Shadow Dragon: The Fallen Angel Is My Teacher

Chapter 202: End Of War

Mc’s POV

My eyes snapped open, and I coughed violently.

My body trembled as I sucked in a sharp breath, like I had been deprived of air for far too long.

Each inhale burned my chest, and my throat felt raw, as if I had been screaming without realizing it.

It took a few seconds for my vision to stop shaking.

When it finally settled, I looked around slowly.

Lyra stood beside me.

The Director of L Corp was looking down at me with an expression that was hard to read.

Relief was there, but buried beneath exhaustion and grief.

I was lying on a makeshift bed, hastily assembled from lab equipment and metal frames that hadn’t been completely destroyed.

The lab itself was in ruins.

Containers lay shattered across the floor, their contents spilled and evaporating into the air.

Entire sections of the wall were missing, blown outward, exposing the structure behind it.

The pod was gone—completely obliterated—and the liquid that had once filled it was still dripping across the ground.

Through the broken wall, I could see it.

[Jasmine 000].

The strongest combat power of L Corp.

Its frame was barely recognizable.

Large sections of its body had dissolved, as if some kind of corrosive acid had eaten straight through its armor.

Internal components were exposed, warped, or missing entirely.

Even from where I lay, I could tell the damage was catastrophic.

Given Lyra’s current skill level, repairing it would take months.

Which meant L Corp had effectively lost its Rank 5 combat power.

I groaned quietly and clutched my head.

A splitting pain surged through my skull as I forced myself upright, my balance unsteady.

"Explain the situation to me in three sentences," I said, pressing my palm against my temple.

"You were kidnapped by P Corp. L Corp went to war with P Corp to save you. We succeeded, but it ended in mutual destruction for both sides," Lyra said.

I nodded slowly.

That aligned with what I would expect if L Corp and P Corp went to war.

In terms of raw combat power, L Corp had never been a match for P Corp. The gap was significant, borderline absurd under normal circumstances.

But Severity Level Reduction Technology changed things.

It allowed L Corp to field treated cyborgs that could fight far better than berserk cyborgs, and brought the advantage of numbers.

It was enough to clash with P Corp’s forces, at least temporarily.

Of course, if P Corp had been given time to properly prepare, even that wouldn’t have been enough.

P Corp—Parasite Corporation—specialized in parasitic technology.

Their greatest strength wasn’t direct combat, but infiltration.

With time, they could infect the minds of enemy troops and convert them into their own soldiers.

If that had happened, the war would have ended before it even began.

Which meant L Corp must have attacked with everything they had, immediately, before P Corp even realized a war had started.

That explained the outcome.

A victory achieved through mutual destruction.

I turned my head and looked at Jasmine 000 again.

"Even if it was to rescue me, you could’ve treated Jasmine 000 a little better. We’ve lost our Rank 5 combat power for several months. Do you know how precious a Rank 5 combat power is?" I said.

"Well..." Lyra smiled. She looked relieved, as if rescuing me was worth any cost. "You told me to rescue you within 6 hours. So we had to use everything."

I nodded.

The six-hour limit hadn’t been about strategy.

It had been about home.

If I didn’t return on time, my parents would notice. And once they noticed, things would spiral in directions troublesome to me.

As we spoke, my memories finished settling into place.

I remembered everything now.

I remembered Yuna’s constant warnings about the Soul Parasite. Her subtle attempts to steer me away from danger.

Most of what she did had been based on instructions I had given her in advance.

But not all of it.

And even if she followed my instructions, she had genuinely saved my skin.

’Thank you, Yuna,’ I said, directing the thought toward her.

There was no panicked or bashful reply.

She wasn’t even smiling.

Her expression was stiff, as if she were still processing something she couldn’t believe.

Which, technically, made sense.

She had witnessed what happened after P Corp’s Director used [Awakening AI] to awaken my copied mind.

I shifted my gaze back to Lyra.

"The Soul Parasite was injected when Saint Dexter met me on my first day at L Corp, wasn’t it? When he patted my shoulder."

Lyra nodded. "That’s what P Corp’s Director admitted."

"Where is he now? Did you kill him? And how did you make him neutralize the Soul Parasite inside me?" I asked.

Lyra gestured toward the exit.

"Follow me. I’ll show you."

I pushed myself to my feet and followed her out of the destroyed lab.

As we walked through the corridors, I took in our surroundings.

We were inside P Corp.

Or what was left of it.

The building had been torn apart.

Walls were shattered, floors cracked, and blast craters marked the path of the fighting.

Emergency lights flickered weakly, casting uneven shadows across the wreckage.

The deeper we went, the quieter it became.

We stopped in front of another lab door.

Lyra opened it, and we stepped inside.

This lab was darker than the others. The lighting was dim, intentionally so. At the center of the room lay a metal table.

The P Corp Director was strapped to it.

His body was bloodied, his clothes torn and stained.

Several of his fingers were bent at unnatural angles, clearly broken.

His eyes were half-open, unfocused, and hazy, like he was barely conscious.

It was obvious he had been tortured.

I raised an eyebrow.

Lyra spoke casually, as if commenting on the weather.

"Our Corporation specializes in Lantern technology. To do that properly, we need a deep understanding of cyborg bodies. By extension, we understand human bodies very well too.

"That knowledge lets us treat injuries like miracle doctors. Or inflict pain so precisely that it feels like hell," she said.

The gore didn’t bother her in the slightest.

She was secretly checking my reaction, and frowned when I showed no reaction to the gore either.

We stopped beside the table.

"He removed the Soul Parasite from you after this," Lyra said.