Mushoku Tensei: Reincarnated as a Beast Race

The Hazywalker had a single mission.

His mission was simple: walk slowly to the battlefield and await a signal. He must under no circumstances act before the signal.

He must not show any hostility toward the Beast God until the exact moment. That was why he was chosen for this role.

He was Pope Lucios's most loyal and most capable assassin.

He was perfect to be "The Hazywalker"—the one who walks without intent. Even though he was not one of the strongest warriors, he knew how to mask his presence and intentions like no one else.

Rygar only noticed him the last time, when he was spying on him at the Nikolaus River, because the Sixth Sense of the Beast God was equally, if not more, terrifying.

Thus, he approached the battlefield without intent, without form, without thought. A walking void, devoid of motivation.

It was as if his soul were absent, his body guided only by the order received. Only at the instant the signal arrived did he come back to himself.

His eyes focused, his body gained weight, and his mind recognized the present. The signal had been given.

Rygar, at that moment, was disoriented.

The simultaneous loss of his five senses had placed him in a state of extreme vulnerability, and when his Sixth Sense was then sealed, the chaos in his mind was inevitable.

His magic was also sealed, thanks to an Emperor-level Mana Restriction Barrier.

For a single, brief instant, the Beast God hesitated.

And it was in that instant that the Hazywalker struck.

The red-bladed curved dagger pierced the Beast God's chest as if his flesh had lost all durability.

The magical weapon bore a sinister enchantment: its blade made any flesh vulnerable, ignoring natural and magical protections. Not even the powerful Touki of the Beast God could resist it.

The dagger had a name: Dagger Fanatic Butcher.

Its second effect was even more dangerous: upon wounding the target, it injected an uncontrolled fury, an irrational frenzy.

A curse of madness for all living beings. This would usually be unwise to use against any enemy… except the Beast God.

Milis had already fought him and knew how Rygar's strength diminished if he were lost in irrational hatred. The Joylore House was the best example of a weakness to exploit.

Only by turning Rygar into a mindless monster could they hope to stop him.

The Hazywalker felt the blade penetrate easily, but he also perceived something strange. What he had pierced did not feel like the heart.

He was certain he had struck the exact location—he had done this hundreds of times before—but the sensation was different. Confused, he still tried to end the fight right there.

If he destroyed the heart, not even the Beast God could regenerate; he would be doomed.

He tried to twist the dagger inside Rygar's chest, only to realize that the muscles around it had stiffened like steel.

The blade was completely immobile. That was not unusual, in fact. When a body is pierced, it instinctively tenses the muscles around the wound, especially those of beast races.

But this was beyond normal. He felt as if he had plunged the dagger into living rock.

With no options left, he pulled the blade back. All this happened in fractions of a second.

It seemed like an eternity to him, but the attack—from the moment he lunged to stab Rygar's chest until the dagger's withdrawal—lasted no more than a full second.

And the Beast God had not yet reacted.

Rygar felt nothing. He probably did not even realize he had been wounded, since he was not under the control of his own senses.

There was still a chance to kill him.

The head.

But cutting the Beast God's bones was impossible for him; that blade only allowed him to cut flesh, so severing his head would not work.

So he decided to try something different.

He moved sideways and attacked with agility: an upward slash, from the jaw's base to the brain, aiming to interrupt all vital activity at once.

It was his best bet.

He would succeed.

He would kill the Beast God.

But then Rygar opened his mouth.

And the Hazywalker felt fear.

Had he possessed a Magical Power Eye, he would have seen a colossal amount of mana concentrating in Rygar's throat.

Other knights, seeing the Beast God's hesitation for the first time, had also begun to advance, believing they could exploit this gap.

But there was no gap.

There was only destruction.

An invisible wave spread from Rygar's throat. A bestial, supernatural roar echoed across the battlefield.

It was the famous magic of the beast race, Howling Magic, and heightened to the high Emperor level—enough to break the Restriction Barrier, expanding without pause.

The impact opened a crater around Rygar. The earth split like fine porcelain. Buildings, ruins, armor, and bodies were hurled into the air. The entire area was taken by destruction.

Those close enough to hear the roar in its fullness had their minds shattered.

Warriors fell to their knees, eyes bulging, blood streaming from all their orifices. Others cried out in agony, their wills fragmented.

---

Rygar fell into darkness.

Some might have difficulty understanding exactly what it was like to feel nothing. It was a state where nothing seemed to exist beyond consciousness.

Having his five senses blocked was like losing one's very sense of existence. He felt no pain. He felt no weight. He felt neither his muscles nor nerves. There was no smell, sound, light, or taste. It was nothingness.

But the worst of all was not the absence of the five senses. It was the loss of his Sixth Sense.

It was hard to imagine what kind of absurd magic could seal something as illusory as instinct.

His master, Verdia, had never mentioned anything like it in her years of learning.

Not even Milis's millennial records should have had anything on this, at least never before today.

Had Rygar known they possessed this knowledge, he would have prepared a countermeasure against it. But he did not know. And now was no time for regret.

Rygar took a moment to react, but he was not unprepared. The preparations made in advance would now prove useful.

He had displaced his internal organs strategically, anticipating possible piercings, and wrapped his head in a protective Barrier.

He had also prepared healing magic circles near his body as a precaution.

Of course, he did not expect to have his instinct sealed. But he could still handle it. It was very dangerous, yes, but not impossible to overcome.

His mana had been sealed, and the Lightning Step was interrupted at the same instant.

However, the Barrier imprisoning him was not of God level. It was an Emperor-level Barrier.

Still powerful, but not invincible.

In fact, God-level magics did not seem as easy to use as he had imagined. Even in this war, the only God-level Barrier he had seen was the one covering Milis.

In any case, he had a way to free himself: the Howling Magic he had prepared.

