Age of Chaos
Excessive breathing was poison to an ordinary human being.
Breathing oxidized the nutrients in the body and supplied human beings with energy, but even that had its limits.
If more oxygen than the human body could bear poured in, body temperature would rise.
And then, before long, the body would be unable to handle the oxygen, the proteins would denature, and the person would die.
But Yoo Sung-jun was different.
The new potential of humanity, Innate.
Thanks to Innate, he could consciously regulate his breathing and draw out energy at will.
On top of that, body reinforcement had raised the limit of heat his body could endure.
"Haaah..."
Yoo Sung-jun reveled in the heat coursing through his body.
The oxygen concentration compressed through controlled breathing heated his flesh from within.
Compared with the Omega Suit’s short-burst ability, Adrenaline, it was even more efficient.
And this he could control himself.
The moment his pupils narrowed to razor-thin slits and he drove his focus down to a single point, Yoo Sung-jun detected a needle-thin poison dart coming for his earlobe and twisted away just in time.
A killer had already leaped in close, swinging a thin sword with the intent of taking his throat in one clean stroke.
At the same time, countless hidden weapons and firearms rained in from the front.
But Yoo Sung-jun did nothing more than stand his ground and swing his greatsword.
One single sweep left behind a pale afterimage, and every attack was knocked aside.
Take this bastard out first.
Yoo Sung-jun decided to eliminate the nearest one whose stance had been thrown off.
His body rose with the momentum of the greatsword, and his gaze naturally lifted upward.
He met eyes with the bastard who had been about to behead him.
The man seemed to have just barely gathered himself, but Yoo Sung-jun’s kick was faster.
Bang!
With the sound of a drum exploding, the killer’s abdomen was punctured straight through.
The kicking force had exceeded the protective limits of the Omega Suit and the durability boosted by body reinforcement, sending the man to his death.
Yoo Sung-jun steadied his body as it tilted a full ninety degrees, balanced now on one leg.
Almost at the same time, the rest regained their footing and rushed in.
"Did you really think those toys were enough?"
Yoo Sung-jun sneered and swung the dimension-tech weapon, Alpha Strike.
Unlike the ever-changing NWA greatsword, this weapon was honest to a fault.
And yet, even without adding any special ability to it, it possessed one of its own.
The so-called atmospheric interference. Depending on how it was swung, it tore through space, burst it open, or shoved it aside.
What he needed right now was a shove.
Whoosh!
Like a spring compressed to its limit finally snapping free, his right arm, drawn back, thrust forward.
The greatsword he had gripped so tightly shot out like a bullet and rammed the air itself aside.
The killers caught in the blast were driven back into the wall along with the firearms they had been firing.
One of them barely escaped the aftermath, but he did not waste the chance and lunged in like a falcon.
He closed the distance in an instant and lashed out with the claws mounted on both hands.
It was terrifying speed, as if he had mixed the effects of Innate and the Omega Suit.
But it means nothing if it doesn't land.
Yoo Sung-jun withdrew the sword he had thrust out.
Then he tilted the blade slightly and presented the edge at an angle.
Minimum motion, maximum efficiency.
Crash! The claws smashed against the angled blade and broke apart.
The fist gripping those claws was sliced by the sword, spraying blood in a thin arc.
Yoo Sung-jun’s fist came surging in through the opening, and the killer, reacting fast, countered with his intact claw.
Just as fist and claw were about to collide, two fingers sprang out from Yoo Sung-jun’s fist.
His index and middle finger. At the very last instant, he caught only the claws’ blades between them and smirked.
"If you used scissors, you should lose to the scissors."
With nothing more than the force of his fingers, he seized control of the balance of power.
When Yoo Sung-jun pulled his arm back without resisting the killer’s strength, the man was flung backward in a humiliating sprawl.
Yoo Sung-jun swung his greatsword at him.
There was no recovering in midair.
Crack! Only the killer’s lower body landed on the floor.
The upper half rolled across the ground as a lump of meat.
"Next."
Yoo Sung-jun said loftily, the greatsword resting on his shoulder.
But none of the killers came charging in.
For one thing, none of them even carried melee weapons.
