The moment Erza saw Yuuta being dragged across the floor by his hair—his small, broken body leaving trails of blood on the cold metal—something inside her snapped.
Her aura rose.
It was not the controlled, focused aura she used in battle. It was not the cold, deadly pressure she wielded against her enemies.
It was raw. Primal. Unstoppable. The air around her grew heavy, thick with a rage so ancient and so absolute that it seemed to bend the very light. The machines flickered. The tubes trembled. The beings in the room, who had been so confident, so cruel, so certain of their own power, paused.
But they did not see her. They could not see her. She was a ghost in this memory, a witness to horrors that had already happened, powerless to intervene, powerless to save, powerless to do anything except watch.
And watch she did.
They had been torturing Yuuta for years. She could see it in his body—in the scars that crisscrossed his skin like a map of suffering, in the way his bones had been broken and healed and broken again, in the way his flesh had been cut and burned and peeled and stitched. He was covered in wounds—some old, some fresh, some still weeping blood and fluid. His body was a canvas of cruelty, each mark a testament to the evil that human hands could do.
And yet he was alive. Conscious. Aware. Terrified of everything around him.
The other scientists watched him the way farmers watched a goat being led to slaughter—with casual indifference, with cold curiosity, with smiles that did not reach their eyes. They were enjoying this. They were enjoying his fear, his pain, his helplessness. They had created this suffering, and they were proud of it.
The dark elf watched him with something that might have been admiration. Her eyes traced the lines of his body, the marks of her own art, the patterns she had carved into his flesh with surgical precision. She had been the one who had flayed his arms, who had removed his nails, who had driven spikes into his palms. She remembered every cut, every tear, every scream. And she was proud of her work.
Yuuta saw her. His eyes went wide with terror, and he tried to cover his veins—the places where she had cut deepest—as if he could protect himself from her just by hiding. But he was wrong. She was not interested in him now. Not anymore. Her part was done. Now it was time for the chief scientist to see if the fruit was ripe.
Erza watched. Her eyes were hollow now, dead, focused on revenge. She memorized every face, every feature, every detail of every being in this room. She would remember them. She would find them. And she would make them pay.
The half-human scientist held his hammer, testing its weight in his hand, and Yuuta flinched—his entire body recoiling from the memory of blows that had been struck thousands of times before. The hammer had been his tormentor, his nightmare, his constant companion in the dark. Every time he saw it, his body remembered. Every time he heard the sound of metal on metal, his bones ached. The trauma was so deep, so ingrained, that even the sight of the hammer was enough to make him weep.
The vampire surgeon lifted her wine glass, the red liquid inside catching the light, and Yuuta's terror deepened. He had seen that glass before. He had watched it fill with his own blood, had felt the needle slide into his veins, had felt his life drain away drop by drop. He did not know what was real anymore and what was memory. He only knew that he was afraid.
They were enjoying it. All of them. They were watching him, studying him, cataloging his reactions like scientists observing an experiment. They were enjoying the trauma they had planted in his small human body, the fear they had cultivated, the pain they had perfected.
The five high beings reached the tubes.
The center tube was empty, filled with a strange, glowing fluid that pulsed with an light that was almost alive. The other tubes—dozens of them—lined the walls, each one containing a different creature, a different experiment, a different source of energy. Wires ran from every tube to the center, converging on the empty chamber like veins leading to a heart.
The dwarf scientist was at the controls, his thick fingers hovering over buttons and levers, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. They all had.
They grabbed Yuuta by his hair and lifted him off the ground.
He screamed. The sound was raw, primal, torn from somewhere deep inside him—a sound that should not have been able to come from a child. His body convulsed, his legs kicking weakly, his hands reaching out for something to hold onto. There was nothing.
He cried. He begged. He did not understand why the world was so cruel, why he had been chosen for this, why no one would help him. He was hopeless, broken, lost.
They removed his clothes while he was still suspended in the air, his hair twisted in the scientist's grip. The man who did it was tall—over six feet—with hands that had torn apart countless bodies. He grabbed Yuuta's rags and ripped them away with a single, brutal motion.
The force was so powerful that it reopened wounds that had never fully healed. Scars that had been closed for months split open, bleeding fresh. Cuts that had been stitched tore apart, exposing the raw flesh beneath. The fabric of the cloth was stuck to his skin in places, glued by dried blood and pus, and when it was torn away, it took pieces of him with it.
