I Became The Novel's Biggest Antagonist

"It's over."

"Hey! What's going on?" Lua shouted in panic.

"Mr. Rex!" Reynold joined her, confused.

Saya and Mona pounded desperately against the strange barrier that had materialized around them, but every strike only echoed hollowly in their ears, proving futile. The shimmering wall resisted even their strongest blows.

On the other side, Rex and his men watched with cruel amusement, their expressions twisted with malice.

"What's the meaning of this, Mr. Rex?" Reynold asked, with a betrayed face.

Rex chuckled, a cold, mocking sound. "You're all so incredibly naïve. It was laughably easy."

"Wh–What do you mean?" Saya asked, dread turning her voice to a whisper as an uneasy chill settled over her.

Rex's grin spread wider as he looked at them with a twisted gaze. "No need to look so scared, lass. I promise we'll take very good care of you and your pretty little friends here… once it's done." He licked his lips sending an involuntary shiver down the spines of all three women.

"What… what's done?" Lua asked, fearfully.

Rex arched an eyebrow, relishing every moment of their confusion. "You should already be feeling it by now, shouldn't you?"

Beside her, Mona's eyes began to droop, her hand clutching her forehead as her knees buckled slightly. "R–Rey… I… I feel so sleepy…"

"Mona…"

Reynold understood what's happening. It looked like the barrier had a soporific included.

"Release us!" Reynold shouted as he threw his fists against the barrier, each punch ringing out with the sound of hopelessness. Gripping his sword, he slashed at the invisible wall, but his strikes bounced off without leaving even a scratch.

"It's pointless." Rex's voice oozed confidence as he watched Reynold's futile efforts. "That barrier is powered by a C-Rank artifact. You mere E-Rank Hunters can't hope to make a dent in it. Don't worry, though—I'll take it down once you're all sleeping peacefully."

As he spoke, his men began to fan out, forming a menacing circle around them, their grins as twisted and dark as their leader's.

"What are you… going to do to us?" Mona managed, forcing herself to stand, her hands shaking as she leaned on her staff for support.

"Aha! Isn't it obvious?" Rex sneered. "We're going to enjoy you and your friends thoroughly until nightfall. Don't worry—I'll try to be gentle. But I can't promise the same for my men!"

The sinister chuckles of his lackeys joined Rex's laugh.

"You bastard!" Reynold roared, glaring as he pounded against the barrier again, his fists bruising and bleeding as he refused to give up. He bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood.

But Rex barely glanced at him, his attention shifting to the masked figure standing calmly nearby. "Ah, you'll be the first to die, along with that masked freak over there, won't you?" He sneered, his eyes narrowing on King.

But as his gaze fixed on King, Rex's confident smirk faltered. King was standing unfazed, his posture composed, unaffected by the lethargy that was slowly overpowering the others around him.

'What the…?'

"..." King's azure-blue eyes fixed on him sent a chill skittering down his spine.

"Hey! Put more mana into the artifact! Max it out!" Rex barked.

"Yeah!" His men nodded, each channeling as much mana as they could muster into the shell-like artifact. A denser cloud of white smoke billowed forth, thickening until it filled the barrier, enveloping everything within.

Through the haze, Rex could barely see the outline of King's masked face, his eyes blurring as the smoke thickened. Then came the thuds—one after another—bodies hitting the ground.

Rex smiled smugly watching as the smoke gradually began to dissipate. As expected, Reynold and the others couldn't withstand it.

But when the last wisps of smoke cleared, Rex's smirk faltered.

"W–What?!" He gasped. King still stood there, unmoved, entirely unaffected. He hadn't shifted a single inch.

"That's an interesting artifact you have there, Rex." A faint smile played across King's lips.

King had waited in silence, first to allow Rex's men to fall unconscious, and second, to measure the artifact's effectiveness. Now, with his purpose fulfilled, he finally spoke.

"H–How?" Rex stuttered, but then his expression shifted, a conclusion dawning on him. "You must be D-Rank, right? It explains how you resisted the soporific effect… but that barrier—there's no way you'll breach it that easily!"

With growing confidence, Rex motioned to his men, "Everyone, weapons ready!"

Rex reasoned that King's rank allowed him to endure a C-Rank artifact's effects, yet the barrier should have been unbreakable.

"You call this a barrier?"

With a single raised finger, King touched the yellowish barrier. Instantly, the temperature dropped, a biting cold sweeping over the area. Within a heartbeat, cracks spidered across the barrier's surface before it shattered entirely, falling away like shards of broken glass.

"...!" Rex's men stumbled back, dropping to the ground in terror.

A frosty aura radiated from King, chilling the very air around him. His azure eyes flickered, the blue darkening to an icy, merciless hue.

"R–Run!" The words barely escaped Rex's lips as terror overtook him. Every instinct screamed at him to flee.

But with a single step forward, King transformed the ground around him. A fifty-meter radius turned to ice-blue frost, freezing everything in its reach.

Rex's men looked down, horror dawning on their faces. Their legs were locked in place, entirely encased in frost, unable even to scream as tiny crystals of ice sealed their vocal cords. Rex glanced at his own legs, immobilized by the numbing chill spreading through him.

