Chapter 38. Chivalrous Deeds 2
Chapter 38. Chivalrous Deeds 2
When the Chinese enhanced soldiers appeared fully armed, Cheolmin felt his heart pound.
He hadn’t expected danger when meeting Chairman Yang today.
Against ordinary humans, he was confident even if hundreds swarmed him.
So he came alone, without bringing the juniors.
If Chairman Yang tried to use violence, Cheolmin planned to crush him and take everything—not as an alliance, but as an absorption.
But monsters from the Chinese Triad showed up—something he never anticipated.
Before his body had undergone rebirth and before he fully mastered his divine art, he’d once exchanged a few moves with just one of them.
Back then it had been one-on-one, and the match was roughly even.
Cheolmin had more strength, but the other had better technique.
But today was different.
Cheolmin was dozens of times stronger than he’d been then.
The only regret was that he hadn’t brought a sword.
All he had were his fists—and the pistol inside his jacket.
His body trembled with anticipation and excitement for battle.
Nineteen Chinese enhanced soldiers filed out and took positions around Chairman Yang.
One of them snickered, snatched the cigar Chairman Yang had been smoking, and lit it himself. Watching how things were unfolding, it looked like Chairman Yang had already been forced into submission.
“Long time no see, Choi Cheolmin. Let’s do what we couldn’t do last time!”
The enhanced soldier who had fought him in the mountains drew a dagger and spoke with a greasy smile.
Cheolmin didn’t answer. He disengaged the pistol’s safety inside his jacket.
At the same moment, the enhanced soldier lunged.
Compared to before, the movement was so slow it almost made Cheolmin yawn.
Cheolmin watched the dagger coming in close, slipped aside, drew his pistol, and pressed the muzzle to the man’s forehead.
“Uh… this…”
The man hadn’t expected this situation. He froze, and the other enhanced soldiers—still looking relaxed—trained their guns on Cheolmin.
“Let go of Chairman Yang and back off!”
Cheolmin slowly put pressure on the trigger.
“Arrogant punk. We’re soldiers. If you’re gonna shoot, shoot!”
Behind them, the guy with the cigar spoke.
He looked like the highest-ranking one. Unlike the others, heavy-looking equipment was attached to his back and limbs.
Cheolmin felt the tension tighten in the bodies of the men aiming at him.
“This is your last warning. If you don’t back off, blood gets spilled today.”
The leader grabbed Chairman Yang by the collar, twisted his ear, and said,
“Then we’ll give our last warning too. Put the gun down and kneel. Then we’ll spare your life.”
He yanked hard on the eighty-year-old man’s ear. Chairman Yang’s face contorted in pain, but he didn’t let out a groan.
“Bang!”
With the gunshot, the man Cheolmin was holding at gunpoint dropped, a hole punched through his forehead.
Instantly, deafening gunfire erupted from all sides as bullets poured toward Cheolmin.
But Cheolmin was already shooting toward the massive glass wall and throwing himself forward.
The reinforced glass—something that shouldn’t even crack from a normal impact—split, then burst apart under his full-body dive.
“Get him!”
The enhanced soldiers stopped firing and rushed to the shattered window.
Bang, bang—two soldiers leaned out to look down and immediately got holes punched through their heads, then fell.
At the same time, Choi Cheolmin surged back up, hands on the railing.
“Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—”
Bullets flew from every direction, but Cheolmin ducked behind the pillar by the window.
He couldn’t see each bullet clearly, but he could feel their momentum, and that was enough to evade them.
The problem was hitting them back.
They, too, moved faster than ordinary humans and had strong evasion ability—dodging his shots while returning fire.
The three he’d dropped just now had been from surprise. In a direct standoff like this, neither side could land clean hits.
Cheolmin took a breath, then dragged a fallen enhanced soldier toward him.
The bullets flying in turned the dead body into a beehive.
The uniform the enhanced soldiers wore seemed like specialized gear—the bullets embedded midway between the fabric and the skin.
There were outright ballistic pads on the heart, abdomen, throat, and other vital points, so unless you nailed the exposed head like earlier, it was hard to kill them quickly.
As he dragged the body, Cheolmin fired several shots that hit, but the ballistic pads on the vitals blocked them—no effective damage.
He retrieved the dead man’s rifle and magazines.
Then he stepped out from behind the pillar and sprayed the enemies with the rifle.
“Ghk!”
“Aaagh!”
Cheolmin’s bullets sank into exposed weak points—faces and throats—and most of their shots missed.
Even so, Cheolmin couldn’t dodge perfectly.
A few bullets grazed his arms and legs, tearing fabric and leaving abrasions. But he allowed not a single fatal hit.
When eight enhanced soldiers went down under Cheolmin’s fully exposed assault, the rest ducked behind sofas, desks, and pillars.
Cheolmin controlled his breathing and swapped his empty magazine.
Two behind the sofa.
A sofa was nothing against rifle rounds. Without even looking, Cheolmin read their movement and positions by presence alone—one bullet into the head, one into the heart.
“Suit up! Everyone provide cover!”
The cigar-smoking leader shouted. The presence of the men hiding behind cover shifted.
Ziiiiing… giiiiing…
A mechanical whine sounded, and the leader emerged from behind the pillar.
His appearance had changed.
An exoskeletal rig—like the reinforced suit used by U.S. troops—now covered his body.
U.S. suit troops looked like they were piloting machines. This felt like a man wearing armor.
Arms and legs were wrapped in metal framing, and the torso was protected by a single solid plate.
The leader had been carrying odd gear from the start—this had been what it was for.
The only targets left were exposed joints and the head.
But the solid metal at the neck extended upward and became a helmet that covered his head.
