Beast, Blue Blood - Chapter 117

Chapter 117

A gunshot, almost as loud as a thunderclap, echoed.  

Si-woo collapsed, falling to one knee. Just because he had excellent regenerative abilities didn’t mean he couldn’t feel pain, so he had to grit his teeth.  

Lee Seong pressed the gun against Si-woo’s forehead.  

“At first, I didn’t know where you’d show up, so even the smallest noise made me flinch like a frightened rabbit. It was truly miserable. The Brotherhood, SN, everything—I helped it all come together, but I had to step back and let someone else take the credit.”  

Behind Lee Seong’s faint smile, anger smoldered.  

“Because of you.”  

It was clear he was holding back his emotions, likely to maintain his composure.  

Si-woo couldn’t help but laugh. The arrogance and pride on display were absurd.  

“Come to think of it.”

Si-woo suddenly said.

“There’s no way you’d want something like the Luax Virus.”  

Lee Seong’s eyes gleamed with interest, though he didn’t say anything, so Si-woo continued.  

“What benefit would there be for you to increase the number of Luax? The fact that you want the Luax Virus means someone holding your leash wants it.”  

Lee Seong chuckled.  

“Humans are quite something. They never know when to give up.”  

But the fact that he had killed Ah-eun, the person capable of creating the virus, meant Lee Seong never had any intention of developing it and never would.  

At that moment, Lee Seong turned and shot a case. As it burst open, mist spread rapidly. Si-woo hurriedly covered his mouth with his arm.  

Footsteps appeared in front of him. When Si-woo looked up, Lee Seong was now wearing a gas mask that looked as smooth as a polished mask.  

“What the…!”  

The mercenary was startled, as if this hadn’t been part of the plan.  

“Don’t worry. It’s harmless to you.”

Lee Seong said without turning around.  

“It’s a silver bullet designed to catch werewolves.”  

Si-woo’s heart suddenly sank.  

He staggered, dropping one hand to the ground. He felt like he might vomit, and the world spun as if his inner ear had been erased. It felt like the synapses in his nervous system were shutting down, like a city hit by a blackout.  

To make matters worse, the wound from the gunshot beneath his torn pants had stopped regenerating.  

Looking down at him, Lee Seong spoke with oily eyes, his smile spreading like a slick across his face.  

“No matter how hard the world breaks apart, there’s no way you’d ever willingly hand over the virus.”  

Even if Ha-yeon tried to recover it through other means.  

However, he knew that the fact that Si-woo claimed to have a prototype of the virus meant he had a hidden motive.  

It must have taken Si-woo an enormous amount of time and skill to develop. The technology to make drugs absorb into a vampire’s body, the ability to alter VAC, the vampire genome map, and the specific identification and modification of the TEr3 mutation gene involved in regeneration…  

Click.  

Lee Seong aimed the gun at Si-woo’s forehead.  

A cold gleam flowed from the barrel.  

Seeing this, Si-woo felt a chill in his gut. Even with his regenerative abilities intact, getting shot in the head with a silver bullet would be dangerous. But now that his regeneration had ceased, he would surely die.

“The Ivanov clan won’t last long.”

Lee Seong said, his eyes gleaming with a cold light.

“Then your lady will naturally fall right into my hands. And when that happens, she’ll realize just how short and beautiful the world she lived in really was.”

Bang!

Lee Seong looked down at Si-woo and kept firing.

Bang! Bang, bang, bang!

He shot repeatedly, until the magazine was empty, as though releasing six hundred years of pent-up rage.

After ceasing fire, he noticed something beneath Si-woo’s torn clothes: a bulletproof vest that almost looked like skin. Not a single silver bullet had pierced through.

Lee Seong scoffed.  

“You thought about surviving, huh?”

He raised the gun to Si-woo’s unprotected head and fired again.  

Bang!  

And again.  

Bang, bang, bang!

Finally, Lee Seong threw aside the empty gun.  

“At last, this tiresome bastard is gone.”

He turned and began walking away.  

“Burn it all down.”

Si-woo lay in a pool of his own blood, his head resting on the stone pavement bathed in a light brighter than the sun. Dust floating in the air shimmered in the light, falling around him like snowflakes.  

There was no light of life in his dull eyes. He looked like a beautiful, quiet, and abandoned doll, one that God had once cherished before becoming bored and discarding it.  

Splash, splash…

The sound of someone walking, struggling with each step, echoed.

Before Si-woo, who lay submerged in the pool of blood, Joo-hwan dropped to his knees in despair.  

He pressed both hands to the ground, his head bowed.

“This is seriously exhausting…”

Joo-hwan muttered.  

He lifted his head and deeply slashed his wrist, letting his blood drip into Si-woo’s mouth.  

“Wake up, Patronus.”

* * *

“We’ve connected!”

The programmer turned around and shouted excitedly.

“Wake up, Patronus.”

Joo-hwan’s voice echoed throughout the control room at that very moment.  

Eugene, dumbfounded by the turn of events, spoke up amid the confused looks of those who couldn’t understand the significance of the words.  

“Director, did you know we had a client?”  

Though others were struggling to grasp the rapidly changing situation, Jerome murmured.  

“In war, you always need a hidden card.”

* * *

The blood flowed in.  

The double helix of DNA unraveled, and within the vast array of countless sequences, the darkened areas began to light up one by one. It was as if a dying flame had been rekindled.  

Si-woo’s chest rose as he coughed up blood.  