Yuuta screamed again.
His body was covered in wounds—so many that there was barely any unmarred skin left. Burns and cuts and bites and punctures. Bruises that bloomed purple and black across his ribs, his back, his thighs. Blisters that had been popped and left to fester. Marks that had been carved into his flesh with deliberate, artistic cruelty.
Not even his private parts had been spared.
They had hurt him everywhere. Everywhere. There was no part of his body that had not been violated, no inch of his skin that had not been cut or burned or torn.
Erza's eyes filled with tears.
She had seen war.
She had seen death. She had seen things that would drive ordinary people mad. But she had never seen anything like this. This was not cruelty. This was something else.
This was evil. Pure, absolute, unforgivable evil.
They were absolutely the worst of God's creation. Even hell would reject them.
The doctor—still holding Yuuta by his hair, still smiling that cold, cruel smile—leaned close to his ear.
"Does it hurt, my little Karma?" he asked. "Does it really hurt that much?"
Yuuta sobbed. "Yes. Zero is hurt. Karma Zero is hurt, Doctor. Please. Please make it stop."
The doctor nodded toward the tube. "Karma, do you see that tube? If I toss you in there, you will be healed."
Yuuta's eyes—the one that was not swollen shut—widened with desperate hope. He had been hurt for so long.
He had been in pain for so long.
He had forgotten what it felt like to be without it. And now, finally, there was a chance.
"Will Zero be healed?" he asked, his voice small, fragile, trembling.
The scientists smiled.
They exchanged glances—knowing glances, cruel glances. They knew what was about to happen. They knew that the tube would heal him, yes. But it would also destroy him. It would keep him balanced on the edge between life and death, between healing and torment, between hope and despair.
They tossed him in.
The fluid closed over his head, and for a moment, he was gone. Then his body rose to the surface, suspended in the glowing liquid, his wounds beginning to close, his bones beginning to knit, his flesh beginning to mend.
But even as he healed, the fluid began to destroy him. It was a balance—a careful, deliberate balance between healing and harming, between saving and destroying. He would never be fully healed. He would never be fully broken. He would exist in between, forever, trapped in a body that was both mending and falling apart.
Yuuta thrashed inside the tube, his small body convulsing against the glass, his mouth open in a scream that the fluid swallowed whole. The scientists had added something to the liquid—something that burned. Salt. Gallons of it. Enough to turn the healing fluid into a river of fire that seeped into every wound, every cut, every open sore that covered his body. The wounds that had been healing, that had been closing, that had been offering him the first moments of relief in years—they split open again, raw and weeping, as the salt water carved new paths through his flesh.
He was crying.
Not the silent tears of someone who had accepted their fate, but the desperate, agonized sobs of a child who could not understand why the world was so cruel.
His hands pressed against the glass, leaving bloody prints that smeared and faded as the fluid washed over them.
His legs kicked uselessly, stirring the burning liquid but finding no purchase. His voice, muffled and distorted, still carried through the chamber, high and broken and hopeless.
"Please," he begged. "Please, it hurts. It hurts so much. Zero will be good...".
The scientists laughed.
They stood around the tube like spectators at a gladiator pit, their faces lit by the pale green glow of the fluid, their eyes gleaming with the particular cruelty of those who had long since forgotten that their subjects were human.
Some of them had been present for every torture, every experiment, every moment of this child's pain. They had watched him grow from an infant into a boy, had charted his suffering on clipboards and graphs, had celebrated each new milestone of agony as if it were a scientific breakthrough.
Others had joined later, drawn by the promise of knowledge, of power, of the chance to be part of something revolutionary. They had heard rumors of the Karma Project—whispers of a weapon that could kill dragons, of a child who would change the balance of power in the world. They had come expecting glory. They had found a broken boy in a tube, and they had stayed because his pain was interesting.
All of them were smiling.
The dark elf scientist ran her fingers along the glass, tracing the outline of Yuuta's body. She had been the one who had carved the runes into his flesh—the ones that glowed faintly now, reacting to the serum, pulsing with a light that was almost beautiful. She had spent months on those runes, cutting and healing and cutting again, perfecting her art on living skin. She had never had a subject who survived as long as this one. She had never had a canvas so willing to endure.
