Erza stood frozen, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her nails digging into her palms so deeply that blood began to seep through her fingers. She had watched the entire day unfold—hour after hour, cycle after cycle, the scientists forcing serum after serum into Yuuta's broken body, each one more volatile than the last. She had watched him vomit until his throat was raw and bleeding, until his stomach was empty and still he heaved, until his body convulsed with nothing left to expel.
She had watched them heal him, only to break him again.
She had watched them hope, only to be disappointed.
She had watched them curse him, mock him, dismiss him as worthless.
And through it all, she had learned the truth.
The mixed dragons—the ones who had been born from the dark crimes of the First Dragon War, the ones who had been bred in camps and raised as weapons—they were the reason this place existed. They were the reason Yuuta had been created. The families who had been wronged, the mothers who had been violated, the children who had been stolen—they had wanted revenge. They had wanted to create a weapon that could kill dragons.
And Yuuta was their failed experiment.
The dwarf scientist pulled the lever again. This time, the tube filled with a healing potion—pale gold and shimmering, thick as honey, glowing with a soft light that should have been comforting but was not. It flooded the chamber, covering Yuuta's broken body, seeping into his wounds, knitting his flesh back together. His ribs realigned with a series of sickening pops. His organs mended, the tears in his stomach and intestines closing, the ruptured vessels sealing. His skin closed over the cuts and burns and scars, leaving behind fresh, unblemished flesh that looked almost new.
He was healed.
But he was not whole.
He lay at the bottom of the tube, barely breathing, his body trembling with the memory of pain. His hands pressed against the glass, weak and shaking, reaching out toward the scientists who had just spent an entire day torturing him. His fingers left smears of blood and vomit on the smooth surface.
"P-please…"
Yuuta's voice didn't even sound like his own anymore.It was hoarse… torn apart after hours of screaming that no one answered.
His fingers trembled against the cold floor, nails cracked, stained with blood that wasn't fully his anymore.
"I-I'll… Zero will be good…"
The words came out in broken breaths, each one shaking like it might be his last.
"Zero won't cry… Zero..Karma.. won't scream anymore… Zero....promise…"
His body flinched on its own, even when nothing touched him.
It had learned.
Pain was always coming.
"…please…"
His voice dropped into a whisper, fragile… desperate…
"Just… let Zero sleep…"
A small pause.
His lips quivered.
"…it hurts… it hurts so much…"
Tears kept falling, even though his body barely had strength left to make them.
"Just a little… please… Zero won't move… Zero won't do anything…"
His head slowly lowered, forehead touching the floor.
Like he was bowing.
Like he was begging for mercy from something that didn't believe in it.
"I'll try harder next time…"
Silence.
Then, barely audible—
"…just don't hurt me again…Doc...Doctor.."
The chief scientist did not even look at him. His back was turned, his attention fixed on the monitors, on the data, on the numbers that told him what he already knew.
"Begin again," he said.
The next serum was dark blue—thick and cold, like liquid midnight, like the color of a bruise that had spread across the entire sky. It filled the tube in seconds, swallowing Yuuta's small body, forcing its way into his mouth and nose and ears. It was heavier than the others, denser, and it pressed down on him like a weight, like the ocean pressing down on a drowning man.
His stomach swelled again, stretched to its limits, the skin pulled taut over the mass of fluid inside him. He looked pregnant, distended, wrong. His ribs creaked under the pressure. His spine arched.
He vomited.
The blue liquid erupted from him in a torrent, mixed with blood and bile and fragments of tissue that had been torn loose by the force of the expulsion. It splashed against the glass, coating the walls, dripping down into the pool at the bottom of the tube. The sound was wet and violent and wrong.
He vomited again. And again. And again.
They drained the tube. They refilled it. They drained it again.
The process took all day.
Erza watched. She watched the sun rise and set outside the memory, though there was no sun here, no time, nothing but the endless cycle of agony. She watched the scientists grow bored, then frustrated, then angry. She watched them curse Yuuta, mock him, dismiss him as worthless.