A splitting headache, unlike anything he had ever felt, hit him.  

Joo-hwan, soaked and disheveled like a drowned rat, looked down at him and spoke. 

“Good morning.”  

Si-woo stared at him blankly.  

And then it happened.

A low hum reverberated through the air. No, it was more like a vibration, detectable only by their heightened senses.  

Joo-hwan lifted his head.

Through the parting clouds, a vessel descended, as if it were a divine manifestation.

* * *

[This is B-77.]

A sudden, unfamiliar transmission came through to the control room.

“B-77…?”

Someone muttered in confusion. How could the stolen B-77…?

Another transmission followed shortly after:

[We’ve arrived at the destination.]

“Destination?”

Someone else asked, but no one could possibly know what destination the pilot was referring to. After all, this was the situation control room of ISLE, not the military.

And yet, here was a transmission from the B-77, a strategic bomber. Technically, before the B-77 was stolen, it had been part of ISLE, as it had not yet been delivered to the military. But still, receiving a casual transmission from a stolen B-77 was utterly bizarre.

Eugene muttered.

“No way…”  

Turning to the side, she asked.

“Was it you who stole the B-77, boss?”

“What?”

Jerome responded, his voice cracking with disbelief.  

“Why would you do that? We were nearly accused of being a terrorist organization because of it!”

But Eugene thought she understood. There was always that “what if.” If their cooperation with MCTC had frozen, it would make sense to pretend the B-77 had been stolen and hide it as a last resort.

[Visual is clear.]

Another transmission rang out.

[Savior, launching.]

* * *

Joo-hwan gazed up at the sky and muttered.  

“Uh… are we sure that’s going to be okay?”

Si-woo, still not fully recovered, stared at the sky and asked in a hoarse voice.  

“Did the booster shot work?”

Joo-hwan, resting his arms on his knees, replied.  

“You know this could have some major side effects, right? You might never recover your regenerative abilities fully. Aren’t you pushing your precious client a bit too hard?”

“I’m sorry.”

Si-woo said earnestly.  

“I had to risk my life too.”

“Yeah, well, stop risking mine along with it.”  

Si-woo turned his gaze to Joo-hwan.  

“Wasn’t it me who gave it to you in the first place?”

Joo-hwan chuckled.  

“Finally showing your true colors, huh? I knew you were always this secretly obsessive and brooding type. I feel sorry for the young lady.”  

Just as they were exchanging this oddly out-of-place banter, the belly of the descending aircraft began to open, parting the sky as it came down.

* * *

[B-77, launching Savior.]

The moment the transmission dropped, Jerome whirled around.

“Did they just say ‘Savior’?”

But no one answered. Everyone was speechless, staring at the footage of the aircraft on the screen, even Eugene.  

“Are they seriously going to drop the Savior missile on their own head?”

Jerome asked in shock. Eugene muttered in response.  

“That’s why he went alone.”

Si-woo had gone by himself because no one else could survive a missile strike, except him, with even a sliver of a chance.

As he tried to wrap his mind around the situation, Jerome realized that Si-woo must have prepared just as much as Lee Seong had.

“No matter how good the regenerative abilities are, that’s just impossible. How can a living being survive a Savior missile hit?”

Jerome asked, incredulous.  

“Is he planning to take Lee Seong with him? Why on earth is he just chatting over there instead of running away?”  

“No matter how fast you run, you can’t escape the radius of the Savior.”  

Eugene said firmly.  

“Same goes for Lee Seong.”

* * *

Lee Seong looked up at the sky.  

The missile detaching from the aircraft was eerily silent, like something that only happened underwater. The mercenaries stared blankly at the sky as if they were mere humans helpless before the wrath of the heavens.  

Then, suddenly, Lee Seong snatched a knife from the waist of a nearby mercenary and slashed his own palm. The mercenaries looked at him with confusion, unable to comprehend his actions.  

The wound on his palm didn’t regenerate.  

‘Chun Ah-eun.’  

Lee Seong realized.  

Chun Ah-eun had neutralized his regenerative abilities at the cost of her life. She must have injected or ingested something before coming here, knowing full well that he intended to kill her, spreading her blood as it flowed out.

* * *

Beyond the screen, Tauga watched as the Savior missile sliced through the air.

<Thank you.>

The only thing Ah-eun left for him was a short message. But from the beginning, Tauga had known that she was the real ‘Keshik.’  

Ah-eun had set off on a journey to protect her king.  

Thus, Tauga decided not to grieve. He simply closed his eyes, paying silent homage to a comrade’s end.

* * *

As Lee Seong gazed up at the sky in a daze, the mercenaries followed his gaze.  

The realization hit them in an instant.  

The mercenaries yelled curses and ran to retrieve surface-to-air missiles or jumped into tanks to prepare for intercepting.  

Missiles shot up from all directions, but it seemed they were equipped with some sort of jamming system, as missiles exploded wildly in the wrong places. Meanwhile, the missiles dropped by the fighter jets glided gracefully through the explosions like a waltz.  

At that moment, many already knew it was too late. When death was visible, no matter how fast you ran, you couldn’t outrun it.  

Yet still, to think of dropping a missile on one’s own head…  

Lee Seong squinted his eyes and muttered. 

“Everyone said I was crazy, but not as much as that guy.”  

Boom.  

In that instant, light erupted.  

A sound that shook the heavens followed, as blinding light burst outward, dazzling everyone who witnessed it.