Chapter : 95
After finishing all preparations, Suhyun set out toward the innermost part of the Toxic Zone. Although he had managed to resolve crises fairly easily so far using his psychokinetic powers, he couldn’t shake his tension.
“It bothers me that there’s no sign of life.”
It could be due to an environment inhospitable to living creatures, but he couldn’t help wondering if there was some other reason. If the environment itself had become highly toxic, even Suhyun’s psychokinesis had its limits—he still had to breathe and stay alive.
“If I keep my psychokinesis ready to deploy and also activate my healing ability… even for me, that would be exhausting.”
Superpowers weren’t abilities that could be used endlessly without cost. Like stamina, they required rest and recharge.
Moreover, his healing power couldn’t completely neutralize toxins once they had spread through the body. It only healed the damage after the toxin had already destroyed the body. Suhyun wasn’t going through all this trouble just to obtain poison power for nothing.
The sound of crunching footsteps echoed unusually loudly. Thinking about it, it had been a long time since he had been somewhere this quiet in Cameron.
-Grrr…-
“?”
Breaking through the trees from afar appeared a tiger with green fur. The Poshukan tiger was a monster occasionally seen on the outskirts. A beast with quick movements, persistence, and ferocity—but no match for Suhyun.
What startled Suhyun was its color. It wasn’t supposed to have such a deep, unpleasant green.
Shhk!
As it walked slowly forward, the Poshukan tiger swiped its claws at the trees. Normally, a tiger of its size could break trees like this with brute force.
But the trees didn’t break. When the claws touched, the trunks simply melted away.
“…!”
Suhyun was shocked. It wasn’t surprising for creatures in the Toxic Zone to have some form of poison in their bodies. Any creature without it would be abnormal.
But this poison wasn’t normal. No known toxin could instantly dissolve a tree like that. It was closer to an “imaginary” or conceptual poison.
“A superpower…!”
It was clear that the tiger wasn’t producing actual poison through its body’s organs—it was generating it through a superpower-like mechanism. Some monsters were capable of abilities resembling superpowers.
“Did it awaken to adapt to the Toxic Zone, or did only the awakened survive?”
Either way, leaving it for long was dangerous. No one could predict how a superpower-generated poison would act. Suhyun prepared to attack the tiger using psychokinesis.
-Grrr!
“?”
But the tiger didn’t approach further. When Suhyun stopped, it just glared fiercely. Few monsters refrained from attacking intruders in their territory.
“What’s going on?”
Suhyun noticed the tiger was covered in wounds. Its long fur hid them, but dried blood could be seen here and there.
“If it’s not attacking because it’s injured, then it’s not like a normal monster.”
Poshukan tigers were among the most ferocious monsters. Even with these injuries, it wouldn’t usually hold back. Suhyun’s curiosity was piqued—perhaps it was a trait of a monster adapted to the Toxic Zone.
But before he could indulge that curiosity, a chilling scream pierced his ears.
“Krk!”
He blocked it with psychokinesis, but surprise was inevitable. There were no monsters nearby—this sound wasn’t from the Poshukan tiger.
A shadow appeared around him. Gritting his teeth, Suhyun shot psychokinetic force upward, realizing where the monster had appeared.
Thunk!
A gigantic spider landed with a horrifying shriek. Its size made the Poshukan tiger seem small, and the very ground around it burned with poisonous energy. Its face resembled a human’s.
“So Man-Faced Giant Spiders really exist…!”
Monsters in the legends of other races had to be taken with a grain of salt, but half of those stories were true. A giant spider with a human face—the legend said its poison was potent enough to infect everything. For those skilled with toxins, it was irresistible. Suhyun remembered reading about it.
No matter how hastily he fired psychokinesis at it, the Man-Faced Spider showed little effect. It instead focused its gaze on the Poshukan tiger.
-Grrr!
It was obvious who had caused the tiger’s injuries. The spider hissed, spraying blue poison from its mouth. The tiger leapt to the side, avoiding the attack, but the poison dissolved the fur it brushed against, and the rocks nearby vanished.
Both monsters could generate poison through superpowers. The outcome depended on whose poison was stronger—but the result was almost certain.
Thunk!
The tiger rushed to slash with its claws, which seemed darker. To land a hit, it would have to touch with poisoned claws—but the spider could shoot poison without approaching. Moreover, the tiger was already gravely injured.
Before it could even get close, another weapon came from the spider: webbing shot from its rear pierced the tiger’s paws and pinned it to the ground.
-Kheh!
As the spider approached, the tiger’s desperate roar filled the area. The spider struck with thick legs and bit its neck. The tiger slashed, but couldn’t injure the spider.
Boom!
Although these were top-of-the-food-chain monsters, the outcome was anticlimactic. The tiger fell, and the spider turned its gaze to the small human—time to finish him off.
Crackle!
