팅-.
The elevator carrying the director and his squad members sealed shut, and the motor’s hum as it climbed toward the rooftop echoed heavily through the VIP suite corridor.
With all the annoying shackles finally gone, the corridor was sealed off. Even the fire alarm that had been shrieking like it wanted to tear the whole building apart just moments ago now dissolved into a distant background noise before the two men glaring murder at each other.
In the luxurious penthouse hall, lined with top-grade marble, only Ji-hwan and Alpha remained—Ji-hwan breathing hard at the edge of a cliff, Alpha’s eye lenses flashing with killing intent.
"Hup."
The first to break the silence was Alpha.
As a breathy mechanical sound leaked from his metal jaw, red coolant steam burst from the large [Sandevistan] cylinder mounted on his back. The air in the corridor turned foul with the stench of blood and acrid ozone.
"No time."
Ji-hwan’s eyes flicked rapidly to the elevator’s floor indicator.
The others had at most two minutes before they got the director onto the AV on the rooftop and came back down to this floor. Before that, he had to drop the squad leader in front of him, or at least render him unable to move, and get out of this hellhole.
But Ji-hwan was in terrible shape.
His body was hollowed out, unable to produce even half his usual output after crossing the line between life and death.
"Let’s see you block this, you monster!"
Kwaang!!
Alpha’s artificial spine vibrated like mad as his [Sandevistan] kicked in.
In Ji-hwan’s vision, Alpha’s massive frame blurred red for an instant like heat haze, then tore through the limits of space and time and closed in on him in a single breath, right under his chin.
Shiiing— boom!!
The air split with a sharp sonic crack.
Alpha’s arms, which normally looked like nothing more than heavy [Gorilla Arms], secretly housed a grenade launcher specially modified and integrated just for him.
His clenched steel fist shot toward Ji-hwan’s face.
But this wasn’t just a brute-force punch. The instant the fists collided, the grenade magazine loaded inside Alpha’s arm fired.
It wasn’t a matter of the hand splitting open and a shell coming out. Inside the sealed arm, the explosive force of the grenade detonated in sync with the punch, unleashing a horrifying shockwave only forward.
The same finishing blow that had nearly killed Ji-hwan in front of the basement, crushing him with overwhelming mass and destruction.
A speed so fast it was impossible even to see and react to. Alpha’s blood-red eye lenses flashed viciously with certainty as he prepared to crush Ji-hwan under sheer force.
But.
"I’ve already been hit by that once. You think I’d let it happen again?"
Ji-hwan had already experienced the full horror of that technique when it shattered his body.
And ever since he had clawed his way back from the brink of death and bled his way up to this top floor, he had been dismantling and analyzing the structure of that chrome and the movement of its muscles over and over in his head.
Especially the mechanism behind the forward shock discharge that burst at the moment of impact.
The [Sandevistan]’s super-acceleration and the cylinder’s explosive force.
In that brief instant when those two extreme mechanical outputs meshed and detonated, the fist could only come down in a straight line, the shortest possible path to the target.
Just as a shell can’t change direction after leaving the barrel, even Alpha himself couldn’t bend the inertia of that enormous kinetic energy once it was in motion. That was his one and only fatal weakness.
On top of that, there was a slight delay while energy condensed for the shock transmission.
Wuuung-!
The instant before Alpha’s fist crushed the bridge of Ji-hwan’s nose, Ji-hwan’s sharpened instincts—honed to the limit by life and death—perfectly read the faint straight-line flow cutting through the air.
Ji-hwan didn’t try to block the incoming fist.
With his hollowed-out strength, less than half his usual output, raising his guard would only mean shattered bones.
Besides, that fist had a shock-transmission function. Blocking it would mean nothing.
Instead, Ji-hwan defied even the instinct that made humans struggle to survive, and let every muscle in his body go completely slack.
Then, accelerating at terrifying speed, he twisted his head by only a hair’s breadth—just a few millimeters—and slid like a snake into the space beneath Alpha’s onrushing body.
Kwa-gagagak!!