The half-human scientist stood beside her, his hammer resting on his shoulder. He had not used it today—not yet—but he liked to keep it close. He liked the way Yuuta flinched when he saw it, the way his body remembered the blows even when his mind tried to forget. He had broken every bone in Yuuta's body at least twice. Some bones—the ribs, the fingers, the collarbones—had been broken so many times that they had healed into strange shapes, lumpy and wrong. He was proud of his work.
The vampire surgeon sat in the corner, her wine glass in hand, the red liquid inside still warm from the veins of the Gloan dragon beside her. She had drained the creature almost dry, but it would not die. It could not die. That was the beauty of this place—nothing died. Not until they were finished with it. She raised her glass toward Yuuta, a mock toast, and drank deeply.
The dwarf scientist worked the controls, his thick fingers dancing over buttons and levers, his eyes fixed on the gauges and monitors. He was the one who kept the machines running, who calibrated the fluids, who ensured that the balance between healing and harming was maintained. He took pride in his work. He had designed the system himself—a closed loop of agony that would keep the subject alive and suffering indefinitely. It was his masterpiece.
And at the center of it all stood the human. The chief scientist. The one who had conceived this project, who had secured the funding, who had assembled this team of monsters. He was tall and thin, with graying hair and eyes that held no warmth, no mercy, no humanity. He looked at Yuuta the way a farmer looks at a prize pig—calculating, appraising, already planning the next phase of the experiment.
He stepped forward and placed his hand on the glass.
"Subject Zero Karma," he said, his voice calm and clinical, "you have exceeded our expectations. Your resilience is remarkable. Your capacity for suffering is unparalleled. You are, without question, our greatest achievement."
He paused, tilting his head as if listening to something only he could hear.
"But we are not finished with you yet."
Erza had seen enough.
Her aura exploded.
It was not the controlled, focused pressure she used in battle. It was not the cold, deadly force she wielded against her enemies. It was raw. Primal. Absolute. The memory itself began to shake—the walls cracking, the tubes trembling, the very fabric of Yuuta's consciousness straining under the weight of her rage.
The scientists did not notice. They could not. They were part of the memory, frozen in their cruelty, unaware of the goddess of vengeance standing behind them. But the memory itself reacted, groaning and buckling under the pressure of her fury.
She was going to destroy this place. She was going to tear it apart, brick by brick, memory by memory, until nothing remained. She was going to find every being in this room and make them suffer as Yuuta had suffered. She was going to—
A hand touched her shoulder.
Gentle. Steady. Unmoving.
Erza's aura stopped. The shaking ceased. The cracks in the memory began to heal, the walls stabilizing, the tubes settling back into place. She turned, and saw her grandfather standing behind her, his ancient eyes filled with a sorrow that matched her own.
"Stay calm, my Queen," Isvarn said softly. "If you continue, you will kill him. His mind cannot withstand your power. Not here. Not in this place."
Erza's eyes were wet with tears. Her voice trembled as she pointed toward the tube, toward the small, broken figure floating inside.
"Do you see that?" she whispered. "Do you see what they did to him?"
Isvarn looked. He watched the child thrash. He watched the scientists laugh. He watched the fluid burn and heal and burn again, keeping its victim suspended in an endless cycle of agony.
"So," he said quietly, "this is the failed creation of the Dragon Killer project."
Erza turned to him, confused and horrified. "Dragon Killer? What are you talking about?"
Isvarn's voice was heavy, weighed down by centuries of knowledge that he had hoped would never need to be shared.
"There were reports," he said. "Decades ago. An illegal experiment designed to create a being capable of killing dragons. They called it the Karma Project. The goal was to engineer a weapon—something that could bypass our scales, our magic, our healing. Something that could end us."
He paused, watching Yuuta's body convulse.
"But it failed. So miserably that the conspirators had to destroy all evidence of its existence. The subjects were terminated. The laboratories were sealed. The researchers disappeared."
He looked at Erza.
"I thought it was over. I thought the threat had been eliminated."
Erza's mind raced. "Subject Zero Karma," she said, repeating the words she had heard the scientists use. "That is what they called him."
Isvarn nodded. "Zero was his subject number. Karma was his purpose. He was created to kill dragons—to take revenge for the War crimes committed during the First Dragon War."