She watched him vomit six hundred and nine times.
Six hundred and nine times, his body convulsed. Six hundred and nine times, his stomach emptied itself of the serums they forced into him. Six hundred and nine times, his internal organs were crushed under the violent force of the expulsion—only to be healed and crushed again. Six hundred and nine times, he begged for mercy, and six hundred and nine times, they ignored him.
None of the powers stuck. None of the serums took hold. He did not awaken. He did not transform. He did not become the weapon they had hoped for. His body rejected everything—every essence, every extract, every drop of power they forced into him. It was as if he was immune to their science, their magic, their cruelty.
The scientists were disappointed.
They had been working on this project for centuries—some of them had dedicated their entire lives to the Karma Project. They had gathered ingredients from across the world, rare and dangerous and expensive. They had drained the life force from countless creatures, had extracted essences from beings that should never have been touched. They had poured everything into this one child, this one subject, this one final hope.
And he had rejected it all.
The chief scientist's face twisted with rage. His eyes, which had been cold and calculating, now burned with a fury that made the other scientists step back. His hands trembled as he stared at the monitors, at the flatlines, at the data that told him everything he had worked for was worthless.
He punched the tube.
The glass shattered.
Shards rained down on Yuuta's body, cutting into his flesh, embedding themselves in his arms and chest and face. Some were large, jagged, tearing through skin and muscle. Others were small, like needles, burying themselves deep in his tissue. Blood poured from the wounds, mixing with the vomit and the healing fluid and the filth that covered the floor of the tube.
Yuuta did not scream. He did not have the strength. His voice was gone, lost somewhere between the sixth and seventh hour of vomiting, worn away by screaming and crying and begging. He simply lay there, bleeding, covered in his own filth, his body broken beyond repair.
The chief scientist reached through the broken glass and grabbed Yuuta by the hair.
The glass shards cut into his hand, but he did not seem to notice. He pulled Yuuta out of the tube, dragging him across the shattered fragments, leaving a trail of blood and vomit on the floor. Yuuta's body bumped over the broken glass, the shards cutting new wounds into his back, his legs, his arms. He did not cry out. He could not.
"You," the scientist hissed, his face inches from Yuuta's, his breath hot and foul, "I had such high hopes for you. I gave you a second name—Zero Karma. I thought you would be the one. I thought you would finally awaken. I thought you would be my masterpiece."
He smashed Yuuta's face against the ground.
His nose shattered. The bone cracked with a sound like breaking ice. His cheekbone followed, crumbling under the force of the impact. Blood poured from his mouth, his nose, the cuts on his face. His eyes, the one that was not swollen shut, stared at nothing.
"But you are worthless," the scientist continued, his voice cold and flat, devoid of emotion. "You did not take even one of the powers we gave you. Not one. We poured the essence of gods into your veins, and you vomited it out like cheap wine. You are nothing. Less than nothing. You are a disappointment."
He pulled Yuuta's head up by the hair and smashed it down again.
The sound was wet and final.
The dark elf scientist watched from a distance, her arms crossed, her expression disgusted. Her runes still glowed on Yuuta's skin, faint and fading, a reminder of the art she had wasted on him.
"I thought he would awaken to true power," she said, her voice dripping with contempt. "We even fed him the blood of the Disaster's children. The most potent essence in existence. And still, nothing. What a waste of good ingredients."
The half-beast scientist nodded, his hammer resting on his shoulder. He had not used it today—there had been no need. The vomiting had been enough.
"The white-haired subject was much better," he said. "Stronger. More resilient. I accidentally killed him, but at least he showed promise. He screamed for days. This one—" he gestured at Yuuta's broken body, "—this one is trash. He just lies there. He does not even fight anymore."
The vampire surgeon licked her lips, her eyes lingering on Yuuta's face. His features were still visible beneath the blood and swelling—delicate, almost pretty. She had been hoping to keep him as a pet, a slave, a toy to amuse her during the long nights.
