Asura in Arknights

"So what's the point of taking this kind of brain-degrading drug?"

"Get down!"

Li Ang lowered his body and narrowly dodged Byron's punch from above, kicking Byron back through the hole.

Chapter Sixty-Five: Success

"Are there any other people in this lab? Quickly organize them to go to a safe place; leave this to me."

"Yes Yes!"

After saying that, Li Ang and Byron, who had been kicked away, jumped down into the hole.

Under the influence of gravity, Li Ang stepped on Byron's chest as he fell to the ground. Although Byron appeared thin, Li Ang's bone and muscle density far exceeded that of ordinary people.

Byron is indeed much more powerful than usual now, but unfortunately, he has gained this power at the cost of his intelligence.

Even if he has great strength, what's the use if he can't hit?

Byron's attacks now have absolutely no rules or strategy; he's just wildly swinging his fists based on instinct. Anyone with a quick reaction, as long as they aren't overwhelmed by Byron's momentum, can easily dodge his attacks from the blind spot under his arms.

Li Ang dodged back and forth between Byron's arms, occasionally launching a weak counterattack.

Although Byron's IQ is now almost zero, Li Ang has to admit that the enhancement effect on Byron this time has exceeded his expectations. In addition to the greatly increased strength, the surgery seems to have also activated his self-healing ability.

That kick just now broke at least two of Byron's ribs, but Li Ang heard Byron actually use his muscles to forcefully put the broken bones back in place... and then the broken bones healed completely in a few seconds.

The combination of the two creates a terrifying effect where 1+1>2. Unless Byron's head is cut off, Li Ang suspects that even if Byron's heart is pierced, he can recover with his current terrifying self-healing ability.

However, now is not the time to kill him; Li Ang still needs to use him to achieve his own goals.

As Li Ang had instructed, the supervisor went to the other rooms in the lab to notify those still remaining to move to a safe area. After some time, Li Ang could sense that everyone on this floor had gathered in the most remote room.

Because of the power outage, all the monitoring systems on this floor are also unusable. It's time to take action.

Under Li Ang's deliberate guidance, Byron was like a giant bulldozer, rampaging through everything in their path.

Even if what stands in his way is a wall that has been reinforced many times, Byron will not hesitate to crash into it. If he shows the slightest hesitation, Li Ang will unleash a few earth-shattering sword strikes to provoke Byron's ferocity through pain.

No matter how sturdy the laboratory walls were, they couldn't withstand the two of them ramming around like that, especially with Li Ang secretly helping them. After several impacts, Byron finally managed to crash headfirst into the room next door.

Byron finally stopped after crashing through several carbon brick walls.

Byron shook his head, shaking off the carbon brick fragments on his body, before starting to look around for Li Ang.

By the time he noticed Li Ang, it was already too late. Li Ang, like a ghost, had already gotten within a foot of Byron.

The long-accumulated energy surged forth, and all the impact was contained within a single area by Li Ang, focusing entirely on Byron. As if he had been given two rocket boosters, Byron was instantly propelled away and completely disappeared from Li Ang's sight.

In the short term, Byron will not be able to come and cause him any trouble.

Now is the moment for Li Ang to reap the rewards of his victory—following the hole Byron created, a short distance further ahead lies the supervisor's office he had previously found.

Thanks to Li Ang's careful calculations, Byron managed to create a direct path without damaging the desktop computer next to him.

"Got it!"

Before Byron could recover, Li Ang quickly removed the hard drive from the computer case and put it in his pocket.

The reason Li Ang made things so complicated was that he wanted to eliminate any connection between the data theft and himself.

The accident was caused by the supervisor, the wall was damaged by Byron, and Li Ang was also unable to kill Byron because of the supervisor's request, which is why so much damage was caused.

Even the most inexplicable power supply line failure, if traced back to its source, can only be found to be caused by a short circuit in the entire line due to equipment overload. As for the equipment that malfunctioned, it had long been smashed to pieces by the rampaging Byron, and there was nothing to investigate.

This accident was entirely the supervisor's responsibility. Li Ang had managed to subdue Byron in time, preventing him from causing further damage.

"This should be enough..."

Although we haven't obtained a sample of the drug, the information on this hard drive should be enough. Pol Pharmaceuticals can't be clean, and the SEC only needs to find a reason to take action.

All that's left is to wait for Byron to return, then trick him into destroying everything in the office; no one will realize that Li Ang was behind it.

Things should have gone this way, but what happened next completely exceeded Li Ang's expectations.

