Chapter 105: The Storm Part 10
Francis simply nodded.
Then Aris vanished.
KRRRRKKK!
A burst of blue lightning swallowed her figure before she shot toward inside the capitol like a meteor, leaving behind only scorched air and flickering electricity.
The battlefield suddenly became quiet.
Too quiet.
Francis stood motionless for a few seconds, watching the distant flashes of lightning disappear deeper.
Only after confirming she was truly gone did the grin on his face slowly fade.
"...Tch."
His legs nearly gave out beneath him.
Pain exploded through his right arm the moment the tension left his body. The muscles felt shredded from the inside, twitching violently from overuse.
[Energy: 7/70]
The warning continued blinking red across his vision.
Even maintaining his transformation was starting to drain him now.
Francis exhaled slowly before lowering himself onto one knee.
Blood dripped steadily from his claws.
But his eyes remained locked on the distant pile of rubble where the masked agent had crashed.
Still alive.
He could hear it.
A faint heartbeat buried beneath the destroyed concrete.
Francis’s grin slowly returned.
"Good."
Instead of walking normally, he began dragging himself forward.
His injured arm hung slightly lower while his claws scraped against broken asphalt with sharp metallic screeches.
CRRRRK...
CRRRRK...
Each movement sent pain shooting through his body, but he ignored it completely.
Because the closer he got—
The more excited he became.
The pile of rubble suddenly shifted.
BOOM!
Chunks of broken concrete exploded outward as compressed wind burst from within.
The masked agent staggered out from the debris.
Or rather...
What remained of him.
Half of the Legendary Tier armor had been completely destroyed. The chest plating was gone entirely, exposing deep claw marks carved across his torso.
Black blood continuously poured from the wounds while unstable wind pressure leaked violently around his body.
One of his swords was missing.
The remaining blade trembled slightly in his hand.
Most importantly—
His mask was broken.
Fragments of black metal fell away piece by piece as the man slowly lifted his head.
Francis finally saw his face clearly.
Bald.
Young.
Probably somewhere around his early twenties.
But that was not the disturbing part.
The man had no eyebrows.
No eyelashes.
And when his lips slowly parted—
There were no teeth inside his mouth either.
Only dark flesh and uneven gums.
Francis’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"...What the hell are you?"
The masked agent stared at him silently.
Then his neck twitched unnaturally.
CRACK.
His head tilted too far to the side.
Not human.
Or at least—
Not fully human anymore.
The man’s skin suddenly bulged.
Something moved beneath it.
Francis immediately stopped crawling forward.
His instincts screamed.
The next second—
SHRRRK!
Several black spikes burst violently from the masked agent’s back like sharpened bones, tearing through flesh and armor simultaneously.
Wind pressure exploded outward uncontrollably.
The ground cracked apart beneath his feet.
Even Francis’s expression changed slightly.
"...You’re mutating?"
The bald man finally spoke for the first time.
His voice sounded wet.
Broken.
Like multiple people trying to speak through the same throat at once.
"Fa..ther..."
Francis moved first and went straight for the kill.
Before the creature could fully finish—
WHOOOM!
A concentrated shockwave erupted from his mouth like compressed artillery. Unlike the wide area blasts he normally used, this one was condensed into a single point.
The air visibly twisted.
The impact slammed directly into the bald agent’s head.
Bone shattered instantly.
Half of the man’s skull exploded apart as black blood and fragments of flesh sprayed across the ruined battlefield.
Next, the unstable wind pressure around him immediately faltered.
Yet—
He was still alive. His body twitched violently, but it was obvious that he had lost control over it.
Francis did not waste time staring.
He lunged forward immediately and grabbed the agent by the torn collar armor before dragging him away.
CRRRRK...
CRRRRK...
The man’s body scraped against broken concrete while blood painted a dark trail behind them.
Francis moved quickly through the damaged capitol entrance.
Explosions echoed faintly from deeper inside the city where Aris continued her assault, but the upper levels of the capitol had already become nearly deserted after the earlier battle.
Most surviving personnel had either fled or died.
Perfect.
Francis forced open several damaged security doors before finally finding a relatively intact chamber hidden deeper within the structure.
A reinforced room.
The walls were thick.
No windows.
Minimal surveillance equipment.
More importantly—
Private.
Francis threw the half-dead agent onto the floor.
THUD!
