In the dusty open lot of the abandoned power plant.
After an endless exchange of blows, Ji-hwan took a step back and roughly wiped the hot sweat running down his chin with his sleeve.
In this brutal fight, with the stench of gunpowder, oil, and blood from his own wounds mixing together, Ji-hwan could feel it clearly.
Without the combat experience and growth he had gained from the life-or-death battle with the cowboy boss of Raffen Shiv, could he really have stood toe-to-toe with these three monsters? If it had been the old Ji-hwan, this battlefield would have chewed him up and turned him into meat pie.
Even while narrowly dodging the merciless hammer swings and the Mantis Blades slashing in from his blind spots, Ji-hwan’s nerves stayed locked on the sniper far away, waiting for any opening to drive an electromagnetic round into him.
Beyond simple defense and survival, his body, untouched by a single mechanical part, was evolving in real time inside this kill zone.
Szzzt, crack.
Dark red steam clung instantly to the torn skin of his fists and the shredded fibers of muscle beneath.
As his destroyed cells were forcibly stitched back together, his muscles were being rebuilt into fibers that were just a little tougher and denser than before, and the synaptic reaction speed that tracked his enemies’ movements was growing more and more monstrous with every exchange.
"Their limits are obvious."
Even while trading blows with them, Ji-hwan analyzed the attack patterns and weaknesses of all three.
Specter, the female executive swinging a scythe-like blade, had a brief opening after activating her [Sandevistan], when her nervous system would be overloaded and her reactions would slow for a split second.
Slash, who wielded an industrial hammer, had strength on par with Ji-hwan thanks to his [Gorilla Arms], but his speed and reactions were noticeably slower because of the sheer weight of that lump of metal.
The most annoying one was Deadzone, the sniper lurking in the distance. If even the slightest opening was exposed, his life would be gone in an instant, which made that presence the most troublesome of all.
Ji-hwan decided to turn their vicious teamwork against them, and once again kicked off the dirt and charged.
Tatatatang!
The first to meet his rush was Specter’s Mantis Blades, crackling with blue sparks as they cut into his blind spot.
"Kya-ha-ha!"
With that shrieking laugh came the inward-curving arc of her blade. Ji-hwan twisted his body to evade it, but the enemies’ follow-up left him no room to breathe.
The moment Specter’s attack missed, a massive shadow slammed down over Ji-hwan’s head.
"Kraaaah!!"
It was Slash. Crushing the ground with his heavy mechanical legs, he was bringing down an ultra-heavy hammer loaded with several tons of hydraulic force in a vertical smash.
At a timing that made dodging impossible, Ji-hwan rotated his body and smashed the side of the hammer.
Kwaang!!
"Ghk...!"
With a short groan, Ji-hwan was thrown back hard, as if he had been knocked away. His legs dragged across the dirt, his lower body balance thrown wildly off by the hammer’s overwhelming impact, and in that instant, as his staggering movement exposed even the smallest opening, it was a gap Deadzone, who was actively running [Kerenzikov] from the second-floor railing, would never miss.
The moment Ji-hwan’s collapsed posture came into the center of the scope, the red multi-eye cyberware implanted in Deadzone’s face flashed madly with the thrill of victory.
"Got you, you bastard!"
Wheeeing-!
Deadzone’s brain-linked [Kerenzikov] activated at maximum output, and the time flowing around him slowed as if it had sunk into mud.
Just as Ji-hwan was stumbling and Deadzone was lining up the shot, Specter also seized the opening, activating her [Sandevistan] with a tearing laugh and leaving a red afterimage as she cut into his blind spot.
"Kya-ha-ha-ha! Die!"
At the same time, she didn’t miss the chance either, surging forward with her [Sandevistan] and a shriek of laughter, leaving a red trail as she darted into Ji-hwan’s blind spot.
The huge Mantis Blade, shaped like a sickening inward-curving scythe, lunged for Ji-hwan’s throat.
But Ji-hwan deflected the blade’s path, and at that exact instant, when her [Sandevistan] duration ended and her motion slowed by a hair’s breadth,
"Wha—what...!"
Ji-hwan’s thick hand clamped down on Specter’s nape and the neural cables of her mechanical arm with a grip like a steel vise, and at the same time, from behind him, a terrifying tremor rolled over the ground.
"Kraaaahhh!!"
The hulking Slash, his head filled with nothing but mechanical murder, was charging in.
He had already drawn back into a full swing, hydraulics cranked to the maximum, ready to bring his several-ton ultra-heavy hammer straight down.
