***
His vision pulsed red.
At the same time, the roar of tens of thousands of raging monsters echoed violently in his head.
As a vicious headache hammered into Rihart, an annoying voice buzzed like a gnat in his ear.
He tilted his head sideways.
Begging for his life?
When the man betrayed him, hadn't he already prepared to die?
The wretch groveling on the ground was a trusted subordinate who, barely ten minutes ago, had brought assassins and driven a blade straight into his abdomen.
It was hardly surprising.
Lately, attempts to bribe those close to Rihart had been relentless.
The higher his fame and popularity rose, the more blatant the underhanded schemes of his political rivals became.
Silencing the annoying fly's mouth without hesitation, Rihart's lips twisted into a faint smirk.
In truth, petty power struggles meant nothing compared to the beast currently running wild inside his body.
During the subjugation of the berserk black dragon, Baelmos, he had been swept into an unidentified, colossal hole.
A space reminiscent of Khaos from the Holy Scripture's creation myth—a realm untouched by the divine, swallowed entirely by primordial chaos.
A chaos said to have birthed all wicked things.
Having plunged into that dark abyss and emerged, a monster had taken root within him.
Yet despite being swallowed by that dreadful Khaos, he had not turned completely into a monster.
An unprecedentedly powerful mana core suppressed the demonic energy, leaving him trapped in a half-monster state—neither a true beast nor wholly human.
His body had become a bizarre vessel where mana and demonic energy coexisted, but tonight, the demonic energy raged with unusual savagery.
Arteries bulging against his skin were slowly stained black, and his muscles writhed as they swelled unnaturally.
Amid the agony of veins that felt as though they were burning away, he quickly retraced what had set off this rampage.
‘Was it that cigarette…?’
The moment he inhaled the smoke of that cigarette with the distinct herbal scent, offered by a peddler, the mana inside him twisted ever so slightly.
Had that caused an internal fracture?
The demonic energy suppressed by his mana broke free, running wild like a horse loosed from its reins.
Worse still, tonight brought a full moon, when demonic energy naturally surged, and the ambush had drawn blood, driving the beast to even greater fury.
As the searing heat tearing through his entire body worsened, Rihart's patience wore thin.
Before he knew it, the demonic energy erupting from his back writhed like a living creature, swallowing the surroundings in black, and his pupils narrowed to slits.
Surrendering his body to the beast would bring sweet relief.
Yet running amok in the capital would invite an unbearable mess, so he scraped together every last shred of endurance.
‘Demonic energy weakens when the sun rises. I only need to hold out until morning….’
Just then.
He caught a faint gasp.
Beyond his blood-red vision, a quiet breath drifted toward him.
‘Another fly remains.’
The irritating emotion churning in his gut all day bubbled over in a harsh, sizzling roar.
With gleaming eyes, he glared toward the source of the sound.
***
The moment those vertically slit pupils locked onto her as if to pierce her through, primal terror seized Mona's chest.
‘That… is not something I can handle like a slime.’
She had to run.
Frozen like prey caught before a predator, Mona barely managed to unstick her feet.
She spun around, grabbed her skirts, and bolted in sheer panic.
She did not make it far.
A deafening blast shattered the air.
The ambient mana twisted violently, and the towering wall boxing in the alley exploded.
“Ugh!”
The brutal shockwave and showering debris hurled Mona onto the stone floor.
To make matters worse, the collapsing wall thoroughly buried her only escape route under rubble.
She choked back a gasp.
Trapped like a rat in a cage, Mona swallowed a trembling breath and turned her head.
Through the thick cloud of rising dust, a silhouette with eyes red as fresh blood stalked closer.
“…!!”
As the clouds parted to let the moonlight through, the predator's features sharpened into view, leaving Mona breathless.
‘Rihart Cronel…?!’
The face of the war hero who had commanded awe and praise across the banquet hall merely hours ago choked the air right out of her lungs.
At the same time, the desperate plea she had overheard came rushing back.
