The head scientist was ecstatic, but he didn't have time to celebrate. He could see that Victor Hunt's chances of survival had dramatically increased, which meant that the experiment—despite all its setbacks—had finally succeeded!

He stormed into the monitor room and ignored everyone's greetings. He sat down at the main control panel for all of its gadgets, tapped a few keys, moved his mouse around…and replayed what had happened earlier.

The head scientist watched as the surrounding areas experienced a blackout, but the other places didn't. The power generator stationed in this area where Victor's chamber was—for some reason it failed to activate.

Watching it more, his eyes focused deeply. He didn't miss every second until the light went back on, and the video recording continued. As Victor resisted, his eyes were blank and preoccupied with one direction.

Urged to see what he was looking at, the head scientist moved to the other angle, which was the direction of Victor's gaze. As soon as he saw nothing, he went back to Victor's angle.

"What is he looking at? He is awakening, but why is he absent-minded?!"

And the second after erased the video recording. It went to a static image, stopping the continuation of the recording. The camera at this point was destroyed after Victor's eyes lit and the explosion destroyed the surroundings.

From a different angle, Victor flew out of the building, and the camera from outside showed the whole fighting scene. Victor was surrounded by electricity, and surrounding him were the lights from the shooting guns of the watchtower guards.

Victor simply swayed his hands, instantly killing them, and went to the east, where the Rotting Land was. He escaped from the premises of the facility.

"Just a kilometer away is the Rotting Land. Everyone must find him before he reaches the Rotting Land, or else it will be too late." The head scientist hissed, slamming the keyboards and other buttons in anger.

The troops immediately moved. They went straight to the east with vigilance, knowing that they were near the Rotting Land which was the land of monsters, and distractions fighting monsters would lead them to lose Victor.

With gear and lights, they dived into the forest.

In their first few minutes, the head scientist was still monitoring them. Apparently, a pack of monsters appeared, and they had to engage. Despite all of the shouts from the head scientist, ordering them not to engage but to focus on Victor's capture, they had no choice but to disobey as their focus and lives were at stake.

After a few minutes, they reached the 1-kilometer mark into the Rotting Land, but the cameras of their gear were showing difficulties, static, and errors. Eventually, the cameras died. The sound communication also went down, which made the head scientist more irritated.

"Fuck! This is outrageous. How could they make a mistake by just capturing one 16-year-old kid who had no experience in fighting? And now, he is in the depths of the Rotting Land, endangering his life."

The head scientist, with his hands, clenched and his teeth gritted, glared at his staff. His rage was obvious, and his staff, though nervous, were too intimidated to make a sound. Sweat was already forming on their foreheads, and the head scientist was still shouting.

"Abort! Let the troops retreat!" The head scientist showed up on the communication, but no one answered. It was just silent until it totally went down. What showed on the monitor was the troops already dead.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Fuck! I need some help from the kingdom!" he shouted before leaving the monitor room. It was just then they were able to relieve their worries.

'The head scientist is really mad... He could eat all of us now...' One childish assistant thought while looking at the monitor where it played Victor's resistance to the assistants that were holding him.

***

Huff...Huff... Huff...

Victor finally lost the troops that were chasing him when gasping and staggering, he walked in the middle of the night. He remembered that they were delayed as they engaged in fighting three ogres. If they died, he didn't care about it. He was just focused on surviving, and as he had no energy to run anymore, he huffed his remaining breath and leaned on a tree.

The surrounding was eerie, he admitted it. But what was eerier were his hands. They were uncontrollably buzzing. He only wanted them to stop.

He closed his eyes to rest his eyes. They were covered with sweat at some point, so he needed to know if he could still see his path well.

'Fuck this... How am I this weak? I thought that I had max stats?' Victor asked himself as he summoned a window board.

A bluish window board appeared in his vision front of him. Whether he looked in different directions, it was still at the lower center of his vision.

A small smile then appeared on his face, as at the bottom of the window board was a timer.

00:21

'So I just have this much time to use my stats? What a shame... This is useless. But at least I was able to escape that facility if not for this.' He thought, and exhaled hugely, then leaned completely against the tree.

"I safely escaped. But, what now...? What should I do...?" A bitter smile appeared on his face.

Name

Title

Age

Level

EXP

Victor Hunt

Feral Demon

16

1 (MAX)

MAX

HP

QI

MP

04/15 (3650/3650)

null (12400/12500)

null (0/0)

Strength

Vitality

Agility

Intelligence

06 (420)

05 (399)

03 (360)

07 (450)

Skills

Condition

Integration

Feral Demon Arts, Beggar Sect Immortal Steps, Unorthodox Crimson Palm [>>]

Tired

0.1%

"I still have my previous title, but it seems like it has a short duration of use. I didn't expect that I would be using this in my third life."

[Title: Feral Demon]

[Host will be able to use his power without any limitation within five minutes.

Gained from killing 20,000 people in a war.

Blood boosts for five minutes.]

"I thought the title doesn't have any use... But it now appears to be far too useful to me. Max stats huh..." Victor mumbled as the timer reached zero; his consciousness slowly disappeared.

[Setting...]

[Checking integration percentage...]

[0.1%...]

[Adjusting the system... in 3... 2... 1...]

[System stabilized... Check integration percentage...]

[Protecting host until the host restarts the system...]