Chapter 4: Intent to Kill
"Lord Reed."
The man speaking was over two meters tall. He bent at the waist with practiced humility, his broad frame lowered like a beast forced to kneel.
Reed stood before him, thin and pale as ever, his expression flat and bloodless.
"In a moment, you will fight an experimental subject," Reed said calmly. "You are to pressure him, stimulate him, and force out whatever lies dormant inside him. But you are not to kill him. The organization still has use for him. Do you understand?"
"Yes, my lord."
The giant bowed even deeper.
But beneath that lowered head, a cold murderous light flashed through his eyes.
…
Back in his room, Hodell was still staring at the strange line on his panel.
[Path of Chaos] [0/1]
That final bracket kept scratching at the back of his mind.
It reminded him of an ability from the original novel, [Esper Ability - Copy].
That was the terrifying talent once possessed by the Alien God, one of the strongest beings in the Star Sea. Later, Han Xiao had used his foresight to locate the second known possessor of that same ability, Evans.
Evans had been a textbook protagonist type.
Hardworking. Upright. Kind.
Gifted since childhood, yet framed by others and suppressed for years. His life had been crushed into ordinariness until the day he was thrown into prison. After his release, he was rejected, ignored, and looked down upon. Just when it seemed like his life would rot away in the corner of the world, Han Xiao found him and pulled him onto the stage. In the end, he became one of Han Xiao's most capable subordinates.
Hodell coughed dryly and pulled his thoughts back.
That was getting off track.
If [Path of Chaos] really was related to something like [Esper Ability - Copy], then it would be insane.
As long as I do not die in the early game, I might actually have a chance.
He immediately clicked his tongue in disgust.
No. Bad thought. Do not say things like that. No raising death flags.
Still, the problem remained.
If it really were [Esper Ability - Copy], then awakening should come with some clear reaction. In the original, users gained an additional sense, something unfamiliar and uncontrollable at first, because the ability itself required absorbing and reproducing the powers of others.
But Hodell had felt nothing of the sort.
No new sense.
No extra layer of perception.
Nothing except the ordinary changes that had come with his class change and the fox hybrid body.
Unless…
Could it be because I already had too many unfamiliar senses after transmigrating?
Fox ears, a tail, the sharper senses of an Esper, the constant pressure of being watched. Maybe his entire system was still too overloaded for him to distinguish one more strange instinct from the rest.
Before he could think any further, the door exploded open with a bang.
Hodell's body tensed instantly.
The atmosphere in the facility had changed over the past few days. At first, he had been a miracle. A miracle worth observing, preserving, and cautiously studying.
Now, that patience was clearly running dry.
He was a hybrid. He had no manifested ability. He had come back from the dead only to behave like a defective product that looked expensive but did nothing.
A machine charged for two hours and talked for five minutes.
No one in this place liked wasted expectations.
The guards did not bother with politeness. They hauled him up and dragged him through the corridor, their expressions colder than iron.
Soon, they brought him to a room so quiet that the silence itself felt unnatural.
A sealed chamber.
In a technological civilization of comparable level, building something like this would take effort and specialized acoustic engineering. Here, magic achieved the same effect with casual cruelty. The walls swallowed every sound. No echo came back at all.
Hodell remembered reading about similar "quietest rooms" in his previous life. People had gone inside as a challenge, only to emerge rattled after hearing nothing but their own pulse, breathing, and joints.
The moment the door shut behind him, his ears began ringing.
His heartbeat became thunder.
His breathing sounded harsh.
Even the tiny friction of bone and tendon seemed magnified beyond reason.
Then the torture began.
Low frequency noise vibrated through the room in unpredictable waves. Bright flashes erupted without rhythm or warning. The temperature lurched violently from sweltering heat to freezing cold, back and forth with no pattern at all.
This was not ordinary sensory overload.
It was a crude, merciless assault on the mind.
Hodell did not hesitate.
He instantly spent his saved experience and leveled up, then pushed two free attribute points straight into Intelligence.
The panel updated at once.
[Personal Attributes: Strength 4 Agility 5 Endurance 7 Intelligence 7 Mystery 4 Charm 7 Luck 6
Free Attribute Points: 2
Energy: 20/20 [Lv.1] [Strength +1, Agility +1, Endurance +1, Max Stamina +20]
Health: 70/70 Stamina: 104/104]
A prompt flashed immediately afterward.
