Luke was utterly speechless at this world’s method of carrying out death sentences. In that respect, they could learn a thing or two from the Company... Actually, never mind. The Company’s execution methods were plenty twisted and inefficient too—and he seemed to have taken out quite a few of them himself.
By now, Luke had calmed down. He felt that Endspace might actually have arranged a pretty decent identity for him.
If he remembered correctly, Sunhead Prison held another fighter from the original story—an absolute monster who had survived multiple failed executions. His name was Bando Yohei.
If he had entered this world just before the Kengan Annihilation Tournament began, someone would soon come to this prison to recruit fighters. At that point, he could secure a spot in the tournament directly.
Endspace’s intentions appeared sound, but they differed from Luke’s plans before entering this world.
He had loved this manga as a kid. Back then, he had even fantasized about learning some of its "superhuman" martial arts.
Yes. In his eyes, this manga had quite a few superpowers. There was Julius Reinhold, the muscle monster strong enough to pull apart an F1 racecar; Wakatsuki Takeshi, whose muscle fiber density was roughly fifty-two times that of an ordinary person; the Kure Clan’s Removal; and the protagonist Ohma Tokita’s Advance.
Stat monsters like Julius and Wakatsuki were fine by Luke. After all, his own stats were wildly beyond the norm. But he was deeply interested in the Kure Clan’s Removal and Ohma Tokita’s Advance.
To Luke, they were explosive techniques that unleashed the human body’s latent potential. If he could master them, they would be immensely helpful on his travels through Endspace.
So rather than obediently competing in the tournament, he wanted to get his hands on this world’s useful "skills" first.
Click—
As Luke pondered, the door opened. The prison guard opening it was drenched in sweat, his hands shaking so violently that the latch on the door kept rattling with an unpleasant clatter.
"F-Four... 404, y-you’re coming out."
The guard’s voice trembled. He was clearly terrified of Luke, the infamous death-row inmate.
Luke rose to his feet. Under the guard’s horrified gaze, he flexed his legs and tore open the straitjacket, freeing himself before calmly walking toward the doorway.
Seeing that Luke’s hands were still cuffed behind his back, the terrified guard barely breathed a sigh of relief and led the way.
Outside was a small open area. Two figures stood by the railing on the second floor. One was the warden; the other was a somewhat elderly middle-aged man in a suit, smiling down at them.
Two prisoners had already been released before Luke. Unlike him, they wore only handcuffs.
The prisoner to Luke’s left was a gloomy man in a hood. The one on his right was tall and powerfully built, sporting a fashionable balding haircut.
The warden on the upper level was also sweating profusely. "Letting these people out is insanity! Do you know who they are? Ginji Nagashima, the cult fanatic who murdered fifty-six people; Bando Yohei, the Bloody Tusk who killed seventeen gangsters with his bare hands; and Luke, the Berserker who killed twenty-eight people, including snakehead smugglers!"
Just standing there made his limbs tremble. Though he was on the second floor, simply sharing a space with these vicious murderers sent chills crawling down his spine.
The middle-aged man in the suit picked up a megaphone and looked down with a beaming smile. "The rules are simple. Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Defeat the opponent in front of you, and you’ll earn temporary freedom—as well as the right to destroy human bodies to your heart’s content."
With his hands behind his back, Luke glanced up at the man in the suit. This had to be Kiyosuke Takada, president of Ten Kings Communications.
What an irritating man. His clothes, his demeanor, his tone, even the place where he stood—it all got on Luke’s nerves.
But what annoyed him most was being watched like a monkey in a cage. What did this man take fighters for? What did he take martial arts for?
Crack. Ginji Nagashima, the fanatic to Luke’s left, had already freed himself from his handcuffs. He crushed the cuffs as easily as candy, displaying an inhuman grip strength.
In the world of Kengan Ashura, ordinary scientific common sense generally did not apply. It was the same in Baki. And now that this world was mutating, its residents’ physical abilities might rise even further.