The massive steel fist that brushed past Ji-hwan’s cheek by literally a sheet of paper’s thickness crumpled the titanium wall behind him like paper.
The wind pressure alone tore the skin on Ji-hwan’s cheek and sprayed red blood, but he had completely avoided a fatal blow.
The forward shockwave unleashed at the moment of impact blew the wall apart instead.
"...Y-you bastard?!"
With his fist buried in the wall, Alpha’s blood-red mechanical eyes shook wildly in shock.
Only then did Alpha realize it to the bone.
With a single defeat, his strongest weapon, the [One-Inch Punch], had been completely exposed. And the most terrifying weapon of the "human" in front of him wasn’t a body that regenerated like a cockroach, nor brute strength, nor agility.
It was that beast-like, razor-sharp instinct honed to the extreme by countless brushes with death. That was the real terror—something no machine’s precise calculations could ever predict.
"Ha... what the hell."
A short, incredulous laugh escaped Alpha’s mechanical jaw.
"Fine. I’ll admit it."
It was the reaction of a veteran merc who had torn apart countless strong opponents, and an acknowledgment of Ji-hwan’s overwhelming talent.
"Damn it...!"
Rather than pulling his arm free and creating distance, Alpha yanked it out of the wall and, with a bizarre mechanical whine, drove himself even deeper into Ji-hwan’s space.
The leader of the veteran merc unit Manticore.
He wasn’t some third-rate thug who just ran wild on chrome output alone.
Especially with the compound grenade launchers integrated into both arms, distance itself became a terrifying threat.
If the big technique didn’t work, then he could simply erase the target with the long-range firepower of his overwhelming hardware and integrated grenades.
Shiiik! thud!!
Alpha’s tactics changed in an instant.
Instead of going all-in on one massive strike, he began unleashing a storm of heavy, concise close-quarters combat, using the weight of his [Gorilla Arms].
Thud! Crack!
Inside the narrow corridor, the path of merciless chunks of metal danced through the air. And the sonic cracks of air being torn apart kept bursting nonstop. Ji-hwan gritted his teeth.
The moment he let Alpha get away from him, those vicious barrels would spit out grenades.
Ji-hwan was certain of that, so he clung desperately to the empty space inside Alpha’s reach, refusing to give him even the minimum distance needed to use the grenade launcher.
"If I back off, I die. I have to stay on him somehow."
With his pitiful lack of agility, it was impossible to dodge every steel fist flashing in front of him perfectly.
Clang!
Ji-hwan crossed his arms and let Alpha’s left hook slide off.
But even that grazing deflection sent a scream through the bones in his forearm, and a horrific shock rattled his whole body.
"Kgh...!"
Blood burst between Ji-hwan’s lips.
He was surviving Alpha’s barrage only through genius-level instinct and sense.
He read the faint sound of the artificial muscles contracting, the direction of hydraulic pressure building in the joints, and the mechanical whine of the integrated grenade launcher’s barrel preloading by pure instinct, barely slipping past the attacks or forcing his bones into a trajectory that would avoid a fatal hit.
Thud!!
"Guhk...!"
He barely avoided the punch aimed at his jaw, but what came at his abdomen wasn’t Alpha’s fist.
After mixing in a feint, Alpha drove his knee into Ji-hwan’s stomach.
The impact of that absurd mass was enough to crush his abdomen.
Ji-hwan’s body flew up and rolled across the floor.
The pain was so awful it felt like his organs were tearing apart. It was as if the forward shock discharge from that old punch had been driven straight into his stomach.
"Die, you stubborn bastard!!"
Alpha’s tightly sealed steel hand split grotesquely left and right, and from the center, the black muzzle of the grenade launcher finally bared its teeth.
He had switched to long-range mode now that he’d created space.
Wheeeing-!
The frequency of the targeting radar ripped at Ji-hwan’s eardrums.
But at that exact moment, Ji-hwan’s body, rolled on the floor, sprang up like a coil and reset his stance.
Before Alpha could pull the trigger, Ji-hwan exploded forward at full speed and slipped back into his reach.
