Chapter 6: First Kill
The Sanguis Stylus touched the blank beside Stamina.
Atlas did not think for long.
The Hybrid Muxical was already lunging toward him with its jaws open and its red eyes fixed on his throat. It had stopped playing after seeing his body change, The first bite had been a test. The second attack was meant to kill.
His hand shook violently, but the stylus still moved.
Blood surged through its crystal body and reached the tip.
And Finally, Atlas wrote.
The number settled into the page.
Stamina: 5 [ LOCKED ] [ LOCKED ]
The effect came immediately.
Atlas’s heart pounded harder, each beat pushing more force through his body. It did not feel natural. It felt like his body had been ordered to survive even while injured. The Codex was not gently healing him. It was forcing his body to remain functional because Stamina had been written into it.
His wounded shoulder reacted first.
The torn flesh pulled together, muscle reconnecting and blood sealing in a rough, unnatural way. The pain did not disappear, but it reduced enough for him to notice the difference. The wound was not fully healed. It was only corrected to the point where he could continue moving.
Atlas’s eyes widened.
"...Huh?"
His voice trembled.
"M-My shoulder is heal—"
He could not finish.
The Hybrid Muxical saw the change.
Its red pupils narrowed, and its posture shifted instantly. The hesitation from before vanished. It no longer treated him like prey that could be tested slowly. A wounded target healing in front of it? It was shocked but remained on guard now. and as it saw the opening
It lunged faster.
Its jaws opened wider than before, and this time it aimed for his head.
Atlas could not fully follow the movement. Agility 5 had improved his reaction, but not enough to clearly read a B-Rank predator at full speed. His eyes caught only fragments: the lowered shoulder, the open jaws, the red eyes, and the line of attack.
His body reacted before his mind finished processing it.
He pushed against the ground and lost control.
Strength 9, Agility 5, and Stamina 5 activated together in a body that had never trained to manage them. The result was not a step. It was a burst. Atlas shot forward far faster than he intended, crossing nearly ten meters in a breath.
He could not control the direction, could not control the speed and even stop himself.
His face slammed into the ruin wall.
Bang!
The impact cracked the ancient stone. Spiderweb fractures spread outward from where he hit, and fragments of black rock broke loose around him. Atlas bounced back and fell to the ground among the dust and debris.
"Kheuk!"
For a second, his mind went blank from the collision.
Then he realized something important.
He was not broken.
The wall had cracked. A shallow crater had formed in the stone. But his face was fine. No torn skin. No shattered skull. No blood. The written attributes had not only made him stronger and faster. They had also made his body tougher than it had any right to be.
Atlas pushed himself up slowly.
"...What?"
His voice came out weak and disoriented.
The power was real, but his control was terrible. Strength made him move with too much force. Agility made that force sharper. Stamina kept his damaged body operating, but it did not teach him balance. All three values had been forced into him within minutes, and his body had no experience using them together.
Behind him, the Hybrid Muxical moved again.
Atlas turned.
The monster was charging straight at him now. No patience remained in its movement. It had stopped circling and testing. It wanted him dead before the Codex changed him further.
Atlas staggered to his feet.
His balance was unstable, his breathing rough, and his thoughts were clashing too quickly to settle.
’Damn it... I can’t outrun this thing.’
That realization was obvious now.
Speed without control was useless. Strength without a hit was useless. Stamina only delayed death if he kept being chased and bitten. At this rate, he would crash around the chamber until the Muxical found his throat.
’Then what do I do?’
Running had failed and Dodging also barely worked.
So the next option was killing.
Atlas’s gaze lowered to his right hand, then to the cracks in the stone nearby. Strength 9 had let him crack stone without trying. If he could land one direct hit on the Muxical’s head or neck, the result might be enough.
He had forgotten that because fear had pushed him into escape first.
He only needed the monster to come close enough and commit to an attack.
Atlas’s teeth clenched.
"...No."
The word came out low and unsteady.
"No..."
His trembling did not stop, but his focus changed.
He could not keep thinking like prey.
"I refuse..."
The Hybrid Muxical crossed the chamber toward him.
Atlas lifted his arms.
He crossed them in front of his chest, forming an X to protect his upper body and force the monster into biting something other than his throat.
He knew it was not a good plan.
Atlas’s voice dropped.
"...Either me..."
His fingers tightened.
"...or that damned bastard."
The Hybrid Muxical launched.