This wasn't simply the work of an ice attribute; no it was something else.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

King calmly rolled up his sleeves, his eyes drifting over the glowing blue runes that traced his forearms.

"How weak I've become… This is troubling," he muttered, almost to himself. "Queen mustn't see me like this." His gaze shifted to Rex then.

"Hiii!" Rex let out a strangled whimper, attempting to break free, but his legs were frozen solid, locked in place by the encasing ice.

"Look," King said, gesturing toward the dark treeline where low, eerie howls began to echo.

"P–Please… Forgive me!" Rex cried with desperation.

King raised an eyebrow, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he adjusted the mask, pushing it up to rest atop his head. "Forgive what, Rex? I have no personal grudge against you."

For a brief moment, Rex's terror melted into shock as he took in King's face—strikingly handsome, and young, perhaps in his late teens or early twenties. Blue tattoos, glowing faintly, snaked from his neck down toward his chest, hinting at something ancient.

"T–Then… release us… please…" One of Rex's men, still slumped on the ground, managed to plead.

"Not happening." King's voice was almost light, though his smile held a darkness that made the men's faces twist in despair.

Moments later, demonic wolves emerged from the shadows, their black forms hunched, eyes gleaming with hunger. They hesitated only slightly as they padded toward the icy perimeter, sniffing the cold air. Upon stepping onto the ice, they recoiled, retreating at first with uncertain growls. But before they could escape, an icy wall rose, blocking their retreat.

The wolves turned to see King seated on a throne of frost. Beside him lay the unconscious bodies of Reynold, Lua, Saya, and Mona, untouched by the icy terrain. King had spared them.

Turning his gaze to the pack, he spoke softly. "Eat him," he ordered, pointing toward Rex.

The wolves paused, glancing between Rex and the King's gaze, instinctively sensing that disobedience would be fatal. With hesitant snarls, they advanced toward Rex.

"G–GRAHHHH!" Rex's scream cut through the night as the wolves began their feast, tearing into him with a feral frenzy. Whatever intelligence they lacked was replaced by an insatiable hunger that overtook them, consuming him piece by piece.

Rex's companions clawed desperately at the ice binding their legs, their hands numb and drenched in cold sweat. Behind them, Rex's tortured screams echoed as the wolves tore into him.

"..."

King stood silent, his gaze on the Demonic Beasts. He appeared almost indifferent to the gruesome scene—but Adam Crane's morbid curiosity stirred within him. Reaching out, King summoned a notebook to his hand, and his expression transformed, shifting into the coldly analytical focus that Adam wore when consumed by study.

His fingers flew across the page as he took detailed notes, dissecting the behavior of the wolves with precise observations. He ignored Rex's shrieks, his attention absorbed by the Demonic Beasts' feeding habits, curious to understand them.

It was another minute before Rex's cries faded into silence, his remains reduced to scattered, bloodied shreds as the wolves continued gnawing on the scraps of flesh.

"They resemble wolves in structure, yet... what marks them as uniquely Demonic Beasts?" King muttered, scrutinizing the pack. Was there a motive beyond mere hunger that drove these beasts to devour humans? This was his question.

With a sigh, he rose, letting the throne of ice melt and dissolve around him, though the frost remained to lock Rex's men in place. As he stepped forward, something dark began to ripple across his form, tearing at the surface of his skin. His body shifted, the transformation stripping away King's visage to reveal Adam's.

Now, standing before the five wolves, Adam looked distinctly different. Younger, with disheveled white hair and a clean white lab coat, he seemed almost haggard, as though sleep was a luxury he hadn't indulged in. The wolves stilled, their growls fading as they sensed something about him—though he appeared much weaker than King, he was somehow more terrifying.

Ignoring them, Adam jotted a few final notes, then turned on his heel. "Leave," he said.

The wolves hesitated, glancing hungrily at the four frozen men, but at the sight of Adam's gaze, they slunk back into the shadows.

Rex's men stared in horror, their fear reaching peak by the strange transformation they had witnessed. The figure before them seemed less human than King, as though he viewed them not as men but as mere subjects.

"First experiment on the Stigma… a foreign mark of Faith from the Fallen Goddess Seraphiel, in the World called Arcadia," Adam murmured to himself, approaching one of the men. He stretched out his hand, and dark tendrils snaked from his palm, slipping through the man's nose and mouth.

They were tiny portions of his Stigma.

"...!" The man convulsed, his entire body seized by violent spasms, his skin gradually blackening. Adam watched, expressionless, noting every detail in his notebook.

"Subject number one… visible muscle tension and pronounced spasms, initial contractions spreading from the extremities. Subject's movements can be described as… writhing? Yes, writhing. Precisely as anticipated." He continued murmuring to himself, each symptom scribbled carefully in his notebook until he had filled three pages.

When he finally finished, the man lay on the ground, his skin charred and lifeless, his mouth opened wided in horror.

Adam barely spared the corpse a glance as he moved on to the next captive.

"Subject number two."

"GRYAAAAAH!!!"