Chapter 516: The Sniper’s True Worth (6)

“Heheheh, do you really think so?”

Logier grinned, gripping his own shoulder with a bare hand.

ZZZIIZZZT!!

His body rapidly swelled, tearing the suit covering him like paper.

Logier, who had instantly transformed into a massive silver werewolf nearly three meters tall, drooled and muttered.

“I find it harder to believe that you suspected all of that, yet didn’t inform the Doctor.”

“……”

“Did you wait until now just to tell me that and feel superior? Heheheh, ahahahahhaha!!”

Logier covered his eyes with hands that had become more like a beast’s, laughing maniacally.

It was a wild, arrogant burst of laughter, unbelievable considering how subtly subdued he had been moments before.

Logier quickly grasped the context of Lennok’s recent words and became certain that Lennok hadn’t told anyone everything he had figured out.

There was relief that his role as a double agent for both Aegis and Pandemonium hadn’t been exposed.

Endless contempt for the arrogance and carelessness displayed by the opponent before him.

And even anger at himself and his opponent for feeling a sense of crisis in all those moments.

“……My mind has changed.”

Crrack!!

Logier, gripping the train roof with all four limbs and arching his back, let out a low roar.

A sharp sensation filled the air, and for a moment, it felt as though his vision narrowed.

Logier manifested the werewolf’s Miniature Universe through his mana, pushed to its absolute limit.

As a predator that had pinpointed its prey, every one of his instincts was aimed directly at Lennok.

“I’ll take your corpse back to the Doctor, not Aegis. I’ll hand your body over to the Doctor and make a deal to keep this incident under wraps.”

“……”

“I’ll tear your limbs to shreds and just take your head. As for the rest of your body, I’ll chew and swallow every last drop of blood, making it as if none of this ever happened here. That should be enough.”

“Well, I don’t find that very convincing.”

Even at Logier’s chilling words, Lennok gave a cold sneer.

“Didn’t you think you needed the Doctor’s help, not Aegis’s, to analyze and imprint my spells?”

“Heheheh……”

Logier gave no further reply.

He merely erupted into a maniacal laugh, as if he had gone completely insane.

“Hahahahahahaha!!!!”

Immediately after, the werewolf’s form leaped from the train roof, swiftly ran along the train wall, and slammed into Lennok.

CRASH!!

Lennok’s form was bitten by Logier’s teeth right there and swung around the train.

The floating railway tracks raced across the night sky above the city. Above them, shadows and the beast’s form tangled and spun, crumpling and bursting the train’s steel plates like toys.

Dududududu!!!

“I won’t miss you now……!!!”

Logier’s assault slammed in mana-infused slashes, accompanied by screams closer to a wolf’s howl.

The nearly three-meter-tall werewolf clenched its fists and twisted its shoulders. With every roar, the spell imprints etched across its body activated, painting the surroundings in dazzling colors.

KWA-GA-GA-GA!!!

Sharp blades of wind, chains woven from broken metal fragments spun, and mana mixed with punches surged up like a barrier, rippling like waves.

Every time he charged on all fours, the spells imprinted behind his joints activated, boosting Logier’s body like thrusters.

The imprints on his forearms and back supported his strength and durability, elevating the power of every incoming assault one level higher.

This was unlike the squad members who couldn’t even properly handle a single spell etched onto their bodies.

He utilized every spell imprinted on his body exactly where needed, freely employing all spells necessary for suppression, approach, amplification, and accuracy.

And this time, he clung relentlessly to Lennok’s presence, never losing track of him, forcing an endless war of attrition.

Piiiing!!!

Lennok immediately extended mana threads to counter, but Logier’s reaction was entirely different from before.

Instead of forcibly blocking the bullet-like mana threads, he suddenly bit the threads with his greatly elongated fangs.

Simultaneously, an explosive manifestation of his Mind Imprint erupted from Logier’s entire body.

Crrunch, crrunch, crrunch!!!

“Delicious, absolutely delicious……!!!”

