A Trash Novel's Only Reader-Chapter 38: Blind Angle

Blue light from three editing monitors washed over the room while Shu sat hunched at his desk, clicking through a timeline that never seemed to end. Empty energy drink cans were stacked near the keyboard, and his eyes burned from staring at subtitles for too long.

"Bro, you’re still editing at this hour?" his friend asked from the couch behind him, feet on the table while he scrolled his phone.

"Deadline is tomorrow," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "If I sleep now, the client will cook me alive."

His friend snorted and tossed him a snack pack from the convenience store bag by the door. "You say that, but you still found time to read that trash novel."

"Your peak fiction has accidental boob grabs every Chapter," he fired back with a mocking tone.

"That’s storytelling," his friend said, accepting his slop without shame.

Shu laughed under his breath and finally leaned back from the monitor. He took the snack, then paused when his friend turned the phone around and pointed at a forum thread.

"Why Most People Died in Crimson Forest," his friend read, scrolling with his thumb while leaning forward. "You remember that incident with the fake heart underground?"

"Yeah," he said, frowning at the screen. "People kept blaming the heart, but the real problem was the hidden mini-boss in that lower chamber."

His friend nodded and zoomed into another comment. "Exactly, and that thing farmed people hard because they couldn’t lock onto it. The novel made it clear they sent group after group down there and still got shredded."

"I remember," he said, taking the phone and reading faster. "Even strong characters got cornered because they kept reacting late and trying to confirm where it was first."

He handed the phone back and leaned deeper into his chair, already annoyed just remembering it. "Honestly, they were dumb in that part."

"Dumb?" his friend asked, raising a brow.

"Yeah," he said, tapping his temple. "They kept waiting for visual confirmation, getting baited by the pulse, and answering the voice like idiots."

His friend grinned and tossed a pen at him.

"Alright then, genius," he said, catching Shu’s eye. "How would you do it?"

The room went quiet so fast it felt wrong, and the PC fan hum stretched into a low heavy pulse behind his ears.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

His eyes snapped open, pain hitting his ribs and skull at the same time when he pushed himself up. Before his mind fully caught up, he twisted hard and fired a full spin kick toward his right flank where his skin screamed something was standing.

His heel cut clean through the air, the force of the miss making him slide half a step before he reset his stance.

He raised his guard right away and swept his eyes across the chamber, but nothing moved except the chained dungeon heart pulsing in the center.

’Oh... I remember what this place is now,’ he thought, forcing air into his lungs while listening from both sides at once.

’After this incident in the novel, this was where the real story began, and that hidden mini-boss was where so many people got wiped.’

’Funny, why did I have to dream of that loser right now,’ he thought, his eyes drifting to his bat, ’I wonder how he is reacting to me going missing.’

He exhaled slowly and pulled his focus back to the chamber, because nostalgia was useless in a place like this.

’This thing isn’t a brute type,’ he thought, adjusting his footing while keeping his shoulders loose. ’It’s an assassin class mini-boss with a unique invisibility skill, and that’s why everyone kept dying down here.’

The monster itself was never famous for raw power in the novel, at least not compared to the bosses above. What made it terrifying was that unique skill, since it could stay unseen while attacking from blind angles and stack damage before people even understood the pattern.

’If you can force it out, it’s manageable,’ he thought, jaw tightening. ’But if you let it control the pace, you’re dead before you even see it.’

His side throbbed the second he shifted weight, and the pain running through his ribs reminded him how close he was to collapsing. He still had blood drying on his face from the last hit, his breathing was uneven, and his arms felt heavy enough to betray him if this dragged out.

’I am so tired man, its only been like 2 hours but it feels like its been days.’

"How are you awake?" a voice asked from somewhere near his left shoulder, smooth and curious.

Shu did not turn toward it this time, because the dream warning was still fresh in his head and his body could not afford another clean hit. He shifted two steps diagonally instead and kept his eyes off the heart pulse, counting the rhythm in his head while listening for breath, cloth, anything.

"What, disappointed?" he said, forcing his tone steady while his ribs screamed. "You thought that wall slam was enough to put me down?"

A faint distortion slid past his right side, then vanished before his eyes could lock onto it. The voice answered from behind the chained heart this time, changing position so fast it confirmed what he already knew.

"You should have stayed down after the first strike," it said. "You have a sturdy body, I will gladly take it."

He clicked his tongue and rolled his shoulder once, buying time while his brain worked through options.

The floor near the chained heart was coated in loose dust and black sludge from earlier kills, and that finally gave him something useful to work with. He dragged his bat low across the ground in a wide sweep, kicking up a dirty cloud that spread across the chamber.

The next distortion cut through that cloud and left a clear wake.

’Got you.’

He stepped in fast and swung at the moving gap, not where he thought the body was, but where that wake had to end. The bat connected with a hard crack, and something invisible stumbled sideways as dark blood sprayed into the dust.

[Hit Confirmed: Hidden target detected.]

[Stealth stability reduced.] 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

A thin hiss echoed from the same spot, then the shape flickered for a second before vanishing again. In that brief reveal, he caught enough to confirm it, a lean humanoid monster with long hooked forearms and a pale face split by four eyes.

"There you are," he muttered, planting his feet. "You look worse than I expected."