"What a headache. I’m not some happy murderer, but I don’t want to die either. So I can only try to fight for that right."
Bando Yohei stood two meters tall and weighed 147 kilograms, like a miniature giant. Yet his joints seemed remarkably flexible. As he spoke, he drew one arm back from the shoulder, winding it up like a whip.
"All heretics must die. Accept my judgment!"
On the other side, Ginji Nagashima assumed his stance as well.
Strangely, the two towering killer freaks squared off against each other while completely ignoring Luke, who stood diagonally ahead of them like a harmless spectator watching the show.
The warden and Kiyosuke Takada unconsciously ignored Luke as well. Compared to those two two-meter giants, his frame looked tiny.
They had heard of Luke’s "record," but judging by his appearance, they did not feel that he was particularly intimidating.
Bang—
With a dull impact of flesh against flesh, Ginji Nagashima’s body crashed to the floor. His entire head had been punched into his abdomen, blood splattering everywhere.
Bando Yohei slowly turned around. Under President Takada’s excited gaze and the warden’s terrified one, he shook the blood from his hand and looked at Luke.
"Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick."
"Wait—"
The guard standing not far behind Luke raised a hand. He wanted to say that Luke’s handcuffs had not been removed yet, but before he could finish, he saw them explode apart.
He had no idea what Luke had done. Unlike Ginji, who had broken his cuffs apart, Luke’s cuffs had shattered into fragments, as if an explosive force had erupted through them in an instant.
Before the stunned guards, Luke rolled his shoulders and limbs, then cracked his neck with a series of sharp pops. "Don’t worry. If I’m the one carrying out the execution, there won’t be any mistakes."
The instant his words fell, Luke vanished from where he stood. The ordinary people around him could not see what had happened at all.
They only saw a blur flash through the spot where Bando Yohei stood. In the next moment, Bando’s enormous body was launched into the air.
His body instinctively tried to adjust its posture, but before he could curl up and twist around, that lightning-fast strike had already arrived.
It was Luke’s knee.
Crack. The sound of shattering bone rang out. Bando Yohei’s throat and cervical vertebrae snapped together, his head twisting at an unnatural angle.
Bang—
His body hit the ground, kicking up dust and scattering the blood across the floor.
Luke landed lightly, his prison uniform unstained by a single drop of blood.
Ignoring the stunned people around him, he crouched and sprang upward, leaping straight onto the second floor.
"Y-you... Don’t do anything rash..."
The warden was dumbfounded by Luke’s terrifying jumping power. They had dared to stand here and watch because they had believed this spot was safe.
The prison’s floors had been carefully designed. The second-floor corridor where they stood was over four meters above the ground. How could anyone jump up here directly!?
"Guards, shoot him!"
The warden shouted. But the prison guards were equipped with rubber bullets, and that walking calamity was already in front of him. Even if they somehow subdued Luke afterward, would he still have any chance of surviving?
Yet the guards seemed frozen with fear—or perhaps they had been pinned down by the invisible pressure radiating from that man.
Luke was nowhere near as massive as Ginji Nagashima or Bando Yohei, yet his presence filled the entire space. It was as though this was his domain, where he alone decided who lived and who died within arm’s reach.
President Takada initially showed some fear as well, but once it passed, warped ecstasy took over. "Wonderful! You’ll make such a fine hunting dog. With you—with you, I’ll be able to—"
But he never finished. Just like his twisted ambitions, his words ended there.
President Takada fell backward with a look of astonishment on his face. The last thing reflected in his eyes was the man’s cold, indifferent gaze.
"Go to hell and find yourself a new hunting dog."
Luke spoke flatly as he brushed past the trembling warden.
——————
The reader group is now open. If you’re interested, come in and chat, shoot the breeze, and discuss the story. I’ll occasionally join in too, and maybe we can bounce some ideas around.
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