He waited in place for a while, but Byron did not rush out of the hole. Just as Li Ang was wondering, several thin, needle-like objects suddenly entered Li Ang's perception range and attacked him at an extremely fast speed.

Li Ang instinctively turned his body to the side, dodging the unidentified objects.

The unidentified objects swept past Li Ang's side and then exploded not far behind him, releasing an extremely strong smell of blood.

"Blood?!"

There's no mistake, those unidentified objects that just flew by were clots of blood, and the owner of the blood was someone Li Ang was very familiar with—Byron, whom Li Ang had knocked away not long ago.

How... how did Byron manage to do something like that?

Although Byron had lost a lot of blood, the speed of those blood arrows was not something that could be achieved simply by throwing out congealed blood clots; their power was enough to pierce through most armor.

Undoubtedly, this is something that can only be done with Originium Arts, but the question is, isn't Byron a Squib who has no Originium Arts adaptability? How could he suddenly use such a powerful spell?

What exactly happened during those ten-odd seconds when he was knocked away?

Looking at Byron, who emerged from the cave covered in a layer of sticky blood, Li Ang couldn't help but grip the hilt of his sword tightly.

Things are getting... really getting more and more interesting.

From Byron now, Li Ang sensed an aura similar to that of Renn back then.

Chapter Sixty-Six: The Past

What exactly is an infected person to this world?

It took Byron thirty years to figure out the answer to this question.

Long, long ago, when Byron was just beginning to remember things, small black crystals had already grown on his body. At that time, Kazdel had not yet disintegrated, and countless factories were operating day and night, releasing large amounts of polluting waste gas into the air.

The sky over Kazdel was gray, and even the rain had a faint reddish tinge, stinging the skin when it fell on it.

Ninety-nine percent of the people living there are infected with Oripathy, and only a very small number of lucky ones are spared. When everyone is infected, there is no difference between ordinary people and infected people.

The Sarkaz race has an extremely high tolerance for Oripathy. In the early stages, Oripathy does not affect their bodily functions. By the time symptoms appear, most Sarkaz people have already reached the end of their lives, meeting their final moment in battle.

After rounding up, the Sarkaz had absolutely no reason to worry about Oripathy.

When Byron grew up to be able to kill a hound with a single punch, he left the declining Kazdel with his companions.

The outside world is different from Kazdel. Ironically, those people are more afraid of the Infected than the Sarkaz. In fact, the Sarkaz's infamous reputation as the "demon race" is largely due to the fact that almost all of them are Infected.

They formed a mercenary group and wandered the continent of Terra for a long time. People would die in battle from time to time, and fresh blood would often join them. Finally, after many twists and turns, they arrived at Kazimierz, the legendary land of knights.

On that day, something momentous happened that changed their entire mercenary group.

The second strongest member of the mercenary group after Byron found him and said, "Byron, I'm a little tired and want to rest."

"Okay, so how long are you planning to rest? We won't be staying here for too long."

After a long silence, the other person replied, "I probably won't come back. I'm tired of this life of wandering. This city suits me well. As long as I have some strength, I can register as a competitive knight, which should be enough to support myself."

"I... will probably stay here."

"Since you've already made up your mind, I won't stop you. I wish you all the best in the future."

"...Thank you. If you come here again next time, please come and find me. I will do my best to entertain you."

On this day, Byron saw off another companion. Of the group that had come out of Kazdel with him, he was now the only one left.

However, this is still better than all of them dying on the battlefield. For most Sarkaz, being able to live a peaceful life is a luxury they wouldn't even dare to dream of.

That was the last time Byron spoke to him. That very night, a group of fully armed knights stormed into the inn where they were staying.

The leading knight arrogantly declared to them, "Infected, you've been arrested!"

It would be irrational to get into a conflict with these people; if a real fight broke out, they might not be a match for these fully armed knights.

Mercenaries... unless they are forced to the point of desperation, how many people would be willing to leave their homes and become mercenaries who could die at any moment? So, without exception, their entire group was captured as infected.

What Byron didn't expect was that these knights' goal wasn't their pitiful money at all; their goal... was Byron and his mercenary group itself.

Eliminating the infected—what a noble reason! No one can criticize these knights' actions, after all, no one wants to live with a mobile source of infection. As for where these 'infected' went after they were captured... who cares about such things?

In fact, most of the slave-catching teams operated in Qazimir under the pretext of capturing infected people.

After that, Byron went through seven years of hell.

He was sent to an underground arena, where the only thing he could do each day was to be locked in a huge cage and fight against different enemies. There were distorted infected creatures, ordinary people with nowhere else to go, but most of them were infected people like him who had been captured and brought here.

