Transmigrated as a Ghost

Instinctively Marcus jumped away from the Tower of Heaven's entrance once he noticed that someone or something was coming down the stairs.

'Is it perhaps this Special Dungeon's guide just like the one we met in the Realization of Self Perfection?' Marcus thought.

However, he found it strange that the Tower of Heaven's guide that acted as a sort of artificial intelligence would be coming to meet them outside of the dungeon. Last time the guide only appeared once they entered the first room.

'This is a Special Dungeon though. I don't really have enough information to know for sure if what is happening is normal or not.'

Unsure of what to do, Marcus stayed on guard as did everyone else.

At this point everyone could hear the footsteps walking down the stairs and the shadow that was getting ever closer.

It was not long before they could see what looked like human legs come into view, followed by the rest of the person's body.

'He's just a normal looking guy.' 

Even as Marcus looked at the man, he did not feel anything special about him. He was the sort of person you would see just about anywhere. He had brown hair and eyes with an average build that appeared neither weak nor strong.

From the way he carried himself, Marcus could tell that he had an air of confidence about him, but he did not give off a powerful presence. He actually felt hollow in a way.

At first Marcus relaxed thinking that this man really was the guide for this dungeon coming out to greet them. Yet, he quickly realized this was not the case. The previous guide he had met had simply been a projection created by the Special Dungeon, but this man had true weight about him that could be felt with every step he took. He was most certainly physically present and could interact with the world.

When he finally reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out from the entrance to the Tower of Heaven, the brown-haired man looked at everyone in the expedition squad and let out a deep sigh of annoyance.

"Briar Binding."

Adlamin, the male elf in Evette's party that was her second in command was the first to make a move and used his magic to restrain the mysterious man. The was no doubt he was not a member of the adventurers guild and the only plausible explanation Adlamin could think of was that he belonged to some other organization and had gotten here first.

"How many are there in your group? Surely you must know that this island is under the adventurers guild's control and that no trespassers are allowed. Since we are nearly finished with our expedition, we will not eliminate you if you come quietly and tell us what we want to know." Adlamin said in a threatening tone.

The man that was bound in his magic only laughed in response. It was as if he found Adlamin attempting to act menacingly to be cute.

It was at this moment that Marcus felt a hand grip his left arm.

When he looked over, he saw that Mrazivý was the one that had grabbed on to him and her face looked pale.

"Marcus, he doesn't have a status." Mrazivý whispered to him with a tinge of fear in her voice.

Immediately Marcus used his own appraisal skill and saw that above the man's head there were simply three question marks. This was the same information he had received when trying to appraise the otherworldly horrors that had been summoned by the grimoire that did not belong on Mirrion. The system recognized that there was a creature in front of him, but the was no information to be displayed since this man was not connected to the system.

Feeling a chill through his entire soul, Marcus was about to warn everyone, but the mysterious man started speaking before he could.

"You pests are more persistent than I was expecting. I had thought that those toys I left by this area's entrance would be enough to keep anyone out, and even after you got past them, I never thought you would beat this Tower's guardian. I did not want to do anything conspicuous, but I don't have any option left but to dispose of all of you myself. Talk about an annoyance." The man said with the expression of someone who was having to take out a large batch of garbage.

Then without any resistance, he flexed his arms and the magic that had entangled him burst apart into thousands of pieces.

Before anyone could react, the man appeared in front of Adlamin and struck him in the head with a single punch. By the time anyone realized what had happened, Adlamin's head was missing from his torso and a red mist was falling around his body. Blood poured out of Adlamin's now headless neck, and his body went limp and fell over.

'What just happened?!' Marcus thought, stunned by what he had just seen.

He had been on his guard and prepared to engage the mysterious man if he made a move, yet he had been completely helpless to intervene.

Everyone else was likewise in a daze after witnessing one of their own killed in a single hit without being able to offer any resistance.

"Hm, now which ones are the most dangerous?" The man said, his eyes quickly moving between all of them as he sized up the members of the expedition squad.

"Everyone run!" Fianna shouted, coming to her senses first.

Yet, before a single member of the expedition squad could make a move, the man with no status locked onto his next target and vanished.

When he reappeared, he was standing in front of Mrazivý and throwing another punch towards her.

Thanks to having already seen how Adlamin had been taken down, she had already prepared herself to defend with all her might and had transformed into her Draconic Form and was challenging the power of her Supreme Skill through her body.

Several barriers created by her magic, skills, and magic items appeared in front of her to protect her from the incoming attack.

The first to take the punch was a thin wall of ice which turned into snow powder the moment the mysterious man's first connected.

Next her mana barrier skill shattered into hundreds of pieces like a dropped glass.

Her third layer of defense was her Mercurial Ice unique skill that she had molded into a shield in front of her. Except, just like her first two protections, it barely slowed down the punch coming her way and the Mercurial Ice shield burst like a bubble.

After that the automatic defenses that Marcus had enchanted her armor and items with activated, but all of them were pushed aside with ease as well.

The only possible saving grace was that Mrazivý had guarded her head with her arms and the mysterious man had instead targeted her unprotected stomach.

When his fist finally impacted her, the sturdy amethros armor she was wearing buckled and was left with a deep dent.

Unlike Adlamin whose head was completely destroyed, Mrazivý's body was still intact, but she vomited up a mouthful of blood and flew backwards like a comet. The force behind the single punch sent her flying through the trees and smashing through whatever was in her way until she smashed into the ground and left a long trench in it.

"I guess I should have gone for her head even though she focused most of her protections around it. Oh well, one more hit ought to finish her." The man without a status said as if what he was doing was part of a routine he needed to exert slightly more effort on than usual.

Before he could make another move to attack Mrazivý, however, Marcus appeared above the man with his scythe poised to strike.

His body was covered in the light and darkness of his Supreme Skill and an unbridled rage was clear to see in his eyes.

"Eclipse Reaper!"

Converging the power of his Embodiment of Eclipse into his scythe, Marcus struck down with one of his strongest attacks and aimed to kill the man that had just attacked his wife.

It had been a long time since he had felt this level of fury, and he held nothing back when he unleashed his strike filled with bloodlust.

The air crackled from the force behind his swing, and the earth under the mysterious man's feet fractured.

But try as he might, Marcus found his scythe stuck in place, unable to be pushed down any farther.

When the dust kicked up from his unrestrained attack faded, Marcus could only look down in shock to see that his scythe had been stopped by a single hand.

"Ouch! I shouldn't have caught that with my barehand." The man said with an exaggerated tone.

For all the strength Marcus had put behind his attack, all he had accomplished was to slightly cut the mysterious man's hand. Just a slight trickle of silver blood flowed down the man's hand, and the injury soon sealed up like it had never been there in the first place.

"You were next on my list anyways, so since you volunteered, I'll take you out now." The man without a status said while Marcus was still stunned by the ineffectiveness of his attack.

Pulling back his other arm while he kept ahold of Marcus' scythe, the man sent yet another straight punch at towards Marcus' head.

Without the capability to offer any resistance, Marcus watched the fist closing in on him as if it was in slow motion.

In this moment of compressed time, he ran through multiple ways to get away, but even when he attempted to evade his reactions felt agonizingly slow. 

It was not until the punch was only a centimeter in front of his face, that Marcus understood that the attack was coming at him too fast for him to properly react. There was nothing he could do to avoid or stop it.

As the punch hit Marcus' head, it exploded just the same as Adlamin's had. Yet with his body simply being his soul solidified, cracks webbed their way through his form, and he completely broke apart into a gray mist. His spirit being unable to retain physical form any longer.