Ruuuumble!
Harley, who had been in the midst of battle, glanced around.
‘Something feels eerie. Don’t tell me there’s another trap?’
But nothing in particular caught on his senses.
Just like at the beginning, only the members of the Beoncheonhoe and Dracul’s gang were swarming around him like mayflies.
‘Still, I can’t ignore Harley’s instincts, so I’d better be a little more careful for now.’
Even as he examined his surroundings, his body—multitasking being second nature to it—continued the fight naturally.
Thud—
—Shkak!
With a heavy sound as he stomped down, his log-thick forearm swung, and the five blade-like nails hanging at its end mercilessly tore through the air.
The techniques of an intelligent being, grafted onto wild movements based on instinct.
Even moving roughly, his body was powerful enough, but now that he understood the principles of martial arts and actively used them, it would not be an exaggeration to call him a walking disaster.
Fwoosh—!
“Guuuh— This monster bastard…!”
“Kuh! Don’t act rashly, Salmon! How much longer?”
“Insane! What the hell is that body made of?! How high is his resistance…!”
Even so, the battle was not as simple as he had expected.
No matter how great the difference in rank, his opponents were also mighty beings who had broken past their limits and reached transcendence.
It was only natural, since they were not only receiving aid from numerous high-ranking vampires, but each of them also possessed special unique skills and supernatural abilities of their own.
‘Looks like they brought fairly high-tier talents on their side too. They must have put an enormous amount of care into this job.’
Harley tilted his head to the side as he met the gazes of the battered men glaring at him.
He had dealt with quite a few vampires in the battle so far, but as expected, that alone was far from satisfying.
It seemed he would have to get rid of those Beoncheonhoe underlings first, but since the ones who had reached a higher realm were deliberately playing it safe, the battle was not ending easily.
‘This doesn’t seem like the time to hold anything back just to prevent information leaks.’
Perhaps he had underestimated them too much.
If even one of them escaped from here, that would be the greater loss.
After all, the number of powerful individuals was the greatest measure determining a faction’s influence, so was it not best to reduce the number of strong members belonging to the Beoncheonhoe as much as possible when he had the chance?
“Krrh— Guess it can’t be helped.”
With the board already set to this extent, there was no great meaning in holding back any longer.
Trying to hide even more here felt a little too greedy.
“What are you trying to do now…!”
“Stay alert! Don’t step forward recklessly…!”
Had they sensed something from Harley’s reaction?
Just as the enemies facing him began raising their guard to the utmost—
Thump—
The 「Seed of Madness」 lodged within his body pulsed, and the madness flowing through his entire body began to run wild.
And with that as fuel, the 「Mark of the War King」 activated and blazed beneath his dark-red scales, while the seething 「Biological Aura」 wrapped around his body like literal flames.
“Wait, this energy reaction is…!”
“Falcon! Defend, quickly…!”
Immediately after.
Crouching down, he drove all ten fingers into the ground.
Crack—
Kwaaang!
“Krahahahaha!”
And in that instant, he kicked off the ground and shot toward the enemies like a rocket.
“He’s fast…!”
“……!”
An unknown force used by someone tried to constrict his whole body, but it was useless.
The aura of madness flowing over his dragon scales resisted external energy, and the mystery of the mark that bolstered the power within his body ignored hostile anomalies.
Fwoosh!
The body of a vampire who had hurriedly approached to do something was shattered to pieces by a light gesture of his hand.
No matter how outstanding its regenerative ability was, there was no way it could survive in that state.
Kwaaang—!
And before he knew it, Harley’s clawed hand, now twice as large as it had been at first, was blocked in midair.
It was the defensive supernatural ability of the hammer warrior, who had made the greatest contribution to the Beoncheonhoe group’s survival thus far.
A single attack had caused cracks to spread like a spiderweb from the point of contact, but that brief moment was enough time for those who had reached a higher realm to take follow-up measures.
‘Until now, that is.’
Now that he had made up his mind, there was no reason to hesitate.
Harley’s greatly developed jaw split wide open.
The sharp teeth jutting out like saw blades flashed savagely—
Crunch!
And he bit straight into the barrier blocking his path.
“What are you doing?!”
「Gluttony」, which granted a powerful correction to the act of eating something.
With the addition of energy imbued with “madness,” it now possessed destructive power on an entirely different level than before, and the invisible curtain blocking his way was torn away, leaving a large hole.
And once matters reached that point, the rest proceeded in a flash.
Crack, crunch! Crunch!
The barrier destroyed in an instant, and beyond it, a massive muscular body rapidly approaching with a tooth-lined maw gaping wide.
It was a grotesque sight that stirred primal fear in those who faced it, but even in the midst of that, the veterans who had experienced every sort of hardship responded with practiced skill.
The hammer warrior swinging his massive hammer and confronting him head-on, the female swordsman aiming for his back with a long sword wreathed in strange energy, the martial artist dropping down as if descending from the sky, and even the remaining vampires supporting them.
Until just moments ago, Harley might have protected himself and maintained a moderate pace, but now that he had decided to act properly, none of that had any meaning.
Whiiing—
For along with the sudden burst of green light from his left eye, 「Jeweled Eye: Coercion」 had activated.
An enormous amount of energy converted from madness burned up in an instant, generating tremendous physical force that restricted the movements of those around him.
“Kuh?!”
“What is this…?”
Of course, since they too possessed a certain level of attainment, that compulsion did not last very long, but for Harley, that fleeting instant was enough time to finish what he intended to do.
Thuuud—
“Guhak!”
With a rough attack that exploited the opening, the hammer warrior was sent flying backward as if struck by a dump truck.
He had moved his hammer at the last second to block a direct hit, but it did not mean much.
Because Harley’s true objective began from this point on.
‘I’ll finish this one off as fast as possible.’
