olympus."

And before I could get another word out—

The System cut in again.

[Additional Reward Finalised.]

[You have obtained: ???]

[You have obtained: Fragment of War God's Authority.]

Fuck.

This is an additional reward?! Then what the fuck will be the actual rewards?

Of all the things that could've happened—

Artemis's bow rose again. Her glare was no longer disdainful. It was execution.

And the worst part? The System was still flashing. Still updating. Still whispering in my ears like the world itself was reconfiguring around me.

…

This was about to get a thousand times worse.

The shift in her expression was instant—her nose wrinkled, eyes narrowing, that perfect goddess-mask fracturing as something sharper slid through. She smelled it.

The silver aura around her trembled, then spiked.

"You—" Artemis's voice was jagged glass. Her head tilted, and her gaze locked not on me, but on Muramasa. The blade pulsed, exhaling a ripple of scarlet haze like a heartbeat dragged out of hell itself.

Her lips peeled back in something between a snarl and a vow. "That scent… war. Brother."

Oh, fuck me sideways.

Of course, she'd recognise it. Of course, she'd catch the divine stench leaking from Muramasa's cursed edge. I didn't just kill her pet bull with Ares hitchhiking inside—I'd let my sword chew on a fragment of him like it was dinner.

And now she knew.

Artemis drew the string back without summoning an arrow. She didn't need one. Silver light coalesced out of nothing, condensing into a spear of killing intent that made the air burn cold in my lungs.

"You dare consume a god?" Her words rolled across the plaza like thunder trapped inside stone. "You dare stain yourself with Olympian ichor?"

My chest rattled with a laugh that sounded half like choking on blood. "Dare's a strong word. Let's just say… it wasn't exactly on the menu, but hey—I don't waste food."

The goddess didn't smile. Didn't flinch. Her aura pressed down harder, until my knees threatened to cave again.

"Oh, I see, you wanted this, huh? You insisted on the last hit because you wanted all of it." Her voice cracked like lightning against stone, silver light spiralling outward in jagged arcs that carved cracks into the plaza floor. The spear of concentrated divinity hovered in her grasp, humming with raw power that made even the marble groan under its tension. "You—mortal, parasite, desecrator—you've consumed the essence of my brother, the God of War, and now… now you think you can stand before me?"

I wiped a smear of blood from my lips, chest heaving, every fibre of my body screaming from Muramasa's backlash. Yet beneath the pain, beneath the suffocating aura pressing down on me, the Conqueror's Will flared. Sharp, blazing, absolute. It didn't just hum in my veins—it roared.

"I… stand wherever I want," I rasped, voice hoarse but firm. "And if you think I'm gonna let a little Olympian pride stop me… think again."

"You—Dominic Nocturne von Morningstar—you are more than mortal… more than a demon… You are a catastrophe dressed as a man."

I frowned as my focus shifted, "You know my name?"

"Hah! Who doesn't know the crippled demon prince of hell? As the only member alive of the Morningstar Bloodline, you were quite a topic of ridicule among every other pantheon. But you vanished around a millennium ago."

"But how did you recognise me in the first place?"

***

Stone me, I can take it!

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