The lights of the skyscrapers hung like an inverted river of stars, illuminating the veins of Tokyo.
From Roppongi's neon signs to Ginza's radiant glow, every beam of light told of the city's energy and rhythm. Amid that brilliant sea of lights, crowds flowed slowly through the streets and alleyways like trickling streams.
Yet behind the prosperity, darkness also lurked in the shadowy alleys.
A man fled in panic, as though a demon were chasing him from behind.
At last, his steps stopped. Despair filled his eyes. He had reached a dead end.
Desperation could sometimes summon courage. Gritting his teeth, he produced a pistol in his left hand and a dagger in his right. Holding the weapons in an awkward cross-armed stance, he stared fixedly at the man emerging from the darkness.
"Why are you coming after me?! I didn't do anything! I don't know anything!"
The Explorer known in Endspace as Little Yaksha shouted, "Don't come any closer! No matter how fast you are, you're not faster than a bullet!"
Under the night sky, the wind shifted the clouds aside, and moonlight fell upon the figure standing in the darkness.
He was a young man in casual clothes, roughly six feet tall. His long hair cascaded down his back, and his face was so beautiful that women would envy it.
But the muscular lines bulging beneath his clothes declared both his gender and his strength.
The young man seemed mentally unstable. His originally handsome face twisted grotesquely. "It was you... You people stole away the god I loved... You! Ah... Without my god, how am I supposed to face this miserable world?"
"Kiryu Setsuna, you... listen to me. I don't know where you got your information, but I'm just an ordinary Kengan fighter! Ohma Tokita's death had nothing to do with me!"
Cold sweat poured down the Explorer's forehead. He knew why he was being hunted.
The man before him was Kiryu Setsuna, the obsessive stalker and lunatic devoted to Ohma Tokita in the original story. His strength was equally monstrous. He held a twisted love for Ohma, and now that Ohma was dead, he had gone completely insane.
Inwardly, Little Yaksha cursed the bastard who had killed Ohma Tokita ten thousand times, but that did nothing to resolve his present crisis.
He was a Level 7 Explorer, with a superhuman physique by this world's standards. Yet after just one brief exchange, the skin on his chest—and even the ribs beneath it—had been twisted into a vortex by the other's Rakshasa's Palm.
"Ohma... don't worry. I'll tear the person who killed you into countless pieces, then cum from the pleasure of avenging you."
Kiryu Setsuna crossed his arms over his chest, his entire face flushed red as he walked toward Little Yaksha.
"Fuck, you sick pervert!"
Little Yaksha abruptly fired, then charged forward with his dagger in hand.
After the gunshot, Kiryu Setsuna and Little Yaksha passed each other. Little Yaksha's entire neck had been twisted around to face backward, and he crashed to the ground.
Kiryu Setsuna stood atop Little Yaksha's corpse, gazing at the moon. "Ahh~ Ohma..."
...
Within the training ground lined with wooden posts, two figures flashed past at extreme speed. The collisions of fists and feet rang out without end.
After another clash, the two figures split apart and landed atop separate wooden posts.
The figure on the right had skin tinted purple, with bulging veins like lightning-shaped demonic markings. His face was filled with feverish battle lust. "Luke, come on! Keep going!"
The man whose facial expression rivaled abstract art was none other than the Kure Clan prodigy, Raian Kure.
The man standing opposite him was, naturally, Luke.
Luke was bare-chested. His body looked different from usual; with his output enhanced, his muscles had visibly swelled. The raised veins had turned dark purple, like lightning streaking across a pale sky.
He had also activated the Kure Clan's secret art, Removal, but its effect was clearly different from Raian's. His entire body did not "change color"; only the veins in areas where his blood circulated at high speed took on that unusual hue.
Erioh Kure had said it was the first time he had seen a Removal like Luke's. Luke guessed it might be related to his constitution. Besides, he had not reached a particularly high Removal rate.
