What made the four team mbers' hearts sink was the fact that the younger Twin, whose brow had just been pierced by Yuuki Asuna's rapier, showed no change in expression at all. He rely spoke in a simple, honest tone.
"Brother, these four are really strong."
The elder Twin, whose skull had been split open with brain matter flowing out, also spoke in a slurred voice.
"Mm. They're troubleso. Let's get serious."
The mont those words fell, the already massive bodies of the Twin brothers suddenly began to swell at high speed.
"Second phase?"
Kato gumi, Yuuki Asuna, and Asagiri all retreated at once. Under their watchful eyes, the Twin brothers' bodies expanded until they were nearly four ters tall, then their muscles rippled violently before rapidly compressing again. When the transformation ended, they were actually shorter than before, only around 1.7 ters in height.
Their size had decreased, but Iwanaga Kotoko, who could directly sense their eerie aura, imdiately showed a wary expression and warned the others.
"Be careful. These two have suddenly beco much stronger. They're on a completely different level now..."
Before she could even finish, an afterimage flashed through her vision. The elder Twin had already rushed in front of her, his right arm whipping down toward her head with a ripping sound.
Bang!
A crimson figure arrived just after the attack began. Yuuki Asuna's scarlet cloak fluttered behind her as she used Gleaming Light to block the elder Twin's strike.
"Oh? So you're the fastest one."
After transforming, the Twin brothers' voices had completely changed. Their earlier slow, sowhat dull tone was gone, replaced by a cold rationality devoid of emotion.
"Damn it..."
Yuuki Asuna's brows knitted tightly, and she clenched her teeth. Even using all her strength, the Gleaming Light in her hand was still being slowly forced downward by the elder Twin's single arm.
"This guy's strength... it's way above mine..."
Yuuki Asuna's special class passive made her unsuitable for static defense like this, and yet—
"You're too weak."
The elder Twin suddenly spoke in a low voice.
"This one's ability should be that the faster she moves, the stronger she gets. Don't let her move."
"Understood, Brother."
Hearing that exchange, Yuuki Asuna's heart gave a violent jolt.
Weren't these two supposed to be ntal patients? How could their combat intelligence be this high?
After only one exchange, they had already deduced the nature of her class ability and imdiately co up with a targeted response.
Just as the younger Twin moved to support his brother, Asagiri stepped in and blocked his path.
"Your opponent is ."
"Move."
The younger Twin's speed was terrifying. He appeared in front of Asagiri in an instant, clenched his fist, and threw a direct, no-frills straight punch at his face.
"Too simple."
Asagiri sidestepped the punch, grabbed the younger Twin's arm, and executed a textbook shoulder throw, smashing the grotesquely muscular body into the ground. Then he planted one foot on the younger Twin's back. A faint golden light flickered in his eyes, and his voice carried a hint of excitent.
"I'll be taking this arm."
Crack.
Accompanied by the sound of tearing flesh and shattering bone, Asagiri directly ripped off the younger Twin's arm by force.
The elder Twin saw it happen and imdiately tried to go help, but the pressure on his hand suddenly vanished. When he turned back, Yuuki Asuna had already disappeared.
Iwanaga Kotoko's dark purple eyes shone as she condensed a mass of Black Particles and ford two IBMs, one clamping onto each of the elder Twin's thighs.
"Hiss..."
The elder Twin's eyes widened abruptly. Dense blood vessels burst across his eyeballs like writhing worms. He braced his legs and exerted force, and the supposedly indestructible IBM bodies imdiately began to crack.
But that mont of restraint was enough.
"Phantom!"
"Okay. Got it."
Even at such a tense mont, Kato gumi's voice remained as soft and calm as ever. Her actions, however, were another matter entirely. Standing seven or eight ters away, in the ideal range for maximum Throw power, she raised both arms high. A dark purple dagger was in her right hand, an Indian tomahawk in her left.
Then, with a sharp motion, she brought both arms down and hurled both weapons at the elder Twin at the sa ti.
Kato gumi had two hands. Naturally, she could throw two weapons at once.
The dagger was aid at the elder Twin's left eye.
The tomahawk was aid at his abdon.
Bang!
The elder Twin's raw strength was enormous, but with the IBMs locking his legs in place, he had no way to dodge Kato gumi's thrown weapons. His mushroom-like, overdeveloped body was blasted backward through the air.
"Violet!"
"Sword Skill..."
While the elder Twin's body was still airborne, Yuuki Asuna had already rushed in from the opposite side. This ti, she held the sword in her left hand. Her left hand was less skilled than her right, but against a target already suspended in midair, precise control was unnecessary. It was the better option, since even if her left wrist suffered from the recoil, her overall combat ability would remain intact.
