The Fall of Flex Medical
Phantom stood on the rooftop of a high-rise roughly a kilometer from Flex Medical headquarters, watching the situation unfold. Crowds packed the lounges and windows, all staring toward Flex Medical, so the blasts must have been loud enough for ordinary humans to hear.
“Impressive.”
Cluster munitions detonated. Tracer rounds poured out from inside the building. Explosions roared one after another, each one making the structure shudder hard enough to see with the naked eye. For every vampire, the sight was a genuinely fresh shock. The impregnable Tetra Anax brought to this by a single human. For the kings of the night who had ruled the vampires for thousands of years, it was an intolerable humiliation.
“Ah.”
Phantom turned his head. On the opposite rooftop stood a black-clad priest holding a Barrett. Phantom smiled faintly and brushed his hair back. The only enemy against whom his clan ability, Crimson Glow—the power that rendered him invincible—did not work. The Jinma hunter Silvester was Phantom’s most troublesome opponent. Silvester, for his part, had once lost to Phantom as well… so the two of them truly deserved the name of arch-rivals.
For such arch-rivals to meet on the rooftops of night-time skyscrapers was far too perfect a coincidence.
“You should try a little harder. Your disciple is putting on quite a show—what exactly have you been doing all this time?”
“I made a promise with the kid.”
“Hm? And what would that be?”
“To keep scavengers like you from snatching the spoils.”
Silvester said it while leveling the Barrett. Phantom, however, answered with an easy expression even with the muzzle pointed at him.
“You know perfectly well I oppose Tetra Anax, yet you still insist on being a nuisance?”
“Nothing turns my stomach more than a parasite who sucked every last drop of sweetness and bitterness under them, then mutters about ‘opposition.’”
In that instant the wind shifted. Silvester and Phantom drew their weapons and locked eyes. That alone stretched the air taut with murderous intent.
Se-gun stuffed the hard disks into the bag that had held the explosives and planted TNT bars throughout the central computer room.
“Hah… hah…”
His entire body felt as if it were being torn apart. Was it because he had taken so many rounds through the body armor? Or because he had entered the final stage of vampirization? The stench of blood vibrating through the entire corridor made his head swim.
“No. No.”
If he lost focus here he would simply become the very thing he hated most—a vampire. That, Se-gun could never accept. Because he hated vampires. Because he had to hate them. If that hatred burned him to ash and destroyed him, that would be true salvation—the kind neither God nor any other mercy had ever granted him.
But if he fell and became a vampire before that salvation arrived, if he prolonged his life that way… could he ever forgive himself?
“Ugh!”
Se-gun sensed presence and reflexively raised his arm. Gunshots cracked at the same instant.
Bang! Bang!
Two shots in rapid succession, and Se-gun’s left arm was sheared clean off.
“Gah!”
The force of the rounds that tore through his arm and struck straight over his heart hurled him backward with a scream. In the corridor entrance stood a long-haired blond vampire in glasses, Winchester silver-barrel rifle in hand.
“Honestly. Unbelievable. Three-digit vampire kills in a single night. And you, a mere human!”
He had used explosives, yes, but even so it was a feat no vampire hunter had ever achieved. Elliot clicked his tongue as he looked at Se-gun. Bleeding from the chest, Se-gun forced himself back to his feet. The Winchester simply lacked the power to finish the job through the arm and the armor.
“Kh…”
“Hmm. Not enough to kill you, is it? Fine.”
Elliot glanced over the wrecked computers and the researchers. All dead.
“…The damage you’ve inflicted on us is, without exaggeration, the worst in history. Feel free to brag about it even in hell, hunter.”
“That so? Well, I don’t plan on ending things here.”
Se-gun picked up his severed left arm and fixed Elliot with a stare. The pure hatred in that expression sent a chill of genuine fear through even a veteran like Elliot. He shook the feeling off.
“You. Become a vampire.”
“…?”
“Drink every drop of blood from every vampire you killed tonight. If your death alone cannot repay the damage you’ve done, then claiming that life of yours isn’t such a bad alternative.”
