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The test tube shattered, and the slumbering Experiment Three inside fell helplessly to the ground. An unidentifiable red liquid flowed around it, making it look like a giant bloodsucker.
"What the hell……."
Andrei looked at Rudger in disbelief. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Rudger had managed to ignore a solid barrier that even magic couldn't penetrate and hit his target.
If he had known Rudger had this skill, he would have countered it but Rudger hid it well.
He knew that Andrei would be able to deal with it if he found out. So he waited for an opening, and when it came, he capitalized.
"I can't believe he managed to break the machinery of the underground facility……!'
He had a sharp trick up his sleeve, but he didn't let it slip, and used it at the crucial moment.
Even as Andrei realized that Rudger was by no means an ordinary magic teacher, he could not suppress the anger that boiled up inside him.
"How dare you – how dare you – -!!!"
Andrei glared at Rudger with his blackened yellow eyes as if to kill him. His eyes were filled with murderous intent to kill the man who had ruined his masterpiece of a lifetime.
The emotion in his eyes was an unquenchable hatred.
Faced with it, Rudger did not shrink at all. In fact, he even stared at Andrei with his deep blue eyes.
Andrei couldn't imagine what Rudger was thinking as he looked at him. More than that, his blue eyes were strangely disturbing. The blue of his pupils seemed to swirl endlessly in what was supposed to be their natural color.
"You. Those eyes are……."
Andrei started to say something, then stopped. What the hell did it matter now?
All that mattered was that Rudger had ruined his research, and now he was going to die by his own hand.
Andrei summoned black mana, and everyone tensed, readying themselves for battle. It was fortunate that they had somehow managed to stop the creature before it awakened, but it wasn't all over as Andrei remained.
The tension in the air made it hard to breathe.
It was a situation where the slightest snap of the fingers could lead to an instant conflict.
The first person to make a move was the last person anyone expected.
Louispold, a sixth-rank wizard, who was a member of the Liberation Army and a self-proclaimed guinea pig for the biotech warlocks, moved his body slightly.
With everyone on high alert, there was no one who could not catch the movement.
Louispold moved and it was not a postmortem stiffness.
Rudger and Casey's magic kicked in immediately while Passius and Trina also drew their swords and stabbed at him.
They didn't have to say a word to each other and since he wasn't dead yet they knew they had to kill him.
However, all of their attacks were immediately pushed aside by an explosive release of mana from Louispold's body.
"What?"
Trina stared at Louispold in disbelief.
Even if it was a surprise attack, it was still a master knight's strike but he repelled it by releasing his mana.
What kind of mana does it take to do that?
But even to her surprise, the mana that flowed from his body didn't stop. The power swirled around him like a giant vortex, and his body slowly began to rise into the air.
He was a man in his mid-thirties with ubiquitous brown hair. His bushy beard was untrimmed, and he looked more like a laborer than a wizard. But right now, he had an enormous presence that made everyone in the room tense.
Hovering in midair, Louispold slowly opened his closed eyes. He looked no different than a normal human being, but one eye was tinted black, like Andrei's, infused with demonic power.
All at once, the pulsing energy stopped and was sucked into Louispold's body like a sponge. The storm of a moment ago was gone, and a calm stillness descended over the area, like a calm lake at dawn.
Slowly landing on the ground, Louispold looked around with an expressionless face.
"This is……."
His demeanor, as if he hadn't yet grasped the situation, prompted Passius to make his move. It was a sneak attack that was aimed at the opponent's weakness.
Even Andrei missed it for a moment, as the Master dropped his guise and moved like an assassin.
The next moment, Passius was about to swing his sword at Louispold's throat but a face sprouted from his back and stared at him.
"What……."
In a moment that baffled even the most experienced Passius with its unbelievable appearance, a compressed bolt of wind shot toward him as the face opened its mouth.
Passius retracted the sword he was about to swing and went into defense. Immediately afterward, the wind bolt that struck his sword spun at a terrifying speed, sending him flying into the distance.
The deflected wind bolt grazed the roots of the World Tree and landed on the ceiling of the central area.
The bullet expanded, countless winds shredding the walls around it.
"Lord Passius!"
Veronica shouted, swinging her sword. A cold aura exploded from the tip of her sword, shooting toward Louispold in the form of a crescent moon.
Louispold had been so focused on the flying Passius that he hadn't seen the attack coming from the other side but this time, the tables were turned as a face appeared on his chest, and his mouth opened once more.
This time the face shot flames and they collided with Veronica's cold aura and consumed it.
As everyone stared at the scene in disbelief, only Andrei stared at Louispold with a face full of excitement.
"Oooooh, finally……!"
Andrei shuddered with joy at the realization that his failed experiment had opened its eyes.
He hadn't failed and his work had seen the light of day.
It was still incomplete, given that only one eye was blackened, but he hadn't failed. On the other hand, the expression on the faces of the raiders was not so good as they saw how he blocked Passius' surprise attack and Veronica's blow.
Louispold momentum was unnerving, especially that face that sprouted from his body.
The moment it opened its mouth, magic was triggered.
'From what I've heard, he can't use fire magic.'