Not that Yoo Sung-jun had any intention of waiting around for them.
He lowered his stance.
Though the distance was more than ten meters, he drew himself into the posture of a decisive split-strike.
Perhaps they sensed the ominous pressure by instinct, because the killers began scrambling to dodge.
Even though they had already finished preparing everything.
"Too late."
Blinding silver drew a vast arc through the air. In an instant it engulfed them and swallowed even the cafeteria beyond.
BOOOOM!
A roar loud enough to shake the bunker echoed through the corridor.
Collapsed materials kicked up a thick cloud of dust, blurring the front of the room.
Yoo Sung-jun stared wide-eyed at the result of his compressed breathing.
This is better than I expected.
Even without Adrenaline or hyperventilation, it was this much.
One sword strike had wiped out not only the wall made of three-centimeter alloy steel, but the killers as well.
Red flowers were blooming in full across the ruined wall.
Frowning at the sight, Yoo Sung-jun sheathed the greatsword.
He was about to look elsewhere when a chaotic shout reached him.
"Aaaagh! Stop following me! Go chase somebody else, not me! Why me? Why is it me?"
"Yoon Choi?"
It was a familiar voice.
When he ran toward the passage behind him, he really did find Yoon Choi there.
A killer was chasing after her.
Judging by the green stream flowing over the Omega Suit, it was probably specialized in senses, and its movement was impressive.
It calmly dodged the firearms Yoon Choi fired now and then, and even picked out the weak points in the equipment she had modified with Tool Master before destroying them.
Yoo Sung-jun wondered if he should hurry and help her, but it turned out there was no need.
Bang! Bang bang bang!
The moment the two of them passed through the side corridor, bullets rained down on the killer alone.
The man flinched at the sudden attack, and someone closed in on him.
It was Choi Hyun-seok, his entire body soaked with infector blood.
"You lost."
He spoke in a low voice and swung the stock of his gun.
Crack! He knocked the killer’s jaw upward, then brought the spinning barrel under the man’s chin.
Before the hidden weapons could even fly, the double-barrel spat fire.
BOOM!
The lead pellets packed into the twelve-gauge tore off the visor and blew the man’s head apart.
Instead of a final scream, shards of broken glasses shot up, mixed with chunks of flesh.
The killer’s body collapsed to the floor, leaving only a husk behind.
The gunfire died away, and silence settled in.
Yoo Sung-jun walked up to them.
"Haah, you’re all right? Good. I’m really glad."
Choi Hyun-seok caught his breath and welcomed Yoo Sung-jun.
"What’s the situation outside?"
He must have taken the team leaders and gone out in front to hold back the Varlug.
If Choi Hyun-seok had returned to the bunker with the team leaders, then the situation outside must have been settled for the time being.
"Still hard to believe, but Sung-hwan, riding on top of an infector, wiped out most of them."
Thinking of Ryong-i’s massive frame, Yoo Sung-jun nodded.
It was completely believable.
Ryong-i breathing fire while his younger brother calmly picked off targets from long range...?
They had become a terrifying force.
"So that’s why you came here."
"Yeah. Now we just need to thoroughly search the bunker and it’s over."
They had successfully stopped most of the killers’ schemes.
Yoo Sung-jun looked over at Yoon Choi, still sitting there with a dazed expression.
She was still annoyingly loud and mouthy, but thanks to her they had recovered communications and could adjust their plan with certainty.
They had also succeeded in eliminating a large number of killers.
That only made one thing more suspicious.
And this is the biggest threat they had?
The killers had not been able to surpass Yoo Sung-jun.
Even when many of them came at him at once, the result was the same.
He even wondered what it would have been like if the Stalker had been here too, but honestly...
Now that I’ve figured out Innate is a marionette, I don’t see it giving me much trouble either.
The unease would not go away.
If he captured the Stalker and interrogated him, wouldn’t he be able to find out why?
Yoo Sung-jun raised a hand to his in-ear comm.
"Jack Kalt. Did you subdue the Stalker?"
Whatever the answer was, he would feel more at ease if he got one.
If there was no reply, then he would have to head over and support Jack Kalt himself.