[You are undergoing a Mental Shock [Low Level]. Conducting Mental Check... Intelligence: 7 Check successful. You are immune to this Mental Shock.]
The nausea receded at once.
Hodell blinked through the flashing light, surprised.
It is not brainwashing?
He had expected drugs, hypnosis, perhaps magical indoctrination. Instead, this was pure mental torture, crude but effective against ordinary people.
Unfortunately for them, the panel had just given him a hard counter.
Even so, the experience was still miserable.
By the time the process ended, Hodell had endured a full three hours of heat, cold, noise, disorientation, and sensory assault. Even if the mental shock had failed, the physical exhaustion remained. A weakness debuff hung over his body like wet cloth. Every muscle ached. His head throbbed. His skin felt wrong.
The guards dragged him out with suspiciously perfect timing.
Hodell lowered his head and staggered along behind them, deliberately letting his steps wobble. If they wanted weakness, he would give them weakness.
When they reached the next corridor, Reed was already waiting.
He approached slowly.
His pale face looked as if a layer of frost had been cast across it. The disappointment in his eyes was more oppressive than outright rage.
He stopped directly in front of Hodell.
"We are very disappointed in you," Reed said.
His voice was low, but every word landed with icy clarity.
"A miracle that cannot demonstrate its value is no different from a stone abandoned by the roadside. Was your resurrection nothing more than a meaningless error?"
Hodell kept his head lowered, but behind his lashes, his thoughts sharpened.
This was not only pressure.
This disappointment was real.
A few days ago, Reed had clearly believed Hodell was a breakthrough worthy of celebration. He had probably rushed to report it to Dr. Moore as proof of some grand theory.
Now that miracle had become an embarrassment.
Reed stepped closer. His shadow swallowed Hodell's hunched form.
"We have many methods," he said softly. "Far less gentle ones. Would you like to see the Material Processing Room? There were miracles there once too. Interesting ones. Rare ones. They all ended the same way."
The threat slid into Hodell's ears like a needle of ice.
Then Reed's tone shifted.
Softer. Warmer. Almost kind.
"Tell us what you feel. Even the slightest difference. As long as you cooperate, this can stop. The warm room. The hot meals. The little comforts you have enjoyed. They can all return."
Hodell let his body curl inward even more, selling the image of someone fragile and fraying apart.
His whole frame trembled.
His gaze drifted downward, empty and unfocused, as if his mind had gone elsewhere and simply failed to come back.
Several seconds passed after Reed finished speaking.
Only then did Hodell slowly raise his head.
The movement was deliberately stiff, delayed, almost mechanical, like an old machine receiving a bad signal.
His clouded eyes tried to focus on Reed's face.
His lips moved once.
Twice.
Then a dry, broken sound finally came out.
"…Error?"
He repeated the word like a child encountering it for the first time.
His eyes quickly filled with real physiological tears, the residue of the previous three hours making the act all the easier.
He looked as if he were desperately trying to understand, desperately trying to catch up, only to fail.
"…Cold…"
His voice shook.
"So cold… it hurts… I… I cannot… feel… anything…"
Then he buried his face into his knees, shoulders shaking violently.
It was not entirely an act.
The pain was real.
The exhaustion was real.
He was only shaping it into something useful.
Reed watched in silence.
The disappointment in his eyes deepened, but now doubt crept in alongside it.
Was he too hasty?
Was this not failure, but simply the natural breakdown of an amnesiac subjected to his first true round of psychological torment after several days of relative comfort?
A guard at the side discreetly shifted into a ready stance, clearly waiting for orders. The one beside him cursed inwardly at the sight, instantly recognizing a shameless superior pleaser in action.
Reed, however, did not immediately respond.
He gave the guard a long look.
Then turned and left.
That single glance was enough to ruin the guard's mood.
Doing nothing might be wrong.
Doing too much might also be wrong.
The irritation had to go somewhere.
Naturally, it went to Hodell.
"Move!"
The guard shoved him hard.
Hodell nearly stumbled and could not help thinking, What did I do to offend you?
"Stop dragging your feet!"
He was shoved through another corridor and eventually brought into an enclosed training field.
The moment he stepped inside, his breath caught.
Only one person was waiting there.
A tall man.
Over two meters in height, broad and thickly built. His skin had an uneven grayish white tint, and twisted dark scars spread across it like old burn marks that had healed badly. He wore a heavy black composite leather outfit reinforced with dark iron plates over key areas.