"Stardust Splash!"
At full speed, all of Yuuki Asuna's physical abilities were heavily enhanced. As a result, the power of Stardust Splash reached its peak.
The elder Twin's body, durable enough that even Kato gumi's thrown weapons had only sunk a few centiters into it, was instantly shredded into fragnts beneath eight flashing sword lights.
"Brother!"
Seeing that scene, the younger Twin let out a furious roar.
"Why are you shouting so loudly?"
Asagiri shook his head impatiently. Then he summoned Human Asura, and together they began tearing the younger Twin's body apart like they were dismantling a set of building blocks.
If not for the flying blood and flesh, and the younger Twin's enraged screams, it almost would have looked oddly heartwarming.
"You're pretty tough to rip apart."
Once the younger Twin had been completely dismbered, Asagiri raised a hand as if wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh, sounding like an office worker finally returning ho after a miserable day.
"Ah. I worked hard."
Yuuki Asuna heard that and said in a slightly helpless tone,
"Couldn't you have just torn off its limbs and head? You had to pull the whole body apart piece by piece. That was obviously just malicious fun."
Before Asagiri could answer, Kato gumi, who had already retrieved her dagger and tomahawk, spoke calmly and went straight to the point.
"Violet, the fact that you can casually talk about tearing off soone's limbs and head... you don't seem very normal either."
"Uh..."
Yuuki Asuna was left speechless. She could only stare at the Twin brothers' body fragnts as they lted into bloody filth and seeped into the foul ground. Her brows furrowed tightly as she said,
"These two felt less like eerie beings, and more like..."
Asagiri crouched down and looked at the ground, then answered evenly,
"Special Infected, right?"
Yuuki Asuna looked slightly surprised, then reacted at once.
"Huh? You thought the sa thing?"
"Of course. Did you think I was tearing that guy apart just for fun?"
Asagiri stood up, dusted off his hands, and said calmly,
"I observed sothing. These two didn't bleed when they were injured, not because they were supernatural beings, but because the blood inside their bodies had already stopped flowing. Their internal organs also showed obvious signs of decay and necrosis."
"This..."
Iwanaga Kotoko's brows drew together as she imdiately grasped the implication behind his words.
"You an that if we temporarily ignore the influence of supernatural power, then from the standpoint of their physical structure alone... they were basically like Special Infected from a zombie Dungeon?"
"Yes. More or less."
Asagiri nodded and turned toward Iwanaga Kotoko.
"We can conclude it now. The force behind the so-called experint inside Kyozan ntal Hospital really was Black Watch, and the reagent ntioned in that diary, the one injected into the ntal patients, was the zombie virus."
Hearing that, Kato gumi could not help asking,
"Then why torture their souls? If the goal was just to create bio-weapons, there wouldn't be any need for that, right?"
"No. Think about it for a second, it's obvious..."
Yuuki Asuna's expression turned complicated as she murmured,
"Because pure physical damage can't completely eliminate supernatural-type enemies. What Black Watch wanted to create was a weapon that combined monstrous physical power with supernatural force. Sothing created by fusing biological evolution and supernatural power... a weapon with no weaknesses."
"I don't know whether that's even possible, but Black Watch clearly hasn't reached that stage yet."
Iwanaga Kotoko analyzed as she thought it through.
"That Groom only possessed supernatural power. His physical ability wasn't outstanding at all, so he was a failed experint. But the Twin brothers we just eliminated, and Chris Walker before them, were the complete opposite. Their physical bodies were incredibly powerful, but aside from being able to regenerate through the power of this supernatural area, and aside from the standard property of an eerie being that prevents complete elimination through physical ans, they had no physical ans of attack..."
[TL: Supernatural = Mage in RPG gas
Physical Power = Warrior in RPG gas]
Right as Iwanaga Kotoko was speaking, the world around them abruptly changed.
The scene before her, Yuuki Asuna, and Kato gumi shifted without warning.
They were still standing in the hall beside the elevator shaft, but the bloodstains across the floor and the shattered debris everywhere had vanished. In their place stood a spotless hall, the tiles so polished they reflected the light from the chandelier overhead, giving the place a soothing, almost comfortable atmosphere.
Orderlies in uniform, masks, and dical caps moved through the hall.
ntal patients wearing white straitjackets wandered nearby.
Doctors in white coats passed by.
"This is..."
Iwanaga Kotoko stared at the scene around them, inhaled the faintly pungent sll of disinfectant in the air, and her eyes sharpened with vigilance.
"An illusion... and not just one that affects sight. It's affecting sound and sll too…"
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 10–50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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