"Then I guess I'm a pig too, in your eyes," Luke said softly, a thin smile forming. "And I suppose you'd be deeply offended if a pig spared you."
There was no anger in his voice. No cruelty. Just finality.
A muted crack—crack—crack rippled through the air.
Every remaining soldier collapsed at once, necks twisted at impossible angles. The convoy went still, engines idling beside corpses that would never move again.
Luke exhaled.
"Pigs…" he muttered, looking over the scene. "The hate runs deep."
He turned to leave.
BANG.
A car door slammed into his back with enough force to crumple steel.
Luke didn't even stumble.
His left hand came up on instinct, fingers closing around the twisted metal mid-swing. The door screeched as he lowered it slowly, effortlessly, like it weighed nothing.
He turned.
And froze.
Standing a few steps away was someone Luke hadn't sensed at all—which shouldn't have been possible. His spiritual sense didn't just miss people.
If someone could evade it, they had to be operating on the same level as him.
That realization earned a flicker of surprise—and mild annoyance.
Standing there, completely at ease, was a man in a stark white and black prison uniform.
His body was already bulging, muscles swelling unnaturally beneath the fabric as a low, rabid growl spilled from his throat—wet, broken, barely human.
Luke tilted his head.
"…Sabretooth?"
The face fits. The build fits.
The brain, however, clearly did not.
There was no intelligence in those eyes. No sadistic grin. Just pure, animal rage—like someone unplugged the thinking part and cranked everything else to maximum.
"Growllll—"
Bones cracked.
Muscle exploded outward.
The prison uniform tore apart like cheap paper as his body expanded violently. Six feet became ten. Ten became twenty. The ground shook under the strain as his spine hunched and his arms thickened into something closer to industrial equipment than limbs.
Luke stood still, watching the transformation.
"…I definitely missed this DLC."
The transformation didn't stop.
When it finally did, Sabretooth was no longer Sabretooth.
He was a thirty-foot monster, towering like a three-story building, fur bristling, muscles layered on muscles, breathing so heavy it rattled nearby wreckage.
Luke stared up at him.
"…What the fuck?" he said flatly.
"I did not know you came in Hulk size."
The creature threw its head back and roared.
BOOOOM—!
The shockwave blasted outward, flipping cars, shattering glass, and kicking debris into the air like confetti at the world's worst parade.
Luke leaned into it, coat snapping behind him.
"…Alright," he sighed. "So you're feral, oversized, and definitely someone else's problem that became mine."
The monster lunged.
It dropped to all fours, claws tearing grooves through the asphalt as it crossed the distance in a blink—jaws snapping, one massive hand slashing straight for Luke's neck.
Luke shifted sideways, clean and sharp.
The claws missed by inches, the air pressure alone ripping a parked car door off its hinges.
Luke pivoted on his heel and drove an upper kick upward.
His foot slammed into the monster's jaw with a concussive crack. The impact snapped Sabretooth's head back and lifted the thirty-foot body off the ground for a split second before it crashed backward, skidding through rubble and leaving a trench behind it.
Luke landed lightly, rolling his ankle once.
Then he felt it.
Not pain—wrongness.
He glanced down.
Black slime clung to his boot, thin tendrils already crawling, writhing like something alive. It pulsed once… and surged upward.
"…Crap."
A sword flashed into his hand.
SLASH.
He cut clean through his own lower leg without hesitation and vaulted backward at the same time. The severed limb hit the ground—and was instantly swallowed, the black mass ballooning as it devoured it, rippling in visible satisfaction.
Luke landed a few meters away, already regenerating, bone knitting, flesh reforming in seconds.
"…Okay—what the hell is going on?"
Luke glanced down at the black substance now wrapped around his leg. It felt… familiar.
That wasn't a good sign.
"Don't tell me," he muttered.
"…Is that Venom?"
But even as the thought formed, doubt crept in. It looked like Venom—but not quite. Something about it was off. Wrong.
The creature twitched, bones grinding as it rose again, dismissing the hit like an inconvenience. Steam and saliva spilled from its jaws as it roared at Luke.
"Fuck you," Luke said to the monster, grinning as he pointed his middle finger straight at it.
Lightning condensed at the tip—compressed, screaming. The air warped as heat and voltage twisted together, his hair lifting as the charge spiked.
A massive beam of white-blue lightning detonated forward, thunder ripping the air apart. The blast hit the creature head-on, engulfing it completely. Flesh vaporized. Bone glowed, then melted. The shockwave flattened debris and carved a scorched trench through the ground behind it.
For a split second, the monster's silhouette was visible inside the lightning.
Then it was gone.
Nothing left but charred earth, ionized air, and drifting ash.
Luke lowered his hand, sparks fading around his fingers.
"…I really didn't have the patience for that today."
His attention jerked back to his leg. It twitched once—then bent sharply at the knee and kicked for his head.
Luke reacted on instinct.
A rectangular wall of blue mana snapped into existence with a sharp crack, boxing the leg inside mid-air. The kick slammed into the barrier and bounced back uselessly, the limb tumbling end over end like it was offended.
Luke blinked.
Once.
"How is that thing making my leg walk?"
He couldn't see any energy. No mana. Nothing at all. And yet his leg was moving on its own.
He had no idea how it was even possible—and that left him genuinely baffled.
"Is this some kind of mutant power?" Luke muttered, the thought settling in as the only conclusion that made sense.
*****
A/N: If you'd like to read chapters ahead of the Webnovel release schedule, you can join my Patreon!
The Patreon version is already updated up to Chapter 206
👉 patreon.com/Universal_Peace