Chapter 46: The Man Behind the Face

Victoria’s expression darkened.

She stared at the man standing in front of her in the pitch-black bedroom. The moonlight cut a thin line across his face — Daemon’s face — but something about the way he stood felt wrong.

"You still don’t know what that is?" she asked quietly, nodding toward the open red box and the dead insect inside.

The man frowned. "I don’t know what it is or why a bug was placed in a box."

Victoria’s face twisted with cold anger.

"Kael. Stop this. Don’t make me angrier. Remove my husband’s face. I don’t want to see you wearing it."

The air in the room froze.

Kael’s eyes widened.

For a second he simply stood there, stunned that she had seen through the disguise so easily.

Vael’s warning echoed in his mind. His twin had told him this plan was reckless.

If he had waited a few more days, he might have had a better chance in the Haneul Republic.

But desperation had pushed him here tonight — and now everything he had carefully prepared was collapsing.

Victoria didn’t give him time to recover.

Crimson energy flared around her.

A blood-red spear formed in the air and shot forward with a sharp whistle. It pierced straight through Kael’s chest and blasted him backward.

His body crashed through the bedroom wall in an explosion of plaster and wood. He hit the ground outside with a muffled scream, blood already pouring from the wound.

Victoria stepped through the broken wall, her eyes glowing a deep, merciless red.

Thousands of thin blood needles condensed around her like a red storm.

"Back when I lost consciousness in the dungeon," she said, voice flat and cold, "you carried me outside.

I heard fragments of your thoughts. I was too injured to use Crimson Resonance fully, but I still had doubts about you.

When I returned home, something felt off. That insect never entered my body. I caught it before it could."

She raised one hand. The needles trembled in the air.

"At first I didn’t know who sent it. Then this morning, when you came into the Guild Master’s office, I heard your thoughts again — clearly this time.

It was you. You were the one who sent that thing after me.

I planned to kill you in the Haneul Republic... but you actually delivered yourself to me."

Her voice dropped even lower.

"And the idea of wearing my husband’s face to enter our bedroom... you deserve worse than death for that."

She released the needles.

They shot forward in a dense cloud. Kael’s body jerked violently as hundreds of blood needles punched through him from every direction, entering one side and exiting the other in sprays of red. He screamed, clutching at his throat, legs kicking uselessly against the floor.

Victoria walked closer without hurry. Two large hands made of condensed blood formed in the air, grabbed Kael’s thrashing body, and pulled.

There was a wet, tearing sound.

Kael’s torso ripped free from the lower half of his body. Both pieces slammed into the far wall and slid down, leaving long streaks of blood. His eyes went hollow. The screaming stopped.

Silence returned to the ruined room.

Victoria stood over the two halves of the corpse, breathing evenly. The blood constructs dissolved into mist and vanished. She stared at the remains for a long moment.

"...That was too easy," she muttered. "He didn’t even fight properly. Something is wrong."

She took out her phone and called Rosalind.

It took several rings before her aunt answered, voice thick with sleep.

"Victoria? It’s the middle of the night—"

"Kael Draven just tried to kill me," Victoria said flatly. "He disguised himself as Daemon and entered my house.

I eliminated the body in front of me, but I don’t trust it. Send a team of A-rank or strong B-rank Hunters to search his residence immediately.

I suspect the real Kael is still alive somewhere. This may have been a decoy."

There was a short silence on the other end.

"...Understood. I’ll issue the order now."

The call ended.

Victoria looked once more at the torn remains on the floor, then turned away. The dark feeling in her chest had not disappeared.

Far beneath the city, in a hidden underground facility, rows of glass containers lined the walls. Most held strange insects floating in green liquid. One container was different.

Inside it, a human heart hung suspended in the same glowing green fluid. Two thin wires were inserted into the organ. The heart was still beating — slow, steady, stubborn.

Suddenly the liquid began to bubble.

The heart’s rhythm accelerated, thumping harder and harder until the glass cracked.

With a sharp burst the container shattered. Green fluid spilled across the floor. The heart hit the ground and pulsed with a violent green light.

Muscle fibers erupted from it. Bones formed. Organs knitted themselves into place with wet, unnatural sounds.

Skin stretched over the growing mass. Within minutes a full human body lay gasping on the cold floor.

Kael’s eyes snapped open.

He lay naked and dripping, chest heaving as if he had been drowning. His limbs trembled. When he tried to stand, his legs gave out and he collapsed again.

On the second attempt he managed to drag himself up using a nearby metal table. His movements were unsteady, like a newborn learning to walk.

He staggered into an adjacent room, stepped under a shower, and let cold water wash the sticky green residue from his skin.

When he finally stepped out, his breathing had stabilized, but his eyes still carried the raw shock of someone who had just died.

A familiar voice drifted from the shadows.

"Welcome back, little brother. Back from the dead."

Vael stood near a workbench, casually eating an apple. He took a slow bite and smirked.

"I told you that plan wouldn’t work. But when it comes to Victoria, you never listen. And look at that — she’s the one who killed you. What a tragedy." He put on an exaggerated sad face.

Kael turned toward him, still dripping water, eyes burning with fury.

"That Daemon... he completely brainwashed her."

Vael walked closer, still smiling.

"At least we confirmed something useful. Project A1 is a success — thanks to your brainless little stunt.

If you hadn’t gone to her house tonight, I was planning to kill you myself just to test whether the heart revival still worked."

He started laughing, the sound sharp and unhinged.

Kael slammed a hand against the table. "Stop it! Enough!"

Vael raised both hands in mock surrender, the apple still held loosely in his fingers.

"Alright, alright. Now can we finally start my plan?" His smile faded into something colder.

"First, we report to Father. As Apex Guild Master, he already found a very unique test subject — a girl with regeneration ability stronger than anything seen on Earth in the last hundred years. Her bloodline is still unidentified."

"If we combine Project A1 with her regeneration, we can achieve true immortality. But don’t forget — we still need human hearts to come back to life. We can’t keep doing this forever. We need her."

He tossed a thin file onto the table in front of Kael.

Vael’s eyes gleamed.

"Study the file. We don’t have much time.

We’ll abandon this underground base and consume the remaining hearts we have stored.

Before that..." A slow, sinister smile spread across his face. "I think I’ll pay a little visit to the Haneul Republic."