"Wha... What is this thing?!"

  In the thousands of eyes of the Thousand-Eyed Tyrant, the original contempt and mockery were being replaced by "disbelief" at an alarming rate.

  It hovered in the center of the hall, its massive flesh-ball body heaving violently from the overuse of psychic power. Countless invisible psychic tentacles, like the arms of an octopus, were frantically trying to drill into the brain of the green tin man before it.

  As a rare Psychic-type Lord in the Abyss, the Thousand-Eyed Tyrant had seen countless types of souls.

  There were greedy ones, like filthy mud pits; cowardly ones, like fragile glass; violent ones, like burning wildfires. But no matter how tough a soul was, as long as there was consciousness, there were cracks. As long as there was emotion, there were weaknesses. Fear, regret, desire—these were the levers it used to pry open the shells of these souls.

  But now, it had met an exception.

  When its psychic tentacles finally penetrated the damned Praetor Suit that blocked all external signals and touched the surface of the Slayer's consciousness...

  It didn't see any "scenery."

  No corridors of memory, no ocean of emotion, not even a spark of thought.

  It saw a wall.

  A black, high wall forged from the purest, solidified "Killing Intent." There were no cracks in this wall, not even a hairline fracture. It was smooth, cold, and indestructible, its surface flowing with a suffocating aura of bloodlust.

  The Thousand-Eyed Tyrant tried to erode this wall with fear.

  It projected the most terrifying torture scenarios of the Abyss, projected scenes of cosmic destruction and despair.

  But when those illusions hit the black wall, they were like foam hitting a reef—shattered instantly.

  "Impossible! Mortals have fear! Mortals have weaknesses!"

  The Thousand-Eyed Tyrant refused to believe it. It mobilized all its main eyes, compressing its psychic power into a sharp drill, attempting to forcibly bore through this defense.

  *Zzzzt—!*

  The drill pierced in.

  Then, it heard the sound.

  It wasn't the whisper of thoughts, nor the wailing of souls.

  It was a kind of... Noise.

  *Thump—Thump—Thump—Thump!*

  It was a roar like tens of thousands of heavy forging presses working simultaneously. It was the vibration of tectonic plates squeezing against each other. It was the gravitational wave of a collapsing star.

  It was an extremely monotonous, extremely violent, and completely illogical "Absolute Rhythm."

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  In the face of this rhythm, any complex thought, exquisite illusion, or delicate emotion seemed so pale and powerless. It was like a poet trying to influence a tsunami with poetry.

  The tsunami doesn't understand poetry.

  The tsunami only drowns everything.

  "AHHHH!!!"

  The Thousand-Eyed Tyrant let out a scream. The psychic drill that had pierced the Slayer's consciousness was directly shattered by that violent rhythm. The pain of the backlash caused more than a hundred of its eyes to engorge with blood and burst simultaneously.

  It looked at the Slayer.

  The Slayer was raising his chainsaw, approaching step by step.

  In the Thousand-Eyed Tyrant's perception, what was walking over wasn't a living creature.

  It was a natural disaster named "Destruction."

  It was a moving volcano, a walking earthquake, materialized entropy.

  Face to face with a natural disaster, you cannot communicate, you cannot control, you cannot even make it stop.

  You can only run.

  Or be crushed by it.

  The Thousand-Eyed Tyrant finally understood.

  What it was trying to control wasn't a person with a "heart" at all. It was trying to control a perpetual motion machine that operated solely for slaughter. The operating system of this machine didn't even have the driver for "Fear" installed.

  "Mon... Monster..."

  The Thousand-Eyed Tyrant drifted backward, trembling. Its psychic attack methods were completely useless; it couldn't even perform basic mind reading.

  Its proud "Mind Control," in front of this man, was like trying to control a rock with a TV remote.

  The Slayer's footsteps were like the countdown of the Grim Reaper.

  The roar of the chainsaw echoed in the empty hall, every sound sawing at the Tyrant's nerves.

  It retreated to the corner. No way back.

  In despair, the Thousand-Eyed Tyrant's countless eyes suddenly turned downward.

  Through the floor of the command tower, its vision penetrated layers of metal, landing on the Spirit slaves in the middle level of the mine who had just been rescued and were still bewildered.

  Although those Spirits had extremely high IQs and dexterous hands, their souls...

  Were weak.

  Sensitive.

  Filled with fear and confusion.

  They were the perfect puppet material.

  If I can't control the knife.

  Then I will control what the knife wants to protect.

  A trace of sinister light flashed again in the Thousand-Eyed Tyrant's originally fear-filled eyes.

  "You have no weaknesses... but that doesn't mean your mission has no weaknesses."

  *HUMMMM—!*

  An invisible purple psychic ripple erupted from the top of the command tower, instantly penetrating the floor and sweeping through the mining area below like a plague.

  The Spirits, who were packing their tools and preparing to evacuate with Singularity, suddenly froze.

  Their eyes instantly lost focus, pupils dilating into eerie purple swirls.

  They dropped the wrenches and blueprints in their hands, picking up mining picks, laser cutters, and even thermal rifles freshly dismantled from demon corpses instead.

  "Kill... Kill..."

  The originally gentle and timid Spirits now wore hideous expressions on their faces. Like puppets on strings, they turned around with stiff but uniform movements, looking at the stairs leading to the top of the command tower.

  There, was where the Slayer was fighting.

  ...

  Netherworld Control Center.

  Singularity watched the friendly signal dots on the screen suddenly turn red and crushed his teacup again.

  "Damn it! That treacherous old bastard!"

  Singularity pounded the table in anger.

  "Slayer! Bad situation! That guy controlled the Spirits!"

  "It knows it can't beat you in a head-on fight, so it's using 'Zerg Rush' tactics... and it's a 'Hostage Rush' to disgust you!"

  On the screen, thousands of controlled Spirits surged up the stairs like a zombie tide. They held mining tools capable of cutting through rock, emitting meaningless hisses from their mouths. Their target was only one—the Slayer.

  Singularity looked at the green back figure on the screen, standing at the entrance to the tower top, holding a chainsaw but suddenly stopping.

  "This is trouble."

  "The Slayer never kills innocents (though he doesn't blink when killing demons). But this group of Spirits are now rabid dogs, and they are the assets we need to 'preserve'."

  "Kill? Or not kill?"

  "This is a dead end."

  *Next Chapter: Despair of the Spirit Race. Facing the tide of 'civilians' rushing in with mining picks, the Slayer falls into a passive position for the first time. He is besieged, and he cannot fight back. This is probably the most frustrating battle he has ever fought in his life.*