"And with nothing but a pure human body."
Director Lowell’s praise rang out as he casually brushed soot off his top-of-the-line custom suit and licked his eyes over Ji-hwan, who was wreathed in red smoke, as if he were some priceless work of art worth hundreds of billions of credits.
"Truly astonishing. A body with not a single implant in it, going up against my elite..."
"You talk too much."
Ji-hwan cut off Lowell’s smug admiration and fixed him with a cold stare.
"If you’re the head of this place, then answer the question. Why did you kidnap people and lay them out on those disgusting autopsy tables?"
At that blunt accusation, Lowell let out a thin, mocking laugh, as if he found it almost absurd.
"Why? Because that’s the natural privilege enjoyed by those of us who stand above others."
Clicking his heels, Lowell took another step forward and spread his arms slightly.
There wasn’t the slightest trace of pity for human life in his eyes, which gleamed like those of a fanatic.
"The scraps crawling around on the bottom of this giant city should gladly sacrifice themselves for the progress of great technology, shouldn’t they? Is there some idiot who feels guilty about swapping out a dead battery? There are hundreds of thousands of new batteries out there begging for tomorrow. When one wears out, you just pick up another and fill the slot. That’s all they are. Resources."
Alpha’s face twitched faintly as he listened to that revolting contempt for life, spoken with complete sincerity, as if other people were nothing more than disposable parts.
But Lowell paid Alpha no mind at all and kept talking to Ji-hwan with that sticky smile still on his face.
"So there’s no need to pity trash like that. If you just hand over that marvelous ability of yours to us, I’ll gladly..."
"Are you done talking bullshit?"
Second interruption.
This time even the leisurely smile lingering at the corner of Lowell’s mouth froze over in an instant.
Ji-hwan brushed past the stiffened Lowell and jerked his chin toward Alpha, who was barely holding back his killing intent, sneering all the while.
"Hey, bastard."
At that call, Alpha’s ocular lenses flashed wildly.
"Can’t you hear your master barking? You’re just a battery that’ll get tossed into the incinerator back there once you’ve been drained dry, and you’re acting like some loyal dog."
"You insolent..."
Grit
Alpha ground his teeth, the harsh scrape echoing out.
The [Sandevistan] spine exposed beneath his worn tactical vest crackled with blue sparks as if it might explode at any second, yet he still did not step out from behind Lowell.
"I’m hearing that as you rejecting my generous offer. Answer properly. Depending on your answer, you’ll either keep your body intact or get dragged away in pieces."
With crushing pressure bearing down on the entire underground dome and corporate elites surrounding him, Ji-hwan’s faint red smoke began to churn violently.
"My answer is..."
At the end of that lazy drawl, the faint force that had been tightly coiled around Ji-hwan’s body exploded all at once and surged outward.
Crack-!
With the sound of bones screaming under pressure, the muscles in Ji-hwan’s right shoulder and back swelled grotesquely to their limit. Twisting his waist to the extreme like a pitcher on the mound just before the throw, Ji-hwan unleashed that compressed elasticity in one burst and fired the analog dagger in his hand into the air.
The cold blade tore through the sound barrier, and its path was aimed precisely at Director Lowell’s arrogant forehead.
Kaaang-!!
Just before the dagger could pierce Lowell’s skull, squad leader Alpha had already thrown himself in front of him, [Sandevistan] blazing with blue sparks.
Then Alpha’s rough [Gorilla Arms] knocked the dagger aside, and a chilling sound rang out.
"...Damn, that was close."
Even though the surest ambush had been blocked, Ji-hwan only clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Meanwhile, Lowell, struck head-on by the dagger’s icy wake as it ricocheted past his face, stumbled backward and lost his balance.
"D-Director! Are you all right?!"
The elite members lined up around him rushed over and grabbed Lowell’s arms before he could fall, steadying him.
For a man who had never once in his life experienced his own death being directly threatened, his face instantly flushed red with a mix of shame and terror.
"Let go!!"
Lowell slapped away the hands of the men trying to support him and roughly reset his stance.
Alpha, still blocking the way in front of him, didn’t even look back at his employer. He kept his blue multi-lensed eyes fixed solely on Ji-hwan and murmured coldly.
"You’re pretty arrogant."
"You fucking bastard...!!"
Behind Alpha’s back, Lowell’s filthy nature finally exploded.
"I’ll make you beg me to kill you on the operating table!!"
After hurling that murderous curse, Lowell turned and fled behind his escort, retreating through the shattered iron door to get as far away from danger as possible.