He didn’t care whether an ally was caught in front of him or not. Faced with a strike he couldn’t stop because of the hammer’s sheer mass, Ji-hwan locked the captured Specter directly into Slash’s hammer path.
From afar, Deadzone watched through his scope and, seeing his ally about to become meat paste, pulled the trigger on his [Nekomata] tech sniper rifle, intending to blow off Ji-hwan’s head or arm and force him to let go of Specter. The high-frequency charge of the superconducting coil split the air.
But the instant Deadzone pulled the trigger, Ji-hwan violently shoved the Specter he was holding toward Slash and lowered his upper body into a low crouch, twisting just slightly toward the ground.
Taaang!!!
The muzzle of the large-caliber tech sniper rifle flashed, and the electromagnetic round tore through the air.
The supersonic trajectory ignored even air resistance, but in the slowed time, Deadzone watched in horror as the bullet pierced only Ji-hwan’s afterimage and missed into empty space, smashing apart the concrete wall.
"Wh—?! Th-this fucking...!"
But the real disaster was somewhere else.
Slash’s merciless mass weapon, impossible to turn or stop, slammed into view, and Specter, paralyzed by the overload, couldn’t even scream properly.
Kwaaack!!!
After the horrible cracking sound, Slash’s hammer, packed with several tons of hydraulic energy, struck Specter’s upper body dead on as she was thrown through the air. Her steel mask, artificial spine, and the entire upper half of her chest, including both arms fitted with scythe blades, caved in like an empty can and then burst apart like a smashed watermelon.
"Kak!!"
And just before the impact, a scream tore out.
As her artificial organs were destroyed, blue sparks flew, and red blood, black oil, and broken machine parts rained out in all directions through the dust like a shower.
After that, only the lower half of Specter’s body remained, collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
Cutting through the rain of flesh and chunks of meat, Ji-hwan drove straight into the bastard’s embrace.
Ji-hwan explosively focused [Body Enhancement] into his lower body and drove a kick loaded with terrifying force into the man’s torso.
Peeeuuk!!
"Guh...!"
With a rupturing impact like flesh colliding with a slab of iron, Slash’s massive body was knocked backward.
He smashed through an old steel door like it was paper and was buried deep in a cloud of dust inside the dark power plant building, where even sunlight didn’t reach.
Kwaang!
Then, chasing after him through the shattered door, Ji-hwan also strode without hesitation into the building, where thick darkness had settled.
Watching the carnage through his scope, Deadzone’s red multi-lenses flashed wildly with panic.
"Damn it...!!"
Deadzone spat out a curse and tore his eyes away from the scope.
If he, as the sniper, didn’t provide cover and light up the outside, fighting that monster in the cramped interior with no line of sight was no different from suicide.
He hurriedly leaped over a pile of scrap on the second floor and landed in a roll onto the first-floor concrete, then started sprinting toward the power plant entrance to regain sightlines and get into position.
"Slash!! Hold him!"
He hadn’t even reached the entrance, panting, when inside the darkened plant, a chain of horrific impacts was already bursting out, accompanied by the furious battle cries of a huge man.
"I’m gonna kill you!!"
Bang—! Kwaaang—!!
The sound of Slash’s merciless hammer smashing concrete walls and floors rang out so loudly it carried all the way outside.
Deadzone almost felt relieved at the brutal noise.
In a cramped interior, he believed Slash’s overwhelming brute force, backed by several tons of hydraulic pressure, would actually work to their advantage.
But it didn’t take long for that belief to shatter.
"Hk?!"
Slash’s furious roar was suddenly cut off,
"Kh, huhh...?!"
followed by a startled scream, as if something hard had pinned him down.
Puk!Udeuk—!!
Then came the hideous cracking sounds of something being crushed and shattered under merciless blows.
"Kraaaah!!"
At last, Slash’s death cry echoed horribly through the dark building.
And then, finally.
Kkwajik!!!
Immediately after, the noise that had been tearing at the ears vanished as if it had all been a lie.
"...Slash?"
A heavy silence settled. Slash’s furious shouts were gone, and so were the metallic screams of his hammer scraping the ground and striking concrete.
Only the Badlands wind drifted through the broken gap in the steel door.
Frozen just a few steps from the building entrance, Deadzone raised his rifle with a trembling mechanical arm.
Gulp.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.
Step, step.
From beyond the shattered steel door, through the rising dust cloud, slow footsteps began to approach.
And mixed with those footsteps was the unpleasant scraping of a heavy lump of metal being dragged roughly across the floor.
Kigigigik-.