Now the only places bullets might penetrate were the joints.
Cheolmin aimed at the chest and unloaded the rifle.
But the armor—made of metal that looked stronger than steel—deflected every shot.
While taking fire, the leader pulled a grenade from his waist.
Click—the pin came free, loud in the room.
He held it for a few seconds, then threw it at Cheolmin.
There was almost no fuse time.
No time to catch and throw back.
“Boom!”
Cheolmin reflexively raised the muzzle and shot the grenade midair.
The instant fragments burst out, he dove under the living-room table.
The explosion shook the ceiling and jolted the floor.
The entire penthouse rocked, and a metal pillar screamed with a tearing squeal.
This wasn’t like the grenades he’d trained with in the military.
Heavier. Sharper. More violent.
By instinct, he radiated internal energy outward and wrapped himself in a thin layer.
Small fragments and the shockwave were blocked by the table and his internal energy, but two thumb-sized shards punched into his thigh and his side.
“Ghk…”
Cheolmin gritted his teeth.
Hot pain spread like electricity.
The leader—unharmed thanks to the armored suit—sprayed gunfire into the table where Cheolmin had hidden.
Cheolmin quickly shifted to the sofa and used the corpse of the soldier he’d killed earlier to block the shots.
Then, in an opening, he fired three rounds at the leader’s exposed joints.
Only one round struck, lodging into the knee joint. The other two missed.
Cheolmin grabbed several magazines and a bayonet from the corpse.
He stuffed two magazines into his pocket, then charged, swinging the bayonet.
Bullets couldn’t get through, but a blade infused with internal energy felt like it could pierce the armor.
As Cheolmin rushed in, dodging incoming attacks, he slashed.
The enemy blocked with the rifle in his hands.
The rifle split in half.
Spinning with the motion, Cheolmin clamped the leader’s neck from behind with both legs, gripped the bayonet with both hands, and drove it down toward the crown of the man’s head.
“Bzzzzzt—”
A violent shock ran through the armor—electric current surged.
“Ghk—”
Cheolmin’s body toppled backward as he fought not to black out.
He hadn’t expected this.
His whole body trembled uncontrollably.
The leader threw away the broken rifle, drew a pistol from his waist, and aimed at Cheolmin.
Then Chairman Yang—who had been hiding in the corner from the start—picked up one of the rifles scattered on the floor and sprayed the leader.
“You bastards. Let’s all die today!”
The leader staggered from the sudden gunfire, but every round bounced off the armor.
He gave a small, amused smile and turned his muzzle toward Chairman Yang.
Cheolmin, still reeling from the electric shock, watched the eighty-year-old man firing desperately.
He forced his internal energy upward with everything he had.
Then he injected internal energy into the pistol in his hand and fired at the enemy.
“Bang!”
The bullet, packed with internal energy, slammed into the leader’s shoulder and punched straight through.
“Ghk!”
As the leader wobbled from the unexpected impact, Cheolmin recovered, grabbed Chairman Yang—who was clutching an empty rifle—and launched himself through the hole in the glass wall.
This time, he didn’t cling to the railing.
With one hand holding Chairman Yang, he descended by grabbing or stepping off railings and protruding structures on each floor, rebounding downward.
In an instant, he reached street level.
About forty meters ahead, he saw the van Lauren had said she’d be waiting in.
Cheolmin ran, yanked the door open—the inside was packed with electronic equipment. Lauren and two men were inside.
Cheolmin shoved Chairman Yang into the van, then turned to look back at the building he’d escaped.
“Kwaang!”
With a massive sound, the armored enhanced-soldier leader dropped down as well.
Flames flickered from his back—it looked like he had flight capability too.
“Punk! I’m killing you today!”
Bleeding from the shoulder, he fired wildly at Cheolmin.
Dozens of passing civilians were hit and collapsed.
Cheolmin had acted because Chairman Yang was in danger—yet civilians were dying because of it.
A raging heat surged up inside Cheolmin’s chest.
Adrenaline drowned out the pain from the grenade shrapnel in his side and thigh.
“You son of a bitch!”
Cheolmin advanced while firing, pouring internal energy into every shot.
The internal-energy pistol rounds pierced the armor and tore through the leader’s chest, his right eye, and his abdomen.
He was probably dead the moment the right eye burst, but Cheolmin still lunged, infused internal energy into the dagger in his hand, and severed the man’s head.
Helmet and all, the head flew up into the air.
The towering enhanced soldier—over two meters tall—dropped to his knees and collapsed.
Cheolmin immediately sprang upward again, reversing his descent—grabbing protrusions and climbing back up to the twentieth floor.
He killed every enhanced soldier still inside, leaving none alive.
“Ghk!”
Only when it was over did the pain finally surge back in.
Cheolmin opened a liquor cabinet on one wall of Chairman Yang’s office, took out a bottle of whiskey, poured it onto his wounds, and yanked the shrapnel out with his fingers.
Then he used internal energy to contract the muscles and stop the bleeding.
He sank onto a sofa riddled with holes, lifted the remaining whiskey, and took a swig.
He thought his 모습 looked like the last scene of a Hong Kong noir film he’d watched as a teenager.
He’d been deeply impressed back then, thinking he wanted to live that coolly.
But facing something similar now, bitterness rose instead of joy.
When innocent civilians had dropped so helplessly just moments ago, his vision had truly gone red.
No matter what fights came next, he swore he would never again let innocent civilians get dragged in.
He took another mouthful of whiskey and leaned back into the sofa.
The door to the twentieth-floor penthouse opened.
Police, paramedics, and Lauren rushed in.
“Let’s go to the hospital!”
At her words, the paramedics laid Cheolmin onto a stretcher and carried him out.