Alpha called after the disgraceful back of his employer as it receded.
"What should we do?"
"Keep him alive! Just keep him alive!!"
Lowell’s shrill, hysterical shout echoed through the underground dome as it faded away.
The moment that cruel permission was given, Alpha’s mouth split into a vicious grin, the smile of a hunting dog finally unleashed from its leash.
"You heard him."
Heat and haze began to rise from the exhaust ports of the projectile-firing [Gorilla Arms] mounted on both of Alpha’s arms.
"Looks like you’re not the type to die easily. Go all out."
Clack-! Click-!
The instant Alpha’s order fell, the remaining Manticore Squad members raised their muzzles in unison and trained a crossfire on Ji-hwan, who was now pouring out denser red smoke.
At the same time, Alpha advanced, sparks crackling around him as he triggered his [Sandevistan].
But Ji-hwan violently kicked off the ground and veered off at an angle.
Before he could recklessly tangle with the enemy leader, he needed to clear out the annoying shooters flooding the area with nonstop crossfire.
"Where do you think you’re going!"
Alpha twisted hard to give chase, but Ji-hwan, now wrapped in thicker red smoke, was a step faster.
Reading the trajectories of the smart rounds by instinct, Ji-hwan slipped into the chest of the nearest assault trooper.
The man’s wrist bent at a grotesque angle as he tried to pull the trigger, and his throat was torn open with a wet rip.
Ji-hwan kicked the blood-fountaining body into the path of the others’ fire, disrupting their line of sight, then ducked behind a massive concrete pillar to force close-quarters chaos.
That was when it happened.
Wheeeeeee-!!
A piercing warning signal climbed Ji-hwan’s spine. Not sight, not sound, but the cold scream of [Thought Acceleration]—a sixth sense his skin caught before his brain could even process it.
Ji-hwan reflexively ducked his upper body,
Kaaang-!!
and the thick concrete pillar he’d been leaning against was punched clean through by a heavy beam of heat.
If he’d been even a handspan slower, Ji-hwan’s skull would have burst like a watermelon.
Up on the upper-level catwalk, the designated marksman who owned that shot inhaled sharply in disbelief.
He had modified the entire right side of his eye into a multi-lens array for trajectory calculation, and through his scope he had just witnessed the impossible.
The shot from a tech weapon, fired to punch through a thick wall, had been dodged on pure instinct.
The marksman’s blue-lensed eye trembled as he stared through the hole in the concrete.
And beyond that hole, a pair of cold eyes was staring straight back at him.
"...What the hell is that monster?"
A drop of cold sweat slid down the marksman’s spine.
Right after the wall was breached, a steel fortress of massive titanium armor burst through the stinking smoke and slammed itself in front of Ji-hwan.
It was the tank who had closed in alongside Alpha: Butcher.
"Die!!"
With Butcher’s thunderous roar, his powered combat hammer came crashing down with no mercy, aiming to smash Ji-hwan’s head in.
Rather than dodge, Ji-hwan twisted his waist deep and drove a short, concise fist wrapped in thick red smoke into the side of the hammer.
Boom-!!
[Instant Strike]—a blow that compressed its explosive force into the briefest 0.05 seconds of contact.
Hammer and bare fist collided, and a horrifying metallic shriek burst out.
Pushed back by the recoil of [Instant Strike], the multi-ton hammer’s path was violently knocked outward.
"You piece of...!!"
As his all-out strike was thrown off, a surge of blue electricity flashed again through Butcher’s spine.
[Berserk], which cut off pain and forced his strength to the limit.
Butcher began swinging the powered hammer like a beast, wildly attacking from the left, right, and above.
The storm of iron hammers tore through the air and bound Ji-hwan’s entire body.
Clang! Boom!! Bang-!!
Ji-hwan deflected the hammer’s savage trajectories with the smallest possible movements, firing [Instant Strike] again and again to send every blow outward.
The sound of metal buckling and sparks bursting filled the plaza without pause.
Even in that storm, Ji-hwan did not take a single step back.
At last, after more than twenty exchanges, the clash ended.
Ssssshhk-
Superheated steam burst from Butcher’s back as the [Berserk] system hit its limit and shut down.
With the pressure forcibly imposed on his body released, the giant staggered backward, losing his balance.
"Now."
Without missing the opening, fierce red smoke erupted across Ji-hwan’s skin.
His muscle fibers were screaming from the repeated use of [Instant Strike], but he had to force himself through it and finish this annoying bastard off.
Spaaark-!!
