Twenty-Four Blades, One Flash
At that same moment.
Before the shopping arcade passage leading down into the underground parking garage, Special Combat Team 5 of Cheongmyeong Guild stood waiting, eyes fixed on the closed fire door. Twenty minutes had passed since Team 4 had followed Kang Do-seok inside.
One of the Team 5 members leaned back against the wall and spoke up. "Should be about done by now. Knowing how the Team 4 Leader operates, he won't let a fight drag on."
"Yeah. That man's made a career of killing people like it's his daily bread. Never lost a one-on-one in his life. I saw it with my own eyes — that's why he's famous."
The Team 4 Leader was one of the combat assets Cheongmyeong Guild had personally cultivated since putting down roots in Netron City.
His name was Park Jin-woo. A player, a close-combat specialist wielding a plasma blade — and on top of that, the holder of a Skill Star of considerable grade.
The name Park Jin-woo had first spread among players after an incident known as the Bio Rampage.
Mutants under experimentation in a megacorp's underground laboratory had gone berserk en masse and spilled out onto the surface. Within mere hours, the district housing the lab was a wasteland. Corporate security collapsed, and even the players deployed there were driven back by the tide of mutated flesh.
Back then, Park Jin-woo alone remained in the underground waterway. He plugged the narrow passage and hewed down the oncoming mutants with his plasma blade. Not a single one reached the surface until relief forces could establish a defensive line.
The incident had proved to all of Netron City that one accomplished swordsman, granted the tactical advantage of a narrow corridor, could neutralize even hundreds of monsters.
"Ah, the Bio Rampage. How many died back there, anyway?"
"Couldn't tell you the exact number. That was year three, so there were still plenty of players alive."
The Team 5 Leader looked at the fire door through which the Team 4 Leader had descended and said, "Stars must've come raining out of that rampage. Every halfway decent player dove in... I'd guess three thousand died."
"That many?"
"Torn apart by mutants, cutting each other's throats over stars. A total free-for-all. And a whole truckload burned alive when the lab went up."
The Team 5 Leader snorted. "Park Jin-woo didn't just survive that cesspit — he sealed off an entire battlefield by himself and held it to the end. So quit worrying."
"But Kang Do-seok is famous too, isn't he?"
"Famous, sure. Got the skill to match."
The Team 5 Leader shrugged as if it hardly mattered. "So what? The man works alone."
A swordsman's power swung wildly depending on whom — and where — he fought. In open ground he was vulnerable to encirclement, and there were limits to how much ranged fire he could turn aside.
Team 4 had been assembled precisely to exploit those weaknesses. Park Jin-woo for close quarters. A mage who handled shadows. A marksman to pick at openings from long range. Even a scout dedicated to thermal tracking and pursuit.
They had picked out only guaranteed counters and sent them down after a single man.
"A battle plan designed by the Vice Guild Master himself. Four men, a flawless combination."
The Team 5 Leader whistled. "We're the backup, so the performance bonus lands in our laps too. Don't go wading in trying to steal the kill. Just hold position like you're told."
He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms.
Beyond the closed fire door, not a sound had yet escaped.
KWWAANG—! Park Jin-woo's body slammed into the parking garage wall, cratering the concrete as fissures spidered out in every direction.
"Team Leader!"
The shadow mage flung out a hand.
The shadows draped from the parked cars writhed all at once. Black masses surged up like serpents and coiled toward Kang Do-seok's limbs.
In the same breath, the marksman squeezed the trigger.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TANG—! Four rounds streaked toward Kang Do-seok's head and heart in rapid succession.
Kang Do-seok swept his sword.
KAANG! KAK-KANG! Two deflected rounds punched into ceiling and floor. The other two kissed the blade and sheared away, their trajectories bent.
"Get down!"
The marksman ducked his head.
CRASH! The returning bullet burst the window of the car behind him.
In that gap, black shadow cinched tight around Kang Do-seok's ankle. The mage clenched his fist.
"Got you!"
That instant — Kang Do-seok pivoted and hurled his sword. The longsword shot across the air like forked lightning.
SHRAAAK—! The blade, thrown with every ounce of force behind it, buried itself dead center in the shadow mage's brow.
THUNK!
"Ghkk—!"
The mage's head snapped back. The black energy gathered at his fingertips scattered, and the shadows binding Kang Do-seok went slack and dissolved. At the same moment, Kang Do-seok's body began melting into the scenery around it.
The outlines of his coat and limbs smeared, blurred — and in the space of a breath, he was gone from the garage entirely.
The marksman swung his muzzle around in a panic.
"Where did he—"
He glared at the empty air, jaw clenched, and the thermal sensor fitted over his eye switched on automatically.