He bit off and chewed Lennok’s mana threads with his bare mouth, swallowing them down his throat.

Mana threads clinging to the giant wolf’s maw, along with all sorts of rebar and mana, were pushed unhesitatingly into his throat.

He dashed with all four limbs planted between the ground and the air, swallowing and digesting every material and form that caught in his teeth.

“Kwahahaha……!! No, it’s not just delicious, it’s……!!!!”

Sticky drool streamed from between Logier’s teeth as he burst into mad laughter.

At the same time, the density of mana erupting from his body began to rapidly increase, on a completely different level than before.

“It’s better quality and purer than any mana I’ve ever tasted!!! This, this is……!!”

“……”

Logier abruptly turned his piercing gaze towards the silent Lennok.

Logier, who had been staring at Lennok’s entire body with a ravenous, drooling gaze, tore his jaws wide open and roared.

“You, you aren’t just a mere specialist wizard!!!!”

Logier’s ability to digest the explosion that erupted from his throat in front of The Idol. He had suspected it somewhat then, but there was no doubt now.

What Logier was currently using was a powerful Mind Imprint Miniature Universe related to gluttony, or digestion.

Through it, he was chewing and swallowing Lennok’s mana threads themselves, digesting them within his body and making them his own power.

Lennok retreated, avoiding Logier who was now ravenously charging after madly chewing and swallowing his mana threads.

The two forms clashed ceaselessly on the train roof, which ran along the floating railway tracks of the dark city.

Lennok, pulling on the mana threads connected to his elbows, lightly rolled backward with one hand on the floor, shaking his aching arm as he fell into thought.

‘I had confirmed it during my health check-up, but… this is more than I expected.’

It had been confirmed during his examination by the vampire doctor Murphy that Lennok’s blood or mana acted as a potent stimulant for high-level mana users.

The last level 5 mana user he had experimented on at that time couldn’t withstand the power and exploded.

Logier, however, directly swallowed Lennok’s mana, endured its side effects, and even began to digest the power within it, making it his own.

Is this the kind of immense enhancement effect it has when it enters a superhuman capable of handling the output of Lennok’s mana or blood?

Even as Lennok pondered, Logier’s assault grew increasingly ferocious, to the point where it began to subtly transcend the realm of human imagination.

“Kwehahahaha!!!!! Hahahahaahak!!!”

The wolf’s fiery red pupils widened fully, and the silver fur covering its entire body grew wildly, turning pitch black.

As its claws and teeth grew, all sorts of spell characters were rapidly etched between them, and they were refined as if coated with thick mana.

It was truly a creepy and bizarre moment of metamorphosis, as if it were being reborn into an entirely different creature on the spot.

The beast, perfectly melted into the darkness of the night sky, raced uninhibitedly on all fours across the train roof, mana erupting like boosters from behind its limb joints as it surged forward.

KWA-AAAAAH!!!

Immediately, hundreds of mana threads entangled from the front, meticulously binding his form.

A tunnel of mana threads rotating over the railway tried to fix and sever Logier’s torso as if tying down the entire train car vertically, but.

“Aaaaaaaah!!!”

Logier ate the mana threads that bound his shoulders, along with his own flesh, then shook them off and rose.

CRACKKKK!!

The moment he bit and consumed his own body, he regenerated and stood up on the spot.

A grotesquely immense regenerative power that had halfway transcended the boundaries of living beings. In terms of speed alone, it was comparable to the true body of the Apostle Lennok had faced.

Logier’s physical abilities were rampaging at an absurd speed simply by consuming and digesting Lennok’s mana.

The werewolf stumbled to its feet, drooling more than a bucketful of saliva, and muttered as if possessed.

“I’m going, going higher……!!!!”

The greatest change that occurred to Logier was not on the outside, but within his own being.

A pure yet strangely twisted mana that he could never have conceived of on his own.

Simply by fully perceiving its presence, his Mind Imprint moved beyond the horizon of his previously recognized senses, going deeper.

Crrr-zzzt……!!