But then a shadow burst out from behind Butcher, blue sparks exploding in its wake.
Squad leader Alpha.
The leader had used his subordinate’s opening as bait to slip into a perfect blind spot, and his vicious fist was already shooting toward Ji-hwan’s face like lightning.
Spaaark-!!
At the same time, Ji-hwan thrust out a fist packed with [Instant Strike] toward the incoming enemy.
No, he tried to thrust it out.
Alpha’s steel forearm was vomiting red-hot energy. Unlike ordinary prosthetics, the abnormal exhaust ports drilled into every joint and the eerie grinding of a large cylinder turning inside them scraped wildly at Ji-hwan’s razor-sharp instincts.
"No way...?!!"
The moment he realized that grotesque structure was not just a simple punch, Ji-hwan forcibly twisted back the [Instant Strike] he had already launched.
Sensing the danger his instincts were screaming about, Ji-hwan kicked off the ground and retreated.
KWAANG-!!
A heavy boom, like a cannon being fired, shook the entire underground dome.
Alpha’s fist never actually touched Ji-hwan’s body.
But the instant the cylinder built into his [Gorilla Arms] detonated against empty air, an overwhelming physical shockwave erupted outward like a tidal wave from point-blank range.
Ji-hwan, who had just barely started to leap backward, was caught in that brutal vibration and flung away helplessly.
He tumbled miserably across the shattered concrete floor several times before slamming into the base of a pillar and finally stopping.
"Kuh...!"
Ji-hwan twisted his upper body and coughed up a handful of dark red blood.
A horrifying internal injury, as if all his organs had been twisted and torn apart. Even though he had not taken a direct hit, the aftershock of the blast had punched through his skin and crushed his insides.
Beyond the thick cloud of dust.
Alpha walked forward, cooling the heat from his bright red exhaust ports, and his blue multi-lensed eyes locked onto the fallen Ji-hwan.
Then, for a split second, his mechanical eyes flashed wildly with shock.
"What the hell... This bastard... He took that?"
The shockwave he had just unleashed carried enough killing power to turn even a mercenary in full body armor into a pile of shredded meat with their guts blown out.
"Haa... haa..."
Blood dripped from beneath Ji-hwan’s clenched jaw as he gasped raggedly.
Against those [Gorilla Arms] and their monstrous shockwaves, his [Instant Strike] was almost useless.
And in front of him, Alpha raised his modified [Gorilla Arms] as if to show them off.
"This technique was originally my trump card, prepared for that arrogant Zetatech bastard Alexei."
"How does it feel to experience its power? I guarantee you, if this fist lands clean, even that infamous Arasaka monster, Adam Smasher, wouldn’t walk away unscathed."
Hearing that, even while his twisted organs were regenerating in agony, Ji-hwan forced his breathing down and spat the dark red blood pooling on the floor.
"Ptooey."
A sneering curl of the lips.
"What a load of shit."
Ji-hwan’s cold eyes pierced Alpha.
"The Hound boss I fought was way stronger than you."
"What... ?"
"And you’ve got one thing completely wrong."
Ji-hwan tightened his grip on the daggers in both hands and smirked.
"Real monsters... don’t use cheap toys like that."
The moment his pride was treated like trash, Alpha’s jaw twisted grotesquely and his killing intent exploded.
"Then I’ll carve it into that body of yours!!"
Spaaark-!!
Blue current snapped through Alpha’s spine as his [Sandevistan] roared to life.
Closing the distance with a blue afterimage, Alpha drove a steel fist that spat metallic shrieks toward Ji-hwan’s abdomen.
Ji-hwan’s whole body flowed with red smoke as his thought acceleration kicked in. Twisting his waist, he leaped sideways.
KWAANG-!!
Alpha’s fist missed and smashed into the floor, but the shockwave rolled over like a tidal wave.
As Ji-hwan was shoved back by that heavy vibration and tried to roll behind a concrete pillar for cover,
Wheeeeeee-!
the designated marksman’s specially modified tech sniper rifle flashed from the upper catwalk and sent a heavy beam of heat through the thick concrete wall, straight toward Ji-hwan’s heart.
Kaaang-!!
If he hadn’t twisted his upper body on instinct, his chest would have been blown open. But the moment that dodge broke his stance, the smart rifles lined up in the darkness all around him opened fire like mad.
Tatatatang-!!
The trajectories of the incoming rounds kept tightening around Ji-hwan’s ankles without pause.
"Where do you think you’re running!"
