Chapter 302

Chapter 302
## Chapter 302

Of Vampires, Elves, and Experiments (3)

Across the infinite expanse of the multiverse, the titles bestowed upon those who breached the ultimate ceiling of power were as varied as the stars.

The Unfathomable Realm, the Great Master, the Cosmic Awakened, the Monarch, the Grand Magus, or the Deathless One.

Minor distinctions existed between these classifications, yet they converged on a singular truth: every individual bearing such a title had shattered their mortal constraints to ascend into a superior state of existence.

Some reached this apex through grueling discipline and the cultivation of esoteric arts; others wielded reality-warping intrinsic talents, while some inherited the concentrated destiny of ancient, illustrious bloodlines.

Regardless of the path, these transcendent entities held absolute dominion over their native realms. Earth, serving as the grand crossroads where countless dimensional realities intersected, followed the exact same law.

‘Unrivaled strength… is effectively the purest form of sovereignty.’

Yet, naturally, a clear gradient of authority existed even among those who had breached that ultimate barrier.

A prodigy who ruled supreme in a local academy might find themselves floundering at the very bottom of an elite institution; hierarchy was an inescapable cosmic constant.

‘Furthermore, the ascended champions of Earth generally possess a flimsier foundation compared to outliers from foreign realms.’

This discrepancy was unavoidable, given that their advancement was heavily facilitated and streamlined by the interventions of the system.

In a manner of speaking, they were structurally uniform, mass-produced elites.

‘Granted, my own incarnations capitalized on the system’s architecture, but still… ’

Harley had forced his way past the biological limits of mortality, integrating the volatile essence of ‘madness’ into his very fiber. Meanwhile, Harris had achieved perfect resonance with the natural order via the grace of the World Tree, supplementing his prowess with the martial legacies of Ganghwange.

Their sheer combat efficacy made it impossible to categorize them alongside ordinary ascendants.

Eradicating the surviving hostiles in this zone would be child’s play for either of them.

Concurrently, Heinz the Second—a formidable transcendent in his own right—was in the absolute throes of an unprecedented metamorphosis.

“Haa… Haa…”

His respiration came in ragged, heavy cycles, forcing plumes of dark crimson mist from his mouth to dissolve into the surrounding atmosphere.

Positioned before the shattered, crumbling remains of the ‘Duke’, his physical form vibrated violently as he fought to suppress and direct the cataclysmic reserves of power rampaging through his pathways.

The Duke, an entity of equivalent narrative weight, could not simply be forced into submission through conventional means.

Heinz had been left with no alternative but to thoroughly extract and absorb every drop of the master’s lifeblood.

Anticipating this precise necessity, he had proceeded without a shred of reluctance.

‘I suspected as much… ’

Yet, in the immediate aftermath,

The sheer magnitude of the biological rejection caught him off guard, locking his joints and anchoring him to the earth while he desperately attempted to realign his internal currents.

Had Harley and Harris not been actively suppressing the peripheral battlefield, this vulnerability would have proved catastrophic.

‘I would have been forced to trigger Dismissal… ’

The stolen life force boiled within his vessels, surging with an independent, predatory consciousness.

「Blood Ancestor」, the bedrock of his metaphysical identity, flared into absolute prominence, radiating its dominant authority across every interconnected progression pathway.

「Hybrid Evolution」, 「Blood Mystery」, and 「Refined Blood Essence」…

These distinct traits merged in a complex lattice, systematically neutralizing individual flaws, amplifying overlapping strengths, and forcing a collective evolutionary leap.

Inevitably, his outer physical vessel began reshaping itself to accommodate the higher energy profile.

Crack— Pop! Crunch!

The grueling process stretched on across a substantial window of time.

Just as the adjacent skirmishes were drawing to a definitive close,

《An uncatalogued blood matrix has been integrated. The subject’s conceptual signature is becoming highly pronounced through the mechanics of the unique trait “Hybrid Evolution”.》

《The subject’s accumulated reservoir of global Karma has surpassed the critical threshold.》

…The long-delayed systemic alerts finally materialized in his field of vision.

The notifications did not stop there, however.

Fresh lines of data rapidly cascaded beneath the primary alerts.

《All core attributes have experienced a monumental surge.》

《The subject has satisfied the prerequisite criteria for fundamental growth. The unique trait “Bloodline Craving” has officially transitioned into “Return to Origin”.》

Then,

As an internal reservoir expanded to its absolute limit, threatening to shatter his mortal shell from within—.

《The subject has successfully finalized awakening. Racial classification has shifted to ‘Vampire (Divine Blood)’.》

…The ultimate objective had been realized.

—

“Ugh…”

“Thinking you could flee? You would have slipped past me if this boundary wasn’t locking things down.”