Elliot said it while sliding a fresh round into the rifle. In that brief window Se-gun pressed his severed arm into the vampire blood flooding the floor, smeared it thickly, then wrapped the arm back into place with clothing and tape. Crude treatment, yes—but this was a battle where having one’s head blown off at any second would not have been surprising. Delicate medical care was a luxury.
“You’re telling me to become one of your underlings?”
“If you joined a Tetra Anax clan, He would overlook damage of this scale. That’s how valuable you are. Valuable enough that I dislike the idea of killing you here.”
Elliot leveled the muzzle. Se-gun looked at him and snorted a laugh.
“Become a vampire like you lot? That’s rich. The enemy who just inflicted catastrophic damage on you—and Tetra Anax is going to forgive me?”
“Of course. You might even be granted a Jinma seat. Venom and Sepia both died without leaving proper successors, and their Esquires were trash. My own younger brother was among them, and I won’t deny he was trash as well.”
“….”
“If you wish, we could even revive Venom’s or Sepia’s bloodline. The King of the Night has the power to make all things possible. Well?”
The words hit Se-gun hard. Venom and Sepia had already had their blood sealed by Silvester. Yet they could still restore those lines? Did that mean Tetra Anax already preserved every clan’s blood up to Jinma grade—enough to turn a human into a Jinma on the spot?
“Hah. Tetra Anax can do even that?”
“Of course. He is a living god walking this world. Unlike the dead gods, He works miracles with His own hand.”
Elliot was practically preaching, eyes bright with religious fervor. Se-gun confirmed that his left hand could move again, then stood.
“You know why I listened to your bullshit?”
“Obviously. You were waiting for the arm to recover.”
“…!”
“Don’t take me for a fool.”
Elliot squeezed the trigger at once. Se-gun twisted his body behind a server tray. The main computer room was littered with wreckage; simply ducking behind it rendered the round harmless. But then—
KRA-KOOM!
The ceiling collapsed without warning, concrete chunks raining straight toward Se-gun. He spun and smashed the largest mass aside with his left fist.
A spike of pain. The wound tore open again and blood poured.
“Pointless. In the face of my precognition, surprise attacks mean nothing.”
Elliot kicked the tray. The wheeled rack rolled toward Se-gun with a metallic screech.
“Ugh!”
Se-gun raised a foot and caught the oncoming tray. But the servers bolted inside tore free and slammed into him.
“Ghk!”
Crunch.
The sound of ribs breaking echoed inside his body. Se-gun clenched his teeth, fell back, and drew Beast.
Bang!
Elliot’s round punched through Se-gun’s arm first. Firing Beast with an arm like that would tear it completely apart. Se-gun flung Detonating Cord instead.
“Useless.”
Elliot slipped the flying cord with fluid grace. Even when Se-gun snapped the entire length into a whipping arc, Elliot closed his eyes, spun, caught the cord, and yanked.
“Kh!”
The electric plug clamped on the Detonating Cord snapped; the cord itself was ripped free. Se-gun always bit an electric plug onto the end of the initiator cord and then bit the Detonating Cord onto that, so even when the cord detonated he himself took no damage. Elliot had seen through it completely and simply yanked the cord free of the plug, denying him any chance to trigger it.
“A remarkable human, yet even you cannot escape the power of foresight.”
“….”
Se-gun hurled Noctis. Elliot dodged the black blade and raised the rifle again.
Bang!
Se-gun flung himself sideways on pure reflex, trying to avoid the shot. But Elliot had already predicted the exact direction of the dodge.
“Urgh!”
Even with a round in his side, Se-gun drove Noctis toward Elliot’s throat. Elliot simply stepped back and let the blade pass harmlessly. Against precognition, every one of Se-gun’s irregular attacks was useless.
“Kh! Nothing’s landing.”
Se-gun sheathed Noctis. Never before had he been unable to so much as graze an opponent no matter what he threw.
“So just give up. Hand over the hard disks first, shall we?”
Elliot spoke as if he had read Se-gun’s mind. Se-gun only sneered.
“Right. Precognition, you said?”
