The Blood That Shouldn't Exist
The Murim Agency Cooperative Research Institute looked, from the outside, like nothing more than a clean gray building. Its glass exterior was perfectly straight, and the lobby lighting was dimmer than a hospital's yet colder than a corporate research wing. The moment one passed through the entrance, however, the air changed. The dust and wet concrete smell carried in from the redevelopment zone, along with the faint metallic tang of blood, vanished beneath the positive-pressure system and disinfectant at the doorway.
Inside the elevator descending to the underground isolation ward, Ha Yul remained silent. Seo Yujin was the same. Beside them, two sealed transport capsules sat motionless on low-noise wheels. The mutant's corpse, the blood crystal and tissue samples excised from the back of its cervical spine, and everything recovered from the equipment-layer disposal bins and machinery were all sealed inside.
When the elevator doors opened, the first thing visible was thick blast-proof glass. The isolation room walls lining both sides of the corridor were far more opaque than ordinary glass. The interior could still be seen, but beyond it stood rows of biological containment capsules: vertical units just large enough for a single person, wide table-style isolation beds, and sealed culture tanks. Some were empty; others were covered with black waterproof tarps or silver thermal sheets.
The automatic door at the end of the corridor slid open, and a woman stepped out from within. She wore a white lab coat over a black shirt. Even beneath the research attire, her figure was unmistakable—full breasts, a narrow waist, and soft, elegant curves throughout. Han Seia. Her hair was neatly tied back, and fatigue showed on her face, yet none of it disrupted her composure. She looked first at Yujin, then at the transport capsules, and finally gave Ha Yul a single brief glance before turning away.
"I heard it was a mutant that could speak."
There was no greeting, no small talk. She went straight to the heart of the matter. Yujin, as if she had expected this, handed over the documents. Seia accepted them and began flipping through page after page: scene diagrams, corpse photographs, shaft traces, the body found inside the duct, and captured connection logs from the equipment layer. With each turn of the page, her gaze grew steadily heavier.
"I've cleared out the third isolation dissection room downstairs," Seia said. "Let's bring the body up first. The blood crystal goes to a separate station."
Two researchers emerged from beyond the automatic door and took charge of the transport capsules. White gloves, face shields, calm and precise movements. Yet beneath those movements, tension was visible even to Ha Yul. The fact that the mutant could speak meant its brain was relatively intact, which in turn meant there was far more to analyze. It also meant that, despite being a mutant, it had been dangerously close to human.
At the center of the isolation dissection room stood a fixed autopsy table beneath low-hanging surgical lights. Disinfection spray nozzles and multiple recording cameras lined the ceiling corners, while one wall held biological response monitors, dissection assist equipment, and rows of sample vials. Beyond the blast-proof glass in the observation room, several researchers had already taken their seats and powered on their monitors.
The transport capsule opened, and the mutant corpse recovered from the equipment layer was transferred onto the table. Under the bright, cold lights, it looked even more repulsive than it had at the scene. At the site, blood, dust, and shadows had offered some concealment; the institute's lighting granted no such mercy.
Han Seia approached the table and examined the neck first. "Here it is." When she parted the incision marks at the back of the cervical spine with her gloved hand, the blood crystal embedded between the dark-red tissues came into view. Because they had removed it along with the surrounding tissue rather than extracting it on-site, its shape remained relatively intact. A small, black crystal. Yet it lacked the dryness of a mineral. Its surface was smooth, and within it, layers of what looked like partially frozen liquid clung together.
Yujin stepped into the dissection room. "We caught it upstairs. I'd say it's one level above the failures below."
"Language retention, attempted escape, high strength and regeneration," Seia murmured to herself.
Just then, the dissection room door opened again. Behind the quiet sound of the automatic door, a woman entered. Black hair, skin so pale it looked cold. Strikingly vivid red lips against a bloodless face. And at one corner of her mouth, a thin smile that could have been either amusement or mockery. Dang Seolhwa. Her lab coat hung loosely over a dark top with a slightly open collar. Her figure was slender but not frail; the lines of her body visible beneath the thin fabric were long and supple. Though her eyes looked tired, the fatigue only deepened her cool, seductive presence.
Seolhwa slowly scanned the corpse on the table, then gave a small laugh. "Well. At least they tried to hide it." She picked up a glove. "Doesn't look like they were planning to do it properly, though."
Leaving the body like this, dumped inside a redevelopment building in the middle of Jongno, felt less like concealment and more like a rushed, temporary measure. Whoever was behind this had been in a hurry. Or perhaps they had been confident they could simply move to the next facility even if discovered.
Seia glanced at Seolhwa, then immediately pushed the sealed blood crystal case toward her. "Analyze this."
"Any contamination from the field?"
"They minimized it."
"Lucky us."
Her hands stood out sharply against the black latex gloves. Though slender and long-fingered, the fingertips and knuckles bore the hardened wear unique to a martial artist's hands. These were not the hands of someone who only ever held a microscope instead of a blade. She lifted the blood crystal with tweezers and held it under the light. Even the researchers beyond the blast-proof glass kept their eyes fixed on their monitors.