This was already his fifth day with the Kure Clan. Their transaction had gone smoothly: he had given Erioh Kure the training method for Armament Haki, and Erioh had taught him Removal.
This secret art of the Kure Clan truly was extraordinary. It had taken Luke two full days to learn, and during that time he had sought instruction from both Raian and Karla.
More accurately, Karla had done most of the teaching, because that hot-tempered bastard Raian had absolutely no patience for instructing anyone. Karla, on the other hand, was more than happy to teach, and as an excellent student at school, she was actually a pretty good instructor.
Her only flaw was that whenever she explained something, Karla would randomly start taking off her clothes and try to move the lesson to the bed.
Luke had successfully defended against every move from that troublesome girl.
"That's enough for today. You've improved quite a bit. Take a break and think back on that feeling just now. You need to catch the point where the power is generated, not merely watch it with your eyes."
Luke leaped down from the wooden post, deactivated Removal, and returned to normal.
Karla jogged over from outside the training ground and offered him a towel and water. "Luke, let's have babies!"
Luke had a headache. He felt he could not stay with the Kure Clan much longer, or something was bound to happen sooner or later.
"How many days has it even been? What percentage is your Removal at?"
Raian was not remotely polite. He practically snatched a bottle of water from Karla and gulped it down, earning an irritated glare from her.
Luke and Raian sat on the bench beside the training ground. Luke wiped away his sweat. "About twenty percent, I think. I'm not one of your clansmen, so this may be my current limit."
"Tch. That really pisses me off. Sooner or later, I'm gonna kill you."
Raian looked thoroughly displeased.
After Luke mastered Removal, he had given the Kure Clan quite a shock. Even members of the clan's main family had begun learning this secret art as children and required years of practice before they could use it.
Even Raian, the greatest genius among them, had needed four months to learn Removal. Karla had taken five.
Yet Luke, an outsider, had learned how to activate the secret art in only two days. Quite a few Kure Clan members were starting to question their entire lives.
"If you can manage it, you're welcome to try anytime. First, learn what I taught you."
Luke smiled. Over the past few days, he and Raian had spent plenty of time together, sparring for hours almost every day.
Although Luke had beaten Raian black and blue upon first meeting him, completely overwhelming him, Raian was by no means weak.
It was simply that Raian at this point was still young—a reckless hothead with a violent temper and a thirst for killing. If it were Raian four or five years later, Luke would not have won so easily.
Luke remembered clearly that in the later stages of the original story, Raian had been one of the fighters closest in strength to this world's "immortals."
Raian's talent was unquestionably first-rate. Whether in raw stats or technique, he had no shortcomings in talent. What he lacked was... a brutal beating.
Yes. What pleased Erioh Kure most about Luke was that Luke had been relentlessly schooling Raian these past few days, letting this demon of a man understand that there was always someone stronger.
Ever since Erioh had grown old, no one in the Kure Clan had been able to beat Raian. As a result, Raian's "evolution" had effectively stalled.
"Hah? Who the hell do you think I am? Give me a few more days and I'll learn it—then I'll kill you!"
Raian was as explosively temperamental as ever whenever he opened his mouth. But after spending several days with him, Luke had discovered that Raian had a bit of a tsundere streak.
Though he kept shouting about killing Luke, Raian was only talking tough. Deep down, he had probably already acknowledged him.
"Raian, remember this: power without conviction is merely violence. It is not martial arts. When you can turn your power into martial arts, come challenge me again."
Luke spoke with a grave expression, offering a bit of advice to the sparring dummy he had spent the last few days with.
"You're not the one who gets to lecture me. Shut up. I'm going to train some more!"
Raian looked furious as he set down his water and charged back into the training ground.
Watching Raian's retreating back, Luke's expression also grew heavy.
He was thinking that if Ohma Tokita were still alive, then perhaps he and Raian would have become friends in Kure Village someday.
But the "protagonist" had died, setting off towering waves.
Luke glanced at the messages in the public channel and felt that it was time for him to set out.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register