"Yawn..."
With a huge yawn, the person in charge pushed himself upright, exposing his face to the air.
He was a man who was no longer young but not yet middle-aged either, with tattoos on his face and sophisticated mechanical gloves on his hands. He looked like a thug.
The man paid no attention to the table before him, gradually being stained red with blood, nor to the researchers whose fates were unknown as they screamed in terror. Looking utterly listless, he scratched his hair.
"Could you keep it down while people are sleeping? If you wake me up, I'll make you pay for it! Bastards!"
For that reason alone, the man crippled one of his subordinates.
Fang Li knew at a glance.
This was a scumbag who treated human lives as worthless, who even went further and trampled them like weeds—a bastard beyond redemption.
"A Kihara?"
Fang Li merely muttered.
—"Kihara."
That was an extremely special surname within Academy City.
In Academy City's underworld, there was a group known as the Kihara Clan.
Nearly every member of that clan was a researcher at the pinnacle of the scientific field, with deeply rooted ties to Academy City.
Of course, being too deeply involved with Academy City was not necessarily a good thing.
In Academy City's shadows, countless inhumane experiments that defied ethics and common sense were being conducted.
Since the Kihara Clan's relationship with Academy City ran so deep, that naturally meant they were deeply entrenched in its darkness as well.
It could be said that the Kihara Clan was the darkest group in Academy City: the Dark Department standing above all other Dark Departments. Its members were either involved in experiments that could affect the future, or directly answered to the General Council.
Aside from Aureolus, the deepest darkness