Dragon's Dogma 2 has an arrow that can instantly kill anything in the game, be it a griffin or the final boss. It's known as the Unmaking Arrow, and the item description breaks the fourth wall to warn you of how precious it is: “The ultimate arrow, said to kill instantly,” it reads. “Note: Once fired, the game will automatically save, so choose your moment with due care.”

You can actually find two—that we know of—in the game. One of them can be bought from a certain NPC (no spoilers!) in a cave in Battahl or as a reward for solving the Sphinx's riddles. As you'd expect, players are holding onto this legendary arrow to instakill the game's toughest monsters because, as the description says, there's no taking it back as soon as you fire it. And if you aren't aware, Dragon's Dogma 2 is practically immune to save-scumming.

It's not immune to Cheat Engine, however, so I started up a new game and gave myself 99 of these bad boys.

It turns out the Unmaking Arrow is pretty good as long as the game doesn't call a foul. I flung one at Medusa in the intro sequence and covered her in deadly white tentacles. She fell over in front of me and then was instantly revived for the cutscene of her fleeing, as if I hadn't just annihilated her. I didn't get anything for it, either: no loot, no achievement. Nothing.

The first goblins I came across weren't as lucky. When the arrow hit, the entire pack of them exploded into tentacles—which I did not expect. Same with the harpies. I was firing so many Unmaking Arrows I thought maybe the game would break with all the auto-saves I was triggering. It held up long enough for me to hit the flashback dragon fight in Melve that forces you to use the opposite of the most powerful weapon in the game: a dinky sword and a wooden shield. My hopes of a hidden ending or some kind of sequence break were crushed.

After becoming canonically heartless, I headed for the capital. Along the way I deleted more goblins and harpies as well as a pawn who rudely interrupted me. They just fell over and turned to smoke after I tentacled them, if you're wondering.

The whole scripted sequence where a cyclops breaks out of a rock to block my path took longer to animate than it did for me to unmake him. I also had the most casual three-second fight against an ogre and I don't feel bad about it because they apparently have a reputation for hunting women.

At the city gates, a guard asked for proof of citizenship that I didn't have because the NPCs who were supposed to escort me there were “tired” and “needed rest.” But the whole citizenship problem was nothing a little unmaking couldn't solve. I took out the guard and threw their body in the river to hide the evidence—even though I'm pretty sure everyone witnessed the woman in rags shooting the most powerful arrow in existence in broad daylight. Thankfully, everyone agreed it was none of their business and they let me in.

The Unmaker's story ends here. I would've continued until a proper boss fight, but I can't imagine its death would look any different than all the other monsters I fired these nasty arrows at. The Unmaking Arrow is exactly as powerful as it says on the tin. It can actually take out multiple enemies at once or one big enemy, and the game doesn't seem to mind if you have 99 of them. While it's extremely funny to just use one on a forgettable group of goblins, I'd probably keep it in a safe place until you run into something far worse.

Just, for the love of god, don't miss.