There was something they all knew full well. Not long ago, Cheongmyeong had hired an unaffiliated player by the name of Kim Han-rim — a sniper rumored to hold a concealment-class Skill Star called Camouflage.
And Kim Han-rim was dead. Almost certainly by Kang Do-seok's hand.
Which meant the Camouflage star Kim Han-rim had carried might well have passed into Kang Do-seok's possession.
The thermal rig had been prepared against exactly that possibility.
The marksman's right iris flared red. Car engines, the pipes along the ceiling, the hot-water lines running beneath the floor — all of it surfaced as multicolored heat sources.
But Kang Do-seok was nowhere among them.
"Where are you, Kang Do-seok."
Then, in front of the shadow mage's corpse, the air rippled.
A hand emerged out of nothing.
Kang Do-seok closed his fingers around the hilt jutting from the mage's brow.
Schlick! The blade slid free of the skull, flinging blood in a long, whipping arc.
The marksman's eyes went wide.
"How—"
He had been right there. Inside the field of view. Within the very sector the man had been sweeping with thermal detection.
And yet not one trace of heat had registered.
"Thermal detection..."
Kang Do-seok's figure bled back into the surrounding scenery.
"—doesn't work on—"
Before the words could end, Kang Do-seok vanished completely.
Ba-dump.
His heart slammed hard at the sight of it. He swallowed dryly and swept his braced rifle left, then right.
"Where. Where the hell are you."
Overhead, the lights flickered. Nothing stirred between the rows of parked cars. Only the drone of the ventilation fan and the soft patter of blood dripping to the concrete.
His heart pounded again.
Scritch.
A small sound from behind. The marksman whipped around, gun trained.
A pebble rolled across the floor and clicked to a stop against a car wheel.
'...A pebble?'
In the blink of that eye, he felt a flash of heat at the nape of his neck.
SHRAAAK!
The marksman's vision spun. Once, twice, three times.
The ceiling. A car. The blood-soaked floor flashing past his eyes.
The last thing he saw was his own body.
The headless trunk staggering, rifle tumbling from slack fingers. The torso that had been his — the body of a healthy grown man — pitched to the floor a heartbeat later.
Thud.
Rumble... rumble...
CRUNCH!
Kang Do-seok brought his heel down on the head rolling toward him. The skull burst, viscous blood spattering the concrete.
"Hkk... khh..."
A coughing fit drifted over from the collapsed wall. Kang Do-seok turned his head.
Park Jin-woo was hauling himself upright, shoving slabs of concrete aside. Blood streamed from his mouth and down his throat, but the plasma blade in his hand still burned its steady blue.
His gaze swept over the corpses of his teammates sprawled across the floor.
Three dead in the space of a breath.
Only he remained.
Park Jin-woo spat blood. "Impressive, Kang Do-seok. I didn't think you'd wipe out my entire team that fast."
Kang Do-seok flicked the blood from his blade. "You'll be following them soon enough."
"Ha."
Park Jin-woo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You think you've won this?"
"Four of you couldn't kill me. What do you figure you'll manage alone?"
Kang Do-seok lifted his sword tip and leveled it at Park Jin-woo.
"Kill you, and it'll be my first blade-class Skill Star in a while."
Park Jin-woo's face twisted.
"Then try it, you son of a bitch."
He slammed his foot into the floor.
FWHAP!
The blue plasma blade howled toward Kang Do-seok's neck.
KAANG—!
Kang Do-seok raised his sword and caught the strike. The two blades met in a shower of blue sparks.
Kang Do-seok's steel rode down along the plasma blade, curving like a serpent, its tip hunting the gap between wrist and throat.
Park Jin-woo snapped his head back, and the edge whispered past.
He gave ground with his rear foot, dropped back a step, then thrust the plasma blade straight in.
TSENG!
Kang Do-seok turned the thrust aside with the flat of his blade.
Park Jin-woo surged after him at once.
SHRAK! A horizontal cut carving for his waist.
Hard on its heels came a diagonal slash for the shoulder, then a thrust for the throat, one after another.
Kang Do-seok beat back every strike as he gave ground.
CLANG! CLANG! KAANG!
Every collision between plasma and steel flared into a blue strobe. The dark garage blazed white, sank into black, blazed again.
SHRAAAK!
Kang Do-seok's sword reached for Park Jin-woo's chest.
Park Jin-woo angled his plasma blade and let the tip slither off.
Even so, he couldn't drink in the full weight of Kang Do-seok's strength. His body skidded backward, both boots scoring long black tracks across the floor.
"Kgh."
Wrenching his stance back into line, Park Jin-woo laughed.
"Heh. You really can swing that thing."
He hefted the plasma blade again.