That was what Rudger and others were most wary of.
Louispold was essentially a wind-attribute wizard, working with ice and lightning but couldn't use fire elemental magic.
All wizards are limited in the elements they can use. There was no way he would suddenly be able to use the element of fire unless he was learning magic for the first time.
"The face."
Casey spoke up.
"The face used magic on Louispold behalf."
Andrei let out a small chuckle as Casey stared at him as if to see if that was true.
"You're a little more perceptive than you look. He's our masterpiece experiment, the one we poured everything into. Do you have any idea how much materials went into that thing?"
"Materials, you say?"
Chris asked, wondering what the hell that meant.
Andrei only laughed, but didn't answer. Instead, it was Trina who spoke up.
"…… You've used wizards."
Something about what Louispold had shown her and what Andrei had said convinced Trina.
"There've been a recent wave of disappearance of unaffiliated wizards, and while I wouldn't be surprised if they've died somewhere, there was a fifth-rank wizard in the mix, which has caught the attention of Imperial Intelligence."
"Hmph. So you're the head of the Nightcrawler Knights, quick on the uptake."
Andrei's words were practically a confirmation of Trina's.
"You used wizards as materials? If that's the case, does that human body have…….?"
"Yes. The missing wizards, who knows how many, are contained in that one body."
Andrei smiled at that.
"Using Demonic power and the cells of the World Tree along with all the essence of what we've learned through our experiments is in there. That's not Louispold, the Liberation Army officer, anymore."
But the ultimate test subject commonly known as the Third.
"I'm dizzy."
Louispold, who had been still, spoke up.
"And hungry. I don't know what this unknown hunger is."
Louispold's gaze swept over the people around him and A smile spread across his face like a gourmet at a feast.
"Looks like there's plenty to eat here."
The look in his eyes did not belong to a fellow human being. The smiling, wrinkled face was filled with an indescribable sense of discomfort.
"Are you…… really Louispold?"
The servant mage who came with Veronica muttered when he saw Louispold.
He was a man who had served in the army with Louispold in the past. In a way, he could be considered a comrade-in-arms and their relationship wasn't that bad but after Louispold deserted, everything went wrong so he left the army.
But when he saw Louispold after all these years, he wasn't the same man.
" Louispold?"
At the sound of the name, Louispold was dumbfounded.
"Ah, yes, that was my name. No, no, no, who am I? Louispold? David? I can't stop thinking of names. Galloway. Chad. Jenna."
Unintelligible sounds began to flow from his mouth as he clutched his head in his hands as if he were confused.
Andrei clicked his tongue as he watched. The names Louispold was muttering now were the names of the wizards implanted in his body.
His memory was confused from having so many wizards implanted in his body.
'Well, it's for the best. As long as we get new data from him, that's all that matters.'
And the test subjects for that data would be the invaders.
Andrei turned to Louispold and gave him a command.
"Test Subject Three."
"Uh-huh."
Louispold responded to the sound of Andrei's voice. His pupils shook as if there had been an earthquake.
"Yes. You are Three and I am your master, Andrei."
"I am, I am……."
"It doesn't matter who you are but you're hungry, aren't you? There's plenty of food in front of you right now, and isn't your priority to eat it?"
At Andrei's words, Louispold's trembling stopped. His mouth, which had been muttering as if in confusion, fell silent as if something had changed dramatically.
Removing his hands from his head, Louispold's expression became as calm as it had been when he first released his mana.
"That's right. Who I am doesn't matter right now, because all that matters is how I solve this hunger."
"Yes. That's it, Third, so eat them, because that's what you were made for!"
Andrei's eyes widened as he shouted that and looked down in disbelief.
Louispold hand was in his lower abdomen.
Despite the distance, Louispold's arm had stretched out and pierced Andrei's abdomen but the strange behavior didn't stop there as a black vein of blood began to crawl up his arm and began to drain the power from Andrei's body.
"You, what the hell……."
Louispold smirked as Andrei stared at him in disbelief.
"You look the most delicious."
"You, you madman, biting your master!"
Louispold was now absorbing the demonic power in Andrei's body.
Andrei gritted his teeth and tried to hold on, but it was no use. No matter how hard he swam, he could not escape the whirlpool.
Andrei's infusion of refined demonic power crumbled in the face of something closer to its essence but it wasn't just demonic power that Louispold absorbed, he sought to absorb Andrei's mana as well as demonic power.
"Inom!"
Andrei shouted, clutching Louispold's forearm with both hands. His eyes flashed with determination, as if he wasn't going to be easily defeated.
At that moment, a blade of compressed wind from nowhere sliced through Louispold's extended arm.
As the absorption ceased, Andrei hastily stepped back, putting distance between himself and Louispold.
Louispold retracted his extended arm and examined the severed section of his arm.
The severed arm regenerated in seconds and his gaze turned to the interrupter, the dark-haired young man who had been staring at him with a haughty gaze for some time now.
"You……."
Annoyance flashed across Louispold's face, as if he was offended by the interruption.
Seeing this, Rudger let out a cold sneer.
"What kind of fool would wait for the enemy to become stronger?"