A breathless, dying whimper was cut short by a rumbling, gravelly voice filtering through the dense foliage.

Crack!

Following a sharp, brutal fracture of bone, an immense, towering barbarian emerged from the undergrowth, dragging a fresh prize.

Harley, shrinking back down to his baseline proportions, meticulously gathered the remains of his targets—including the broken form in his grip—before surveying the immediate perimeter.

‘I’ve secured an abundance of raw materials for Hans. Every single specimen is premium grade.’

Simultaneously, he had dealt a crippling blow to the operational assets of the Heaven’s Turn Society.

The enemy group had never anticipated being isolated and methodically executed within the boundaries of their own tactical perimeter.

It was a beautifully ironic conclusion.

“Now then…”

Harley rubbed his jawline beneath the stylized beast mask that obscured his features.

In earlier days, he would have immediately fallen upon the casualties to gorge on their flesh and restore his reserves… but with his current ability to directly assimilate raw madness, physical hunger was non-existent.

He remained entirely capable of maintaining a prolonged engagement if required.

“…Time to settle the remaining details.”

However, Harley’s specialized talent lay strictly in total theater devastation; he lacked the finesse required for delicate cleanup operations.

Another individual was far better equipped for the current phase.

‘Hmm.’

Perched comfortably upon an overhead branch, Harris utilized 「Watcher of the Milky Way」 to scan the vast woods, giving a slow, calculated nod.

‘The fighting has ceased.’

He lightly brushed his fingers against the vibrant, swirling spirits drifting around his silhouette, then cast his gaze toward the massive barrier locking down the forest.

‘Remarkable durability. Still holding its structure after a shockwave of that scale… quite a piece of work.’

The structure was frayed, unstable, and hovering on the verge of total collapse… yet its ability to maintain coherence after absorbing such immense structural trauma was highly commendable.

Furthermore, its deployment had been near-instantaneous.

‘…This bears the signature of the Doctor, doesn’t it? Which means he is likely monitoring the interior dynamics through the network matrix… ’

Harris cocked his head to the side, his features adopting a slow, detached expression.

He had caught the distinct sensation of an external observer probing the zone when the barrier’s frequency fluctuated during the peak of the fighting.

Anonymity was no longer a priority anyway; he intended to operate openly in the near future.

Even so, the sensation of being a spectacle for an unseen voyeur was distinctly unappealing.

‘…The barrier’s integrity has decayed significantly. I can likely slip a spiritual entity through the gaps.’

Such a maneuver would have been utterly blocked had the network been operating at optimum capacity.

The current structural degradation changed the math entirely.

Furthermore, spirits possessed no physical mass, lowering the entry threshold significantly.

‘Excellent. If I execute this with precision… ’

Whoosh—

A sharp, localized vortex materialized.

Harris meticulously calibrated his internal energy, guiding Pascal, the Greater Wind Spirit, directly through the microscopic fractures in the barrier.

The energetic wall flickered defensively, attempting to register the intrusion, but Harris successfully masked the entity by applying the neutralizing, fluid tenets of the 「Gentle Eight Trigrams Secret Art (Modified)」.

‘Go, Pascal. Scout the urban perimeter thoroughly and identify any anomalous focal points. There must be a physical anchor anchoring this barrier grid nearby.’

His deployment to the European theater had been orchestrated specifically to facilitate Heinz’s ascension.

That fundamental benchmark had just been crossed.

Now, the Doctor—an entirely separate high-priority target—had actively injected himself into the equation.

‘Pascal’s status as a Highest-rank spirit guarantees a comprehensive sweep of the metropolitan area in record time.’

An invisible, freezing current tore through the air, surging directly toward Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, which had been Heinz’s original destination.

—

A massive holographic projection flickered endlessly against the reinforced wall of the laboratory.

The Doctor, relying heavily on the perceptive amplification of the 「Eye of Truth」, remained completely transfixed by the visuals, his focus entirely consumed by the violent engagement in the woodlands.

He refused to blink, desperate to catalog every micro-expression and kinetic exchange.

His physiology was far beyond that of an ordinary human, preventing his retinas from burning out, yet his eyes were heavily bloodshot, strained, and visibly erratic.

“…A variable physical mass? What are the exact implications for his muscular density? The displaced earth implies an immense weight… Is he shifting local gravitational fields? Extrapolating from the kinetic craters and energy displacement, his baseline weight must scale past a metric ton. In that scenario, how does his skeletal arrangement withstand…”

Huu— Huu—

The frantic analysis poured from his lips in a continuous, breathless stream, his tone dripping with a manic fervor that made his posture look deeply unhinged.

His pupils, burning with an unhealthy, obsessive light, locked onto a single target, mentally deconstructing its anatomy.

He bore the exact profile of a lethal stalker utterly consumed by a fixation.