“Hm?”
In that instant Se-gun vaulted through the collapsed wall and out onto the exterior of the building. Elliot started after him in shock—
Zing.
Precognition slammed into him. Leaping out now would be exactly the same as exposing himself in a narrow corridor. Se-gun, already falling, hooked a hand winch wire onto exposed steel framing outside, braked his descent, and at the same time drew Beast, fully prepared to put a round into Elliot the moment the vampire jumped.
“This should be more than enough for you.”
Elliot kicked a server case, sending tons of computers and steel trays flying out the window. The next second he realized his enormous mistake.
“Ah—!”
“You stupid bastard. Caught in your own scheme!”
Se-gun’s thumb, still on the arm holding Beast, pressed the remote clipped to his shoulder. A massive explosion roared through the interior of Flex Medical headquarters.
“Hup!”
Se-gun released the hand winch and kicked off the wall, launching himself clear. An avalanche of the steel scrap Elliot had just kicked poured down through the space Se-gun had occupied a heartbeat earlier, screaming with metallic noise. That sound, too, was instantly swallowed by a far greater roar.
RRRRRRRRRUMBLE!
A thunder that seemed to shake heaven and earth itself—and Flex Medical headquarters began to collapse. The TNT charges set on every support column detonated in unison, shearing them clean through. A building already groaning and failing from earlier damage finally entered total structural failure.
“Hah…”
Se-gun landed on the ground and drew a deep breath, trying to bleed off the accumulated shock. Even with the hand winch slowing him, there had been stretches without it. He had essentially jumped from five or six stories up and still landed intact. His body had already finished mutating.
“…So this is the start of Phase Four.”
Everything so far had gone according to plan. Tetra Anax’s Korean branch had taken catastrophic damage. That meant other Jinma looking to pick the bones would come running. Se-gun steeled himself and turned around.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap…
Sure enough, a young woman with red hair stood there, applauding.
RRRRUMBLE!
Flex Medical headquarters sank in on itself completely. Cameras swarmed in from every direction, filming the spectacle nonstop.
“Ooooooh!”
At this scale it was no longer terrorism. It was war. Exactly as Han Se-gun had warned on broadcast—this was a war between him and Flex Medical. Neither the military nor the police had any room to intervene.
“Heh heh heh. This is insane. Completely absurd.”
Detective Jo could only laugh, half out of his mind. If they had charged in there waving the sacred duty of the police, every last one of them would have been wiped out.
“What should we do?”
“Tighten the outer perimeter. That bastard’s going to come out.”
A collapse like that should have killed the terrorist too—but this one didn’t look like a suicide bomber. He was the type who would claw his way out of hell itself if he had to. Detective Jo nodded, Se-gun’s face floating in his mind.
“You son of a bitch. I thought you were just some naive kid… turns out you’re the biggest villain since the founding of the country!”
With Flex Medical at his back, Se-gun dumped an entire capsule of Psychedelic Moon into his mouth. The red-haired woman standing before him simply watched him dose himself.
“Magnificent. I’ve lived a very long time, but I’ve never seen a human fight as well as you, hunter.”
“That’s a compliment, I take it.”
“It is. Talent too good to waste by killing.”
Hecate laughed softly. The laugh was so seductive that Se-gun’s brow furrowed.
“No interest in becoming a vampire? Looking at you, that body of yours is just about at its limit.”
“I already got that same offer from the idiot buried back there.”
Se-gun jerked a thumb at the building still belching dust like a storm. The billowing cloud made Hecate’s eyes narrow.
“Hand over the data and I won’t touch you. How about we settle for that?”
Of course Hecate had already discarded any real hope of persuasion. Se-gun’s strength came precisely from refusing compromise. A man who could not compromise with himself would never compromise with others—least of all with the vampires he loathed beyond measure.
Click.
Instead of answering, Se-gun drew Beast.
BOOM!
The muzzle spat fire. Hecate twisted her body aside, dodging the shot, and at the same time flicked her fingers.
SHHHHHHK!
Something sliced through the dust toward him. Se-gun rolled sideways and barely avoided it.