"I was hoping he would awaken," she said, sighing dramatically. "He is so cute. I thought I might keep him. But look at him—he cannot even hold a single power. What a waste of a pretty face."
She turned away, losing interest.
The scientists laughed.
The chief scientist picked Yuuta up by the hair and threw him across the room.
His body sailed through the air, limp and broken, and landed in front of a massive cage. The cage was tall and wide, its bars made of reinforced metal, reinforced with magic, reinforced with the blood of countless victims.
"Throw him to the dogs," the chief scientist said, turning away. "He will make good food for my little Hydras."
The other scientists nodded. They had already lost interest in Yuuta. He was just another failed experiment, another body to dispose of, another memory to forget. They began to discuss their next steps—new subjects, new methods, new ways to achieve their goals.
No one looked at Yuuta.
No one saw the small, broken child lying in a pool of his own blood and vomit, his body trembling, his eyes staring at nothing.
No one saw Erza.
But Erza saw them. She saw every face. She saw every smile. She saw every moment of cruelty, every laugh, every dismissive glance.
And she remembered.
Then...
They dragged Yuuta toward the Death Well
A place where discarded experiments were thrown to be forgotten, to be consumed, to be erased from existence. The corridor was long and cold, lit by flickering red lights that cast everything in the color of dried blood. The walls were lined with pipes that hummed and vibrated, carrying fluids and gases and things that should not have names.
The floor was sticky, stained with years of spills and leaks and the trails of bodies that had been dragged before.
The memory shifted again, the scene changing, pulling Erza and Isvarn along like leaves caught in a current. They were not seeing this through Yuuta's eyes—his were closed, swollen shut, barely conscious, his lids so bruised and puffy that even if he had wanted to see, he could not. They were seeing it through the eyes of an observer, a witness, a ghost that had been present in this place long before they arrived, watching, waiting, recording.
Erza's rage was absolute. It filled her chest, her throat, her veins, burning through her like a fire that could not be extinguished, like a star that had collapsed into a black hole and was now consuming everything around it.
She wanted to kill them.
She wanted to tear them apart with her bare hands, to make them suffer as Yuuta had suffered, to inflict on them every cruelty they had inflicted on him.
She wanted to flay the dark elf and carve runes into her flesh. She wanted to shatter the half-human's hammer and use the pieces to break every bone in his body.
She wanted to drain the vampire surgeon of her blood and leave her to dry in the sun.
She had seen their faces—even behind their masks, she had seen them. She had memorized every detail, every feature, every gesture.
The way the dark elf's lips curled when she smiled. The way the half-human's knuckles whitened when he gripped his hammer. The way the vampire surgeon's tongue darted out to taste the blood on her lips. The way the dwarf's fingers moved over the controls, precise and practiced and utterly without mercy.
She would find them. She would hunt them. She would make them pay.
But the memory was just a memory. They were not real. Not yet. Not until she returned to the real world and began her search.
The scene shifted, and they were standing outside the facility.
The mountain loomed above them, vast and dark, its peak lost in clouds that never seemed to move, that hung over the summit like a shroud, like a warning, like something that had been placed there to hide the evil below.
The facility was built into its side, carved from the living rock, hidden from the world by magic and technology and the sheer indifference of those who passed by. Its walls were gray and unmarked, blending into the mountain as if they had always been there, as if they were part of the natural landscape.
It was located near the border between Dragon land and Vampire coast—a neutral zone where neither species dared to tread, a no-man's-land where the laws of both kingdoms meant nothing. The land here was barren, rocky, scarred by ancient battles and older grudges. Nothing grew. Nothing lived. Nothing survived except the facility and the horrors inside it.
Vampires could not enter Dragon land. Dragons could not enter Vampire land. The treaty had been signed centuries ago, and both sides honored it—not out of respect, but out of fear. A war between dragons and vampires would destroy the world, and everyone knew it. So they kept to their own territories, and they did not cross the border, and they pretended that the no-man's-land did not exist.
