Excalion-I
Baek Seoha broke out in a cold sweat.
This doesn't feel right...
Mechaman's presence was overwhelming. Even surrounded by thirty-one heroes, he didn't yield an inch of ground.
Then a blue radiance burst from his open palm with a sharp electric whine, and a hologram of Maesat's upper body flickered into being right in front of their faces.
"Hmm... not over here? Oh! It was this nerve!"
He had been absorbed in something, and only belatedly swung his gas-masked face toward the camera.
"Oh dear! How embarrassing! I was so focused I didn't even notice the call coming in! Hiyohhohohohot! I'm so sorry!!"
Maesat smiled, gently lifting a scalpel dripping with blood.
The color drained from Baek Seoha's face as she stared at the hologram.
"You... what are you... doing right now...?"
Maesat's white coat flared as he drew the scalpel in a horizontal slash.
"Hiyohhohot! If you ask what I'm doing, answering is only common courtesy!!"
He tapped the filter canister of his gas mask and raised his voice.
"If I had to put it into words... I'm saving a life? Yes! That sounds about right! Kishishishishit!"
"Cough!"
A spray of blood splattered across Maesat's coat.
"Hah... hah... it... it hurts... stop..."
The moment Baek Seoha heard the woman's voice, she froze solid.
That desperate voice flashed through her mind.
Maesat wriggled his fingers, looking thoroughly at a loss.
"Oh my! I'm so sorry! A constitution that doesn't take to anesthesia, I see! But don't you worry! The surgery is proceeding just fine! Kishishishishit!!"
Baek Seoha couldn't take it anymore. She launched herself at the hologram.
"MAESAT!!!"
But Mechaman's red array eyes tracked her in an instant.
"Target pursuit."
Her boot was a hair's breadth from the hologram when Mechaman's left arm launched like a rocket. The steel fist slammed into her ribs and sent her flying. She crashed through a shipping container in an explosion of twisted metal.
Shadow Assassin erupted from the darkness and rushed to her side.
"Baekho! You okay?"
"Nngh... my ribs..."
Mechaman reattached the returning arm and slowly turned his head.
"Master is delivering a lecture. Listen well."
Twin Blades clenched his teeth and hissed to the heroes around him.
"Don't any of you move. You take one step now and you're dead meat."
Maesat glanced downward, his hands working in a blur. With only his upper body visible, there was no telling what those hands were actually doing.
"Mechaman! They are this body's precious guests! A gentleman ought to know his manners!"
"...My apologies. I will minimize damage to the test subjects, Master."
"That's right! Our Mechaman is such a good boy! Kihihihihihit!"
His hands never stopped, but he lifted his head to face the camera as he spoke.
"Baekho! As an apology, God Hand! Doctor Maesat will personally see to your treatment! Don't you worry about the bill! For Baekho, it's specially Free! I'll do it at no charge!"
Maesat plucked out a blood-soaked strand of something that looked, at a glance, like a vein or a nerve, and it tore free with a wet rip.
"Mechaman! Kindly escort them to My sweet home. Kishishishishit!!"
Baek Seoha clutched her side and shoved herself to her feet, shouting.
"Don't make me laugh! I don't need your damn treatment!!"
Unfortunately, her words never reached him. The hologram had already vanished.
Mechaman raised one hand high.
A blinding white flash lanced into the sky. The heroes flinched back.
Twin Blades lowered the edge of his hand and glared at Mechaman.
"The hell did you just do?"
He didn't need an answer.
In the distance, the sea heaved with a violent roar. Then a mass of iron came streaking across the sky.
Assassin tugged his mask down a fraction, his mouth hanging open.
"What... is that...?"
Rockets belched fire as they plunged toward the earth. Baek Seoha's eyes went wide.
"EVERYONE TAKE COVER!!"
The first rocket slammed down on Mechaman's left side, and a storm of dust exploded outward. More rockets followed in a pounding rain, crashing down one after another.
Twin Blades slashed the oncoming dust aside with the edge of his hand and doubled over coughing.
"Cough, cough! The hell? Did the damn thing just blow itself up?"
Baek Seoha shook her head.
"Maesat... that man wouldn't be that sloppy."
Everything she had seen of him so far had been meticulously calculated. Every single action had to mean something.
The dust settled.
A collective gasp rose from the heroes.
"Whoa..."
"What is that? A cannon...?"
Mechaman's left hand had fused with a long cannon barrel. But it looked nothing like an ordinary artillery piece. Silver rings along the rim spun in time with an ionic rotation, and a blue magnetic field bloomed between them, vibrating the air with a fine, crackling hum.
Charged Particle Cannon
EXCALION-I
Twin Blades glanced at Assassin.
"Charged... particles? The hell is that?"
Shadow Assassin swallowed hard and took a step back. Goosebumps crawled over his entire body.
"I don't know what it is. But it's definitely dangerous."
Mechaman swung the barrel around and trained it on the scrap-metal wall. The mechanism locked into place with a heavy clank.