“Damn—!”
Hecate’s favored attack—a shockwave—carved a path through the dust and left ripples in its wake. He had managed to avoid a direct hit, but the residual force was impossible to dodge.
WHOOOM!
“Kh!”
A body already carrying deep wounds from the fight with Elliot could not shrug off even that aftershock. The Psychedelic Moon had erased the pain, but the way his functions degraded under injury felt all the more horrific precisely because there was no pain. He could not even gauge how badly he was hurt.
Se-gun staggered backward.
“Now then—looks like you’re out of ammo and explosives both. Why don’t you hand over the disks quietly? Take any more hits and it’s either death or turning into a vampire.”
Hecate walked forward through the dust, eyes narrowed yet still radiating sensual allure. She was right. All Se-gun had left were two rounds in Beast. The Tokarev and Glock magazines were empty; grenades and explosives had all been spent inside Flex Medical. So this was what it meant to have someone swoop in for the leftovers. With enough ammunition, Han Se-gun would have been a nightmare even for a Jinma.
“Lace bustier, seriously? Disgusting. Act your age!”
Se-gun needled her about the outfit—nothing but a bustier under the jacket—while continuing to back away.
“So stubborn.”
SHHHHHK!
Something cut through the dust again. A direct hit would have shredded human or vampire alike. Se-gun rolled clear and fired Beast at her in the same motion.
“I show a little goodwill and this is how you treat a lady?”
Hecate launched a shockwave at the round while twisting her body like a matador. Her red hair whipped passionately as she deflected the bullet.
“Shit—!”
But Se-gun was already sprinting for the adjacent building. Hecate lunged to pursue—only for the final round from Beast to flash.
“Hmph!”
She dodged that one as well. Se-gun’s Psychedelic Moon–boosted attacks were so fast that even a Jinma had to evade them by a hair, but any Jinma who couldn’t dodge a single shot would never have become a Jinma in the first place. Only continuous pressure that created openings could land a hit, and a Se-gun without ammunition was no threat!
VROOOOOOM!
Then a monstrous engine roar exploded as Se-gun shot out of the construction zone. He had mounted the bike he had staged under the neighboring building and accelerated hard enough to shake her pursuit in an instant. A monster motorcycle that hit 150 km/h in roughly three seconds. Even a vampire could never catch it.
“Damn it! Stop him!”
The police who had only been staring at the collapsing building jerked in shock as a bike blasted out through the dust. They scrambled to raise barricades. Se-gun laughed at them, rode up the hood of a parked police car, and vaulted lightly over the barrier. Officers flattened themselves in terror as the bike soared over their heads.
“Hey, you bastards! You should be throwing your bodies at him if you have to!”
One ranking officer who had also hit the dirt screamed at the conscripts and auxiliary police. By then Se-gun’s bike was already gone at high speed.
“Hmm. So that’s how you’re going to play it. Quite the spirit. No ordinary man.”
Hecate brushed dust from herself, muttering. She needed to chase him, yet after watching that bike run she had no confidence she could catch it on foot.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud…
Then she noticed the police helicopter hovering overhead. It was already turning, preparing to pursue Se-gun on orders. Hecate smiled and leapt toward a nearby building.
“Up we go~!”
She barely needed footholds; she raced up the wall and reached the roof in moments. The helicopter was only now gaining altitude. She could catch it easily.
“Ah!”
The pilot felt the aircraft suddenly shudder and spun around in shock. A beautiful red-haired woman was already inside; the officers in the rear had all been subdued.
“Wh-who are you?”
“You don’t need to know. Just keep doing your job.”
Hecate casually raised a hand and pressed her fingers to his temple. Even through the helmet her fingers sank into his skull as if nothing were there, then withdrew. Neither helmet nor head showed any mark, yet the pilot nodded blankly. He had become her puppet.
“Well then. Shall we go discipline that cute little vampire hunter who doesn’t know how to treat a lady?”
She smiled playfully and looked down. Se-gun’s bike was already tearing into side streets, shaking off police pursuit at terrifying speed. Humans would never catch him.