After that, within a moment split into countless fragments of time—
Harley’s two hands and the warrior’s hammer tangled together in a dazzling exchange.
Hammer and fist collided, leaving shockwaves behind, while the long handle and claws scraped together and sent sparks flying.
Ruuuumble—
The warrior’s companions, joining late, immediately intervened and began supporting him.
A long sword imbued with strange power cut into the dragon scales and left a great wound on his body, and the martial artist repeatedly unleashed shockwaves, struggling to push him back, but…
Harley, who possessed regenerative ability close to immortality, did not care one way or the other.
He simply charged in, targeting only the hammer warrior with murderous persistence.
Since the situation had flowed that way, the result was naturally already decided.
“No!”
“Falcon!”
In the end, despite his comrades’ assistance, the hammer warrior lost his weapon and had his throat seized.
“That makes one.”
“Gghk!”
Crack!
Ignoring all interference around him, Harley twisted the neck of the trophy that had fallen into his grasp.
And that—
was the signal flare announcing the beginning of the massacre to follow.
***
Harley, the ultimate evolved life-form.
The origin of his birth went back to immediately after Hahoe Mask Hans and the vampire Heinz II had purged the hardliners of the Blood Alliance.
To the time when they first encountered the Lawkeeper within the mental world of the Beoncheonhoe executive captured there.
At that time, through the memories he read, Hans had discovered the headquarters of those secretly operating in Korea, and after raiding it, he had been able to obtain various materials…
Included among them were samples of the “Perfect Evolution Creature Project” and “Predatory Dragon’s Dragon Blood.”
It had been a topic the Doctor had deliberately spread to several branches and made them compete over, wondering if he might gain a new perspective while he was busily conducting various studies at once.
The Doctor, who normally held as his creed that the development of science and technology came from exchange, did not care in the slightest about research materials leaking out in the process.
Because he believed he was the best.
A strong certainty that no matter whom in this world one gathered together, they would still be inferior to him alone.
If someone advanced the research even a little with a flash of creativity, that was all the better.
In the end, all of it would merely become nourishment for him, and the one to complete it in the end would be himself…
Or so he had thought.
Gnash, gnash, crunch—
The Doctor, staring at the holographic footage with bloodshot eyes, chewed at his fingernails.
He paid not the slightest attention to whether blood seeped from his fingertips because of it.
No, having already focused fully on the 「Eye of Truth」, he no longer had any mental capacity left to allocate elsewhere.
“…The added portion is based on black magic? Among them, it’s extremely similar to the Hadesia system. It seems a composite formula was applied, so various things appear to be mixed in here as well… On top of that, there’s quite high-level chimera engineering too. It seems a fair bit of modern biotechnology was also blended in…”
The Doctor muttered without pause like a madman.
It could not compare to examining it directly in person, but this holographic footage was also a magical tool into which considerable care had been put, so he was able to glean quite a lot of information.
And the conclusion he reached that way was—
“…There’s no mistake.”
Though there might be slight differences in the details, that thing was clearly based on the hypotheses and arguments, theories and proofs that contained his agony.
“Huu— Haa— Hoo, hoo.”
After bending at the waist for a moment and gasping for breath, he raised his head again and took in the image still being transmitted clearly: a muscular, bizarre life-form over three meters tall.
That beautiful “work of art,” rampaging against the Beoncheonhoe’s powerful individuals.
“Who on earth…”
The pinnacle of efficiency that he had only designed and failed to implement.
The extreme of beauty, as though it had given form to the very concept of a living being’s evolution.
A peerless creation, born artificially, yet surpassing even the creations shaped by God, transcending those limits and reaching an unfathomable realm.
“How…? Howhowhowhow…!”
From deep within his heart as he faced it—
an emotion he had never felt before began to boil and overflow.
With blood-soaked hands, the Doctor clawed roughly at his own face again and again, muttering to himself like a madman.
The fact that his research results had been stolen was no longer very important.
The problem now lay elsewhere.
“Howwwww—!!”
He could not understand it.
How that was possible.
Even as he saw it with his own two eyes, he still could not understand it.
And that drove him mad.
“Puhuhihyahak! Pukikik—!”
The composite formulas and science-based existing research materials he had established, the black magic added to them, chimera procedures, alchemical techniques and medicinal processing, and so on…
But all of those were things he had already tried himself.
And as a result, he had failed.
While someone else had produced such a masterpiece.
‘Who on earth? How…? Is that madness energy the key? No, no matter how I look at it, that’s a function added later. Then by what means…?’
Curiosity, doubt, inquiry, questions, suspicion toward something he could not understand.
A sense of inferiority and defeat, jealousy that some unknown person stood above him.
And humiliation at the fact that he had no choice but to forcibly accept it.
For him, who knew nothing of Harley’s peculiarity as a test subject and avatar, of the skill 「Adaptation」, or of the abilities of Hans the Immortal King, it was something he could never realize.
No, perhaps even if he had known, the emotions he felt would not have changed much.
At any rate, it was an undeniable fact that someone else had succeeded before him.
“…There is a limit to merely looking at it like this.”
After twisting his whole body for some time while letting out suppressed shrieks, the Doctor suddenly stopped moving and whispered softly.
The endless pursuit of knowledge was the greatest virtue an intelligent being should possess.
He could not simply collapse here just because he had encountered the unknown.
‘If something is lacking, I need only fill it in.’
If he could only perform a more proper analysis, the situation would change.
Research was originally conducted in the laboratory.
If only he could get his hands on that work of art, dissect it, and analyze it with certainty…!
“Puhuhuhuhihik—.”
The Doctor’s twisted, fever-soaked gaze turned toward the test subject floating in the hologram—Harley.
< Vampires, Fairies, and Test Subjects (1) > End