NOVGO.NET Chapter 411
[Translator - Night]
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Chapter 411: Black Finger (3)
“Kweeeek!”
The first to roar was an ogre with no fewer than three heads.
Judging by the stitch marks on all but one of its heads, it appeared to have been artificially created.
‘Not a single one of them looks normal.’
Oscar glanced around.
An orc with a huge mouth attached to its chest, opening and closing like a goldfish.
A snake with dozens of eyes like those of an insect.
A werewolf with one arm swollen to an abnormal size, among others.
Every last one of them had an unsettling appearance.
“Grrrr.”
“Kaaak, kak!”
Just as the monsters shook their heads and snorted.
Tak!
With a sound, the laboratory’s bright lights went out.
Instead, the emergency exit signs and green lights installed throughout the laboratory illuminated the area.
“Hmm, now this is exactly the kind of atmosphere I like.”
Srrrk.
At the same time, the Hound’s shadow that he had been holding trickled down like grains of sand.
After retrieving his shadow, the Hound walked past the shattered glass tanks and spoke.
“Do you have any last words?”
“I hope you adjust well when you get to hell.”
“Heh, amusing.”
His shoulders shook with laughter as he raised his head.
“Go ahead and send me there. If you can.”
The moment those words left his mouth, Slash!
A massive blade of wind cut across the laboratory.
The three heads of the ogre standing at the very front flew into the air.
And the enormous snake crawling up from behind it was split vertically in two.
“…….”
As blades fluttered in every direction, Oscar’s dry eyes remained fixed solely on the Hound.
It did not matter how many of these crude monsters there were.
Thud! Thuud!
Heavy chunks of flesh rolled across the floor.
The Hound, who had crouched down to evade the attack, narrowed his eyes.
“……It is difficult to believe even after seeing it. To think you can unleash magic of that output without incantations.”
The Hound licked his lips, and his body gradually faded like a shadow.
-Now, stop lying around and move.
“……?”
Who the hell was he talking to?
The moment Oscar wondered that, Tadadadadak!
The severed hand of the ogre, which had been sprawled across the floor, began crawling like a spider.
‘I definitely cut off its heads.’
Oscar frowned and quickly scanned his surroundings.
It was not only the ogre’s hand.
The monsters he had been certain he had killed began moving perfectly well despite being severed into pieces.
‘The parts capable of moving independently move on their own…….’
The ogre, which had been torn apart so badly that it could not even stand properly, absorbed other monsters nearby to create a lower body.
‘I see.’
It was already difficult to call those things living creatures.
They were merely something that could neither live nor die, having been modified through all manner of experiments.
“Kraaaaaah!”
The reassembled werewolf brought its enormous forepaw down toward the crown of Oscar’s head.
Oscar glanced at it, shifted half a step to evade the attack, and lightly snapped his fingers.
Paaang!
Compressed wind burrowed into the monster’s flesh.
Its head exploded in an instant, and a gaping hole was punched through its chest, yet the werewolf did not stop.
‘Its weak point is neither the head nor the heart.’
Nor did it feel as though something outside was controlling it.
In other words, there had to be a core somewhere within its body.
“Let’s take a closer look.”
Crack! Oscar lightly stamped his foot, and wind rose like a wave before engulfing the werewolf.
The flesh exposed to the blade-like wind was shredded in an instant, revealing the bones beneath.
At the same time, he spotted a large stone writhing within its left thigh.
“This is…….”
It was the Demon Jade, the stone he had once researched alongside Lloyd on the Western Front.
Covered in flesh, it was serving as the creature’s heart.
‘That makes one.’
When Oscar shattered the Demon Jade with wind, the werewolf finally stopped regenerating and could no longer stand.
The others would also have one of those stones attached somewhere within their bodies.
‘This is a little troublesome.’
Oscar turned, wrapped himself around the arm of the charging ogre as it swung its fist, and threw it over his shoulder.
Kwaaaaaang!
“Kuek!”
The moment the floor tiles cracked like a spiderweb and the creature squealed like a pig being slaughtered.
The ogre’s shadow swelled, and a black blade silently surged upward.
Kaaang!
Oscar instantly knocked it away with the wind wrapped around the back of his hand.
-Your reactions are not bad.
“Is hiding and running your mouth your specialty?”
-Do you expect an assassin to reveal himself and fight?
Along with the sly answer, three shadow daggers shot out from the surrounding shadows.
Oscar hurriedly twisted his body to avoid them, and the Hound’s presence disappeared like a ghost once more.
“…….”
Oscar frowned as he looked at his torn sleeve.
‘So this was why he released those useless monsters.’
The combat strength of the monsters had never mattered to the Hound in the first place.
All that mattered was that the monsters continued moving without rest, casting shadows throughout the entire laboratory.
That alone was enough for them to fulfil their role.
“Okay, confirmed.”
Now that he understood the problem, the solution was equally clear.
“Spatial Severance.”
The spatial slash that erupted in an instant devastated the surrounding area.
It was an indiscriminate erasure that made no distinction between monsters, glass tanks, debris, or anything else.
At the same time, a streak of light blossomed from the tip of his index finger and flew toward the ceiling.
『Light』
He poured a considerable amount of mana into the basic light-type spell.
As a result, the interior of the laboratory suddenly became so bright that it felt like midday.
Fwoosh!
The brighter the light, the darker the shadows it cast.
The shadow of the snake monster Oscar had deliberately left intact stretched out.
“Found you.”
Just before the Spatial Severance descending from above sliced through the shadow.
“Keugh!”
The Hound, who had been hiding within it, hurriedly leapt out.
[Translator - Night]
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After rolling across the floor several times, he gritted his teeth.
“You ignorant……!”
