Return of the Apex Predator

Chapter 15 – Dogma

“Isn’t this too weak? Well, without a Dragon Heart, magic would be impossible… And without any proper equipment… Oh?”

Before the mocking words could even finish, Bastille began to walk forward again.

There was no doubt that the arrow had hit its mark. The magical arrow had dissipated with time, and blood spurted from the wound it left behind.

However, Bastille didn’t seem to care at all.

Luchita summoned five arrows, firing them like a machine gun.

His skill, Magical Arrow, allowed each of those arrows to fly as if they were alive, responding to Luchita’s will.

With just his parallel thought process and Magical Arrow alone, Luchita had been able to handle every powerful foe he had encountered so far.

Piiiiing!

The sound of the arrows whistling filled the corridor chaotically. But his dazzling skills held little meaning. Bastille, like a walking target, got hit by every arrow.

His leg buckled, causing him to stumble. Though he barely managed to start walking again, the amount of blood he had spilled onto the floor was nearing a fatal level.

The distance between them closed. Luchita backed away with a quick step, summoning another arrow to his bowstring.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing? If you want to die, just take some pills quietly or jump off a building. Why do you insist on dying at my hands?”

Bastille, though slow, continued to approach Luchita with steady steps.

“Do you want me to shoot an arrow into your heart or brain? If that’s what you want, I can oblige. You seem impossible to persuade anyway.”

Despite his words, Luchita kept a wary eye, his hand twisting the bowstring as if tightening a knot.

He planned to use his one-hit-kill skill, Matador, to pierce Bastille’s heart in an instant.

At that moment, his eyes met his target’s.

There was a deep darkness in Bastille’s emotionless eyes.

Luchita couldn’t release the bowstring he had pulled so tightly. Fear crept up from his legs, pulling him into a quagmire.

‘How can he stay so calm? Is he really trying to commit suicide? There’s not a single trace of magic power left here, so he definitely can’t use magic… There’s no reason for me to fear a magician who can’t use magic. Matador will definitely destroy his heart! But…’

The hesitation grew. Sweat trickled down his cheek.

Even as Bastille came within arm’s reach, Luchita couldn’t release his arrow.

That was when Bastille spoke.

“You’re wise. Your instincts as a hunter are still intact.”

Even as Bastille’s hand reached out to grab Luchita’s necklace, Luchita couldn’t move an inch.

‘I’m going to die…!’

If he made even the slightest wrong move, Bastille would kill him.

He didn’t know how it would happen. He had no idea how Bastille could kill him. With no access to magic, the power of his skills should have been limited.

He could probably kill ordinary guards, but Luchita was a returnee from Revenheim. He had protective skills against magical attacks. He was immune to skills like mind control or life drain.

But still…

Luchita’s instincts screamed from deep within him. Moving would mean death.

Until the very last drop of his magical power, until he could no longer sustain his magical arrows, Luchita remained motionless.

The magical arrows disappeared, and the empty bowstring snapped with a hollow twang.

Bastille, standing before the frozen Luchita, spoke.

“I abandoned magic. Magic was useless against those damned demons. I don’t need magic power or even air.”

“That means…”

“The Tower of Einshaten… It’s not the Tower of Light standing against the southern wall.”

Bastille lightly patted Luchita’s shoulder and resumed walking down the corridor.

Luchita remained standing until Bastille disappeared from sight. Then, he collapsed to the floor.

“Damn, I nearly pissed myself. Fight against something like that? I need to have a chat with Judah. And there’s another problem… That room has one of the keys.”

Grunting, Luchita stood up and hurried off in the opposite direction of where Bastille had vanished. The only good thing was that, unlike Bastille, he didn’t need to use the stairs.

After all, in modern times, there were the conveniences of elevators.

—

Bastille healed his body, which had been torn apart by the arrows.

He had spared Luchita, just as he had spared Judah.

It was his way of showing respect. These might have been comrades—warriors who had survived death hundreds of times in Revenheim.

If they tried to kill him, of course, he wouldn’t forgive them. But for now, he had decided to spare the returnees who had no intention of taking his life.

“A replica of a Dragon Heart…”

Bastille stopped walking for a moment.

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why such a thing would be wandering around Earth.

Of course, there could be a high-ranking alchemist among the returnees capable of refining a Dragon Heart replica.

The problem was time.

It was impossible to refine a 5-carat Dragon Heart within five days.

‘Unless… not all the returnees were summoned at the same timeline…’

Had some returned at a different point in time? The possibility existed, but there was no way to verify it.

He resumed walking. His slow, but unstoppable gait echoed down the long hallway like a plague-ridden specter.

After a while, he stopped at a certain place.

Transparent walls stretched out on either side of him. It was a hallway that resembled the detention area he had been trapped in earlier.

