Chapter 37: Boss – The Toxicology Scholar Ian (2)

Booker Winter.

Age: 23. Born in Queens, New York. His father had been a soldier, his mother a manager at a small local diner. He went through elementary and middle school in ordinary Queens public schools. He did pretty well, surprisingly. He attended Stony Brook, part of the State University of New York system, and was currently dealing with the fallout of having pissed off his advisor.

His father retired from the military while Booker was in high school. Like many veterans, the man struggled to reenter civilian life. He had been a good soldier, no doubt—but out here, in society, he was short-tempered and arrogant, entirely unsuited to everyday life. He had no patience for the training programs offered by the VA, and every job hunt ended in failure. Soon, the family was surviving solely on his mother’s meager income.

Tensions rose fast.

Humiliated and frustrated, his father frequently fought with his mother, and she—never one to back down—always fired back. It wasn’t long before the household crumbled. After a string of petty court hearings, the two divorced. Booker lived with his mother after that.

Strangely enough, it didn’t seem to affect him much. He carried no shadow from it. Like so many his age, he liked video games, comic books, hitting on girls, messing around with his equally rowdy friends, blasting concerts from his favorite bands, and once in a while, street racing at night, maybe flying a little weed, cursing out the cops. But overall? He was a decent guy who knew where the line was and didn’t cross it.

His friends described him as ‘loudmouthed and bad-tempered, but a good dude to have around when shit gets dumb.’ He took pride in that.

Live fast, go with the flow, chase a thrill now and then, get a middle-of-the-road job after graduation, marry a woman whose elbows don’t reach her navel, raise a kid with fewer bad habits than himself. That was the extent of his life plan.

He never once imagined that something like this would happen to him.

And it had already happened three times.

The first was Vaclav. That one had scarred him for life.

The second was Rena. He hadn’t witnessed it directly, but…

The third—

“Ah…”

The young girl’s body had been torn apart like paper. Ripped to shreds with absurd ease.

“Ah… ah… ahhh…”

That black claw, wrapped in rune-etched bandages, had barely moved. Just a single swipe and her torso was sliced clean through. Her insides spilled everywhere.

“Ahhh… No… No no no—ahhhh—”

Another swing. Splurt. Half of Jelena’s head exploded, and her last expression froze in place—pure shock. She hadn’t even had time to be afraid before she was reduced to a mangled corpse and then dissolved into mist.

“Aaaaaaahhhhh! You fucking—fucking son of a bitch!!!”

He could hear the chieftain shouting from behind him, but whatever he said didn’t register at all. Booker’s blood boiled over; rage roared like a wildfire through his limbs and chest, scorching everything in its path. His vision turned red with fury. Reason? Calm? Restraint? All of it had been blasted into oblivion by that scream.

Emotion drove his limbs. His exhausted body surged with renewed strength. With a furious roar, Booker raised his longsword and charged.

Thud!

“H-huh?”

His knees hit the ground.

His vision spun.

So tired.

So, so tired.

His brain went foggy. His muscles had nothing left to give. Breathing was hard. His mouth and nose were filled with that smell—that god-awful stench of rot and sweetness mixed into one.

Screams echoed around him—terrified, panicked cries from the rotted-face people. Sometimes sharp, sometimes muffled. Booker tried to brace his hands and push himself up, but he couldn’t even tell how far his face was from the ground.

“W-what… the hell…”

His sluggish brain finally realized what had happened—but by then, it was too late to hold his breath. He looked down at his hand—his hand? His skin was bubbling. The back of his hand was decaying, peeling away in lesions that looked less like rot and more like it had been dunked in acid.

“Ah… ahh…”

He forced his head up. His warped vision strained to focus.

He needed to see—see the thing in front of him.

“Ah…”

One word came to mind.

Monster.

It stood four, maybe five times larger than a human.

It had four arms.

And three legs.

Two arms extended from its shoulders, and two more sprouted from its flanks. Its third leg appeared to grow from the base of its spine. Both its claws and feet ended in vicious, razor-sharp talons.

Its limbs were thick and corded with muscle. The entire body was wrapped in bandages—dark gray, almost black—covered in arcane runes that defied understanding. At first glance, it resembled some bestial mummy.