“Ugh.”
Suhyun, poised like a javelin thrower, clicked his tongue. He hadn’t been idle during the fight; he had been gathering energy to strike the victor. He formed a sharp spear and swung—but the Man-Faced Spider was sturdier than expected.
Not that its defense was exceptional. Even with a huge hole in its body, it moved freely and its eyes remained sharp and fierce.
“Is it pretending not to be hurt, or is its body structured differently?”
He had to dodge. His full-power attack had consumed more energy than expected. Even with a giant hole, the spider charged at him.
Puh-hak!
The blue poison it had shot at the tiger now targeted Suhyun. He raised a psychokinetic shield in midair to twist and avoid it.
But the poison melted through the psychokinetic barrier.
“!”
He knew it was a superpower-class poison, but he hadn’t expected it to be this strong. Thinking it was just a toxin, he had tried to conserve energy, which was a mistake. He backed off again.
“Krk…”
The spider began shooting webs in all directions. Suhyun chose to break through them rather than get entangled. Some strands brushed his arms. Gritting his teeth, he tore them off. Healing would be wasteful now—if he delayed, the poison would spread.
When he created distance, the spider hesitated. The giant hole in its body hadn’t slowed it down, but no one could stay completely fine after a strike like that. It stopped chasing him and turned toward the tiger’s corpse instead.
“Not on my watch!”
Suhyun, who had seemed to flee, leaped forward through the air toward the tiger’s body. If he remembered correctly, there would surely be…
Having been toyed with multiple times by a tiny human, the spider’s rage reached its peak. It could have killed him with one strike, yet here he was. Returning to the place where Suhyun had earlier shot webs to fight the tiger, it saw Suhyun standing there.
“Pfft.”
Suhyun didn’t run. Smoke-like fumes rose from his spit.
“Even with a human face, the expression you’re making is truly terrifying.”
The spider wore a smug expression as if it had finally caught him. Suhyun smiled bitterly and stared back. Webs shot from all directions, targeting him.
“The poison from your claws, the poison from your mouth, and the paralyzing poison from your webs…”
He realized that the spider’s web poison wasn’t a superpower-class toxin.
“Finally, I’ve gathered it all… took long enough.”
The spider spat poison as its webs recoiled. Suhyun raised his hand, sensing the full flow of poison around him.
The blue toxin swirled in the air and was sucked into his palm.
-!!!!!-
“Good poison. I’ll return the favor.”
He formed the poison into a sphere and flicked it back with psychokinesis. Superpower-class toxins had no resistance.
Fwoosh!
The spider’s leg melted on contact. Its face was filled with shock—it had never experienced such a thing. It sprayed more poison desperately, in quantities far greater than before.
But in front of Suhyun, it was as if it was digging its own grave.
“Poison mastery… literally a power to control poison.”
A skill that realizes and manipulates poison at will, superior to any other poison-related ability. Suhyun squinted. The spider was no longer a threat. He had something he wanted to experiment with.
A tree behind the spider melted.
“Ah, damn.”
A rock near it vanished.
Missing twice, Suhyun clicked his tongue. He had wanted to use psychokinesis to poison the spider via vision, but such control wasn’t refined yet. Misuse could easily cause accidents.
“No matter.”
A black vortex swirled in his hand. He could now recombine the poison he had ingested to create toxins—not only real ones but also superpower-class “imaginary” poisons like those of the tiger or the spider.
Being a psychokinetic, Suhyun could control the poisons better than the Man-Faced Spider.
Poison projectiles shot from all directions pierced its body. Realizing the back was mostly hollow, he concentrated fire at the front.
The spider literally melted. Suhyun fired so many poison spheres that nothing of its corpse remained.
“Oops… maybe I overdid it.”
Thunk-
Only a diamond-shaped stone remained where it had been, lodged between the spider’s brows.
“What… is this?”
-Grrr-
Before he could feel satisfaction for mastering the poison or even contemplate the object from the spider’s forehead, a faint cry from behind caught Suhyun’s attention. The Poshukan tiger had died, yet the sound wasn’t from its corpse—it came from farther away. He walked toward the source.
“Ahh…”
Now Suhyun understood why the tiger had acted strangely. It didn’t flee from the spider, nor attack him first.
Its cub was here.
Inside a den, lowly growling, it glared at him. A tiger cub, small as a puppy since it was just born, yet its eyes were feral.
Suhyun assessed its body with his poison power. No toxin was detected—it wouldn’t survive a few months in this state.
“Good. You owe your mother one anyway.”
He grabbed the cub by the scruff. The young tiger growled and tried to scratch him.
“…Better start its training first.”
Half out of curiosity, half out of decision, he thought to take it. Training monsters wasn’t unheard of—there were successes, but mostly failures. Rescuing a monster cub wasn’t easy, so Suhyun decided to take it along and assess its condition first.