Its four tails snapped behind it, its body coiling mid-motion before the final burst. Its jaws opened wide, aiming for his upper body with enough force to crush through flesh and bone.
Atlas held his ground.
The monster reached him.
Crunch.
Its jaws closed around his left arm.
Fangs pierced through flesh and bone at once. The pressure alone crushed everything inside the bite area. Pain exploded through Atlas so violently that tears spilled from his eyes before he could stop them.
He did not scream outwardly, internally his mind, heart and flesh burned from pain.
The left arm was gone as a weapon. That was expected. The important part was that the monster had committed to the bite, and its head was now close enough.
Atlas’s right hand moved.
The Hybrid Muxical sensed the danger almost immediately. Its grip tightened, trying to finish him before the punch landed. It bit down harder.
Crack.
Bone snapped inside Atlas’s left arm.
His body faltered for a moment.
The pain nearly broke his focus.
But he endured it.
His right fist pulled back.
Then came down.
The punch connected with the Hybrid Muxical’s head, near the spinal junction.
The force erupted through the point of impact.
The ground beneath the creature shattered as its skull was driven downward. A deep crack rang through the chamber, and the Muxical’s body convulsed as the connection between head and spine snapped under the strike.
The massive wolf-like body collapsed.
Its jaws loosened.
Then it stopped moving.
Silence returned.
Atlas remained standing for a moment with his fist pressed against the creature’s skull.
His left arm was destroyed.
"Huff....Kheuk...Huff..." the remaining strength left his body as he panted heavily and coughed blood.
Atlas dropped to his knees, then collapsed forward as his body finally reached its limit. What remained of his left arm hung uselessly, torn and broken, with blood pouring from it onto the stone.
"Hah...!"
He tried to breathe.
"Huff—!"
It did not stabilize.
His chest rose and fell unevenly. His vision flickered at the edges, and his body refused to move anymore. The ground beneath him grew warm and wet as his blood pooled around him.
A few feet ahead, the Hybrid Muxical lay still.
Its red eyes had dimmed. Its jaw hung slightly open. Dark blood began spilling from its mouth, then from its nose and ears, slow at first and then heavier.
Atlas watched through blurred vision.
Then the Sanguis Stylus moved.
It trembled beside him.
At first, the movement was small. Then the vibration grew sharper, and the blood inside the crystal body began to swirl violently. It was reacting to the corpse.
Atlas’s eyes barely focused on it.
"...Wha..."
His voice failed.
The stylus rose on its own.
It floated above the Hybrid Muxical’s head and stopped there.
For a brief second, nothing happened.
Then the stylus glowed crimson.
The pull came immediately.
The Muxical’s blood did not drip normally anymore. It ripped itself free from the corpse’s mouth, nose, ears, and wounds, rising in thin streams toward the stylus. The corpse trembled slightly as more blood was forced out and absorbed into the crystal body.
The liquid inside the stylus thickened.
It became darker and heavier.
Different from Atlas’s own blood.
Atlas stared in disbelief.
"...It’s..."
The Sanguis Stylus pulsed once like a heartbeat.
Then the Codex opened on its own.
Pages turned rapidly, flipping past the first page and into the locked ones beyond. One page stopped for a fraction of a second, and crimson letters tried to form at the top.
They were unstable.
Atlas could not read them clearly.
Then—
Chzzzt!
The page distorted violently.
The forming letters shattered before becoming complete.
A large symbol covered the page.
[ LOCKED ]
Atlas’s fading eyes remained on it.
Another locked page flickered.
Then another.
Then another.
All closed.
And sealed.
The Codex returned to the first page.
[ PROFILE ]
[ STATS ]
The Sanguis Stylus hovered beside it, now filled with darker, heavier blood.
Not his blood.
The Hybrid Muxical’s blood.
Atlas’s body trembled weakly against the ground. His left arm was ruined, his own blood spread beneath him, and the monster he had killed lay only a few feet away. Yet the Codex had taken something from it.
It had not revealed the locked pages, It had only stored the blood.
Atlas barely had enough strength left to think, but one rule became clear.
The Codex did not only want his blood.
It wanted monster blood too.
His eyes slowly dimmed.
The last thing he saw before unconsciousness swallowed him was the first page of the Codex glowing faintly before him.
The blank stats still waited.
The locked pages remained sealed.
And the Sanguis Stylus floated beside them—
fuller than before.
