Chapter 246

“It’s a complete mess.”

The man who muttered that was none other than Aaron Stingray.

I had appeared.

Over the past year, I had stirred up public attention several times and become quite famous, but fortunately, no one recognized me.

With basic cyberware and a Combat Module, I had altered my facial bone structure, and on top of that, I wore a mask, making me look like an entirely different person.

However, even if technology could change one’s appearance, it could not completely erase the dignity and presence ingrained in the body.

I tried, in my own way, to act like a rough back-alley gangster, but there was an atmosphere in my gestures and tone that could not be concealed.

An aristocratic bearing.

A low and composed cadence.

Every movement was refined and elegant. But that did not mean I was fragile or weak. I was gentle yet resolute, strong yet not coarse.

If I were to be compared to a weapon, I was like a finely crafted rapier used by medieval nobility. One could instinctively tell that underestimating me would cost them their life in a single strike.

“What a strange bastard…….”

The leader of Beast, Crimson, twisted his lips and sneered at me. But it was not sincere. His instincts as a ‘beast,’ and the senses honed to their limits through injections of the undiluted mutantization drug, were sounding alarms within him.

Yet even though his skin had turned red, his height had exceeded two meters, and his body had become a monster packed with special protein muscles beneath the skin, he was still, ultimately, human.

He had a social status and pride that forced him to ignore the alarms ringing madly in his head.

He was the leader of Beast, the name that made even crying children stop at once—how could he run away in fear from a mere scholarly-looking man like me?

Crimson gathered his courage.

He suppressed the urge to flee, forcibly turning his retreating steps forward. Then he tensed his entire body, swelling his massive muscles even further.

His muscle fibers stretched taut, to the point their grain seemed ready to burst through the skin.

In his hand, he held a metal bat. It was far too massive to be called a mere baseball bat, and countless iron studs were embedded in it. It resembled the iron club wielded by an oni in Japanese folklore.

Crimson swung the several-hundred-kilogram club a few times as if it were a toy, then pointed it at me.

And he gave the order to his subordinates.

“Leave him half-dead!”

The masked man was known as the right-hand man of Kim Cheolsu.

He must know a wealth of critical information. Whether by cracking open his skull and connecting him to a computer, or by using more traditional methods of torture, they would make him speak about ‘Dragon’ one way or another.

“Let’s go!!”

Uraaaaaaaah!

Like wolves howling, the members of Beast roared in unison and charged toward me.

Red-bodied giants bared their teeth and raised bloodstained weapons. They looked like yaksha punishing sinners in Hell.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each step they took caused a small earthquake. From the ceiling of the already half-collapsed store building, chunks of concrete rained down.

The building had been constructed with shoddy, corrupt concrete by a major construction company, so it began to crumble under the tremors created by the monsters.

I quietly watched the dozens of red giants. Then, leisurely, I drew an ordinary Katana from the scabbard at my waist with a shring sound.

Under normal circumstances, there would have been no need for such trouble. If I used my trademark Lv.6 module, the Cloud Spider, which had reached the realm of the divine, I could have cleaved those red demons clean in two in an instant.

But regrettably, I was currently concealing my identity and minimizing any possibility of being identified as ‘Aaron Stingray.’

Therefore, I had deliberately turned off not only Cloud Spider and Techblade, but also several modules that emitted specific frequencies upon activation. In other words, I was currently using not even twenty percent of my full power, and the total output level of my activated modules did not even reach Lv.30.

At this level, my output was lower than that of some students in the Tactical Combat Department. In effect, I was no different from Pure Spec, facing the beasts with nothing but a single sword.

Even so.

The outcome was as obvious as fire.

Slash-!

A refreshingly crisp sound.

Including their boss Crimson, the members of Beast lost sight of me all at once. And when they found me again, I was inside the casino shop—behind them.

‘F, fast……!’

Crimson could not help but break into a cold sweat.

Even with a mutant’s vision developed to its limits, he could barely perceive afterimages. More astonishingly, despite a speed that should have caused a sonic boom, it had been utterly silent.

‘What kind of trick did he use?’

He had never heard of any cyberware or module with such performance. There was no way something like that would be sold on the Black Market, and if it were, every organization would have gone mad trying to obtain it.