Fortunately, the line connected.
He answered in a voice tinged with awkwardness.
"What should I do about this? I was going to subdue him and pry out his scheme, but... he resisted so hard I ended up killing him?"
The park had long since been drenched in death, but now even that was gone.
It had quite literally been turned into a wasteland.
Here and there, gouged-out craters and heaps of overturned earth testified to the ferocity of the battle that had taken place.
It was hard to find even a single patch of intact ground.
At the heart of that ruin...
Clatter. Jack Kalt tucked the iron chain that had wound itself around him back into his sleeve and crouched down.
"This... I think I’ve protected the seventh place for you. What am I supposed to do? I feel almost guilty."
In front of him was the blood-soaked Stalker.
He knelt there without so much as a twitch.
Only a faint voice drifted up from his bowed head.
"...Why did you send a false report?"
Jack Kalt had told everyone that the Stalker was dead.
But the Stalker was alive.
He had been driven to the brink of death, but he was still breathing.
"A false report? If I feel like it, I can kill you any time I want. Look at you now. If I just twisted your neck and put a little force into it, you’d be done for."
"You’re insane."
"In a world that’s already gone insane, who’s going to complain about me being a little crazy?"
Jack Kalt smiled faintly and stared toward the bunker in the distance.
"I know why your side is after the bunker. Project Armageddon."
At those final words, the Stalker lifted his head.
His blood-smeared eyes trembled wildly.
Jack Kalt flicked a finger as if the sight itself was amusing.
"Oh dear. Once the body weakens, the emotions show right through. Surprised? You didn’t really think you alone knew that secret, did you?"
"How... how did you know that...!"
"How else? I got greedy for great power, so I investigated. Once I investigated, I found out."
Jack Kalt reached out, seized the Stalker by the chin, and pulled him close.
"But you people were the ones who broke it and ruined it. I’d already decided it was an eyesore and that I’d get rid of it someday, but now an opportunity has fallen into my lap, hasn’t it?"
"If you know about it, you should destroy it. That power could wipe out everything...!"
"If you can’t control it, then yes, you should. That’s the difference between you and me. My eyes, my Innate, will find it someday. And I’ll find a way to use it."
Jack Kalt tapped two fingers against his own eyes.
"Meteor told me so. He said you’d be the greatest threat they’d face in the near future. But look at this. It’s been blocked. Every process, every variable, blocked. If you’d made it all the way through, you would have become a major threat. I know why."
"......"
Jack Kalt forced the silent man’s head around so he could look at the bunker.
"Even if your plan had succeeded, you still wouldn’t have been able to destroy what’s hidden in there. You would have simply swallowed it whole."
That must be why it would have become the greatest threat.
Finishing his words, Jack Kalt snapped his fingers.
Click!
At the sound, users emerged from all around.
They were all team leaders from Quantum Clan.
"Take this one and brainwash him. You need to find out how to open the secret passage."
"And what should we do afterward?"
At the polite question, Jack Kalt tapped his chin with a finger, thinking it over before speaking.
"Send him to our Sanctuary research facility. I think he can be modified into something useful."
"N-no... That power must never fall into anyone’s hands..."
As he was dragged away by the team leaders, the Stalker cried out in misery.
There was little he could do now that he had been weakened so completely except scream.
Even that was soon cut off.
“He’s been brainwashed properly.”
Jack Kalt looked at the one who had returned after the brainwashing was complete, satisfaction in his eyes.
It was a spare Omega Suit fitted with camouflage capabilities.
Having handed it over to him, Jack Kalt did not forget to issue his order.
"Make him into your own exact shape."
The Stalker nodded slowly and activated Innate.
Using Marionette to exploit the Omega Suit’s abilities, he made himself into a blood-soaked duplicate of himself.
"Good work. You can take him now."
"Understood."
Now that they had both a Stalker to become a corpse and a perfect dummy to replace him, Jack Kalt watched his subordinates carry the job away, then slung the suit that had been made to look exactly like the Stalker over his shoulder.
"Now if we just block the middle finger, the plan will progress quickly."
Jack Kalt muttered to himself under his breath and headed toward the bunker.
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