A point-blank grenade blast would be a mutual kill even Alpha himself couldn’t survive.
"Haa, haa... damn, that hurts like hell, you tin can."
Ji-hwan spat blood, but his eyes still hadn’t lost their light, and Alpha’s artificial spine trembled ominously at the sight.
This couldn’t go on like this.
A bizarre human who regenerated like a cockroach no matter how many times you hit him.
Whenever Alpha tried to create distance for a grenade shot, the bastard’s creepy instinct kept making the decisive kill shot miss, and he kept clinging to Alpha’s body as if ready to blow himself up.
Ji-hwan was just as desperate.
Even if his regeneration was exceptional, the horrific pain of shattered bones still went straight to his brain.
If this attrition battle continued, his regeneration would eventually hit its limit first, and he’d be drained dry and torn apart.
On top of that, Alpha’s fists kept aiming for that forward shock discharge Ji-hwan had experienced in the underground morgue.
In the brief standoff of ragged breathing, the two beasts measured each other’s combat power and probed for openings.
It was Alpha who made the first move.
"You bastard!!"
Alpha closed the distance and looked like he was throwing another punch. But it was a feint.
Just as Ji-hwan moved to slip the attack, Alpha spread his arms wide and reached for Ji-hwan’s shoulders with both mechanical limbs.
He was planning to lock him down and forcibly rip his limbs apart.
But Ji-hwan’s instincts had already read the motion. He didn’t dodge.
Instead, he used the limits of his emptied-out strength against him, throwing himself straight into the mechanical embrace of the man trying to grab him.
"...Huh?!"
Ji-hwan’s unexpected timing threw off Alpha’s capture.
Slipping between the arms, Ji-hwan gathered every last bit of remaining rotational force and slammed the sole of his foot hard into the reverse joint at Alpha’s knee.
Kigigigik!!
"Kraaagh!!"
No matter how thick the armor plating was, a joint still had its limits.
The massive kinetic energy of Alpha’s charge rebounded into a self-destructive shock that bent his own knee.
Alpha’s huge body lurched, and his balance collapsed completely.
Ji-hwan didn’t miss the instant. He rammed his blood-soaked shoulder under Alpha’s chin and rolled out into the corridor.
He had beaten a massive difference in specs with pure talent, head-on.
At the same time,
the ceiling on the second floor opened, and the private elevator leading to the rooftop arrived.
Wheeeing- clank!
On the rooftop helipad, where the fierce sandstorm of the Badlands blew in, a black, top-of-the-line armed AV from Biotechnica was waiting with its rotors spinning.
"Haa, haa... damn it, damn it!"
Terrified and shaking like a leaf, the director stumbled out the moment the elevator doors opened and threw himself toward the AV’s open hatch.
When he sank into the comfortable leather seat and turned back with a sigh of relief, he froze.
"...Huh?"
The Manticore squad members he had assumed would board with him as escorts were standing there on the helipad, all turned back at once and walking toward the elevator.
Heavy weapons were in their hands.
"Hey, hey!! Where do you think you’re going?! Why aren’t you getting on right now?!"
The director screamed, veins bulging in his neck.
Then the hulking butcher glanced down at him with cold eye lenses.
"Our job was to get you safely to the AV on this rooftop. The contract ends here."
"What? You crazy bastards! I’m the one who hired you! Get on here right now and protect me to headquarters!!"
"Biotechnica pays the bills, but the only one who holds our leash and gives the orders is the boss."
The team’s female netrunner cut in coldly as well.
"We can’t leave the boss alone to deal with that insane monster. Besides, you’re safe now, aren’t you? We’re going to help him."
The mercs ignored the director’s tantrum completely and boarded the elevator.
The doors closed, and they began descending back toward the hellish VIP corridor.
"You, you sons of bitches...! I don’t need you anymore! Die there for all I care!!"
The director spat filthy curses and screamed toward the cockpit.
"Hurry up, gain altitude!! Turn around and head for headquarters now!!"