Through the gaps in the bandages, patches of pitch-black skin, bristling hair, and clusters of grotesquely overgrown eyes squirmed into view.

Countless eyes.

Dozens of eyeballs writhed beneath the bandages, peering out through the slits, their pupils dilating and contracting in unison.

And its head looked like a human skull, grotesquely enlarged, then forcibly warped into a beast’s shape. It was twisted, monstrous, terrifying.

The skull, too, was partially wrapped in bandages, but from the cracks in its head coverings emerged its largest eye, gleaming with a sickening, radiant violet glow.

This was the overlord of this entire fog zone. The being known as Ian.

What a hideous, distorted creature.

And yet, there was an almost unnatural beauty within that distortion. A strange, imposing sense of majesty.

Ian was unlike any other fog fiend—unlike even the elite variants. It didn’t need to bare its fangs or roar. Merely standing there, its overwhelming presence suffocated all else. Its pace was unhurried, its movements deliberate. It didn’t rush to kill Booker. In fact, its casual stroll forward made it seem as if Jelena’s slaughter just moments ago was no different from swatting away a gnat.

But those eyes, those countless, gleaming, ever-watching eyes—though it may have looked like a mindless beast, Booker could feel the malice pouring out from every glance.

He understood, without question that this monster, this Mist King, had come for one reason only.

To visit cruel, deliberate death upon all who dared trespass into its dominion.

Shzzz… shhhzzzzz…

A sizzling hiss escaped from its bandages. That violet-black smoke was oozing out from between the wrappings, rising in coils. Booker had only breathed in a little, and already his body was shutting down.

He forced energy into his limbs, trying to stand, but his body twisted and collapsed sideways, slamming face-first into the dirt.

“Grkkgrkkgrkkgrkkgrkk…”

Ian opened its mouth.

Its maw called to mind the gulper eel of the deep sea: massive, distended, malformed, lined with backward-facing, needle-like fangs. A sickening cross between a snarl and a breath escaped its throat as it turned its head left, then right. The many eyes across its body rotated with it, forming a 360-degree panorama of vision that absorbed everything around it.

Then—all at once—every single eye focused on one target.

Booker.

Shit!

The word death slammed into Booker’s brain like a spike. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even scream.

“Foul sinner of the fog! You will run rampant no longer!!!”

Crack!

A beam of pale golden light streaked overhead, snapping into a chain of shimmering radiance that coiled tightly around Ian’s neck.

It was the chieftain.

Ian let out a low growl, rearing back as the chain constricted. And just then, the still-standing rotted-face people charged in from both sides. Nets and ropes flew, and the villagers, blood burning with desperation, launched themselves at Ian like possessed warriors.

The pressure Ian radiated was immense, but in terms of size, it was no larger than the centipede-shaped fog fiend made from four human torsos stitched together. If they could restrain it in time…

“Grrrkkkrrrrrk!”

Snap!

***

Jack’s defining trait in combat was speed.

Aldrich’s was brute force.

And Ian?

If it had to be summed up in a word, it would be ‘simplicity.’

Too simple. Too direct. The only way to describe it was: casual.

With a mere toss of its head, Ian snapped the chieftain’s radiant chain of light around its neck as if it were thread.

Its two right-side arms moved almost lazily—one claw swatted two rotted-face people aside like rag dolls; the other slammed another to the ground and crushed their skull with a sickening crunch.

As for its left side—

The twisted head, just freed from its restraint, turned toward the left. Its jaw opened wide and spat a huge glob of viscous fluid, which landed squarely on three villagers who had been rushing in.

Their bodies dissolved on contact.

The whole sequence was seamless, effortless. Ian didn’t acknowledge his enemies as people. It was like brushing aside a swarm of insects. In mere seconds, six lives were snuffed out. And most of the other villagers didn’t even earn the right to be struck—just the poison leaking from Ian’s skin was enough to sap their strength, make them collapse, and leave them dying where they fell.

“Thunder of Judgment!”