But what made Bastille pause was the sense of strangeness.

“This place…”

That was when a shadow suddenly dropped beside Bastille with a thud.

Bastille wasn’t surprised by the man’s appearance. He had sensed him several steps ago.

The man who had descended from the ceiling grinned.

His name was Leonhart, the Golden Lion of the North Wall. A companion of Bastille’s who had briefly separated from him.

“Heh, I always wanted to try it once. Sneaking through ventilation shafts. The ones here are really well-maintained, all clean and shiny like in the movies. The downside is, I almost fell to my death once because I didn’t realize how deep they were.”

“This is the 50th basement floor.”

“Really?”

Leonhart replied casually, and Bastille spoke.

“You came down.”

Leonhart shrugged his shoulders.

“What’s important must be deep down. After all the beatings we’ve taken to get here, it wouldn’t make sense not to run off with at least one or two treasures, right?”

Seeing Leonhart think the same way as him, Bastille couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Hmph.”

“Huh? Are you laughing? That wasn’t even a dad joke.”

“As if I’d enjoy something like that.”

“Anyway, I figured you’d be here. The whole base suddenly got chaotic, probably because the Master of the Tower of Einshaten made a move. If the KSA’s guards hadn’t been thrown into disarray, I wouldn’t have been able to get out.”

Bastille slowly nodded and then turned his head toward the transparent window.

“More importantly, that over there…”

Bastille touched the transparent wall with his hand. A plastic-like panel crumbled to pieces, and the two entered the room.

—

The space was several times larger than the detention center. Unlike the prison-like holding cells, this room resembled a research lab or an operating room.

Numerous monitors and computer equipment displaying biological data were connected to a cross-shaped frame at the center.

Bound to that cross was a figure in human form.

The being, with its arms and legs tightly fastened by metal clamps, hung limp with its head deeply bowed.

Leonhart pressed his fingers to the being’s carotid artery.

“It’s already dead.”

Rather than responding, Bastille carefully examined the surroundings.

Judging from everything so far, the one tied here had to be an awakened one or some kind of variant.

That’s when he noticed a gap near the neck area. Leonhart spotted it at the same time and pried it open.

“Gills? This guy… seems to be a merfolk. Now that I think about it, these are webbed hands.”

There was a faint, transparent membrane between the fingers.

“Did creatures like this originally exist on Earth? Or is it related to the returnees somehow…?”

Leonhart nodded at Bastille’s question.

“Could be both, but… I’d lean more toward the former.”

“What’s your reasoning?”

“Judah.”

“The returnee who was already part of the KSA.”

“Exactly. He said he returned with us, but he was already a part of the KSA. That means he was involved in this business even before going to Revenheim.”

Bastille glanced up at the ceiling.

A massive underground complex, 50 floors deep, couldn’t have been built in just a few days.

“Enough advanced magical science to create a replica of a Dragon Heart coexisting with modern technology? That’s hard to believe.”

“A replica of a Dragon Heart? That exists?”

Bastille nodded and shifted his gaze back to the merfolk’s corpse.

What on earth was the KSA doing here?

The merfolk had an IV needle inserted in its arm. Following the thin tube with his eyes, Bastille saw a rectangular container filled with liquid.

He pondered.

There was no way the body had been left unattended in a facility like this for days. The corpse showed no signs of decay. If the KSA had been experimenting on the merfolk, it was likely related to that unusual-looking container.

He reached out and took down the container.

“What’s inside?”

Leonhart came over and asked. Bastille brought the container close to his eyes, peering into the liquid.

There was something transparent moving inside. As soon as he saw it, Bastille frowned.

“It’s still alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“The tissue, I guess? The core is still alive… It doesn’t die so easily.”

Bastille handed the container to Leonhart.

Leonhart brought his eye to the small gap, just as Bastille had. At first, it wasn’t clear, but by adjusting the angle and catching the light, he saw something shimmering like a heatwave.

“Is this… a slime? No, that’s not it… Wait, this is…”

Leonhart glanced at Bastille, who was now staring straight at the merfolk’s corpse.

Leonhart followed his gaze.

What the KSA had been injecting into the merfolk’s body.

“…A queen.”

It was none other than the tissue of a Heart of Eclipse, the very being that creates the fissures.

Leonhart immediately hurled the container to the ground. The sound of shattering glass echoed, and the liquid spilled out.

Something hidden within the liquid quickly slithered away, seeking out a shadow.

Bastille spoke.

“A refined Heart of Eclipse… We had these in Revenheim too. Those lunatics.”

“Do you know what the KSA is planning?”

Leonhart asked, and Bastille slowly nodded.

“This is the real reason the southern wall fell.”