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

Floki now laughed like a popular DCU villain.

He could not stop.

His lips stretched into angles that should not occur naturally.

His vision gradually became blurry as tears began to form in his eyes.

His body gradually lost control. The strategic plans he had created became unclear and slowly began to vanish from his mind.

It was an unexplainable feeling.

Or rather, it had an explanation. The system notification still lingered in front of him, informing him that his silver-rank power could no longer save him from the mass laughter skill of the Night Laughter.

"Wh... what is this."

Even his thoughts were unclear at the moment.

He turned to face the Night Laughter, who was in its giant bird form, flying a few meters above him. Its two massive red eyes glared at him with mockery.

"Hahahaha!"

Finally, it began to laugh its own laughter. An epitome of evil that should only exist in biblical hell.

Contrary to what Floki expected, its laughter did not have any negative stat-reducing effect like he had expected. It was ordinary.

It made him realize that its fable had missed important details. One would think its laughter was some sort of curse. But it wasn’t. It only became a curse once you shared the same laughter as it.

Yet he could not blame the creators.

No one had actually ever faced this calamity and survived to tell the true story.

But that would change today.

Floki began to fight back against the effect of the laughter.

The one thing his people did not have at the moment, that he did, was his silver-rank powers.

He was under the same curse as them, but it did not take total control of his mind.

And he could steel himself enough to start fighting it.

Floki bit his tongue. The pain was unbearable but he did not stop; he continued to dig his own teeth into his tongue without a single care in the world.

His hands were currently shivering but he forced them towards his face.

His fingers were long.

So he began scratching his face crazily, ignoring the pain that begged him to stop.

’I cannot die...’

He bellowed in his heart, his gaze turning cold as he glared at the calamity.

The laughter of the calamity stopped as he stared at the human with visible confusion.

This wasn’t the effect of its skill at all.

Why was this human doing that to his own face?

Weren’t humans known for their great fear of pain?

Why was he doing this?

It was confused.

No one has ever tried to fight back laughter by inflicting pain on themselves.

The Night Laughter is a calamity that has existed for a couple of centuries.

Each year, he targeted and devoured random small territories.

In its entire life, it had devoured tens of thousands of people.

Some were even stronger than this particular human.

Yet none had thought of doing what he was doing.

Could this human succeed using pain to fight laughter?

The answer revealed itself in just a few seconds that this thought arose.

Floki’s laughter began to break.

His sanity began to return. His control over his body returned.

The glare in his eyes was clear and sharp, with a unique form of killing intent. Not the strong kind, just the kind that was unwilling to accept death.

The Night Laughter’s ego was hurt.

How could a puny human break free from its laughter?

It flapped its wings and dozens of small dark magic strings shot down towards his position.

It was going to kill this prey and not devour it.

Humans that didn’t die laughing were bitter tasting.

Those who died with fight and killing intent in their heart were even more distasteful.

It preferred a distasteful meal to a prey breaking away from its clutches.

As the dark magic strings serpented down towards him,

Floki finally broke free from laughter as pain became the only feeling he knew at this moment.

He sprang away from his current position.

Managing to deflect the dark magic strings.

It was a life-saving move.

The ground where the dark magic strings pierced began to decay at an alarming rate, losing color and vitality.

’A psychological attack skill and dark magic,’ Floki thought. ’This thing is terrifying.’

The calamity was now flying towards its direction. The sound of its bat wings flapping swiftly within the dark fog, combined with the strained laughter of the people, were not a cacophony of sound one would pray to hear at all.

Floki sprinted, eyes locked on the flying beast.

He used [Air Strike] and several [Air Bullets] to attempt to take it down. While some of them clashed, dealing little damage, the rest were flapped away by its wings.

"This form is touchable."

It was all he needed to know before he used his strongest skill.

"[Air Cannon Barrage]"

The phenomenon earlier took place.

This time the magic circles were bigger, with over 8 feet radius. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

They began to fire air cannons into the sky, in the direction of the calamity.

The explosive sound tore through the dark fog.

Two cannons landed successfully.

The first one blasted away its right wing, causing it to dangle in the air before the second one brushed past its head and left an injury.

It did not enter its multiple crow state.

Another two cannons clashed with it, taking down its other wings and leaving a wound in its abdomen.

The calamity did not let out a cry.

It let out a painful laughter as it began descending towards the ground. Disbelief clear in its eyes.

It didn’t expect that Floki would not only break out of its skill but also be able to gain control over his mental balance to use such a powerful spell.

It had failed its calculation.

Its laughter of pain and regret grew louder as it almost touched the ground.

Floki did not give it the opportunity to land peacefully.

He equipped his greatsword, laced it with a large amount of wind magic, and blasted towards its position.

The eyes of mortal and calamity clashed at that moment.

At that moment, against all will of the world, the mortal was not the one who had the look of defeat, but the calamity.

The gap was closed.

Time seemed to slow down for only a moment as the blade arced towards the calamity.

Upon close proximity, the aura around the calamity triggered a feeling that made him want to laugh crazily.

Floki bit his tongue, using the pain to fight the signal.

He did not pause his attack, and his blade finally connected.

It neatly detached the head.

At that moment, the dark fog began to clear gradually.

The laughter of the people ceased.

The sound of their bodies slumping lifelessly to the ground could be heard.

Critical notification appeared in front of him.

His villagers’ HP had reduced past a critical level.

They were on the verge of dying.