"That's a horrifying thought. Wouldn't the damage extend to the size of the landmass inside? A whole city could be swallowed up."

  "That's why every so often I enter the fracture, cripple the boss monster to the point they cannot kill themselves or others, massacre most of the population inside the fracture, then kill the boss."

  "...Okay, why don't you simply kill the boss before killing the population? Does the boss respawn too fast or something?"

  "No, I noticed that for the first few times I killed the boss, it did not recognize me in the slightest. But it eventually did. It's a strange phenomenon that it could remember its past iteration, even if it takes a few times to stick. Since it can recall things, I've been torturing the boss, trying to inflict something called 'learned helplessness.' It will eventually learn that there is nothing it can do, so it will give up. It seemed very resistant to physical torture, so I had to go down this route."

  Ah. Every time I meet with my martial arts master, I am reminded that he is not a good person. The story of him skinning a delivery person alive with his bare hands returns to my mind. I'm sure that fact would've been used against me somehow.

  The media would love a controversy, especially since I am a public figure. Just being affiliated with someone is enough to get negative attention, let alone an official master-disciple relationship.

  Was I lied to? Was this event buried? I'll do some internet sleuthing later if I care to remember.

  "How long has this been going on?"

  "Decades at this point, but since I only need to clear out the fracture a few times a year, I've only tortured it a hundred times or so. Recently, it's been trying to kill itself before I can get to it. It fails every time since it's not willing to do such a drastic thing until after I enter the fracture. Then again, it had preemptively killed itself, so I wouldn't need to come in for the fracture in the first place."

  "...If I were in that position, I would simply bank on my semi-immortal nature and wait for you to die of old age, especially since I would be able to eventually notice you getting progressively older. Or repeatedly try to escape, seeing how the negative penalties don't matter if I can just come back to life, back "home." Eventually, there could be a moment of weak security, and I could run off into the city."

  "For that first part, that's where you come in. If that boss monster sees a youngster using the same martial arts as I do, then he will eventually come to realize that the cycle will continue for generations to come. Also, you underestimate how hard it is for a monster to leave the fracture in which they were born. Especially the 'boss' of the fracture."

  Huh.

  "Born? Hmm, I never thought about it like this before, but if a creature was born hundreds of years ago and was trapped in the fracture... would they find it easy to escape?"

  "You have those elves, no?"

  "I don't recall telling you that they weren't technically native to a fracture? Additionally, since they are considered 'one of the races' by the system created by the gods, I assume they aren't a suitable control group."

  Master Wang looked into the distance. I follow his gaze and see that he is looking at an analog clock on the wall.

  "I have a meeting. Get your martial arts skill to A-Rank before you enter Elf-controlled territories."

  Seeing him bow out of the conversation, then to the room, I head to the fracture.

  Did he deduce the elves' nature, or is someone in my inner circle feeding him information- it's Rain, his daughter. Of course.

  Before entering the rip in space, I skim through all the books in my [Lexicon] to see if any of the answers to my questions are inside. The relevant information should come to mind since I technically "digested" all this information into my brain. I can still 'forget' things normally, even with my high intelligence stat and that title that specifically boosts memory...

  Typically, I only forget things I fail to care about.

  And no, I didn't forget anything because that information never made it into my [Lexicon] in the first place. Without falling into a spiral of thoughts, I jump into the fracture. The jarring sensation of transitioning over isn't noticeable anymore.

  Inside is just how I remembered it. The sun is a searing red hole in a blackened sky. Almost like a marine fog, the dust of the plains below the cliff is kicked up by hundreds, probably thousands, of creatures slaughtering each other. The air is thick with the scent of iron and blood.

  Colors are muted here, and gravity is stronger. It gets stronger and stronger the farther one gets away from the ground. This isn't affected by a sea-level system, as the gravity on the top of the cliff is the same strength as at the bottom.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Here, the sky is off-limits.

  Flash Gordon is helping Duchess in the mansion with her bloodline, and Rob is currently pillaging an undead-controlled city in a fracture. That leaves me with Khan and Prometheus. I summon both of them from the mansion.

  I let Prometheus 'walk' beside me as I gesture out to the battlefield below. Khan descends.

  His order is to eat. All the meat in this fracture is fair game, except for the boss's.

  "We aren't leaving until Khan eats his fill. For the time being, we can see if we can ruin the economy of this place by feeding you all of their metal weapons and armor."

  Prometheus wiggles happily. His gluttony outmatches Khan's, after all.

  "Maybe we can find some new rare fire here for you, you are a [Fire Glutton]."

  Although he will be next to me on the ground, I did pick Prometheus up when I jumped off the cliff. My body is as rigid as iron as I land feet first into the battlefield.