But Oscar had already entrusted his body to the wind and closed the distance between them.
Crack!
A knee carrying overwhelming acceleration slammed directly into his chest.
With his ribs crushed, the Hound was sent flying and rolled across the floor several times.
“Kuh, ngghh.”
His body convulsed violently, unable even to scream from the overwhelming pain.
Click!
Closing the distance with Blink, Oscar fastened handcuffs around both of his wrists.
They were mana-sealing handcuffs, the same kind the Emperor had intended to place on the Master of the Yellow Tower.
‘Even World Liberation should be impossible with these.’
After all, the handcuffs prohibited the use of mana within the body itself.
As a result, the Hound’s eyes trembled.
“W-What are these?”
“Mana-sealing handcuffs. Your mana isn’t moving the way you want it to, is it?”
“Keugh!”
The Hound gritted his teeth.
Then, as though he had already foreseen what awaited him, he tried to bite off his own tongue and kill himself, but.
“You couldn’t die even if you wanted to.”
Crack!
Oscar moved one step faster and stomped on his mouth, shattering all his teeth.
“You’re not the first person like this I’ve dealt with.”
Oscar’s eyes turned cold.
From this moment onward, this man would never enjoy freedom again until he had vomited out every piece of information he possessed.
Of course, the freedom awaiting him at the end was called death.
Press.
Oscar stepped on the back of his neck and turned his head sideways.
“Spit it all out.”
“Gweeeeh.”
Just as broken teeth poured from the Hound’s mouth along with blood.
A sudden, unpleasant sensation crawled up Oscar’s spine.
Oscar did not dismiss the feeling and immediately turned around.
His gaze fell upon an iron door set into one wall at the far end of the laboratory.
‘That door—when did it……?’
From within the darkness beyond the door, which had opened at some point.
“World Liberation.”
“……!”
A dry voice flowed out.
“Ten Thousand Species, One Body.”
At the same time, something stretched outward from the darkness and came rushing toward them.
‘An arm?’
The arm resembled tree bark and was even covered in scales like those of a reptile.
Slash!
Without panicking, Oscar countered by slicing it apart with Spatial Severance, but.
‘……It split?’
Instead, the arm multiplied into two and continued advancing.
It seized the Hound and withdrew in an instant.
“You would have died if I had been even slightly later.”
Someone then walked out from within the dark doorway.
The gaunt man wearing a laboratory coat had deep shadows beneath his eyes, and his face was utterly bloodless.
Oscar stared at him, furrowed his brow, and asked.
“……Are you the alchemist?”
“Many people call me by that name.”
“You must also be the one who created the Demon Jade.”
“Demon Jade? Ah, are you referring to the Philosopher’s Stone?”
The man nodded, set the Hound down on the floor, and shattered the handcuffs.
The Hound breathed a sigh of relief and rotated his wrists with a surprised expression.
“……Thank you.”
“I did not save you because I particularly wanted you alive. I simply lacked the confidence to deal with that monster by myself.”
The alchemist replied dryly and surveyed the laboratory.
The test subjects had been chopped into pieces, and even their Demon Jades had been destroyed and scattered like dust.
He clicked his tongue with a displeased expression.
“Tsk. Some of those took more than ten years to create…… To think you would ruin another person’s research like this.”
“You wasted ten whole years making nothing more than that?”
“How foolish. Every failure is the mother of success.”
“Then where is the success?”
At that question, one corner of the alchemist’s mouth curved upward.
“Is it not standing before your eyes?”
Crack, crack, crack!
An unsettling sound emerged from his body, and the previously loose laboratory coat was torn apart in an instant.
It could not withstand the muscles and physique that had suddenly swollen beneath it.
“Hmm, this is somewhat better.”
As he lightly turned his head, his height surged past two metres in an instant.
His entire body was packed with firm muscles like those of a knight who had trained for many years.
“I suppose I do not need these anymore either.”
Perhaps even his eyesight had improved, as the alchemist removed his glasses and tossed them away.
His bright yellow eyes resembled those of a reptile, and every strand of his hair writhed like a living snake.
‘……This isn’t an ordinary physical transformation.’
World Liberation was the act of overlaying reality with the world one desired more than anything.
In other words, the alchemist’s current body must also have taken the form of what he considered ideal.
“Ten Thousand Species, One Body is the construction of an independent ecosystem by cramming every living creature into the human body.”
The alchemist tapped his own chest.
“I am that successful creation. Every creature I have researched exists within me.”
He gazed down at his own arm as though it were a work of art.
“I create the organs I need and mercilessly discard those that are useless. If there is a weakness, I eliminate it. If there is a function I lack, I add it anew. This body is the result.”
Spreading both arms, he declared confidently.
“This body itself is the flesh of a god.”
“……I see.”
Oscar slowly nodded.
“Then let’s try killing you, god.”
Slash!
Spatial Severance cut diagonally across the alchemist’s upper body.
His flesh slid apart along a line extending from his right shoulder to his left flank, but.
“……That hurts.”
No blood flowed.
Instead.
Crack, crack!
His bones and flesh moved, restoring the severed body to its original state.
At the same time, the alchemist muttered.
“I see. With this body, it would be better to eliminate the sense of pain as well.”
The Hound, who had been listening to the alchemist’s muttering, slowly rose to his feet.
Just as a taut sense of tension pressed down upon the laboratory.
Wooooong! Wooooong!
Red lights flashed throughout the laboratory, and a deafening siren began to blare.
“…….”
At the same time, Oscar raised his head.
He had begun to sense two immense sources of mana that had not been present moments earlier.
“Oh, have they finally arrived?”
The Hound grinned, his pronunciation heavily slurred because of his shattered teeth.
“Your companions will not be lonely anymore either.”
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