"Particle array stabilized. Electromagnetic matrix synchronization complete."
Baek Seoha clenched her fists, cold sweat running down her temples.
What's going on? He's not aiming at us...?
Mechaman dropped into a crouch. Rings punched out from his armored heels and drove into the ground, anchoring him in place.
"Ground analysis rate: 99.4%. Degradation zone cannot be blocked. Until discharge... five seconds... four seconds..."
"No way..."
Baek Seoha threw herself flat against the ground and screamed.
"EVERYONE DOWN!!"
The heroes dropped as one.
"Two seconds... one second..."
Charged Particle Cannon — Full Discharge
The cold mechanical voice fell, and the ground itself began to tremble. A razor-sharp current of air erupted from the ion core at the center of the barrel. The spinning magnetic rings snapped into high-speed alignment — and then, a single dry crack.
A split second of silence.
Twin Blades cautiously lifted his head.
"...A misfire?"
In that instant, a pure white radiance split the world in front of them.
It was not merely light. It was a spear of the gods. A flash of victory. Compressed ionic particles poured forth in a dead-straight trajectory and cleaved the air apart. Hundreds of millions of charged particles per second went berserk inside the electric field, and the beam of light evaporated every scrap-metal wall in its path without leaving so much as a shape behind.
Baek Seoha stared at the insane spectacle, so stunned she forgot to breathe. The hands and shoulders she had pressed to the ground trembled violently.
There was no debris. There was no wreckage. Where the light had died, a curved excavation seven meters across and two meters deep had been carved into the earth. The floor had melted smooth as dried glass, and residual heat sent pale steam and shimmering waves rising into the air. Along the now-unobstructed straightaway, plasma flickered in fitful bursts.
A dagger slipped from Assassin's hand and hit the ground with a thin metallic ring. He couldn't keep his grip. He planted both palms on the floor and hung his head.
"A weapon like that... shouldn't even exist in this world..."
Twin Blades pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a hollow laugh.
"Hahahahaha! What is this? Are we dreaming? We really inside one of the Seven Dungeons right now?!"
Baek Seoha swallowed hard and stared at the melted cannon barrel.
"There's no way this is an upper-rank dungeon... Maesat. What the hell are you?"
The heroes had lost the will to fight. They couldn't even stand. Even Baek Seoha, overflowing with a sense of justice, couldn't get any strength into her legs.
But her eyes quietly began to move.
"Wait a second..."
The melted barrel. And besides that...
"That guy. Where did that cyborg go?"
The devastating bombardment had stolen everyone's attention, and they had lost track of Mechaman. He was nowhere to be seen.
Shadow Assassin dropped his gaze.
"The ground's scorched black. He probably used the chaos to fly off into the sky."
Baek Seoha's eyes went round. She shoved herself to her feet.
"Then... we still have a chance!"
Every hero's gaze snapped toward her. Twin Blades looked at her, his eyes full of doubt.
"Didn't you just see that? This is way out of our hands. You push any further and you're just dead."
Baek Seoha kicked off the ground, charged forward, and drove her boot into the cannon barrel. The melted weapon shattered into scattered fragments.
"Look. It looked overwhelming — but that was as far as it went."
She turned and swept her gaze across the heroes.
"It was limited to a single shot. If it weren't, Mechaman would have had no reason to abandon us and run after we'd already lost the will to fight!"
She slashed a hand through the air and clenched it into a fist.
"This was all Maesat's bluff! A deception tactic to break our fighting spirit!!"
Only then did the heroes start getting to their feet, one by one.
"Yeah. Baekho's right."
"He had a weapon that powerful and he just ran? That doesn't make any sense!"
"Everyone regroup! Let's blow that lunatic doctor's head off!"
Fortunately, their fighting spirit came flooding back.
Shadow Assassin pulled his mask into place and approached Baek Seoha.
"What now, Captain?"
Baek Seoha's shoulders gave a startled twitch.
"What? No, no. How could I be captain when all of you seniors are here..."
Twin Blades sliced the air with the edge of his hand and rolled his shoulders loose.
"What's rank got to do with anything? It's the head that counts."
Assassin spun a dagger between his fingers.
"We'll be your strongest hands and feet. You've dealt with Maesat before — you should lead the raid."
Baek Seoha swallowed back the tears welling in her eyes.
"Everyone..."
She turned her gaze toward the path blasted open through the scrap metal. At the far end, a signboard came into view.
A warm welcome to the Super-science Dungeon! ^U^
It wasn't even like it was mocking anyone. And there was another guidepost besides.
Fine. I'll walk right into your trap.
Baek Seoha took her place at the very front of the heroes.
"That hologram just now... the Full Bloom team has definitely been captured by Maesat."
She turned and looked over the heroes behind her.
"We have to save them all. No — we can save them. Because..."
Her white boots clicked forward, one sharp step at a time.
"We're heroes!"
The heroes roared as they followed her.
"Justice will prevail!"
"UWOOOOOOH!!"