Ronan dropped into a crouch, palms open as he accessed his inventory.

A flesh golem.

Still classified as B-Rank, same as a skitter. But the classification was a lie. While skitters were balanced predators, fast, deadly, but killable, a flesh golem was something else entirely. A mass of pure destruction capable of flattening an A-Rank hunter in seconds.

The expedition had kept it at B-Rank for one reason only: its speed.

It was ridiculously slow for its size.

And Ronan decided he’d use that.

Ignoring it felt like a waste. More than that, if he didn’t finish it here, there was a high chance it would come back to bite him later. Forty-seven days had taught him that lesson well. Monsters didn’t forget. They didn’t forgive.

They just grew hungrier.

Better to nip it in the bud.

[S-Rank Titan Greatbow]

The weapon manifested in his hands, a gigantic bow the same size as his body. Its weight nearly pulled him forward, joints screaming as he caught it just before it could hit the ground and send a crash echoing for miles.

"That woman was a beast," Ronan muttered, steadying the bow against the dirt. "Can’t believe this is hers."

The Titan Greatbow had belonged to an S-Rank hunter. She’d been a greatsword specialist first and foremost, all brute force and screaming charges. But she wasn’t stupid. She’d brought a ranged option, a bow that could punch through reinforced monster hide like paper.

She just hadn’t wanted to carry it.

So she’d dumped it in Ronan’s inventory along with the rest of her spare equipment, trusting the D-Rank porter to lug her backup weapon through hell.

She never got to use it fully.

Died on day thirty-three. Torn apart by something Ronan had only seen as a blur of teeth and claws.

Now the bow was his.

[Greatarrow]

"Even the arrow’s heavy..."

Ronan’s plan was simple: one shot, one kill.

The golem’s eye was its only obvious weak point, a single glowing orb set deep in the center of its forehead. One shot from the Titan Greatbow, backed by his current stats, would be more than enough to shatter it.

Easier said than done.

The golem’s eyesight was almost hawk-like. That glowing eye didn’t just illuminate, it watched. Before he could even line up a proper shot, he’d be spotted. And then flattened.

But Ronan already had a counter.

[Lover’s Protection]

Complete invisibility, as long as he stayed in shadow.

He’d hide his skitter far away, no point risking its detection, and solo the golem from the darkness. Line up the shot. Hold his breath. And hope to the goddess that one arrow was enough.

Because if it wasn’t?

Two outcomes.

Either the golem would find him, and he’d be dead.

Or worse, the golem would flee from an unseen threat, disappearing into the ruins, and never show itself again. A waste of experience, and a loose end that could come back to bite him when he least expected it.

Ronan dismissed the skitter with a thought, watching as the creature dissolved into shadow and sank into the earth. The violet glow of its eyes lingered for a moment, two fading embers, and then even that was gone.

He was alone.

[Lover’s Protection: Active]

The shadows around him deepened. Not visibly, not in any way the naked eye could detect, but Ronan felt it. The darkness pressed against his skin like a second layer, cool and clinging, and when he looked down at his hands, they were gone.

Invisible.

Completely.

"Alright," he whispered. His own voice sounded distant, muffled, like he was speaking from underwater. "One shot. Make it count."

The Titan Greatbow was too large to draw while crouched. Ronan rose slowly, silently, every muscle in his legs screaming at him to move faster, to run, to do anything except stand still in the presence of something that could turn him into paste.

But the golem didn’t react.

Its massive head remained lowered, that single glowing eye fixed on the pile of corpses beneath it. Segmented plates rose and fell with each slow breath. Claws the size of sword blades scraped against the rubble as it shifted its weight.

It had no idea he was there.

Ronan’s heart hammered against his ribs as he nocked the greatarrow.

The shaft was nearly as long as his arm, the head a wedge of black steel that gleamed dully in the violet light. He’d watched the S-Rank hunter fire this bow exactly once, on day twelve, when a swarm of bone-faces had tried to overrun their camp.

She’d killed seven with a single shot.

The arrow had passed through the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth before embedding in the seventh’s skull.

Ronan wasn’t her.

He didn’t have her training, her instincts, her decades of experience. But he had +42 strength and a goddess watching from somewhere in the shadows.

He drew the bow.

The string resisted. Not because it was physically difficult, his stats handled that, but because the weapon itself seemed to push back, like it was testing him, deciding whether he was worthy of wielding it.

It was the S‑Rank weapon fighting back against a wielder who fell short of S‑Rank.

Ronan gritted his teeth and pulled harder.

The bow bent.

The greatarrow trembled.

And the golem’s eye snapped toward him.

"Shit—"

He released.

The arrow tore through the air with a sound like thunder, a shockwave rippling outward from the bowstring that sent dust and debris flying. Ronan’s arms jarred from the recoil, his feet skidding backward across the rubble.

The golem tried to move.

Too slow.

The greatarrow punched through its glowing eye and kept going, burying itself so deep in the creature’s skull that only the fletching remained visible.

For a moment, nothing happened.

The golem stood frozen, head still lowered, body still poised over its meal. Its single eye was gone, replaced by a dark, weeping crater. Black ichor dripped down its stone-like face in thick ropes.

Then it screamed.

A sound that didn’t come from its throat, because Ronan wasn’t sure it had a throat. The scream came from everywhere, from the ground beneath his feet and the air in his lungs and the marrow of his bones.

Ronan clamped his hands over his ears and stumbled backward.

The golem thrashed.

Its massive body slammed into the ruins around it, sending chunks of concrete and twisted metal flying in every direction. One flailing claw caught a collapsed building and sheared through it like wet paper.

Ronan dove behind a pile of rubble as debris rained down around him.

[Lover’s Protection: Active]

The shadows held. The golem couldn’t see him. But it didn’t need to.

It was dying.

Blind and enraged, it lashed out at everything within reach, destroying the ruins, crushing the corpses beneath its feet, painting the ground with black ichor that hissed and smoked where it touched stone.

Ronan pressed himself flat against the ground and waited.

The screaming stopped first.

Then the thrashing.

Then, finally, the golem’s massive body collapsed. It hit the ground with an impact that shook the earth, sending a cloud of dust and debris billowing outward.

[Soul Absorbed: 5,000 EXP]

Ronan stayed down.

He counted to sixty in his head, twice, wanting to be sure the noise hadn’t drawn in anything else.

But no movement or sound came. Only the settling of rubble and the faint hiss of ichor as it ate through the stone.

Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself to his feet.

[Ronan Night]

[Class: God-Bound (???)]

[Level: 8 → 12]

[STR: 22 +20] → [STR: 26 +20]

[AGI: 20 +20] → [AGI: 24 +20]

[CON: 18 +20] → [CON: 22 +20]

[MAG: 12 +20] → [MAG: 16 +20]

"I-I love this bow..."

[???]

[L-Love...?]

He didn’t know it yet, but Ronan was about to discover just how much he would regret saying that.