Became a Failed Experimental Subject-Chapter 47: Rage

Had Kim Hyukjun and Oh Chulshik been doing something dirty behind the scenes?

For a fleeting second, Yu Anna doubted her fellow heroes—and immediately hated herself for it.

No. No.

She didn’t want to believe Black Cat would turn on them for no reason.

There had to be a mistake.

Why would he hunt humans now?

He used to just eat beef.

Her mind spun with jagged, bitter thoughts.

It was a stupid hope.

Black Cat was a monster.

"Why now...!"

Biting her lip, Yu Anna shot toward Zone 8, trailing a booming sonic shockwave.

It was happening.

Exactly what she’d feared.

Exactly what she should have known from the start.

Black Cat was always a monster.

And monsters eat humans.

Thinking you could trust one—

That was the real stupidity.

She should never have trusted him.

But she had.

Yu Anna had believed Black Cat was different.

She, of all people—someone who should have been the most wary—had let her guard down.

[B-Black Cat... is at the s-shelter...!]

The operator's broken voice over the comms told her everything.

She didn’t need footage to know what was happening.

She could already picture it.

Black Cat had found the shelter.

And he was tearing it open.

Like a bento box stuffed with human meat.

Against a Calamity-class monster like him, a shelter would last... at most, a minute.

Maybe not even that.

Especially since Black Cat had stolen powers from other heroes.

Specifically, floating—Phasing.

[Life signals update. Correction: Shelter 21, Zone 8, complete casualties. All 52 registered individuals dead—5 children, 47 adults.]

"Aaaahhhhhh!"

Yu Anna screamed into the night and pushed herself faster, faster.

Shame crushed her.

Shame for ever finding that monster cute.

Guilt for the people dying because of her.

Betrayal—

Betrayal from a monster.

How could she even call it betrayal?

As if a monster could be betrayed.

She ripped through the night sky, the memory of Black Cat's innocent face falling away behind her like a crumbling cloud.

The monster who saved heroes.

The monster who protected children.

The monster who let her pet him, who cried like a kitten, who listened when spoken to.

The monster who never hurt a human.

Black Cat was a monster.

What had she ever expected from him?

And still—

She wanted to believe.

Why?

Zone 8 came into view.

Far ahead, she spotted a small black shape.

She forced herself faster.

Acceleration.

Acceleration.

Yu Anna, one of the fastest among S-class heroes, prepared to strike with her signature opening move:

Meteor Fall—a divebomb from the sky.

As she plummeted, every detail burned itself into her senses.

The bodies of children, their lifeless corpses clenched between monstrous jaws.

Heroes, ripped in half, scattered like garbage.

Random civilians—popped like overripe fruit, killed for no reason at all.

Everyone was dead.

Weak humans were nothing more than snacks.

Monsters were predators.

The enemy of mankind.

"BLACK CAAAAAT!"

"Kyaoo?!"

KRAAAAAASH!

Yu Anna's foot slammed into the black beast, pulverizing the mangled remains of humans beneath him.

A shocked yowl rang out.

A hollow, sickening sensation followed—like stomping on mist.

Whoosh—

Black Cat dissolved into black smoke, only to reassemble in front of her.

"Nyaa-haaa..."

"You... you...!"

Grinding her teeth so hard they ached, Yu Anna fought to stay rational.

Her fists clenched, trembling, and pure white flames exploded around her.

FOOM! FOOM!

Fire surged from her head to her toes.

She hurled herself at Black Cat.

"After all this—AFTER EVERYTHING—YOU—!"

Why had he ever helped her?

No—

She knew why.

He was a monster.

He was just waiting until he was strong enough.

He'd eaten other monsters.

Gotten stronger.

Decided now was the time to make his move.

In the end, the reason Black Cat started hunting people—

was because Yu Anna had been too weak.

The reason all these people died—

was because she had been too weak.

The reason she trusted him—

was because she had been too weak.

She was still weak.

Still.

"Aaaaaaaah!"

Screaming, Yu Anna rocketed toward the monster, her entire body wrapped in superheated plasma.

The technique that had earned her the nickname “Eraser”—

a sphere of annihilation that melted any lesser monster before they could even get close.

If she had to tear the whole city apart to kill a Calamity-class monster—

so be it.

Before he slaughtered everyone.

RUMBLE!

The very air burned along her flight path, leaving trails of steam in the sky.

The ground glittered, melting into glass beneath her.

BOOM! BOOM!

Yu Anna reached out with both hands, unleashing a new evolved technique.

After drawing lightning into her body back at Guryong Fortress, she had learned to fuse it with plasma energy.

She created a precision-guided plasma cannon.

A weapon built solely to bring down the Black Cat.

The beam arced after the retreating shadow in the night sky.

"Kyaaaaagh!"

PEW-PEW-BOOM!

The plasma bolt struck home, detonating inside Black Cat’s body.

With a shriek of pain, the monster twisted midair and slammed into a building wall.

He bared his teeth at her, tail lashing like a blade.

With a PUK!, the tail stabbed through a nearby window—

and a blade shot toward Yu Anna’s back.

The blade burst apart just before hitting her, scattering like shards of smoke.