And so the terrorists had built their facility here, in the shadow of the mountain, hidden under everyone's noses, protected by the very treaty that was supposed to keep the peace.
The guard dragged Yuuta by his hair, his fingers twisted in the matted, blood-soaked strands, pulling him across the rocky ground. Yuuta's body was limp and broken, his feet scraping against the stone, leaving trails of blood and vomit and filth behind him. He was barely conscious—his eyes were closed, swollen shut, his breathing shallow and ragged, his chest barely rising. He did not struggle. He did not beg. He did not have the strength. He had not had the strength for hours.
The guard was tall and broad, his face hidden behind a mask, his uniform marked with the Eden Human Symbol. He had done this before. Many times. He did not look at Yuuta. He did not see a child. He saw cargo. He saw trash. He saw something to be disposed of.
They reached the Death Well.
It was not a well in the traditional sense. It was a hole—a massive, gaping maw in the earth, stretching nearly a kilometer wide at its entrance. The edges were rough, jagged, as if the earth had been torn open by something clawing its way out from below. The darkness within was absolute, swallowing the light, swallowing the sound, swallowing everything that fell into it. It was not a well for water. It was a well for death.
Yuuta was not the only one who had been thrown here. The edges of the hole were stained with blood—old blood, new blood, layers upon layers of it, painted over each other like the pages of a book written in suffering. Some of it was dried and flaking, brown and crusted. Some of it was still wet, glistening in the dim light. The rocks were slick with it. The ground was soft with it.
Bones littered the ground nearby—some human, some not, all of them cracked and gnawed and broken. Skulls with empty eye sockets stared at the sky. Rib cages had been crushed flat. Femurs had been snapped in half. Some of the bones were old, bleached white by the sun. Others were fresh, still pink with fragments of flesh clinging to them.
The Hydra Dogs lived at the bottom of the well.
They were massive creatures, muscular and hairless, their skin gray and mottled like the flesh of the dead. Their bodies were covered in scars—old wounds from fights with each other, from the victims who had tried to fight back, from the falls that should have killed them but never did. Each one had multiple heads—three, five, seven, depending on their age and feeding. The heads moved independently, constantly searching, constantly sniffing, constantly hungry.
Their jaws were powerful enough to crush bone, to tear through metal, to rip a grown man apart in seconds. Their teeth were yellow and jagged, worn down by years of gnawing on the remains of the discarded. Their eyes were small and black and empty, devoid of anything except hunger.
They were born only to eat. They knew nothing else. They wanted nothing else. They were the perfect disposal system—silent, efficient, and always hungry.
Most of the victims thrown into the well were children. Children who had no will left to survive. Children who had been broken by the experiments, their minds shattered, their spirits crushed. Children who were too weak to fight back, too weak to run, too weak to even cry. They fell. Their bones shattered on impact. The Hydra Dogs devoured them alive.
The guard reached the edge of the well. He looked down at the darkness below, then back at Yuuta's broken body. He shrugged.
Without a second thought, he threw him in.
Yuuta fell.
His body tumbled through the air, limp and helpless, his arms and legs flopping uselessly. The darkness swallowed him, and the guard leaned forward, listening, waiting for the sound that would confirm his death.
The Splash.
It came—sharp and wet, echoing up from the depths below, followed by the sound of hungry growls, of bodies moving, of jaws snapping.
The guard nodded, satisfied. He turned away and walked back toward the facility, his job done. He did not look back. He never looked back.
The Death Well was sealed. The failed experiment was disposed of. The facility would continue its work, as it always had, as it always would.
Erza and Isvarn stood at the edge of the well, watching the darkness swallow the man Erza loved—the man who had smiled at her without fear, who had taken her punches without complaint, who had held her when she wept and called her his family, who had cooked for her and danced with her and searched all night for her ring.
The memory pulled them down.
To be continued...