In that tiny gap while he was stepping through the gunfire, Alpha pressed after him like a hunter driving prey and kept detonating his [Gorilla Arms] toward Ji-hwan’s retreat path.
Boom-! KWAANG-!!
Every time those brutal blasts went off, the old floor of the underground dome was gouged out and chunks of stone sprayed across Ji-hwan’s skin, ripping it apart without mercy.
"Damn it."
He was still using his ability over and over without time or room to let it cool down, and even as his vision reddened from overload, Ji-hwan dodged the crossfire and shockwaves like a madman.
But the combination of crossfire, long-range sniping, and point-blank physical shockwaves was a hunt that allowed no breathing room at all.
Before long, the cold concrete wall pressed against Ji-hwan’s back as he kept retreating.
The deepest blind corner of the corridor, with nowhere left to run.
"Running around like a rat is over."
In that corner with no escape route, Alpha approached, gripping his modified [Gorilla Arms] that spat red heat.
In that terrible situation squeezing down on his whole body, Ji-hwan thought.
His [Instant Strike] alone couldn’t break that bastard’s steel frame.
"...What if I use maximum output? Could I do something about it...?"
The structure was simple enough: at the instant of contact, the internal cylinder exploded and blasted the compressed wave through the armor.
As he studied that principle, Ji-hwan remembered the technique that had accidentally burst out at the last second during his life-or-death fight with Zetatech’s boss, Alexei, a few days ago.
"I’ve tried dozens of times since then, but I never got it to work again..."
"Can I use it now?"
A very brief hesitation.
But Alpha’s murderous intent closing in on him gave Ji-hwan no other choice.
Then there was only one path left.
He had to collide head-on.
Steeling himself, Ji-hwan blocked the attacks closing in from all sides, tossed the worn-out dagger to the floor, and slowly walked toward Alpha.
Clack-! Click!
At Ji-hwan’s move, the squad members lined up on the upper catwalk and throughout the corridor were about to pull the triggers of their smart rifles in unison. But Alpha flicked one hand and forcibly stopped them.
Swish.
At that single gesture from their leader, the dozens of blue muzzles that had been hemming Ji-hwan in all tilted downward in perfect formation.
In the middle of the corridor, thick with soot, dust, and pooled blood, all supporting fire ceased.
In the silence, Alpha and Ji-hwan finally stood at a distance where one punch could reach the other.
Zzzzt- Clack-!
Alpha drew one leg back and twisted his waist tight.
Whoooosh-!!
Ji-hwan planted one foot firmly on the floor and twisted his waist to the extreme as well, pulling his right fist back behind him, thick red smoke coiling tightly around it.
Alpha, loading the pressure in the cylinder inside his mechanical arm.
Ji-hwan, compressing his own power to the limit.
Zzzzt- Clack-!
The instant that steel beast loaded the cylinder pressure in his right [Gorilla Arms] and settled into that vicious stance, Ji-hwan reached deep into the memory of the feeling he had squeezed out during his battle with Alexei days ago.
Then fierce energy condensed across his skin, and the reinforcement of his body began to be drawn out again and again.
His muscles had already reached their limit and were screaming as if they would burst at any moment, but Ji-hwan did not stop.
A half-baked strike could never break through the heavy shockwave that arm would unleash.
He had to put everything he had into this incomplete blow.
"More. Just a little more...!!"
With his body on the brink of self-destruction, Ji-hwan kept forcing the output higher and higher.
"More-!!"
Crack-! Screeeech-!
"More!!"
The agony was unbearable as muscle fibers tore apart and bones slipped out of alignment. Internal pressure surged through his failing body, and dark red blood streamed from his eyes, nostrils, and the corners of his tightly clenched lips, soaking his jawline.
Even while he could vividly feel his body ripping apart under the red haze and the crushing overload that felt like his organs were melting, Ji-hwan still refused to stop releasing that power.
That was when it happened.
The air around the concrete floor Ji-hwan stood on began to warp like a mirage under the pressure of compressed heat and force.
It had gone beyond simple emission.
It was now surging like a giant storm of blood and power, fiercely devouring the gray smoke and dust of the underground dome.
As if facing a mirror, the two men stood opposite each other in eerily identical straight-punch stances.
Alpha, with the cylinder pressure in his mechanical arm maxed out, and Ji-hwan, burning away all the life left in his body as red smoke, finally collided head-on in midair.
KWAAAAAAAAAANG-!!
The two fists met, and with a roar like a bomb going off, the shockwave blasted out in every direction.
At the center of the clash.
