The familiar white light flooded over the ritual circle.
But just as Luka was waiting to see what the crafted "Snake Cup" would look like, a huge cloud of dusty yellow smoke suddenly burst out of the light and rushed straight at his face.
"What the hell is that?! Hive?!"
Luka's heart jumped. The parasite swarm was basically already in his face, so he didn't have time to think.
He snapped out of his crouched stance—hands on the floor—leaned back, shoved off the ground to create space, and instinctively whipped his right arm up and threw a hard punch forward.
There was a soft click.
His deep-blue mechanical right arm suddenly split open mid-swing. Four metal plates popped outward, blue electrical arcs crackled along the casing, and then rapidly compressed into a tight point around his knuckles.
A beat later, the compressed charge detonated.
With a thunderous blast, a brutal electromagnetic shockwave—wrapped in snapping, strobe-bright lightning—blanketed the area several meters ahead. The blast wave blew the parasites back, and more than half of them didn't even make it away before they got shredded into dust by the arcs.
A sharp scream—half rage, half agony—ripped out of the swarm.
Luka's new arm, [Overture], was essentially an EM удар: strong, great knockback, but not the kind of pinpoint, total wipe that those dense "disintegration orbs" could pull off in one shot.
Luckily, it didn't really have a cooldown. As the remaining parasites surged in again, Luka pulled his fist back, ready to finish them with a second punch—
Before he could, a cold, raspy male voice spoke from the center of the circle behind the swarm.
"Pyromancy—Dragonfire!"
A massive, blazing red fire-dragon shot forward. The heat hit like a wall and instantly swallowed the parasites whole.
This time they didn't even get a chance to scream. The swarm blackened, crisped, and disintegrated into ash.
The problem was, Luka had been standing face-to-face with the crafting circle. After the fire-dragon plowed through the parasites, it didn't slow down at all—it kept charging right at him.
"Oh crap—don't!"
Luka yelped and threw himself backward.
But without his mobility-boost shoes turned on, his retreat speed was nothing special. In a blink, the fire-dragon was already on top of him—
And then, right as Luka felt the heat blast his skin, the dragon's body suddenly hesitated. It twisted with eerie control, skimmed past Luka's forehead by a hair, and rocketed upward at an angle.
Only after it reached high overhead did it finally explode, scattering into tiny red embers that winked out in midair.
By then, Luka wasn't watching the flames anymore.
With the fire gone, the figure at the center of the circle was fully visible: a young man in knight-like armor, holding one hand up in a precise arcane-gesture stance.
Once the last embers vanished, the armored young man lowered his hands, removed his mask, and dropped to one knee with formal respect.
"Apologies, my lord. The situation was urgent—I acted without permission. Please punish me as you see fit."
Luka stared at him: light-blue choppy hair, ghost-pale skin, a scar across one cheek, and annoyingly perfect looks. After a brief pause, Luka finally spoke again.
"Snake Cup?"
"Yes, Lord Luka. Synthetic human Snake Cup, reporting for duty."
Back in the Hydra base office, after a short exchange, Luka got the basics of Snake Cup's background.
Just like the system description said, he was an artificial human grown and engineered by Dr. Serpent using a mix of top-tier genetic material. The catch was the timeline—Snake Cup came from more than a decade after that world's "Fourth Shadow War."
No wonder Luka—who hadn't followed the sequel-era stories from his past life—had never heard of him.
As one of Dr. Serpent's best creations, Snake Cup's talent was ridiculous. Combat spells, close-quarters techniques, sword work, illusion magic—he could toss them out like reflexes.
According to Snake Cup himself, he had the kind of strength that put him on par with an elite commander-level powerhouse.
And based on Luka's tests, Snake Cup could even beat Haro-4's smart mech without much effort.
During the fight, Snake Cup only struggled at the very start—he wasn't used to how absurdly tough Haro-4's "E-carbon" armor was, so he briefly fell behind.
Once he adjusted, it wasn't even close. The sheer variety of spellwork he brought out flattened Haro-4, and his wind-enhanced longsword could carve visible cuts into the mech's body, which made Luka wince every time.
And the wild part? Snake Cup's skill set actually worked better against living targets.
Against a machine, a lot of illusion tricks and mind-targeting effects had nowhere to land. Add Haro-4's ridiculous E-carbon defense on top of that, and Snake Cup still won comfortably—so his raw level was pretty obvious.
Luka's verdict was simple:
"Yeah. 'Rip a battle mech apart with your bare hands' level."
Still, Luka was a little disappointed about the "research assistant" angle mentioned by the system.
Not because Snake Cup was bad at research—under Dr. Serpent's guidance, he could absolutely run independent R&D. In his home world, he'd be considered a top-tier scientist.
The problem was that his home world's science base was built around a special internal energy system, and even the people there weren't "normal humans" in the usual biological sense.
Between bizarre inherited traits and fundamental physiological differences, a lot of baseline theory simply didn't transfer cleanly.
That said, Snake Cup had the talent and the hands-on experience. If he crammed enough modern biology from this world, building a "budget knockoff" enhanced-operator program probably wouldn't be that hard.
Overall, Luka was genuinely happy with the new subordinate.
Once the Yuri base vehicle was crafted later, Snake Cup should be able to contribute a lot beyond just fighting—especially with access to Yuri's tech tree.
And on top of that, some abilities that were considered "no big deal" back in Snake Cup's world were a real advantage for Luka right now.
Luka watched Snake Cup use a disguise spell to turn into "Strucker," while—off to the side—Snake Cup's duplicate body took the form of "Hive."
As Luka slid his [Disguise Watch] back onto his own wrist, he nodded with satisfaction.
"Nice. The job of consolidating Hydra is yours. I'll have Spot help relocate you later."
"Any Hydra assets that are already exposed, ditch them if you have to. For everything else, keep it buried. We're not in a rush—Hydra's huge, and there'll be something useful left when the dust settles."
"Oh, and the U.S. is a mess right now. If you get the chance, skim as many benefits as you can."