He had chosen this magic precisely to buy himself time to recover and throw his enemies away, and it would be enough to break the Containment Barrier.

He would only need one more second to adapt a bit to his new condition.

Without his senses, he did not know what surrounded him, but he knew he was still alive.

Amid the darkness and absolute void, he suddenly felt a red energy invade his mind with violence—a frenzied rage trying to dominate him.

But his mind was protected.

The Emperor-level magic, Mental Block, which he had invented and kept active to protect himself from Hitogami, now served a different function.

The red, wild, brutal energy was crushed by the pink and bluish threads surrounding his consciousness.

At that moment, he clung to his own existence with all his might.

He was vulnerable. He could move, but without feeling his body, any movement was dangerous. The Howling Magic explosion came shortly after.

It exploded, sweeping the surroundings with an invisible shockwave.

Some members of the Iron Legion might also have been hit by the aftermath, after all, the range was great, but they could probably handle it.

It was time to focus.

He gathered his inner strength, forcing his mind to pierce the veil of the mysterious ritual magic.

There was still a chance to escape, provided the Barrier was not of God level. Difficult, yes. Complicated. But possible.

Fortunately, the break in the Mana Restriction Barrier allowed him to use magic.

And he did.

Earth Walls began to rise around him as he focused. Conjured according to his will, they appeared as fortresses amid the chaos.

And then, he found a small opening. Tiny, but present.

He concentrated on the sense that was most natural to him, most acute: sight. And then he opened his eyes again.

He could see.

He could not feel, hear, smell, or taste. But he could see. And that would suffice for now.

He saw the walls of earth taking form. He saw the translucent Barriers surrounding him in the distance.

He saw that he had been pierced in the chest, right where the heart should be—but he felt no pain. He felt nothing.

His Demon Eyes were still deactivated. The Ritual Magic kept him partially sealed. He needed to stimulate his senses somehow to reactivate them.

It was then that a white blade cut through the stone walls before him.

It was Galgard.

Blood ran down the Divine Warrior's helmet. He had probably been hit by the Howling Magic.

Still, he advanced with fury in his eyes, determined to finish what he had started.

Rygar knew he could not fight like this. Facing someone like Galgard deprived of almost all senses was inviting disaster. There was no time to cast new magics. Galgard was already upon him.

Then Rygar smiled.

A crooked, malicious smile. His voice came out hoarse, vibrating with difficulty from the lack of perception in his vocal cords:

"I've got you."

Galgard stopped instantly. His eyes scanned the battlefield around him in panic, trying to understand the trap that had been sprung.

But there was no trap.

Rygar had simply activated the Wild Dash—awkwardly and unsteadily, to be honest—and shot off like a missile in retreat, disappearing among the rubble and debris of the battlefield.

Galgard was stunned for a moment, realizing too late that he had been fooled.

He had overestimated Rygar. He feared the power of the Beast God so much that he let himself be deceived by a simple bluff.

But overall, it worked better than he expected.

Still, the danger remained.

The Barrier surrounded him. He needed to destroy it. But he did not yet know how. All he had left was to wear it down with brute force until it gave way.

Without wasting another moment, Galgard's blue cloak fluttered as he advanced, initiating a relentless pursuit of the Beast God.

Amid the commotion, he heard someone shout boldly:

"The Beast God is deprived of all his senses! Kill him now!"

The message spread rapidly across the battlefield, inflating the courage of Milis's warriors, who saw here their greatest opportunity.

Meanwhile, Rygar ran—or at least did something resembling running.

His movements were strange, erratic, as if his legs were acting without the guidance of a brain that understood the act.

His feet struck the ground with force and sometimes barely touched it, as if he were trying to relearn how to walk from scratch.

It was, in fact, absurd that he was even moving.

With all his senses sealed—including his Sixth Sense—any other warrior, even the most experienced, would have been reduced to a walking bag of meat.

The absence of touch, sight, balance, hearing… even the sharpest muscle memory would fail in a state of absolute deprivation.

But Rygar was no ordinary warrior.

His constitution had always been special even compared to other geniuses, and his command over his own Touki was as refined as the world's best.

Even so, that run was something bizarre to behold—powered by pure physical strength and some visual guidance, with Touki flow erratic and poorly distributed.

For a moment, Rygar thought that training under sensory deprivation might actually be very useful.

Still, that grotesque run bought him what he most needed at that moment: time.

Time for the open wound in his chest, where the dagger had pierced him, to begin to close thanks to the previously activated Healing Circles.

Time for him to experiment, press, seek ways to break, even partially, the Sensory Deprivation Barrier.

Time to survive.

As he advanced in an ungainly manner, his eyes—now slowly returning to activity thanks to the titanic effort he made to force his Demon Eyes to reactivate—finally began to perceive the world in slow motion.

Success.

Gradually, the magical vision of his eyes returned—not fully, but enough.

Using the ability of his Demon Eye, he was finally able to analyze everything more clearly.

The situation was very bad. But not fatal.

Rygar wagered, with some confidence, that he had thwarted much of Milis's plans.

He had survived the assassin's stealth attack by moving his internal organs in advance.

He had broken the Mana Restriction Barrier by using Emperor-level Howling Magic, which restored his use of magic.

He had also managed to resist at least somewhat the magic that blocked his senses.

And as a bonus, he had avoided madness by resisting the mysterious magical effect with his Mental Block Magic, originally prepared to withstand Hitogami's influence.

Thinking on this, an idea began to form in his mind.

As he forced his Touki even more, trying to normalize energy flows within his body even without feeling them, a smile spread across his lips.

Around him, there were only enemies. Knights of Milis, mages, clerics, all surrounding him, waiting for the moment the Beast God would finally fall.

But Rygar was not defeated. Not by a long shot.

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