The bald man convulsed violently.
Wind pressure leaked randomly from his body, carving shallow cuts into the walls around him.
Even with a massive hole blown through his head, it still refused to die completely.
Francis watched silently for a moment.
Then—
The countdown inside his vision finally disappeared.
[Lockdown State Released]
[Separation Available]
A grin slowly spread across his face.
"...Finally."
The flesh around his body immediately began moving.
Black veins bulged beneath the skin before splitting apart unnaturally
SHRRRK...
Something crawled out.
A mass of dark organic material slowly peeled itself away from the body like living tar.
His parasite form.
Its surface pulsed like exposed muscle while thin tendrils stretched outward across the floor.
Without hesitation, it flowed directly toward the bald agent.
"Ahhh...!"
The bald man tried to move.
Too late.
Francis surged forward and pierced directly into the hole in his shattered skull.
SKRRRK!
The body arched violently.
Wind exploded through the room.
Tables shattered apart.
Metal lockers bent inward from the pressure.
But Francis was already flooding deeper into the body.
Through the skull.
The spine.
The chest cavity.
Every nerve.
Every blood vessel.
Every muscle fiber.
Black veins rapidly spread beneath the pale skin like corruption consuming the flesh from within.
The body convulsed harder and harder—
Then suddenly stopped.
Silence filled the room.
A few seconds later—
The fingers twitched once.
Then again.
The remaining eye slowly opened.
The broken skull slowly pulled itself back together piece by piece.
Cracked bone fused.
Torn flesh wriggled and sealed itself shut.
Even the destroyed sections of brain matter began regenerating under the parasite’s control as dark veins pulsed beneath the skin.
The process was grotesque to watch.
The body healed itself by force.
Francis tilted his head slightly while testing the movement of his new neck.
Wind pressure quietly spread from his body again, but unlike before, it no longer leaked out uncontrollably.
Now it obeyed him perfectly.
"...Interesting."
His voice sounded different now.
Rougher.
Distorted slightly due to the missing teeth.
Francis slowly stood up while the final pieces of flesh closed over the wound near his temple.
Only a thin crack-like scar remained behind.
More messages continued appearing one after another.
[Congratulations Host for reaching Category 5]
[Energy Level 70>120]
He ignored the rest of the message for now and focus on his next mission.
[Human Liver 12,500/100,000]
’...That’s a huge jump.’
The required amount had increased many times over compared to the previous category requirements.
Normally, seeing such an absurd number would have been frustrating.
But surprisingly—
The counter had not reset back to zero after evolving.
That alone was enough to improve his mood considerably.
More importantly—
His current points were far higher than expected.
Francis quickly realized why.
The masked agent alone had given him several thousand points in one go.
Francis slowly looked down at his own hand while flexing his fingers.
’So that’s how valuable you were...’
It made sense now.
His body had clearly undergone repeated modifications and mutations far beyond ordinary limits. The amount of energy, adaptability, and genetic value contained inside him was monstrous.
Which also explained why Francis evolved immediately after taking over the body.
He basically devoured a walking treasure chest.
A grin slowly spread across his face again.
’If one experimental monster gives this much...’
Until now, he genuinely thought Rex and Vance had already been exceptional catches.
A thousand points from a single host was absurd by normal standards.
At the time, he even believed those two stood near the top among Special Categories.
But now—
The difference was laughable.
"...My world view was still too small."
He finally understood it clearly.
"I should handle my face first."
He slowly walked toward Rex’s corpse lying near the corner of the room.
The empty body looked horrific now that Francis had fully abandoned it. The flesh had partially collapsed inward while dark cracks spread across the skin like a discarded shell.
Without wasting anytime, he began morphing his face.
Muscles shifted beneath the skin.
Bone structure compressed.
The bald scalp rapidly reshaped as strands pushed outward and became hair once again.
Eyebrows formed.
The damaged gums shifted as new teeth slowly emerged from the jaw.
Even the shape of his eyes changed subtly.
Within seconds, the monstrous-looking bald agent disappeared completely.
In his place stood Francis’s previous disguise.
Or at least—
A near-perfect imitation of it.
Francis touched his face briefly before smirking.
"Much better."
Then he looked toward Rex’s corpse.
His expression lost all emotion.
Wind pressure quietly condensed around his fingers.
SHRRRK!
The corpse was torn apart instantly.