A spear of lightning formed in the chieftain’s hands—his last reserve of power gathered into this final strike. He hurled it with all his might. Thunder Spear, a high-level miracle, only needed minimal thrust to begin—once thrown, it would accelerate on its own and seek the target. Though Yardelan people couldn’t harm fog fiends, a direct hit from Thunder Spear would at least blind one with sheer brightness.

But Ian tapped the ground with a clawed foot and performed a flawless aerial backflip. It was graceful, silent, unbelievably agile for such a massive body. The first spear missed entirely. The second, aimed at its face, collided with a ball of acid Ian spat mid-air, and both attacks dissipated into nothing.

The poison worked too fast.

And the chieftain, already at his limit, finally collapsed as well. He was drained.

Ian only gave a gravelly exhale, shaking its grotesque head as it slowly looked around.

As if to ask—

Is there no one stronger?

***

Ian Campbell walked the earth.

Unlike the cold, sterile underground lab where it usually resided, the ground here was rough soil, the ceiling an uneven canopy of trees. A proper forest. And the air—it stank of something Ian despised. A loathsome purity. Completely incompatible with the toxic miasma it loved. If it hadn’t been for the need to exterminate the rats, it would never have bothered coming to a place like this.

Who?

Who was it that dared cause such havoc in its town? Who trespassed into its sacred academy? Who destroyed its precious creations?

Was it these?

Its many eyes swiveled—sixty-five in total, spread across its entire body, all rotating at once to give it perfect panoramic vision. Everywhere it looked, it saw only the same thing: weak, pathetic creatures. Emaciated limbs, ugly sores—nothing about them held the beauty a proper lifeform should possess. And these wretches had dared use crude, laughable tools to restrain it?

How arrogant.

And yet, it was too ridiculous to even be offensive.

They were no better than mosquitoes. Not worth the effort. It could just swat them away.

The man collapsed at its feet might have been slightly stronger. The old one who’d thrown electricity at it wasn’t bad. But this was what had defeated Jack and Aldrich? These were the ones that had made it angry?

Just its passive miasma had already paralyzed them. If that was all it took, then…

These weren’t even worth the trouble of killing.

Even among rats, some could still bare fangs when cornered. These weren’t even that. These weren’t even worth using as test specimens.

Pitiful.

No one stronger?

So be it.

It had come all this way for nothing.

These two—who seemed a bit tougher—were already dissolving in its poison. The rest could just be snacks.

“—!?”

Something moved directly behind, caught in its full 360-degree vision. It was fast. Sharp. Silver. A small, flashing knife.

The third leg, extending from its tailbone, moved. Its talons clamped the object between its toes in one fluid motion.

So familiar.

So very familiar.

A shining, silver throwing knife.

“Felice! Flank left!”

“On it!”

Ahh…

There they are.

They’re here.

They’re finally here.

Something strange sparked in its brain—a rush of chemical joy. A twisted delight surged up, and Ian threw back its head and laughed wildly.

Then it turned around.

Come, little rats. Die!

#####

Toxic Scholar · Alchemist Ian
 • Type: Beastform · Humanoid · Cyborg · Alchemist
 • Rank: Area Boss
 • Background: Once known as Ian Campbell, Grand Alchemist of the Alessia Academy, he lost his humanity in the pursuit of knowledge. Conducting countless forbidden experiments, he turned the once-prestigious academy into a living nightmare. Not only did he create numerous horrific alchemical creatures, but he also transformed himself into a monstrous abomination. Any gas he inhales and exhales becomes a deadly poison capable of rendering the land barren. He is the original source of the toxins that polluted the Ruined Town and the primary cause behind the transformation of its residents into Rotted-Faced People.
 • Appearance: A beast roughly four times the size of a normal human, with four muscular arms and three powerful legs. His entire body is wrapped in rune-inscribed bandages, giving him the appearance of a beastlike mummy. Beneath the bandages are glimpses of pitch-black skin, coarse black hair, and erratically multiplying, swirling eyes.
 • Weapons: Physical strength, venom secretion, poison mist, toxic projectiles
 • Skills: Close-quarters combat, poison resistance (max), toxin emission, projectile vomiting of poison
 • Special Traits: Origin of Ruined Town contamination, highest-grade poison resistance