Yet even amidst her sheer terror, Mona felt something deeply amiss.
Was that… truly the war hero?
‘Something isn't right.’
To her eyes, the being before her was not a human, but a monster.
She could stake her entire life spent obsessing over monsters on it.
The mana in this area was reversing its flow, revolving around that very entity.
Those reptile-like, slit pupils could never belong to a human either.
‘Still, there’s no way the Grand Duke’s heir, the Emperor’s own nephew, is a monster….’
Then what on earth was it?
Ah…!
Suddenly, a plausible answer struck Mona's mind.
A doppelgänger.
She had read about it in an ancient tome when she was young.
Monsters that mimicked human appearance did not exist merely in ghost stories; they were real….
Yet because of their elusive nature, the ancient text offered very little detail on them.
They lacked body heat, vanished when the sun rose, and possessed high intelligence, placing them in the high-tier monster category… was that it?
Just as Mona was piecing together the traits of a doppelgänger, the surrounding air vibrated.
A low, bone-chilling baritone reverberated through her skull.
Before she realized it, the creature she presumed to be a doppelgänger stood barely three or four paces away.
As the gap closed, the thick stench of blood hit her nose, and Mona sucked in a sharp breath.
A dagger was buried deep in his firm abdomen, plainly visible through his shredded, ragged shirt.
Dark red blood streamed steadily down the blade where it had torn into his pale flesh, prompting Mona to clamp a hand over her mouth.
‘How can he… move in that state?’
Could it be that, as a monster, he felt no pain?
With a smooth, chilling motion, the man—no, the monster—drew a blade with gleaming eyes while she froze in shock.
The cold steel slid free.
“…Who sent you?”
The monster aimed the tip of the blade straight at the mask Mona wore in place of her glasses.
The steel tapped lightly against the edge of the mask, but she had no time to straighten it.
“…!”
The blade immediately dropped beneath her chin, setting her lips trembling uncontrollably.
Sheer terror seized her, whispering that the dagger could pierce her throat at any second.
The hostility blazing within those blood-red irises was that ferociously intense.
‘Then again, having a blade stabbed into his stomach, who wouldn't harbor hatred toward humans?’
Knowing full well the collapsed wall blocked her retreat, she scrambled backward in desperation.
Her back struck the cold masonry with a dull thud, and Mona clenched her twitching fingers in defeat.
‘Touching him is out of the question.’
Though that ill-fated experiment had left her with a constitution monsters instinctively favored, that power worked strictly through physical contact.
Right now, her head would be severed before she could even extend a hand.
She had ventured out to observe monsters relying solely on that constitution, never imagining something so horrifying that she couldn't even touch it would appear….
‘Is there really no other way…?’
Yet no other means of survival came to mind.
Biting her lip hard, Mona reached into her skirt pocket like a drowning woman clutching at straws and retrieved a small perfume bottle.
Inside was the concentrated extract designed to draw an amicable response from monsters.
Otherwise known as ‘perfume that befriends monsters.’
Even after the experiment failed catastrophically when she was seventeen, Mona had never given up.
Far from giving up, she had continued her research in secret at an abandoned monastery near the academy.
‘It’s incomplete, and I haven't tested it yet, but….’
For now, she had no choice but to pray it would work.
She could only hope the perfume would soften even a fraction of his murderous intent….
‘Open, please.’
Cold sweat pooled in her palms.
Trying to pry the stopper loose with one hand so as not to draw his attention, her fingers kept slipping uselessly.
A soft click.
It opened…!
At that moment, the dagger at her throat nicked her skin, and her heart dropped straight to her stomach.
The glass vial slipped from Mona's grasp.
‘Oh, no…!’
The perfume spilled heavily over Mona's skirt, and the thick, concentrated aroma bloomed across the alley.
“…!”
The instant the scent took the air, the creature before her let out a low groan and staggered.
Clatter—
The dagger trained on Mona's throat slipped harmlessly to the ground.