Just as the AV’s output surged and the heavy craft began to lift into the air,
beep-beep— beep-beep-beep!!
the top-grade secure comms implant in the director’s wrist suddenly blared, spewing a blood-red hologram.
An encrypted frequency that only a tiny handful of power brokers inside Biotechnica were allowed to exchange.
The holographic emblem floating in the air was none other than the seal of the corporation’s highest decision-making body: the [Committee].
The moment the director had feared most had arrived faster than expected.
Back in the penthouse corridor on the second floor.
"Haa, haa... you weak little bastard. Think brute strength is all it takes?"
Leaning against the wall, Ji-hwan spat out ragged breaths and sneered.
At Alpha, who was standing there with one knee bent and crackling with bizarre sparks, Ji-hwan slowly crooked his blood-stained finger.
"Come on. I’ll take that cheap tin-can trick you’re so proud of and smash it head-on this time without dodging."
"You arrogant little shit...!!"
Alpha’s face burned red with rage.
The humiliation of having even his perfect trump card denied by the opponent was setting him ablaze.
"I’ll crush you so hard you won’t even think about dodging that pathetic little move!!"
Wheeeing— beep-beep!!
Ignoring the system warning from his compound weapon, Alpha’s compressor cylinder screamed as it pushed far beyond its limit, vomiting out a deafening metallic shriek.
Red coolant steam for the [Sandevistan]’s super-acceleration filled the narrow corridor without a gap.
The smell of burning steel and wires, thick with ozone, vibrated in the air.
Alpha concentrated every last energy core and scrap of remaining life force into the integrated weapons in both arms.
Red, overheated light of imminent detonation spread through the gaps in his chest armor.
Even a graze would blow the entire upper body away. There would be no defense.
And yet, even with that doomed, hopeless charge bearing down on him, Ji-hwan swore he would not take a single step back.
"I’m breaking past my limit."
Back in the central corridor on B2.
The desperate fight where he had stayed behind alone to buy time so the rescued civilian test subjects could escape.
The borderland between consciousness and unconsciousness, where his bones and organs were crushed under the enemy’s overwhelming strike and his vision was fading out.
In that desperate instant when he had let go of everything, there had been one final blow Ji-hwan had miraculously thrown out.
Though it had ended up slicing through empty air because he’d twisted away in a panic, the body that died on the cold floor afterward had remembered the sensation of that unfinished technique deep in its bones.
The sensation he had gone over countless times in his head after being revived, yet could never fully reproduce.
And now, in this life-or-death moment facing the bastard who had killed him once again, it was returning with impossible clarity.
This extreme situation on the edge of the cliff—where even the slightest mistake meant nothing but another meaningless death—was instead granting Ji-hwan miraculous focus and understanding.
He exhaled slowly and widened his pitch-black eyes.
Even with the storm of Alpha’s charge bearing down on him, Ji-hwan released all tension from his body to the absolute limit.
Extreme relaxation, as if he had abandoned defense altogether. Yet his feet were locked so hard into the marble floor of the corridor it seemed they might shatter it.
The instant his lower body was perfectly fixed and he planted himself on the ground, the enormous rebound force from the earth, rising from his toes through the rotation of his calves and waist, began to condense sharply into a single point at the tip of Ji-hwan’s right fist.
This was not the crude penetrating force of an internal explosion created by a machine.
It was the wondrous moment when the same horrific principle of destruction, once shown only by the enemy’s top-tier modified arm—an embodiment of pure science—was born in the form of unarmed combat from the fingertips of a human, something no one in this world had ever accomplished.
The one and only technique Ji-hwan had completed by forcing his body into position through empty space right after miraculously reviving from a near-death state, overcoming his hollowed-out strength. Not some illusion called qi, but
the ultimate technique of the human body, piercing all the way into the enemy’s bones.
Its name was [Instant Strike].
The air all around sank heavy, and only the ragged breathing of the two monsters and the metallic whine waiting for internal detonation filled the narrow corridor.
The final blows meant to destroy everything about each other were finally about to collide.
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