Tiny fragments embedded themselves in her body, barely scratching the surface.

"Nyaa-ha-ha-ha~"

The cat’s mocking laughter floated over.

Yu Anna sneered.

Those blades—

they hadn’t even pierced her barrier.

The melted fragments clattered harmlessly to the ground.

"You really thought... getting a few new powers was enough to beat me?"

How stupid.

How utterly stupid.

Yu Anna, her voice shaking with fury and regret, drew a burning circle in the air.

A glowing ring like a miniature sun—

an evolved weapon she had developed in preparation for fighting other Calamity-class monsters.

Not Black Cat.

She stacked two rings atop each other, spinning them in opposite directions.

Tiny spheres of destruction orbited her.

Satellite Suns.

She fired one at him.

Sensing danger, Black Cat shifted into shadow mist to evade.

CHHHHH!

The sun-sphere melted clean holes through the buildings.

The light of destruction chased him mercilessly through the air.

Popping black clouds burst behind him as he dodged, but Yu Anna was already there.

"...Die."

The moment Black Cat glanced up at the overlapping suns, Yu Anna’s fist smashed into his skull.

KRAAAAAAAASH!

A column of fire punched through the ground, boring a glassy tunnel straight into the earth.

Above it, steam rose in thick clouds, and Yu Anna, burning with killing intent, spread her energy outward like a shockwave.

Black Cat was a monster who would rather flee than fight, all the way to the bitter end.

The moment Yu Anna’s fist shattered his skull, he disappeared.

If she failed to kill him right here, right now, W-City would be dragged into a one-sided war of attrition.

Just like before—

Yu Anna would chase, and Black Cat would escape.

And every time he repeated his little hunting games, the body count would rise.

Crrrk—

Her hand trembled from how hard she was clenching it.

Yu Anna cursed herself for not killing him sooner.

For letting herself believe he was “different,”

for ever thinking he was cute,

for not seeing through the act when he was so obviously letting her believe the lie.

Not anymore.

Now, she would kill him.

WOOOO! WOOO! WOOOO!

Pulse after pulse, Yu Anna spread her energy through the city, searching for the vanished monster.

There—

A faint disturbance on a cracked rooftop.

Too faint for a Calamity-class monster.

But that was Black Cat’s trick—always was.

Rocketing upward, she found him.

Black Cat stood on the rooftop, eyes blazing with bloodthirst.

"Dieeeee!"

KRAAAAAASH!

Yu Anna hurled a punch at him.

But Black Cat slipped into the shadows at the last second.

Already anticipating it, Yu Anna raised a finger, and the miniature sun she’d planted below rose silently from the ground.

The heat slashed through half the shadow like a blade, and Black Cat, with a grimace of pain, leapt free.

"Grrrrrr...."

His body shimmered, turning ghostlike and translucent—

the ability to phase through matter.

But it didn’t matter.

Yu Anna's flames could burn straight through powers.

As Black Cat tried to sink into the building, Yu Anna shoved the sun downward, forcing him out into the open.

"No more!

Not falling for it again!"

BOOM!

Another pillar of fire burst upward, ripping a fresh hole into the earth as it speared through Black Cat’s lower body.

"No more deaths!"

One after another, the orbs of flame she launched couldn’t all be dodged.

New wounds were opening along Black Cat’s mangled form.

Updat𝓮d from frёewebnoѵēl.com.

"Why?!

Why even pretend?!"

CRAAASH!

The fire hammered down, driving Black Cat into the ground.

He landed in front of a wrecked shelter, torn from the earth like an empty can.

The metal walls were gouged and bitten through, still slick with blood and human remains.

Black Cat stood there, half his head gone,

lowering his head toward the bloodied mess as if in mourning.

Yu Anna, who had gathered up another blazing blast in her hand, froze for just a second.

A flash of memory—the way he used to sniff at beef, eager and innocent.

Had even that been a lie?

"What the hell were youuuu?!"

Rage boiled over inside her.

Betrayal.

The one thing a hero should never feel toward a monster.

And yet—

there it was.

Ashamed, furious, betrayed—

Yu Anna roared as she drove her fist toward him, her whole body exploding with flames.

The firestorm slammed into him—

[ROOOOOAAAARRRR!]

—and the world buckled.

The space around them twisted and warped.

Flame and wind swirled around Black Cat as he raised a wall of sheer pressure, scattering her attack.

A defensive move.

A new trick.

Yu Anna gritted her teeth.

He was growing stronger too—

not just running anymore.

Learning, adapting.

But if she got close—

If she hit him point-blank with her full power—

he still couldn’t take it.

[ROOOOOOARRRRR!!]

"Khh...?!"

Yu Anna had been about to charge again, but the sound—

the sheer force of it—made her hesitate.

It wasn’t just a roar.

It wasn’t just noise.

It was power.

The sound itself had hardened, a tangible force, pushing out across the entire city.

[ROOOOOAAAAARRRRR!!]

"Wha... what is this?"

WOOOO! WOOOO!

Black Cat was doing exactly what Yu Anna usually did to hunt monsters.

He was unleashing a massive pulse across the entire city.

And that pulse—

it hit her body.

It told her, without words.

Black Cat was furious.