Chapter 248
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 248
Chapter Title: Is This All There Is?
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Even if they used the ingredients and recipe for Nectar, a failure should still have produced some kind of narcotic.
But to reduce someone who'd only ingested it less than ten days ago to this state? That made it closer to poison than any drug.
In other words, the one who made this had never intended to recreate Nectar in the first place.
They'd simply borrowed the recipe to exploit its addictive properties.
Who had modified it like this?
And what was the purpose behind creating such a drug?
Maia, lost in thought with her brows furrowed, suddenly snapped her eyes wide open.
"Everyone, step back."
"Pardon?"
Arvela wore a puzzled expression at Maia's abrupt order, and the other researchers looked equally baffled.
Still, they reflexively retreated.
No matter the reason, obeying the princess's command was their duty.
They learned why she'd given the order right after.
DRRRR!
"What?!"
"The test subject...?"
The test subject, who had merely thrashed meaninglessly in its restraints moments ago.
The golden needles embedded in its body suddenly pushed out on their own, and then its muscles began to swell across its entire frame.
The growth was so rapid.
Not only did its height shoot past three meters in an instant.
The researchers gasped in horror as the test subject ripped off the metal restraints binding it—restraints that should have held it fast.
But Maia, standing right in front of it, didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.
Instead, she curled her lips in a cold sneer.
"So this was the goal after all."
"GRRRRAAAAH!"
Whether offended by her mocking smile.
Or seeking revenge for being treated like a lab rat.
The giant tore the gag from its mouth and swung a massive fist at Maia with a savage roar.
The ferocious strike tore through the air with a ripping sound—but it was blocked.
Tok.
Not by a slender arm that looked like it would snap under pressure.
Not by a gloved hand.
Just a single finger.
Maia extended her index finger straight, and the fist halted dead upon touching its tip. The giant's eyes bulged as it stared in disbelief, and Maia asked softly,
"Is this all there is?"
"...!"
Whether it sprouted four arms.
Or spewed fire from its mouth.
She urged it to show anything else it had.
Speaking without a hint of emotion, observing it like a lab mouse, Maia watched as the giant frantically tried to pull its fist back.
But it wouldn't budge.
Even with just one finger touching it.
Trapped like it was pinned under a thousand-ton weight, panic and terror surged through the giant.
Forcing it down with the violence and madness boiling inside, the giant opened its maw.
"GRRRRAAAAAHHH!"
"KYAAAH!"
Crack, drrrrk!
A deafening roar erupted, followed by an echo-like bellow that brought one wall of the lab crashing down.
Dozens of test subjects, confined in isolation chambers.
All of them transformed into giants, snapping their restraints and charging out.
From massive desks to heavy medical equipment, they bulldozed everything in their path as dozens barreled toward Maia.
The giant, grinning ferociously at its threatening comrades, suddenly widened its eyes.
Its wrist was caught in Maia's grip.
The world flipped upside down in an instant, its body floated weightlessly, and something whooshed past in a blur.
Then, collision.
KABOOM!!
"A little over one ton in weight. And durability... quite sturdy, I see."
The giant flew like a skipping stone, toppling the other test subjects like bowling pins.
Maia nodded approvingly at their unscathed forms despite impacts that would pulverize any normal human.
"GRRRAAH!"
Enraged at being tossed like a toy.
The giant hauled itself up with a roar and charged Maia again, the others following suit.
Maia sneered at them.
She grabbed a handful of golden needles from a nearby box and scattered them.
An utterly simple motion.
But the results from those lightly flung needles were anything but.
Shwick shwick shwick!
"Gr, GRRRHK!"
The needles plunged deep into necks shielded by skin that could deflect bullets.
The giants stiffened rigid and collapsed in pathetic heaps.
They roared and struggled to move, but the needles in their necks denied them even that freedom.
It took only a few minutes.
Before the researchers could recover from their daze at the group rampage being quelled faster than a cup of tea could brew.
Arvela snapped to her senses and rushed to Maia's side.
"Your Highness! Are you alright?"
"Do you think vermin like these could harm me?"
"Of course not, but Your Highness, you..."
Arvela trailed off, her face etched with worry. Maia replied coldly,
"Enough pointless fretting. Prepare restraints for high-level Players."
"...You're saying they've reached at least high-level Player strength?"
"Precisely."
"How is that even possible?"
Arvela couldn't hide her astonishment.
These test subjects were originally low-levels under Level 30 at best, with the giant being a mid-tier Level 50-something.