Deadzone clenched the [Nekomata] in his shaking mechanical arm and aimed toward the sound.
The moment he finally saw the shape emerging through the darkness, he had no choice but to stop breathing.
It was Slash, the Maelstrom mid-level boss who had been roaring and swinging that absurd hammer just moments ago. But his condition was pitiful.
Every mechanical joint had been smashed apart, his limbs bent at grotesque angles, and most of all, there was a gaping red hole straight through the center of his thick torso, as if a human fist had punched all the way through him.
"Kh, huhh... huff..."
Slash could only gasp out bloodied breaths, barely hanging on before death.
And dragging that lump of metal by the collar with one hand, Ji-hwan walked out behind him, pulling the body across the dirt.
Ji-hwan’s eyes, emerging from the dust, were still burning coldly red.
The instant Deadzone met that merciless stare head-on, his thought processes came to a complete stop.
"That’s not a person. That’s a monster."
Even the will to resist evaporated like smoke.
The cruel threat Boss Vice had spat over the comms—how he’d tear him apart piece by piece if he failed—meant nothing to Deadzone now.
If he were caught by the man with the red eyes standing in front of him, he’d be crushed without leaving a trace before he even had time to feel the pain of having his parts ripped off.
Clank!
Deadzone even threw down the [Nekomata] sniper rifle he was holding.
Then, without hesitation, he turned his back on Ji-hwan.
"Hiiiiiik!!"
He let out a shriek of terror and ran, leaving behind his subordinates scattered through the plant and even his dying ally Slash like garbage.
He was so terrified and frantic that he didn’t even think to climb into the driver’s seat of the modified vehicle he had parked nearby to escape through the sandstorm. He just let his two mechanical legs bounce madly as he sprinted full speed toward the wasteland.
Watching the pathetic, disgraceful back of the fleeing man, Ji-hwan casually wiped the blood running down his chin.
"Where do you think you’re going?"
With a dull thud, Slash’s body, chest blown open and breath already gone, was flung uselessly onto the dirt, and his fierce gaze locked onto Deadzone’s retreating back.
Ji-hwan’s leg muscles swelled as if they might burst, crouching low as though they would crush the dirt beneath them, ready to close the distance in an instant and smash the fleeing Maelstrom executive’s head. But—
Udeuk—!
With a grotesque crack of misaligned bones, a chilling popping sound burst out deep inside his body.
Blood tears streamed down Ji-hwan’s reddened eyes for a moment, and then dark blood sprayed from his open mouth and nose like a fountain.
"Th... this damn..."
Ji-hwan twisted in pain, gasping in shock.
"Already... at my limit?!"
The battle with the Raffen Shiv group, the fight against their leader with the pair of [Kerenzikov]-using pistols, and then the nonstop clash with the three executives just now. After repeatedly crossing the line of death and forcing his [Thought Acceleration] and [Body Enhancement] past their limits, the price had finally arrived, and his already-overstrained body could no longer hold.
"Aaaagh!!"
As the body that had reached its limit suffered unbearable agony, Ji-hwan rolled on the ground, feeling as though his entire body was being torn apart and split open.
Inside him, while he coughed up mouthfuls of bright red blood and screamed in pain, a terrifying struggle was taking place.
The collapse of his body, pushed beyond its limits and trying to break down, and the [Body Enhancement] desperately trying to stabilize him by forcibly stitching cells back together collided head-on, creating a horrifying burning pain.
As the two incompatible forces clashed, dark red steam boiled up madly from Ji-hwan’s whole body as if he were on fire.
"Kuhuk, cough...!"
In the hellish pain of flesh and bone destroying and rebuilding themselves, Ji-hwan clawed at the dirt and twisted nonstop.
How long had passed? Minutes felt like an eternity.
At last, the convulsions wracking his body gradually subsided, and all the strength drained out of Ji-hwan like an outgoing tide.
Collapsed in a mess of dirt and blood, he was swallowed by a helplessness so deep he couldn’t even twitch a finger.
Even his vision, which had been burning red, blurred into a dull haze until he could no longer make out the shape of anything in front of him.
Then it happened.
Through the fading blur of his sight, someone appeared in front of Ji-hwan, cutting through the sandstorm.
Ji-hwan could barely see at all now, but his still-functioning ears and instinct alone could clearly feel that someone was standing right before him.
Step.
With that silent presence looking down at him, Ji-hwan’s blurred consciousness sank completely into darkness, and he lost consciousness.
"...Who?"
That was all that remained, Ji-hwan’s question echoing in the fading depths of his mind.
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