  I half expected a serrated machete to be gunning for my throat... However, the immediate area is clear of any creatures. Khan already picked this area clean.

  Khan ripped them limb from limb, the helmets protecting their heads were crushed, and the matter inside was drunk. The scrap armor protecting these [Gnoll]s did nothing, as their torsos were ripped open, as if he did not care about the 'shells' these creatures had.

  The metals themselves were eventually spat out by him, either by Khan using his armor's ability and momentarily turning into a cloud, or in the normal way.

  "Prometheus, last time I was here, the Gnolls would scavenge their dead for weapons and armor. Does that imply that they don't naturally spawn in with any, and these sets are being endlessly recycled? It seems there was enough for every Gnoll to have a set, regardless of how... scrappy they looked. Do all the Gnolls have the ingenuity to make these home-made weapons, or do they... spawn in like this?"

  My ooze engulfs the metal as we walk by.

  "..."

  I won't say it out loud, as it may hurt his feelings... but Flash Gordon is a better conversationalist than Prometheus is.

  The fact that the boss gets stronger with every death makes me cautious of letting Khan kill everything inside here. Master Wang didn't tell me how the creatures here "respawn" as it's almost different for every zerg fracture... but there are two main categories.

  Either it's a nest, with a central organism or location that spawns the creatures... Like the tree in that one fracture, I fought that dragon in... Or it's a field, with the creatures randomly spawning all over the fracture.

  Once Khan ranked his skill up to C, I called him back. He killed so many creatures that the dust started to settle. Behind me was the cliff, which seemed to stretch beyond the horizon. In front of me for roughly half a mile was settled land with only scraps of metal.

  [Man Eater D Lv5 -> Man Eater C Lv1

  The user can consume flesh and blood to heal wounds and regenerate stamina. During combat, the user's attacks have additional healing.

  Heal on Hit: 37.5% ?]

  The skill seems to grow by 2.5% every time it levels up. However, I'm surprised it took Khan this long to level up his skill. I know it didn't take long, but a half-circle battlefield with a radius of half a mile is still an absurd amount of creatures to eat and only rank up once.

  I figured it would be the opposite, since the skill has the word "Man" in the name, that humanoid creatures would be... I don't know what I was thinking now that I think about it. Maybe these [Gnoll]s are less nutritious or something, or perhaps I am underestimating what this skill needs to rank up.

  Rather than wasting the cooldown on [Master's Whistle] and summoning Khan over, I send him back to the manor without even seeing him. I use the connection all tamers have with their tamed beasts to target Khan with my [Beastial Storage] skill.

  As soon as he was gone, almost as if they were lying in wait, a massive army of [Gnoll]s burst out of the dust clouds and started charging straight at me. I tilt my head at the horde rapidly approaching and look down at Prometheus.

  "I don't see the Boss, do you?"

  Prometheus makes a popping noise and undulates slightly. I take that as a "no."

  "Then, you can handle them all. You got this."

  Hesitantly, Prometheus moves in front of me. His body shines a strange red color thanks to the sun. As the gnashing teeth and clanging mismatched armor approach, Prometheus calmly waits until they get within one hundred feet.

  The ground in a radius around him starts to heat up. Some of the [Gnoll]s seemed smart enough to hesitate, some had too much momentum to stop, and the rest didn't even notice the ground beneath their paws started to burn and liquify.

  Those mid-sprint found their feet sinking, causing them to face plant straight into the ground.

  A moat of molten dust cascades away from Prometheus, a circle of untouched ground beneath his and my feet. Out of the roughly 150 [Gnolls], averaging at level 230, over half of them get trapped in the lava-like material.

  Prometheus's [Magmamancy] is a "low" rank ability, only C-Rank. This is not a spell but a raw application of magic. Prometheus is a natural talent and a prodigy at all things heat, but that doesn't mean his artificial magma is necessarily as strong as naturally occurring magma.

  The ground that started to swallow half the armor is more similar to a tar pit. Many struggle to free themselves. Fur is burned off almost instantly, and the flesh comes off as well. I see one rip their right arm free, leaving chunks of skin stuck to the molten earth behind. The pain of being engulfed in melted material, getting into their eyes and mouth, must have been horrendously distracting.

  I wonder if I could swim through lava. I hear it's quite viscous.

  The surviving [Gnoll]s and I have to sit and watch as Prometheus finishes off some of the closer ones by essentially "spitting" on them.

  A glob of superheated mucous lands straight into the eyes of a Gnoll who barely managed to pull themselves free. The substance burns through the eye like napalm and hits the creature's brain. It never stopped screaming and didn't die from the first one.

  Unfortunately for it, Prometheus didn't spit on it again, leaving it to die from 'tick' damage.