Chapter 90
Chapter 90
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: Necromancer of the Sword Clan
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"What the hell is that?"
In the control room, Orca watched the surveillance feed of the trap zone, tearing at his hair in utter disbelief.
Shin Yu-hyun was breezing through the traps that the Iron Forge Clan had poured their hearts into creating, dismantling them in the most absurd ways imaginable.
"No way... how can there be such a ridiculous bastard?!"
The traps lining the underground first-floor corridor were designed to take down superhumans.
As such, they packed an insane amount of power.
You could say they had practically plated the corridor in gold with how much money they'd thrown at it.
After all, the traps ran on mana.
They'd invested mana crystals without sparing a single one—crystals that cost a fortune.
Thanks to that, the traps hit like a truck.
No standard-issue barrier coat could hope to block them.
And every weapon was coated in expensive poison, so even the slightest wound meant death.
Yet this guy had sent skeletons ahead to neutralize every last trap.
It was beyond comprehension.
"But the second underground floor won't be so easy."
Orca ground his teeth, glaring at Shin Yu-hyun on the monitor like he wanted to kill him.
Shin Yu-hyun descended to the floor below.
The second underground floor was lined with countless corridors and rooms—research labs and experiment chambers, by the look of them.
It seemed this level was the Iron Forge Clan's research facility.
'Feels just like a dungeon.'
The interior design was sleek and modern, but the vibe was straight out of an ant colony.
From the labs lining the long corridors, grotesque monsters were crawling out.
Hweeeeaargh!
"These things..."
Shin Yu-hyun eyed the bizarre creatures that had appeared before him.
They had spider-like lower bodies fused with human torsos.
Magic beasts he'd never seen before.
But he'd encountered similar lifeforms.
"Chimeras, huh."
Crunch.
Shin Yu-hyun gritted his teeth.
Chimera lifeforms.
In his previous life, the Getia had toyed with humans by modifying them.
Human rights were a joke in the process.
They'd fuse humans with animals or insects, or even magic beasts.
The grotesque thing in front of him now looked like a human fused with a magic beast.
The silver lining—if you could call it that—was that it seemed devoid of reason.
The Chimera Spider's human male upper body had lost all rationality, its eyes glazed over.
Probably brain-dead from the experimentation process.
But the Getia were different.
Those bastards kept their victims' human reason intact even after turning them into chimeras.
Then they'd watch in delight as the experimental subjects despaired, their minds crumbling into madness.
The negative emotions produced in that process strengthened the Getia's souls.
"They're crossing the line. Filthy Iron Forge Clan scum."
Shin Yu-hyun burned with rage.
Fusing fellow humans with magic beasts?
What the Iron Forge Clan had done was an affront to humanity itself.
Kraaaargh!
At that moment, one Chimera Spider spotted Shin Yu-hyun and charged with a guttural screech.
But the Sabers stood in its path.
Kabooom!
The Chimera Spider with its spider body slammed into the Sabers' kite shields.
Screeech! Screeeeech!
The Chimera Spider thrashed to break through the Sabers, but it couldn't pierce the defensive formation formed by three of them.
In essence, the Sabers were sturdy tanks.
They held the front line in heavy armor and shields, absorbing attacks.
And from behind, the Skeleton Lancers thrust their spears.
Pu-pu-pung!
Kieeeek!
Four bone spears lanced through the gaps in the Sabers' kite shields, skewering the Chimera Spider's body.
Then the Sabers advanced with their shields forward, bringing their bone swords down on it.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Under the onslaught of relentless violence, the Chimera Spider lost limbs and perished.
Defeating the Chimera Spider brought up a system message before his eyes.
'Not classified as magic beasts, I see.'
The system didn't treat chimera lifeforms as magic beasts.
The Immortal King's Blessing was the same.
Dark Soul Eater wouldn't activate on non-magic beasts.
It harvested magic beast souls for soul points, after all.
Kieeeek!
As one Chimera Spider fell, the other chimera lifeforms in the corridor screeched at Shin Yu-hyun and his skeletons.
Chimeras with magic beast lower bodies and human upper bodies.
The results of the Iron Forge Clan's human experimentation came charging.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
The wide 3-meter, 5-meter-high corridor filled with all sorts of chimeras barreling down.
"Dia."
Shin Yu-hyun called out to Dia behind him without looking back.
"Meow!"
At his call, Dia curled up into a ball.
'Huh?'
Shin Yu-hyun glanced back at the sudden system messages.
The loaf dance? What kind of dance was that?
There was Dia, belly down on the floor with knees and elbows tucked in—like a cat loafing.
She wiggled side to side in that pose.
It was ridiculously cute.
Before, Dia's dances gave random buffs, but now they adapted to the situation.
Thud!
The Sabers ahead slammed their kite shields into the ground.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Soon, the Protect Guard-activated Sabers clashed with the chimeras.