Which was accurate, given his history.

“…What? It’s concluded already? And the rest of the unit… Tsk, completely useless chaff!”

The final resolution of the engagement—a total rout for the Heaven’s Turn Society—only served to ignite his irritation.

The operational survival of the continental branch meant absolutely nothing to him.

His anger stemmed exclusively from the fact that his live observation of the primary specimen had been prematurely cut short.

“I placed far too much faith in that Duke! I assumed his baseline capabilities were at least respectable! To be dismantled so effortlessly… Wait, what is happening there? Oh…”

Midway through his tirade, his attention, which had been locked onto Harley’s structural mechanics, finally drifted to an adjacent quadrant of the monitor.

There, he caught sight of Heinz, who was experiencing a violent, tectonic evolution after harvesting the Duke’s essence.

“…That specific phenomenon…”

A shadowy figure, entirely submerged within a towering, oceanic column of dark crimson energy.

The Doctor’s gaze reignited with an even more volatile intensity.

A apex vampire systematically absorbing the raw genetic code of another apex vampire!

Furthermore, both subjects operated at level 9, representing the absolute pinnacle of their respective regional hierarchies!

This was a data point that could not be replicated.

“Oh… Ohhh?!”

The sight was nothing short of miraculous.

An astronomical concentration of sanguinary authority, possessing a purity that defied any of his existing metrics, swirled in a violent maelstrom around the evolving immortal.

Yet, a profound sense of deprivation immediately cut through his scientific euphoria…

“Ahhh—! Damnit! This is insufficient! I should have established a physical presence! I needed to record this progression with my own senses!!”

…The surrounding energy field was simply too dense and opaque, completely obscuring the internal cellular and structural adjustments occurring within the subject’s anatomy.

Even the state-of-the-art scrying artifact generating the projection had reached its processing limit.

An observer could not hope to parse a transcendent phenomenon of this magnitude through a secondary relay.

“Aaaagh! A tragic loss of pristine data!”

He slammed his fists against his sternum in unbridled irritation, his voice escalating into a harsh, maddened screech.

Yet, his eyes never veered from the screen.

“Two distinct, priceless specimens…! And I am entirely incapable of securing either for containment?! That incompetent Duke ruined the entire configuration! A useless, crawling parasite! I should have harvested his entire biological reservoir myself—!”

As his mind spun out in fury, his focus abruptly shifted to a different variable.

Both targets were masterful anomalies.

But what of the remaining entity on the field?

He recalibrated his feed to monitor another sector of the barrier network, and…

“Oh? Oooh!”

…A sharp gasp caught in his throat as his 「Eye of Truth」 registered a figure that seemed perfectly interwoven with the local biosphere.

“That… it’s authenticated! Incredible! A genuine, unadulterated planar traveler walking upon Earth!”

His specialized vision, capable of piercing through any tier of illusion or concealment, provided absolute verification.

This was no mere polymorph or illusionary construct. It was an entity birthed from an entirely separate cosmic dimension, its core fundamental matrix completely foreign to this world.

He could not decipher the granular details due to the target’s excessive level profile, but the foundational reading was undeniable.

“An elf! A creature I have long desired to dissect! They are entirely absent from my native realm! This is a monumental blessing!”

The Doctor shouted aloud, his voice vibrating with frantic adoration and scientific zeal.

Yet, the manic high vanished as quickly as it arrived. The sobering reality that he lacked the immediate means to capture them settled in, causing his features to twist into the sour expression of a toddler deprived of a coveted prize.

Three unprecedented masterpieces had manifested simultaneously within his domain, yet all three remained entirely out of his reach. It was an agonizing realization.

His internal temperament violently fluctuated until, entirely choked by a mixture of rage and intense longing, he gripped his chest in sudden agony.

“Ugh!”

A dark line of blood leaked from the corner of his lips, dripping down onto the pristine laboratory floor.

He ground his teeth together, his gaze radiating an unquenchable, absolute possessiveness.

While the Doctor remained completely paralyzed by his fixation on the holographic stream,

A barely perceptible, knowing smirk curled the lips of one of the entities on his monitor—Harris.

‘Located.’

The search had proven immensely taxing.

Bucharest, which served as the command hub for the Heaven’s Turn Society’s continental operations, was saturated with false signatures and cloaked safehouses reinforced by defensive boundaries.

However, by channeling his absolute consciousness through Pascal, Harris had successfully isolated a microscopic, real-time feedback loop tethered to the active forest barrier.

Had the observer not kept the channel open to monitor the fight, locating the origin source would have taken far longer.

‘Now then… ’

Every second was critical.

The freshly ascended True Blood monarch,

The premier and solitary level 10 vampire to walk the modern Earth,

…was prepared to initiate his deployment.