The force bursting from the tips of their fists was not that earlier technique from Alexei, but only [Instant Strike], brutally compressed from Ji-hwan’s own power.
But Ji-hwan did not pull back.
To be precise, he shoved every last drop of [Instant Strike] he could currently produce into that one blow.
Paak-! Crack-!!
The heavy recoil of the collision surged back and made Ji-hwan’s wrist bones scream as they shattered, while the muscle fibers in his forearm, unable to withstand the reinforcement, tore apart with a hideous grinding sound.
The pain was like blood bursting out in a fountain.
And yet, before that sheer will, even Alpha was slowly being pushed back.
"Wh-what... the hell...!"
Alpha’s shocked cry rang out as he realized that, even while taking his fist head-on, Ji-hwan was actually forcing him backward little by little.
Panicking, Alpha tried to swing his other mechanical arm to finish Ji-hwan off.
But in that deadlock of two forces locked in extreme opposition, there wasn’t even the slightest opening to twist his stance and throw out the other hand.
And in that crossing moment—
"Kraaaah-!!"
A roar ripped out from behind Alpha.
It was Butcher, the tank of his squad.
Realizing his leader was being pushed back, even if only for a split second, he hurled the combat hammer in his hand at Ji-hwan.
Whoom-! Thud-!!
As the flying mass of metal slammed into Ji-hwan’s side,
"Kgh...!"
the stance Ji-hwan had been holding together by squeezing out every last bit of strength wavered and collapsed under the impact.
And Alpha wasn’t about to miss that opening.
"Die!!"
Alpha’s other [Gorilla Arms] shot forward like lightning toward Ji-hwan’s now-empty face.
With the eerie grinding of the large cylinder loading inside, the vicious fist that tore the air struck Ji-hwan dead on.
KWAAAAAAAAAANG-!!!
The heavy shockwave that crashed down in his defenseless state swept through Ji-hwan’s entire body.
His body, unable to resist even a single scrap, flew through the air like a sheet of paper.
After tumbling miserably across the shattered concrete floor dozens of times, his body came to a stop buried in gray smoke, not moving at all.
His right arm had been crushed into a shape no longer recognizable as bone and flesh. His body lay limp, drained of life. Without even the regenerative ability he usually bragged about, he looked nothing more than a corpse.
"Haa..."
Then, breathing hard in the dust, Alpha slowly raised his left custom [Gorilla Arms].
Cracks had appeared across the surface of his thick special steel plating, scars left behind by the recoil of [Instant Strike] that Ji-hwan had forced into the clash earlier.
Feeling that, a cold sweat slid down Alpha’s face.
"If Butcher hadn’t interfered... I don’t know how that would’ve ended."
With a human body and not a single mechanical part, he had still forced the output of top-grade cyberware to its absolute limit. Alpha inwardly clicked his tongue as he looked down at Ji-hwan sprawled on the floor.
But in the end, the result was clear.
A lump of meat with no breath left in it was no longer a threat.
Recognizing that the situation was completely over, Alpha turned away without hesitation and opened his mouth to issue orders to the men lined up on the upper catwalk and in the corridor.
"Situation over. Patch him up before he dies, and Beta Team, immediately track down the rats who ran toward the tunnel..."
"C-Captain!! Behind... behind you!!"
Before Alpha could even finish his order, the rear netrunner’s shriek split the underground dome like a blade.
"A sneak attack?!"
Alpha reflexively twisted his waist and raised his cracked [Gorilla Arms] in a vicious guard.
But when he whipped around with his nerves on edge, Alpha’s blue multi-lensed eyes swelled grotesquely in disbelief.
"You... what the hell..."
Ji-hwan, who should have been dead, was standing again on both feet.
But it was not the form of a living man. The black pupils in both eyes had rolled completely upward, leaving only the eerie whites gleaming, and dark red blood poured like a waterfall from the torn vessels all over his body. His burst lungs seemed to have lost all function, his chest not even moving as he stood there in that impossible, breathless posture.
And above all, what horrified Alpha most was that not a single wisp of red smoke was rising from Ji-hwan’s skin.
The organic base system that had been helping Ji-hwan survive had completely shut down. There was only one thing that meant. He had burned through every last scrap of his remaining life force, stuffing it all into that ferocious [Instant Strike] like fuel.
Even though Butcher’s interference had caused the recoil of [Instant Strike] to surge back through his body and tear apart his organs and bones.
The man whose life had been completely spent, leaving only an empty shell, was now advancing toward Alpha with his still-intact left fist clenched tight, replacing his crushed right arm.
The clash illustration
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