The night wind blew, swirling a thick, inescapable scent of blood.
The battle... was over.
If that could even be called a battle.
Victor changed into a clean lab coat and walked slowly out of the castle.
He wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses—a system-produced item with built-in night vision and data analysis functions—and held a small notebook and a quill. Like a forensic doctor who had just arrived at a crime scene, he began to patrol this messy carnage.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk..."
He walked up to a knight whose limbs had been snipped off by Alice, knelt down, and poked the still-bleeding wound with the end of his quill.
"Smooth incisions, minimal damage area, almost no tearing. Alice's technique... has improved."
He then walked over to another knight whose leg bone had been gnawed off by Mia, carefully observing the jagged bone surface.
"The bite force is impressive, but the wound is severely contaminated, posing an extremely high risk of infection. Mia's 'surgical' style... is still too crude; it needs improvement."
As Victor walked, he quickly recorded notes in his book, muttering to himself.
"The data is good; the physical quality of this batch of 'materials' far exceeds expectations."
"Especially the blood samples—they contain holy light energy, which will be a significant help for the research project on 'Energy and Cellular Mutation.'"
There wasn't a trace of pity or reverence for life in his eyes.
Only a kind of... fanatical excitement that a scholar feels when seeing rare experimental subjects.
Behind him.
Six skeleton soldiers in black security uniforms were marching in unison, beginning to "clean up" the battlefield.
They worked in pairs, grabbing the ankles of the knights who were still groaning or yet to lose consciousness and dragging them like dead dogs toward the dark entrance of the castle's basement.
That was the newly built 【Inpatient Department】.
It was also... Victor's laboratory.
"No... please no..."
"Let me go! You monsters!"
"Help! I don't want to be made into a specimen!"
The knights let out desperate wails and curses.
But the skeletons were deaf to them.
They simply executed the Director's orders silently and efficiently.
The entire scene was like demons from hell harvesting souls, filled with despair and horror.
Elizabeth leaned against the doorway, elegantly wiping blood from her nails, completely unfazed by the sight.
Alice followed behind the skeletons, humming a nursery rhyme like an overseer. Occasionally, she would use her great scissors to snip off another leg of a knight who was struggling too much.
Only Mia was different.
She was squatting in a corner, happily gnawing on a thigh bone she had detached from someone—a bone thicker than her own arm. Her face was covered in grease, looking like a little puppy guarding its food.
Victor finished recording the data and closed his notebook.
His gaze fell upon the only "big guy" in the center of the field who hadn't been dragged away yet.
Knight Captain Gareth.
This gold-rank powerhouse was currently lying in a humiliating posture inside a large crater. The heavy armor on his chest had completely collapsed, and blood mixed with visceral fragments continuously welled up from his mouth.
He wasn't dead yet.
But he was clearly not far from it.
"Director, how should we handle this one?"
The skeleton captain walked over, asking for instructions with its hollow eye sockets.
"He looks heavily injured. Should we drag him straight to the recycling furnace?"
"No."
Victor shook his head.
"Such a good material would be a waste to recycle directly."
He walked up to Gareth, knelt down, and looked into those eyes that were wide with pain and resentment.
"Knight Captain Gareth, right?"
Victor's voice was soft, as if he were chatting with a friend.
"How does it feel? A comminuted fracture of the sternum, at least five broken ribs, three of which have punctured your lung lobes... Tsk, with these injuries, even in the best hospital in the royal capital, you'd be bedridden for at least a year or two."
"You... you demon..."
Gareth squeezed out a few words from his throat, each accompanied by bloody foam.
"If you have the guts... just kill me!"
"Kill you?"
Victor smiled.
"That would be too easy on you."
He pulled a pre-prepared syringe from his coat.
The barrel contained a viscous liquid that shimmered with an eerie, rainbow-like color.
【Strong Hallucinogen】
【Effect: Allows the user to experience the hallucination of their soul being torn apart ten thousand times while in a state of extreme wakefulness.】
"This is a 'painkiller' specially made by our clinic."
