Those were the same type of trucks as the convoy Ivan had encountered earlier.
Several people in full protective suits were moving something into the trucks.
Nearby, several armed guards stood watch. Their clothing matched the outfits worn by the men Ivan had seen riding in the trucks before.
Ivan suddenly realized he didn't need to investigate the morgue anymore.
Compared to the morgue, what was happening over there was far more suspicious.
Especially now that he could clearly see what they were loading into the cargo compartments.
One black body bag after another.
They were unmistakably corpse bags.
Ivan inhaled deeply, his nose twitching.
Then he suddenly turned toward the door.
At that exact moment, the tightly closed door swung open.
A man in a security uniform stood in the doorway.
He was about two meters tall, with a heavily built upper body and a buzz cut. A long scar stretched across his right eye. When he spoke, the scar twisted like a living centipede.
"Ivan, you shouldn't have come here."
The man exposed Ivan's identity with his very first sentence.
"Who are you?" Ivan's pupils narrowed.
He felt pressure.
The man was strong.
Stronger than anyone Ivan had faced so far.
This wasn't just instinct.
From the moment the man appeared, the aura surrounding him shifted from Ten to Ren, and then rapidly condensed into Ken.
Ken was an advanced application combining Ten and Ren.
It involved releasing greater amounts of aura while maintaining a dense layer around the body to enhance both offense and defense.
In simpler terms, it meant using Ren to produce more aura and shaping it into a reinforced Ten.
Experienced Nen users often maintained Ken throughout battle.
In prolonged fights, whoever dropped Ken first would almost certainly lose.
But Ken consumed far more stamina than normal techniques.
The fact that the man had activated Ken immediately upon appearing made Ivan even more cautious.
It meant the man could attack at any moment, even while speaking.
A tennis ball appeared in Ivan's hand.
The marbles hidden in his sleeve attached themselves to the spinning ball.
"Yuliel. Didn't your father ever mention that name to you?" the man said.
His tone carried a faint hint of nostalgia.
Ivan frowned slightly.
In the memories of the original Ivan, that name did exist.
"Investigator Yuliel," Ivan said slowly.
"You fought alongside my father. His colleague… his comrade."
"But weren't you supposed to have died seven years ago?"
"Yeah," Yuliel replied.
The nostalgic look faded from his face.
A twisted smile spread across his scarred features.
The scar across his face curled grotesquely.
"Seven years ago I was your father's colleague."
"And seven years later, I might become your senior and coworker."
As he spoke, Yuliel slowly stepped forward.
"What do you mean?" Ivan moved closer to the shattered window behind him. Broken glass crunched beneath his feet.
"An invitation," Yuliel said, stopping three meters away.
"To join the Third Hospital."
"You only have two answers."
"Yes… or no."
"You mean you want me to—"
Before Ivan could finish speaking, Yuliel suddenly exploded into motion.
Clearly, he hadn't been joking.
He had meant exactly what he said.
But something moved even faster than Yuliel.
The tennis ball Ivan had hidden behind his back.
The moment Ivan spoke the word "you," the spinning ball shot forward from his wrist.
At the same time, Yuliel closed the distance.
His fist surged forward, aura gathering heavily around it.
He intended to kill Ivan with a single punch.
But to Ivan, everything about Yuliel's movements was painfully obvious.
The surge of aura flowing toward his wrist had already revealed his intentions the moment he asked the question.
If Yuliel hadn't used Gyo-like aura flow, shifting between Ken and Ko, Ivan might not have noticed so clearly in his half-dinosaur state.
But the movement of aura was glaringly obvious under Ivan's enhanced dynamic vision.
That was why Ivan had struck first.
Yuliel's punch slammed directly into the tennis ball.
The spinning ball exploded instantly.
The marbles attached to it scattered violently across the room.
At the same moment, Ivan dropped low, ducking beneath the punch.
Behind him—
a massive mouth suddenly appeared through the shattered window.
A Velociraptor.
Ever since Ivan sensed danger behind him, the raptor following him had been waiting below.
Now, under Ivan's command, it leapt upward from the ground.
The second-floor height wasn't difficult for a raptor to reach.
The next instant, the creature bit down on Yuliel's left side.
Yet no blood splattered.
Yuliel staggered backward.
His field of vision suddenly shrank to the right half of the world.
He couldn't feel the left side of his body.
He couldn't see it either.
Everything to his left had become pure darkness.
It was as if half his vision had been erased from existence.
He immediately realized—
This was Ivan's ability.
But something felt wrong.
Ivan had already revealed the ability to transform targets into dinosaurs.
So where had this second ability—one that erased half his body—come from?
Yuliel twisted his body, trying to use his remaining right-side vision to determine what had happened.
But before he could move fully, his body suddenly lifted into the air.
Something on his unseen left side had dragged him upward.
Understanding flashed through his mind.
Aura surged into his right fist.
He swung it violently toward his own left shoulder.
Because in the image forming in his mind, if the raptor had grabbed him by the shoulder—
then his left shoulder would be where the creature held him.
Boom!
Blood sprayed.
Yuliel fell heavily to the ground.
When he turned to look—
he saw the corpse of a security guard.
The man's head had been smashed open by Yuliel's punch.
The body was already reverting from a dinosaur form.
Confusion filled Yuliel's mind.
A trace of fear crept in.
He quickly scrambled backward, pressing himself into the corner of the room.
His remaining right-side vision scanned the entire area.
But Ivan was already gone.
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