For them to leap to high-level Player status was more impossible than a chicken turning into a phoenix overnight.
"That's what we'll investigate from now on."
Dissect them, experiment on them—uncovering the unknown was a researcher's duty, wasn't it?
Arvela nodded at Maia's cynical words.
"True enough. Then I'll prepare the restraints right—"
She froze mid-sentence, face hardening.
Maia followed her gaze and narrowed her eyes.
The giant, pinned immobile by the needle moments ago, was rising again.
The needle hadn't been pulled out.
Instead, its entire spine had burst out the back, where the needle was lodged.
And in its neck, writhing in place of the spine, was something golden.
Maia's eyes gleamed.
'Artificial nerves? It improvised an organ to bypass the paralyzed spine?'
"GRRRRAAAAH!"p>
Fueled by repeated humiliations.
The giant roared madly and reached sideways.
It seized another test subject whose spine had similarly erupted, then hurled it straight at Maia.
Thud.
Maia's response was simple.
Just like blocking the giant's fist, she extended one hand and caught it.
But even as its ally-toss ace in the hole failed, the giant grinned ear to ear.
The caught test subject's body trembled violently, then flushed golden.
KABOOOOOM!
The body exploded.
Blood, bones, and flesh sprayed out.
It was pure self-destruction.
Turning its own flesh into a bomb, transforming every drop of blood and scrap of meat into lethal shrapnel—a horrific, all the more deadly tactic.
No one could survive being caught in that blast—not even Maia.
So the giant believed.
...Until it saw the blood and flesh not scattering everywhere, but instead sucked into Maia's hand.
Thump.
"Self-detonation. A fittingly base tactic for an assassin sent by that one."
An enormous explosion had just gone off in her grasp.
Yet Maia casually dropped the lump of mingled gore as if nothing happened, fixing the giant with icy eyes.
"Resorting to this means you have nothing left to show, right?"
Capturing one for study would be tricky if it self-destructed, so if there was nothing more, she'd dispose of it now.
The giant hesitated at Maia's calm declaration, as if outlining an experiment protocol.
Grinding its teeth, it hurled another test subject.
KABOOM!
Detonating one more.
BAM, KABOOm!
Two at once.
KA-KA-KABOOOM!
Staggered blasts from several flung simultaneously.
Treating comrades as mere human bombs, the giant flung them wildly, and the test subjects obliged with chain detonations.
As if their lives meant nothing so long as they could land even a scratch on Maia.
Futile struggling.
No matter how many exploded.
Maia swept her hand, drawing every bit of gore into her grasp.
As over ten chunks piled at her feet, despair twisted the giant's face.
"...Cough!"
Maia's hand paused.
A violent cough and surging pain disrupted her psionics for an instant.
A fleeting lapse.
Normally a mild seizure that would fade without meds.
But the giant didn't miss the opening in this split-second battle.
"GRRRAH!"
With its roar, the remaining test subjects swarmed Maia, their bodies turning golden.
"Your Highness!"
KA-KA-KA-KABOOOOOM!
The lab's ceiling crumbled in the greatest shockwave yet.
Even this lab, built to withstand major impacts, couldn't endure a dozen simultaneous self-destructs.
Fortunately, Maia emerged unscathed from the blast.
Her princess-grade physique, psionics, and one more factor had protected her.
"You, Highness, are you sa..."
...Arvela, the human shield who panicked at Maia's seizure, rushed in, and shielded her with her body.
Even though Maia had forcibly redirected psionics to absorb most of the debris at the last moment.
Arvela, riddled with holes from the remaining gore, vomited blood and fainted. Maia was aghast.
"You fool...!"
Her usual cynicism vanished.
Maia hurriedly stabbed seven golden needles into Arvela's acupoints to staunch the bleeding.
Then placed her hand on Arvela's chest and infused psionics.
Rumble rumble.
Regeneration began.
Ruptured organs knit together.
Gaping wounds sealed shut.
Embedded bone shards and flesh pushed out.
The Green Dragon Clan's pinnacle psionic master, Maia, resonated with Arvela's psionics to heal her wounds.
A power befitting the Jade Dragon Princess, hailed as the world's top healer before the Divine Sovereign appeared.
One problem.
As Arvela's wounds regenerated, Maia's face rapidly paled.
But Maia ignored it, continuing the infusion.
Even as the giant exploited the gap and charged.
As the giant swung its massive fist at Maia, focused on healing Arvela.
SPLAT!
—A fierce bursting sound rang out, and bright red blood splattered across the floor.