10,000x Reward Multiplier: Hell-level Kingdom Building

Eerie silence covered the entire village.

Not a single sound could be heard. Not the sound of wind blowing, nor the faint chirping or movement of insects.

The people had all retired to their homes, barricading their doors with every heavy object they could get their hands on. Their windows were tightly locked as well.

The soldiers of Blackstone had collapsed from fear, their unconscious bodies lying a few metres away from where Floki now stood.

Floki stood calmly.

He could not see any of his followers at the moment, but he could feel their fear.

The tension in the atmosphere was almost tangible.

To be honest, while Floki maintained a calm outward expression, his heart was troubled with curiosity about the unknown.

What was the Night Laugher like? How big and strong was it? For such a mysterious monster, with terrifying fables spread across so many villages, what could its special powers be?

Floki’s clenched fist began to tremble slightly with expectation.

It was not yet midnight.

According to the system, there were still a few minutes remaining until midnight. More precisely, until the Night Laugher would show up.

At that moment, he shut his eyes and began his simple 4-4-4-4 breathing technique to steady his mind.

A few minutes into his breathing,

[ It is midnight. Prepare for the unknown. ]

The system notified him, and his eyes fluttered open.

At that moment, the presence arrived.

It was strong, intensifying, and deeply ominous.

It spread across the entire Ironside village instantly, invoking fear in the hearts of all who felt it.

Floki watched as the gently flowing mana took on darker hues and began to drift more erratically.

He observed the mana particles as they gradually started to vibrate, forming a massive web that connected each of the huts in the village. The strands stretched and converged toward a single point, which he predicted was the direction the Night Laugher would approach from.

He quickly turned toward that direction, but what greeted him was a dense, dark fog that steadily advanced, soon overwhelming the entire village.

"What the heck is that?"

Floki wondered as he instinctively moved further back, trying to create distance, but it was futile. The fog soon enveloped the entire village.

At that moment, sound, movement, and even the wind seemed to have halted unnaturally.

Floki was mildly blinded by the fog, able to see only a little because of his high intelligence stat, which allowed him to perceive mana. After all, the fog was a product of magic. It was a construct of mana, and with the amount he possessed, he could see slightly clearer than ordinary people, who would have been completely blinded.

Not only did it cause mild blindness, it also carried a thick sense of dread that pierced Floki’s mind and forced him to shiver.

Then, out of the dark silence, a sound echoed across a wide region, coming from the exact direction his gaze was fixed upon.

It was laughter, much louder and far more unhinged than the ones that had echoed across the village during previous midnights.

Unlike those times, the Night Laugher itself had appeared, and for the first time, Floki truly shivered at the presence of a monster.

The build of the monster was complex.

At a glance, one might think it was a giant wearing a bird mask.

But a closer look only deepened the confusion.

It was as though its very appearance was a mystery.

Floki saw it as a man with a mask at first.

Then as a towering black bird-like creature with glowing red eyes.

Then, as he struggled to determine its true form, it shifted again, becoming a smoky being with no fixed shape. The only features that distinguished it from a simple mass of smoke were the large, glowing red masses that served as eyes, and the pale, curved shape that formed a mouth, producing the horrifying laughter that echoed through the air.

[ You are standing before a low-rank calamity: Night Laugher ]

[ A quest has been triggered. Slay the calamity. Reward will be allocated based on your feat and the duration of your battle ]

[ Warning: Calamities are not a drill ]

[ As a bonus reward, brief information about calamities will be revealed ]

Floki could not focus on the quest being listed, as his mind was occupied by the being, which no longer took a single form but instead split into dozens of small crows.

The crows then scattered into the fog and vanished into the night, using the darkness to head for the destination, which Floki could already guess were the huts of his villagers.

Before he could come back to his senses and try to act, the Night Laugher’s laughter ended abruptly, covering the night in eerie silence that lasted only a few seconds.

Before he knew it, the huts of his followers started opening one after the other.

It was not quiet but loud and erratic.

He could even hear the sounds of some of the doors detaching and being tossed away.

"What the heck is happening.."

Floki instantly removed his attention from the few small crows that were still lingering a few metres away and turned toward the huts, and what he saw next made his heart skip several beats.

All his people were now strolling toward him with hurried footsteps.

"What is happening! I told you guys to stay indoors! This fight is mine!"

Not understanding what was happening, he suspected they had come to support him, and he immediately reprimanded them for it.

But then he quickly realized it.

They were all unresponsive.

And it wasn’t only his people, the soldiers and the old man from Blackstone werw also under the magical spell.

It was at that moment that he noticed their eyes.

They were blank and white. It was unnatural.

Their faces were sickly pale in complexion.

Their mouths were shut tightly.

They all kept walking toward him with hurried steps, yet they moved in a stable formation that did not break.

They drew closer and closer.

And then they halted a few metres away.

Now Floki stood in between his people and the Night Laugher.

He was frustrated.

He could not tell what was happening. Even at this moment, the system seemed to be purposely delaying notifications, as if to allow him to witness the horror for himself before explaining it.

And it did happen.

"Bwahahaha!"

"Hahahaha!"

"Hahaha!"

Suddenly, all the villagers began to laugh manically like a particular villain clown.

Their lips curved and stretched so unnaturally that blood appeared at the corners of their mouths as the skin began to tear.

But none of them reacted to the obvious pain. They were carried away by laughter.

The laughter intensified within only a few seconds.

The children held their stomachs and laughed. Some fell to the ground, clutching either their heads or their stomachs as they continued laughing.

The adults grabbed one another and laughed as if the greatest joke had just been told.

The sight was horrifying.

Laughter was not horrifying. Everyone would kill for a chance to laugh.

But when that laughter became unending and without a natural cause, it became nothing but hell.

[ Calamity has used special skill: Mass laugher ]

[ Mass laughter: Targets those with low intelligence stats, infecting them with an unending laughter that gradually kills them.

For normal humans, the laughter would deduct 100 HP per hour.

For bronze-rank, the laughter would deduct 50 HP per hour.

For silver-rank, their focus, mental clarity, and magic control would be reduced significantly.

To end this skill, you must slay the calamity. ]

"That explains it."

That explained the extreme frustration he was feeling at this moment.

"I need to kill this thing before it kills my people. Everyone here except Anton, Jabba, and Old Charleston are normal humans."

If he did not act, in one hour, fifty-seven people would die, and in two hours, he would be the only one left standing in Ironside.

He could not let that happen.

He watched their horrifying state one last time before equipping his greatsword and turning to face the direction of the calamity.

This time, it had taken the form of a giant wearing a terrifying bird mask.

It looked more tangible than its previous form.

Floki began to move, cautious yet quick, his fist tightly clenched around the greatsword.

His eyes lingered strategically on the body of his opponent, careful to see if it would change form again.

He closed the distance and slashed using a special swordsmanship skill he received from [Grandmaster Martial Arts].