Seolhwa examined the crystal's surface once, its cut face once, and the clinging biological tissue once more. Then she spoke quietly. "This… isn't a mineral. It's closer to coagulated biological matter. Not just hardened blood, either."
Her voice remained languid, yet a thin thread of interest ran through it. "It's an abnormal, high-density condensation of blood components."
Still holding the crystal, she continued. "Human blood itself isn't toxic. But when certain components become excessive, they turn poisonous." Several researchers exchanged glances at her words. Seia listened in silence. Seolhwa went on. "When metabolic byproducts accumulate, proteins deform, or neurotoxic substances reach supersaturation. Blood is a reactive system connected to the entire body. If even one part breaks down, it begins destroying the whole."
—That is what the Dang Clan uses.
Seolhwa continued. "We accumulate poison in the blood, regulate it through blood qi circulation, and fix it at the state just before the toxicity kills the body, then use it."
Her tone was calm, yet her words carried a strange resonance. Accumulating poison inside one's own body, gradually damaging the blood while maintaining control. It did not sound like any normal training method.
Seolhwa set the blood crystal back on the table and tapped its black surface with a fingertip. "But this one is the opposite."
Yujin asked, "Opposite how?"
"We create poison," Seolhwa said. "This, on the other hand, doesn't create poison. It forces the blood into overdrive."
Seia immediately brought up the AI analysis data on one of the monitors. Normal blood qi should plateau at a certain point, but the blood crystal showed no such restraint. Once it crossed a threshold, the curve spiked abnormally, triggering simultaneous tissue destruction and regeneration in an explosive reaction. It forcibly ruptured the body, then kept only what survived.
Seia spoke. "Blood qi condensation acceleration." Her finger traced one section of the graph. "Immediate blood flow disruption." The next section. "Accelerated regeneration." The next. "Mutation promotion."
Seolhwa stared at the monitor for a long moment before slowly nodding. "The Dang Clan's poison arts gradually damage the body." The corner of her red lips curved ever so slightly. "This… ruptures it all at once."
Yujin let out a sigh. "So the other side has quite a few people with skilled hands."
"Yes. This is the result of some kind of manufacturing process."
A process. Who made it, where it was supplied from, to what stage it was raised, and by what standard it was discarded. Seolhwa gazed at the blood crystal for a long while before suddenly lifting her eyes and turning toward Ha Yul.
"Something feels off, though."
Ha Yul looked at her. "What does?"
Seolhwa slowly scanned Ha Yul from head to toe. Even through the coat, the lines of her body were clear, her breathing quiet, her pupils steady. She didn't seem to be using any mutation suppressants. "I don't sense any poison from you."
Yujin's eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly. "Poison?"
Without taking her eyes off Ha Yul, Seolhwa said, "You look like you've been in a violent fight. Most martial artists would show mutation reactions. Yet this person doesn't seem to have used suppressants, nor does she give off the aura of a Peak Expert like Team Leader Seo Yujin…?"
She swept her gaze over Ha Yul's entire body once more and let her words trail off.
"I specialize in external arts. I don't use blood qi, so I'm far from mutation."
At that answer, several gazes in the dissection room naturally drifted toward Ha Yul. Seia showed interest as well. "Even if you only train external arts, it's still martial arts. After a fight like that, there should be minute mutation reactions. Even without using blood qi, traces should remain in the nervous or circulatory systems."
Seolhwa picked up the thread. "But there aren't any." A smile formed on her lips. "How curious."
Yujin, as if trying to divert attention from Ha Yul, changed the subject. "Let's examine it a bit more. It would be good if we could trace this."
Seolhwa gave a light shrug and returned to her work. And what everyone had half-expected was soon confirmed. The blood crystal had been artificially produced, and the angle of its insertion was standardized as well.
Seia said, "Moreover, this isn't an early stage. It seems standardization has already begun."
Seolhwa added as she removed her gloves, "They must have produced quite a lot." Her voice had grown colder than before. "This isn't the work of someone who's only done it a few times. Their hands are used to it."
The hands that had inserted these blood crystals had already opened the same spot countless times. How many people must have been sacrificed for those hands to become so practiced?
By the time all handover procedures were complete, the underground air felt even colder. Or perhaps it was Ha Yul's body that had begun to grow warm again, little by little.
When they left the institute, night had already fallen. The air above ground was far warmer than below, yet Ha Yul could barely feel it. The heat that came after a hunt was never fully extinguished by alcohol or sleep. The longer it was left alone, the more vividly it burned. At times like this, only another's body heat could make it recede.
Ha Yul paused briefly at the bottom of the institute's front steps. In the distance, cars passed by, while on the opposite sidewalk, people hurried home from late work. Some laughed, some spoke on phones, some carried convenience store bags. It was an ordinary night. Even as the world crumbled, people continued their usual routines. Perhaps that was why the scent of humanity still lingered.
Ha Yul drew in a slow breath. Then she reached the familiar conclusion.
Time to find a woman who could cool this heat.