Over the past seven years, countless people and animals have died under Byron's fists. He has been beaten to the brink of death more than once, but each time, he has persevered thanks to his strong physique. Of all the mercenaries who were captured back then, he is the only one who has survived to this day.

Byron had tried to escape countless times, but where could a big, dumb guy like him, who knew absolutely nothing about Originium Arts, possibly run to?

As time went by, the audience in the arena grew tired of his familiar face. But getting rid of Byron would seem like a waste, since he had been in the arena for seven years.

So someone came up with a brilliant idea. He approached Byron and promised him, "Would you like to participate in the Special Championship? If you can get into the main draw of the Special Championship, we can restore your freedom."

"If you can get a top-three finish in the Major...maybe we can convince the Knights Association to allow infected individuals to become competitive knights."

This seems to be a trend of business alliances recently, and Byron just happens to be the most powerful of the infected they have.

Byron agreed without hesitation.

The reason he was brought to this place... is simply because he is infected.

Even the most ruthless person, after being tormented for seven years, would develop an unparalleled sense of identity with this person, not to mention that Byron was not a heartless person.

Until Byron met his old friend again after many years.

"Where...is this place?"

When Byron opened his eyes again, he saw a completely unfamiliar scene.

A thick white fog enveloped us, reducing visibility to less than two meters. We could hear whispers in the distance, but upon closer inspection, we couldn't pinpoint their source.

This feeling made Byron very agitated. A voice inside him kept telling him that he didn't belong here and that his true home was somewhere deeper.

Perhaps, we should follow the voice's advice and continue deeper into the depths?

The moment Byron had this thought, a crack suddenly appeared in the ground beneath his feet, swallowing his body completely.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Blood Knight

Byron seemed to have fallen into an even stranger place.

All around was a vast expanse of white; nothing could be seen or heard, only the flickering white light made Byron feel an endless void.

In this strange environment, Byron's thinking gradually slowed down. If it weren't for the feeling of weightlessness that still told him he was falling, even his consciousness would probably have been washed away in this void.

After an unknown amount of time, the scenery before Byron's eyes finally began to change.

In this blinding white light, some black lines suddenly appeared, extending from the end of the abyss and soon filling all the space in Byron's field of vision.

The entire world turned from pure white to pure black, and stimulated by this change in light and darkness, Byron finally regained his senses.

He discovered that the entire space was shrinking, and soon it became a passageway that could only accommodate one person at a time. When Byron passed through the end of this passageway, everything before him finally opened up.

When he saw the countless tiny black dots directly below, Byron realized that he was thousands of meters in the air.

Those small black dots were all people, and they were all well-equipped soldiers wearing uniform armor. Judging from the shape of their helmets, they were all soldiers of the Sarkaz race.

But Byron had never seen this style of armor before, or rather, with the Kazdel Military Council already dissolved, they simply couldn't possibly field such a large number of troops.

However, this was not what surprised Byron the most. What truly shocked and terrified him were the unknown creatures fighting the Sarkaz soldiers.

Those things seemed to be the product of a hybrid of the deepest fears and hatreds in the human heart. Even the ugliest infected creatures became kind and amiable in the face of those deformed monsters.

When did the Sarkaz... ever fight something like that?

Just as Byron's mind went blank, a voice that sounded like countless overlapping voices pierced through his soul.

"Welcome home, descendant of the vampires."

-------------------------------------

"boom--!!"

A large hole suddenly appeared in the alloy wall. Byron twisted his arm and slowly pulled his fist, which was deeply embedded in the wall, out. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Ang quickly increased the distance between himself and Byron.

"What kind of drugs is this guy on? He's suddenly become so strong?"

Li Ang took a deep breath, calming his racing heart.

The current situation is giving Li Ang a bit of a headache. After Byron was knocked away by him a few minutes ago, he seems to have activated some strange switch and transformed into an unparalleled powerhouse. His Originium Arts, which control blood, caught Li Ang off guard and chased him around the entire floor for a while.

Of course, all of this is predicated on Leon preserving his trump card and sparing Byron's life.

Otherwise, Byron isn't wearing armor now, and Li Ang only needs one Blazing Wave Sword to burn him to ashes. He doesn't believe Byron's body can withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees.

With the two important branches, Explosive Wave Sword and Evil Light Wave Sword, unavailable, and relying solely on Earth Shatter Wave Sword, Li Ang truly wouldn't be able to defeat Byron in the short term.