The Lord Who Levels Up by Devouring - LLD Chapter 45: The Hounds (2) (Part 1)

The leader commanding the monster legion.

Adrian’s plan was to subjugate that leader—and Kai agreed with it.

So, Kai was checking his equipment while waiting for Adrian.
Adrian had said he would be bringing one more person along on the subjugation.

How long had he waited?

In the distance, Adrian was walking toward him.
And trailing behind him like a baby duck was another figure.
A tiny young woman, scurrying after Adrian as if he were her mother duck.

“Lady Serapia…?”

It was none other than Serapia.

“Oh, Sir Kai, you’re here too.”
“But why is Lady Serapia…?”
“Ah, well, you see…”
“Serapia will be joining us on this subjugation.”
“…Pardon?”
“That’s how it turned out.”

Serapia smiled sheepishly and said, “Please take good care of me.”
But Kai had no intention of doing so.
Narrowing his eyes, he questioned Adrian.

“What’s your real intention?”
“I already told you. To subjugate the leader of the legion.”
“Then why bring Lady Serapia along?”
“Because we need her help.”
“Isn’t it enough with just the two of us?”
“No.”

Adrian’s reply was not only firm, it was like a blade.

“Then why not bring some soldiers?”
“They’d be useless. Not even good enough as meat shields.”
“Is the legion’s leader really that strong?”
“Yes. So strong that even if you and I give it our all, we can’t guarantee victory.”
“Then let me just say this in advance—I’m currently—”
“Even you, who has stepped into the threshold of Master, are no exception.”
“…You knew?”

Kai was momentarily speechless.

After all, identifying someone’s stage at a glance was extremely rare.
There was only one kind of person who could do that—
A warrior several tiers stronger than the one being observed.

In other words, Adrian was far more powerful than Kai.

“That’s why we absolutely need Serapia’s help to take down the legion’s leader.”

Adrian’s voice was firm—sharp like a sword.
Serapia clenched her small fists and declared she’d do her best.

At that sight, Kai swallowed hard, then calmly asked:

“Just who is this legion leader that requires all this?”

That was that, and this was this.
Kai had no intention of moving unless he was given a proper explanation.

Finally, Adrian sighed in mild defeat and answered:

“A Lycanthrope.”

Lycanthrope.

From Lycos, meaning “wolf,”
And Anthropos, meaning “human.”

Combined, they formed the word lycanthrope, which meant “werewolf.”

There were many theories surrounding the origins of werewolves.

Some said they were humans bitten and infected by wolves.
Others claimed they were hybrids of man and beast.
Nonsense! They were cursed by a sorcerer!
Utter crap! A dark mage tried to turn them into undead and failed!

None of the theories agreed.
Instead, they splintered into countless legends and folktales across the continent.

Eventually, with the emergence of a new biological taxonomy known as the “Monster Classification,”
werewolves were concluded to be humans who had undergone Monsterization.

A starving man had eaten monster meat,
and consumed by its madness, transformed into a werewolf.

That was the widely accepted knowledge across the continent—
Even among the Allied Forces.

At least until the Archmage of the Allied Forces appeared.

The Archmage presented a slightly different theory:
That the Commander of the Beast Legion, the lycanthrope,
had nothing to do with monsters at all.

He claimed the lycanthrope’s transformation had no monstrous influence.

“It was likely a mental illness.”

He called it LycanThropy—a delusion where a person believes they are a wolf, not a human.

But a mere mental illness couldn’t physically turn a man into a wolf.
If it could, that would be psychic power, not insanity.

So, no one in the Allied Forces believed the Archmage’s theory.

At least not until Ian said those words:

“Kai wasn’t revived as a Death Knight.”

Ian had claimed that Kai had become a Lich purely by his own will.
With no magical knowledge, he had made himself undead.

He had transcended the laws of the world with sheer will.
So who could say it was impossible to change one’s genes through conviction alone?

Human belief, when strong enough, could manifest the unreal into reality.

A sugar pill that heals just because it’s believed to be medicine—the placebo effect.
Pain in an amputated limb—phantom pain.
A woman’s desperation for a child causing a false pregnancy.

Such powerful belief could override ontology itself.

It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible either.
It was this kind of transcendent belief that gave rise to Aura.

Aura was the power to drag figments of imagination into reality.
That’s why only humans could wield Aura.

And indeed, just as the Archmage claimed, the lycanthrope was not a monster.
It was a human who had undergone transformation through belief—a form of mental ‘will.’

But ironically,
it wasn’t the Archmage who proved the theory true.

It was the Emperor.

The Emperor extracted the lycanthrope’s mutagenic traits—
Then injected them into other humans.

Worse, he forced impregnations with enslaved human women.

Because lycanthropes were transformed humans,
he believed interbreeding was possible.

The Archmage had already theorized this—
That lycanthropes were a subspecies of human, capable of reproduction.

But while the Archmage theorized,
the Emperor tested.

And thus…

The Werebeasts—
a brutal and grotesque Beast Legion was born.

Direct descendants: Werewolves.
Bred with tigers: Weretigers.
With bears: Werebears.
With foxes: Werefoxes. And many more.

These beastkin surpassed humans in strength and speed.
With heightened senses and rapid regeneration,
they ravaged the continent and its Allied Forces.

Compared to monsters, the beasts of the Beast Legion were stronger and more savage.

And all this led to one terrifying conclusion:

“The Emperor’s experiments are already complete.”

That meant, at present, the Emperor had finished his experiments.
Using the extracted genes, he was breeding a Beast Legion in the underground dungeon of the Imperial Palace.

The lycanthrope—having served its purpose—was now subordinated under the Monarch of Beasts and released into the wild.

Otherwise, there was no way it would be here now.

“He’s been preparing since then….”

The Emperor’s cunning was chilling.

I, too, would have to act with more urgency.
Find Ian faster.
Form the Allied Forces faster.
Gather strength faster to resist the Empire.

“For now, I’ll start with the lycanthrope.”

Translatin_Otaku

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