"They say nobody alive can keep up with your edge. Guess the rumor wasn't hot air."
"Now you know. So stick your neck out nice and quiet."
Kang Do-seok let his sword tip sink.
"Told you I'd make it quick. Won't even hurt."
"...Full of yourself. Utterly arrogant. But here's the thing, Kang Do-seok."
Park Jin-woo raised his left hand and drew it slowly along the plasma blade's body.
CRRZZT-CRRZZT! Blue fire spat wherever his fingers passed.
"A player's fight isn't decided by swordsmanship alone."
Park Jin-woo closed his eyes.
The humor drained from his face. A single heavy bead of sweat rolled down his brow.
A heartbeat later —
VWOOOOOOM—!
The plasma blade erupted with light, as if detonating. Torrents of blue radiance blasted outward from the blade in a mad rush.
"Learn this before you die. I am a man called Park Jin-woo."
He lifted the plasma blade into a high guard. The blue light pouring off the body of the sword washed over his bloodied face.
"I hunted down and killed the CEO of Integral Corporation single-handed. At the Bio Rampage, I held three hundred mutants off on my own. I threw aside every big shot in Cheongmyeong — a first-generation guild — and clawed my way up to combat team leader."
The light sheathing the blade deepened, thickened.
Blue flame spilled from beneath Park Jin-woo's feet and scorched the floor.
"No one who stood in my way is still breathing."
He raised the plasma blade and aimed it at Kang Do-seok.
"You're no exception."
Kang Do-seok watched the display for a moment.
Then, slowly easing the tension from his sword hand, he opened his mouth.
"Kang Do-seok."
As if in answer, he slid his blade into the sheath, unhurried.
"A man who kills people for money."
"...So that's how it is."
A flicker of confusion crossed Park Jin-woo's eyes, but he held his stance, locked in concentration.
At the very moment he was meant to loose his single decisive strike, Kang Do-seok was sheathing his sword instead.
It made no sense. Then again, there was no need for it to. No one who had ever laid eyes on his skill had lived long enough to explain it.
Park Jin-woo coiled power into his legs.
"In that case, Kang Do-seok—"
Kicking off the ground, he swung the plasma blade in a single motion.
"Die by my hand!"
SHRAAAAAK—!
The single blue blade split into six.
The six became twelve, the twelve became twenty-four.
A sword-class skill — Phantom Sword Dance.
Dozens of blue blades flooded the space ahead. Above and below, left and right, straight on. The sword strikes poured toward Kang Do-seok in a straight line, leaving not one gap to slip through.
And in that same heartbeat, the sword buried to the hilt inside Kang Do-seok's sheath moved.
CLACK!
SRRRRRR—!
The blade rasped against the inside of the sheath, easing itself into the light an inch at a time.
KWWAAMM!
Kang Do-seok's right foot crushed down on the floor.
Power born at his toes climbed through leg and waist. Every muscle in his body flexed in one organic ripple, gathering down through his wrist and into his fingertips.
A sword-class skill.
Formless Sword Technique — Battou.
The next instant —
The hand gripping the sword became a single streak of light.
A blinding pale arc of sword-light cleaved space in two.
KWAAAAAANG—!
The detonation from below shook the entire shopping arcade. Ceiling fixtures swung like mad things. Fissures raced across the walls, and the closed fire door heaved on its frame.
"Wh-what the hell!"
The man leaning against the wall bolted upright. His eyes darted between the stairwell down to the parking garage and the team leader's face.
Every trace of the ease that had sat on the team leader's face moments ago was gone without a remnant.
"Move! Now!"
The words barely left his mouth before he was kicking open the fire door.
BAM!
The door gave way.
Leader and subordinate were down the stairs in an instant. The deeper they descended, the thicker the acrid smoke and the reek of burning grew.
"Team Leader Four!"
No answer came.
They vaulted the last flight and set foot in the underground garage.
The sight that greeted their eyes pried their mouths slowly open.
The entire underground garage had been cleaved apart.
Hundreds of parked cars lay sheared away in a single direction. Bodies, glass, engines — all scattered across the floor wearing perfectly smooth cross-sections.
The thick concrete pillars were more than half severed.
Stone dust sifted down from the ceiling. The mutilated pillars, no longer equal to the building's weight, let out a long, grotesque groan. It seemed the whole garage might come down at any second.
The team leader stumbled back a step.
"What... what is this..."
Rumble...
Then something rolled across the floor, bumped against the toe of his boot, and stopped.
It was Park Jin-woo's head. The neck ended in a clean, surgical cut, and both eyes were bulged wide — frozen in disbelief at the last thing they would ever see.
"...In-sane..."
Shock flooded across the team leader's face.
〈 End of Chapter 15 〉