"What War crimes?" Erza demanded. "What are you talking about? I have never heard of any of this."
Isvarn's eyes were distant, lost in memories that were not his own.
"During the First Dragon War, the dragons were losing. The divine enemy was too strong, too organized, too determined. Desperate to turn the tide, the generals made a decision—a decision that would haunt our kind for centuries."
He paused.
"They raped women. Women from every species that Worshipped Dragon. Elves. Dwarves. Goblin. Beastmen. They used them to breed a new generation of soldiers—half-dragons who would be loyal to the crown and ruthless in battle."
Erza's blood ran cold.
"The children born from those unions were raised in camps, trained as weapons, and thrown into battle before they were old enough to understand what they were fighting for. Most died. Those who survived became the foundation of our army."
He looked at her.
"Although many species chose to forgive the dragons after the Silent War, accepting their rule and living under the protection of the Dragon Queen, not everyone could move on. Many became her subjects, rebuilding their lives under her leadership,
but the older generation—those who had witnessed the horrors firsthand—could never forget. And neither could the families left behind: the mothers who waited for children who never returned, the fathers who carried their grief in silence, and the siblings who grew up with nothing but absence.
They remembered every loss, every scream, every injustice buried beneath the name of victory. Forgiveness was never theirs to give.
So they turned to the shadows, forming illegal organizations beyond the reach of the throne. They plotted in silence, driven not just by hatred, but by a purpose that refused to fade. And in time, that purpose took form—something calculated, something cruel. They called it the Karma Project."
Erza stared at him, horrified. She had known about the war. She had studied its battles, its strategies, its outcomes. But she had never known about this. The histories had been sanitized, cleaned of their darkest parts, rewritten to paint the dragons as heroes.
Before she could ask more, Yuuta screamed.
The dwarf scientist was pulling a lever—a massive lever connected to all the tubes lining the walls. Wires pulsed with light, carrying something from each container into the central chamber. The creatures in the tubes convulsed, their life force being drained, their energy being funneled into the small body floating in the middle.
"Injecting the serum into Subject Zero Karma," the dwarf announced, his voice echoing through the chamber.
The fluid in Yuuta's tube changed color—from pale green to deep, viscous black. It was thick, almost solid, and it moved with a purpose that was not entirely mechanical. It entered his body through his mouth, his nose, his ears, his pores, every opening and every wound. It forced its way into him, filling him, drowning him, consuming him from the inside out.
His stomach swelled. Distended. Stretched to its limits by the volume of liquid being forced into him. His skin pulled tight, translucent, and beneath it, Erza could see the black fluid moving through his veins, his arteries, his organs. It was replacing his blood, his lymph, his very essence.
The scientists watched. They waited. They hoped.
For a moment, nothing happened. Yuuta's body hung suspended in the tube, bloated and still, his eyes closed, his breath stopped. The black fluid pulsed through him, once, twice, three times, as if testing his capacity.
Then he vomited.
It was violent—so violent that it tore at his throat, his stomach, his insides. The black fluid erupted from his mouth and nose in a torrent, splashing against the glass, filling the tube, spilling over the edges. It was mixed with blood—so much blood—and fragments of tissue that had been torn loose by the force of the expulsion.
He vomited again. And again. And again.
Twelve times in total, his small body heaving with the force of it, his ribs cracking under the strain, his throat raw and bleeding. Each time, more black fluid came out—thick and dark and wrong—until there was nothing left inside him but emptiness.
He collapsed.
His body hit the bottom of the tube with a dull thud, and he lay there, unmoving, his chest barely rising, his eyes staring at nothing. The black fluid drained away, leaving him pale and still and broken.
The scientists stared in silence.
Their experiment had failed. Their weapon had been rejected. Their years of work had produced nothing but a broken child who could not even hold the serum inside his body. The monitors flatlined. The gauges dropped to zero. The lights flickered and died.
The chief scientist turned away.
"Inject Healing portion now," he said coldly. "We will begin again with a new way."
The other scientists nodded. They began to discuss their next steps, their voices cold and clinical, as if Yuuta were nothing more than a piece of equipment that had malfunctioned. They talked about new subjects, new methods, new ways to achieve their goals.
Yuuta lay on the floor of the tube, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything except breathe.
Erza watched him. And she remembered every face in the room.
To be continued...