With so many charging, the front ones got blocked by the Sabers and collided with those behind, turning into chaos.
Then the Skeleton Lancers began thrusting their bone spears.
Pu-pu-pung!
Kieeeek!
The chimeras pierced by the bone spears screamed.
The basic tactics hadn't changed from the Chimera Spider.
Just scaled up.
Sabers in groups of three layered two or three deep, Lancers stabbing long spears from behind.
'Like a phalanx.'
More precisely, Macedonian style—five Lancers in three ranks thrusting spears.
First rank straight ahead, second at a 15-degree angle upward, third at 45 degrees.
'Perfect for a place like this.'
Phalanxes lacked mobility, but in a narrow corridor, that didn't matter.
Advancing slowly with Sabers up front left the chimeras helpless.
Charging in just made them fodder for the Lancers' spears.
"Keep advancing."
Clank, clank.
At Shin Yu-hyun's command, the Sabers pushed forward with kite shields raised.
The dense formation of Skeleton Sabers and Lancers was like a heavy chariot.
Any that slipped past the Lancers' spears got bashed away by shield charges.
Like that, Shin Yu-hyun trailed behind with Dia, letting the skeletons handle it.
"What the—no, what is that now?!"
In the control room monitoring the second floor, Orca still looked flabbergasted.
What were these chimeras guarding the second floor?
Bio-weapons created by fusing magic beasts with humans in the Iron Forge Clan's labs.
The researchers studying magic beasts discovered some had bio-weapon traits.
With help from magic beast experts, they birthed chimera weapons.
These chimera weapons outclassed regular magic beasts of the same rank—top-tier, even.
Yet they were getting bulldozed like this.
"Filthy Heaven-Splitting Sword Clan trash..."
Orca gnashed his teeth, death-glaring Shin Yu-hyun on the monitor.
He'd identified the intruder from the feed.
That made it even more infuriating.
The guy rumored in the Heaven-Splitting Sword Clan to lack mana talent.
For trash like that to raid their base!
Just that fact put the Iron Forge Clan in crisis.
Their base location had never been exposed before, and allowing invasion was a massive blunder.
Who knew what punishment the Ashen Order would hand down.
They couldn't escape it.
'For now, I'll make sure to crush that bastard for good.'
Turn him into an experimental subject—neither dead nor alive, writhing in eternal agony.
'Just the residential area on the third floor and labs on the fourth left?'
The control room was on the fifth.
Two floors remained, but the residential area had no means to stop him.
The fourth-floor labs, though—that could hold.
The clan's elite forces were waiting there.
"Oh yeah, that thing."
Suddenly, Orca's lips curled up. He'd thought of a way to block the third-floor residential area.
"Captain, you're not thinking of using that, are you?"
One operator reacted in shock to Orca's mutter.
"Yeah. Might as well test it out now."
"But isn't it too dangerous? Without the executives, it's hard to contain..."
The operator shuddered.
The Iron Forge Clan's researchers had a prototype from the chimera project.
It went berserk, causing massive damage, but the executives were all at HQ by luck and subdued it.
Otherwise, the clan would've been nearly wiped out.
"Shut up and release it. We need to take that guy down first!"
Orca snapped irritably.
Neutralizing Shin Yu-hyun took priority over the prototype.
"And I've got insurance on that thing anyway. If needed, we use it."
The prototype was dangerous.
Its unique skill made it immortal—even death couldn't stick.
And an immortal body was prime research material for extending human lifespan.
So they'd kept it alive with insurance for contingencies.
When else would they use the prototype if not now?
"A-alright."
In the end, the operator followed orders and released it into the third-floor residential area.
Weee-oong! Weee-oong!
In one spot on the third-floor residential area.
The emergency light on the connected steel door flashed wildly, blaring alarms.
And the steel door slowly opened, revealing something.
"Hmm."
Meanwhile, Shin Yu-hyun, who had reached the third-floor residential area, wore a pitying expression.
"Thank you for saving us."
"Big bro, thank you!"
"Tank you so much."
Before Shin Yu-hyun stood children not even ten years old yet.
Kidnapped by the Iron Forge Clan for use as test subjects.
Sensing suspicious presences at the residential entrance, he'd checked thinking researchers remained—only to find the kids.
'Utter scum.'
Shin Yu-hyun inwardly cursed the Iron Forge Clan as he patted the children's heads.
"Listen to this big sister and brother, okay?"
He entrusted them to Dia and Ka-mang-i.
The kids looked up at him with sparkling eyes.
They knew he was their savior.
Their cuteness brought a smile to his face.
"Big bro."
Then the oldest-looking girl among them tugged his coat and spoke.
"What's wrong?"
Shin Yu-hyun asked in the gentlest tone he could muster.
To him, the girl spoke with teary eyes.
"Please save my little sibling!"