As if breaking out of an eggshell and being reborn, Logier’s Miniature Universe developed sharper and more lethal beastly senses as time passed.

The changes occurring within his body from swallowing and digesting the mana threads grew little by little.

With Lennok’s mana, Logier attempted to directly influence his own achievements and elevate his Mind Imprint.

An effect more immediate and incomparably superior to any drug, doping agent, or elixir.

Logier was already more deeply entranced by Lennok’s mana within his body than anyone else.

He accepted it.

Both the fact that this auspicious encounter was an absurd coincidence, and yet, that it was the most important moment of his life.

Kiriririk!!!

Beastly instinct and human martial arts reached their zenith, breaking through limits to fuse into one.

A distinctly different weight began to settle into Logier’s clenched fists, which had been aimlessly chaotic.

The werewolf’s long limbs elegantly rotated, drawing circles with a faint glow.

THWUMP!

Logier’s eyes sank deep as he brought his fist to Lennok’s sternum, inside his robe.

No longer was a beast’s howl resounding from his mouth.

[Wolf’s Domain: True Punishment]

With a powerful intent that pierced the mind, Logier’s fist vibrated at an imperceptible speed.

At that moment, hundreds of superimposed waves spread like ripples over Lennok’s shadow robe.

There was no recoil, no impact, no destruction, no repulsion.

At the culmination of instinct and technique, only a profound, endless resonance remained.

At the end of resonance, all things would return to dust.

PAAA-AAAAANG!!!!

A massive ripple, dozens of meters in radius, erupted centered around Lennok’s shadow robe.

Immediately after, immense swirling currents gathered around the epicenter from all directions, then raged like a storm, completely overturning the surrounding street and railway tracks.

KWO-GA-GA-GA-GA!!!!

The point where Logier’s fist landed was infinitely still, but everywhere outside that space raged and convulsed fiercely, as if a demon had manifested.

Beast and human. The ultimate resonance, exquisitely balanced and harmonized within, then unleashed.

“Haaah……”

A sigh of satisfaction, almost ecstasy, escaped Logier’s lips.

A stepping stone to ascend higher. A cornerstone to become a powerful and great being.

The thrilling fulfillment of all stagnation, which had felt sluggish despite all his struggles and efforts, being resolved at once.

All those feelings of resolution and his very heart were contained in this single punch.

At the moment of impact, everything composing Lennok’s body had already been scrambled into a mere lump of flesh.

Only the head, which contained his brain, and his outer appearance remained intact; he was already no different from a living corpse.

Kwooooh……!!!

Fragments of the train, falling as scrap metal, without even their original shape remaining.

Among the heaps of discarded iron like trash beneath the railway tracks, which had flipped over like dominoes, was even the faint, twitching trace of a shadow robe.

Logier gazed at Lennok’s sprawled form, then quietly looked down at his own steaming body.

A massive form, nearly four meters tall, transformed into a black werewolf. A powerful and heavy force erupted from his entire body.

And the overwhelming afterimage of a Mind Imprint that seemed to have completely overturned his inner being.

“……This was it.”

His sluggish achievements until now. The inspiration he had never felt since completing his Hierarchy was breathing alive right before his eyes.

“This isn’t the time for imprints or plans.”

Right now, he had to drain the mana of this peculiar specialist wizard to the marrow.

Everything else could be thought of later; they were trivial matters.

If he ‘consumed’ him entirely, Logier could advance further.

A conviction more powerful and clearer than any doubt he had ever felt in his not-so-long life.

He could no longer think of anything else besides this.

The very moment Logier, gripping Lennok’s fallen body, was about to escape Bailuts by crossing over the train—

A hand emerged from the end of the robe and tightly grasped Logier’s forearm.

“Did you enjoy your meal?”

“……!!!”

As Lennok’s neck, which had been sharply bent backward, slowly rotated forward, his obsidian mask glowed coldly.

“Then, it’s time to pay the price.”

With those words, Logier’s two eyes began to bulge out like a frog’s.

“Gah-lup?”