So it was not the power of machinery.

If such technology existed, it would be something integrating the latest advancements from Stingray or Militech. But if something like that were roaming freely in the Underworld, corporate forces would already be crawling all over the area.

‘Then……?’

As Crimson tried to reach a conclusion, his instincts rang a warning bell.

Something had changed.

In that brief moment, something about me had altered. I had clearly done something.

‘W, what is it?’

It did not take him long to find the answer in the picture.

The answer was my ‘sword.’

The previously clean silver blade of my Katana was now stained red with blood.

Bright crimson droplets dripped along the length of the lowered blade. And the once-sharp edge was now entirely chipped, as if it had finished a grueling battle.

But Crimson did not grasp what that meant. The ‘common sense’ remaining in his mind restrained him.

Of course, even if he had identified the origin of the blood on my blade earlier, nothing would have changed. Everything was already over.

“Uh, uuuuh……?”

“M, my boooody……!”

Thud. Thud.

The bodies of his subordinates collapsed to the ground all at once. The figures that had felt like a sturdy wall when standing side by side now rolled at the lowest point.

From their bodies, thick red liquid began forming small pools.

It was not only his subordinates who had fallen.

Crimson also sensed something wrong with his own body. At the ominous sensation, he quietly looked down at his chest—and saw a ‘line’ that had not been there before.

W, what is this?

When did this appear?

He did not even notice that his thoughts were growing dull. With a blank expression, he lightly touched the ‘line’ across his chest.

It stung.

It was not a line, but a wound. His skin had been cut by something unknown.

What he could not understand was how his invincible body—which could casually deflect large-caliber titanium rounds—had been cut.

And then a bigger problem arose.

The moment he touched the wound, crimson droplets began to bead along it. At first, they were smaller than his little fingernail, but soon they grew larger than a finger joint.

‘The wound…… is opening……!’

The wound he had thought insignificant was far larger than he realized. It ran from his right shoulder down to the opposite side of his waist.

The amount of blood pouring out increased steadily. It gushed uncontrollably.

He tried to do something, but as time passed, the gap between flesh and flesh widened. It felt like something hastily glued together with cheap adhesive coming apart over time.

‘N, no……!’

Crimson tried to exert his regenerative power. Unlike the others, he was the only one who had received the ‘undiluted solution.’

Even with a hole in his head, even with part of his brain damaged, he could recover. A wound of this degree should have healed instantly with a single shout.

But no matter how much he focused, the wound would not close. Rather, the force of his own muscles made it worse.

And then, at some point.

Sliiiide……!

Crimson felt his upper body slipping.

Below the wound, sensation vanished. His head, shoulders, and chest slid downward.

Thud!

His massive head hit the ground with a heavy sound. Turning his gaze, he saw his body standing there blankly—without its upper half.

‘What…… is this……?’

What happened?

Why is my body over there?

If my body is over there, why am I lying here?

He could not understand.

He could not understand.

He could not understand.

Question marks filled his mind.

No—he already knew the answer.

The clues he had gathered were more than enough to deduce what had happened.

That man had cut them.

In the blink of an eye, he had torn through skin and muscle made of special protein, far tougher and more resilient than most Kevlar fibers.

But he could not accept it.

Me? Me? How dare that bastard?

Aaaaaaaah—!

He tried to scream, but his lungs had already ceased functioning. A large hole had been opened, and he could no longer hold air.

‘Ah…… ah…….’

His vision began to blur.

He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, then quietly shut his eyes.

Just before they closed completely, he saw the masked man who had cut him remove his mask. He rubbed his eyes a few times as if uncomfortable, revealing golden irises.

The emotion Crimson felt upon seeing that was pure awe.

There are monsters in this world.

Compared to such a being—strong, beautiful, terrifying—someone like himself, who had been called a monster, was nothing.

‘D…… damn it……!’

Aaron Stingray.

Realizing that name only now was the greatest misfortune. Had he known he could never win, he would not have fought.

But before the regret could even settle, his breath stopped.

Thus, one of the great powers who ruled the Underworld of Sector E lost his life in vain.

A monster was killed by a monster.

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