He stood completely still.
Expressionless.
But his eyes…
His eyes were overflowing with killing intent.
As the guards slowly retreated and the distance widened, Hodell swallowed hard.
Then the panel flashed.
[You have triggered an E rank mission: [Experimental Subject]. Accept / Decline?]
[Mission Introduction: The dark and bloody rise of the Erhai School is inseparable from certain inhuman methods. What exactly have they researched? This is a question the Glazed Empire Council has long sought to answer. How many experimental subjects are hidden here? What have the experiments already achieved? You have seized a fragment of the truth. Continue following it and unexpected rewards may await you, but so will inevitable danger. Before anything else, your first task is to survive.]
[Mission Requirement: Survive]
[Reward: 6,000 EXP]
[Special Reward: 20,000 EXP or Sky Hunter Eagle Potion]
The training field door slammed shut behind him.
The sound rang heavy and absolute.
At the same instant, a wave of killing intent crashed over him so thick it felt almost tangible.
No warning.
No buildup.
The giant moved.
A growl of suppressed fury tore from his throat as he lunged forward and threw a straight punch at Hodell's chest. The blow ripped through the air with a low whistling force.
Hodell's pupils shrank.
His survival instinct seized control before conscious thought could catch up. He immediately dumped his remaining two free attribute points into Agility and Strength.
Then he retreated on pure instinct, trying to bleed off the force by moving with the strike.
But the three hours of torture had left invisible shackles on his body.
He was too slow.
Bang!
The punch did not land cleanly. It only grazed his ribs.
That was still enough.
The force crashed into him like a battering ram. Half his body went numb on the spot, followed by a blast of pain so fierce that his vision blurred white for a split second. He staggered backward seven or eight steps before barely catching himself.
Outside the field, Reed watched through a crystal ball.
A faint smile finally touched his lips.
"His reaction in a life and death situation is not bad," he said. "So he is not entirely worthless."
The guard beside him, however, was already sweating.
"Lord Reed… is experimental subject No. 3 using too much force? Letting No. 3 handle this…"
Reed frowned, displeased at being questioned by someone beneath him.
"No. 3 is holding back. If he were not, then based on the most recent physiological data, the subject would not have survived the first punch."
Inside the field, the fight did not stop.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The giant's footsteps advanced steadily, each one like a countdown to execution.
Then he raised a leg and brought his iron plated boot down toward Hodell's knee with brutal precision.
If that landed, the leg would shatter.
Hodell threw himself sideways.
The boot skimmed past his pant leg and smashed into the ground with a heavy boom. The floor trembled beneath the impact.
He rolled, scrambled up, and tried to widen the distance.
Too fast.
The opponent closed in like a predator who had no need to hurry.
Before Hodell could fully recover his footing, a massive hand with rock like skin shot forward. The fingers spread like iron clamps, reaching straight for his throat.
He cannot dodge this.
A vicious light flashed through Hodell's eyes.
Without anyone noticing, he had already snatched up a sharp metal shard when the earlier stomp shattered a fragment loose from the floor.
His fingers tightened around it.
If he had to gamble his life, he would.
Then Reed's voice cut across the field.
"Enough."
Not loud.
Yet the word froze both of them where they stood.
Hodell's breathing came hard and sharp as he looked straight into No. 3's eyes.
What burned there was not simple aggression.
It was resentment.
Rage.
Pure murderous hatred.
Almost enough to spill over.
Hodell could practically read the thought behind it.
I am the organization's successful product. Why should I be used to stimulate the ability of worthless trash like you?
Outside, Reed was staring too.
His brows furrowed as he turned coldly toward the guard beside him.
"Who was responsible for No. 3's behavioral analysis?"
The guard stiffened.
Under Reed's increasingly oppressive aura, his whole body began to tremble.
"Tell him he does not need to come to work anymore."
Reed's tone was calm again by the time he said it.
Then he looked back toward the field, his gaze settling on No. 3's still tense, predatory stance.
So that is it, Reed thought. Once he enters combat, his rationality drops sharply, and the urge to attack becomes difficult to control.
The system prompt appeared before Hodell's eyes.
[[Experimental Subject] completed. You gained 6,000 EXP.]
[Hidden Requirement: Survive without exposing your ability completed. Please choose a special reward: 20,000 EXP / Sky Hunter Eagle Potion.]
.....
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