Victor shook the syringe in his hand, his smile gentle and kind.
"Seeing you in such pain, I can't bear it. I'll give you a shot for free."
"No! Stay away from me!"
Looking at the needle shimmering with a cold light, the emotion of "fear" appeared in Gareth's eyes for the first time.
He didn't know what it was.
But he could feel that it contained a malice ten thousand times more terrifying than death!
He wanted to struggle, he wanted to resist.
But Mia's kick had already shattered the battle qi core in his entire body.
Right now, he didn't even have the strength to move a finger.
Putch.
The cold needle pierced into his carotid artery without resistance.
The colored liquid was slowly injected.
"Ugh..."
Gareth's whole body stiffened.
In the next second.
His pupils dilated suddenly, and his eyeballs were instantly bloodshot.
His face, pale from blood loss, turned a deep purple, and veins bulged on his forehead like earthworms.
He opened his mouth wide but couldn't make a sound.
Because, in his mental world...
A storm ten thousand times more horrific than physical torture was unfolding.
He saw himself being dragged into a sea of blood by countless invisible ghostly hands.
He saw his flesh being peeled off piece by piece, and his soul being repeatedly scorched over a fire.
He saw his closest comrades and his most beloved family members being brutally slaughtered before his eyes.
Hallucinations.
Endless, terrifying hallucinations so real he couldn't distinguish reality from fantasy submerged his sanity like a tide.
"AAAAAAAAAHHH——!!!"
A shrill, inhuman scream finally erupted from the depths of his throat.
He rolled and convulsed frantically on the ground, slamming his head against the earth like a maggot thrown into boiling water.
"Hmm, it seems the efficacy is quite good."
Victor calmly observed his reaction, recording it in his notebook.
"The dosage was a bit high; next time I can reduce it by 0.5 milliliters."
He waited for a full five minutes.
Not until Gareth's screams became hoarse and the intensity of his convulsions diminished—his body completely soaked in sweat as if he had been fished out of water—did Victor kneel down again.
He took out another syringe containing ordinary hemostatic agents and nutrient solutions and injected them into Gareth.
Then, he pulled out bandages and splints to briefly treat Gareth's fatal wounds.
Not for any other reason.
Only so that he would have the strength to crawl back.
"Alright, emergency treatment complete."
Victor clapped his hands and stood up.
By now, Gareth's gaze had completely lost focus.
Saliva dripped from his mouth, and he occasionally let out one or two meaningless, silly chuckles, looking like a total idiot who had gone completely insane.
"Go back."
Victor leaned down and whispered into his ear in a voice like a devil's murmur that only the two of them could hear:
"Go back and tell that wretched couple."
"Tell Lancelot, and tell Catherine."
"Tell them that I, Victor Corvinus, am still alive. And I am living... very well."
Victor paused, the curve of his lips becoming cold and cruel.
"Tell them that the doors of my little clinic are always open for them."
"They are welcome to... send more 'gifts' next time."
"However..."
"The medical fee for the next visit will be their lives."
Having said that, Victor straightened up and waved at the skeleton security guards who were still dazed.
"Throw him out."
"Remember to throw him far away. Don't let him pollute the environment in front of our clinic."
The skeletons immediately stepped forward and dragged the completely mentally broken Gareth toward the edge of the forest like a sack of grain.
Victor watched the figure leaving a long blood trail on the ground until he completely disappeared into the mist.
The smile on his face slowly faded, replaced by a bottomless, freezing cold.
He knew.
From this day forward.
There was no longer any room for reconciliation between him and the Corvinus family.
It was a fight to the death.
He turned around and walked toward the dark door leading to the basement.
From behind the door came muffled groans filled with pain and fear.
"Alright."
Victor put his goggles back on and picked up the scalpel he had just wiped clean.
"The appetizer is over."
"Now, let us begin our... experiment."
Rate on N.U.
