novelraw Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Chapter 22
“Kuheok!”
The pain arrived more slowly than expected, yet clearly, awakening Liberto’s body.
It was only an instant, but what spilled out between his halted breaths was a death scream.
He realized belatedly that it was a miracle he hadn’t let go of the tonfa.
He steadied his blurred vision.
Soon, he stared at Jin Crow as he creaked and pushed himself upright.
“……Corporal. Jin Crow. Service number SMUO55-1113027. Assigned objective. Annihilation of the enemy. ……Corporal. Jin Crow. Service number SMUO55-1113027.”
Limbs that twitched from time to time as if broken bones were regenerating, and a low, sunken voice muttering meaningless words.
It was quite an unpleasant sight.
It was no different from a broken radio, or a marionette barely held together by fraying strings.
‘At least one thing’s clear.’
The distance between them in the lobby was quite far.
But the moment he saw the two eyes flashing between Jin Crow’s disheveled black hair, Liberto had no choice but to realize it.
……Right now, the bastard wasn’t in his right mind.
If the emotions that had once lingered in those black pupils had been lethargy, fatigue, or confusion, then now that something had snapped, it was different.
“……Hup!”
After sharply drawing in a breath, he kicked off the lobby floor and charged straight at Jin Crow.
The marble adorning the floor shattered and scattered in all directions, but he didn’t care.
Instinct was screaming.
Before the bastard fully recovered—this was the last chance.
‘Discard all unnecessary techniques!’
He spun the tonfa strapped to his forearm once, adding centrifugal force,
and then, aiming straight ahead, he brought it down with everything he had.
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!
The overwhelming compression of power focused on a single point (一點) split the lobby floor cleanly in half after a momentary silence.
All kinds of debris flew in every direction, and whether the wiring had been blown out by the shock, only the red light of the emergency lamps flickered.
“……It didn’t reach him?”
Up until just moments ago, Jin Crow had struggled not only to dodge, but even to properly block.
As expected, something had definitely become dangerous.
He couldn’t let the bastard reach the bridge.
Liberto flashed his distinctive golden eyes and swiftly pursued the vanished trail of Jin Crow, but he soon realized that there was no need to do so.
“Keuk!”
“…….”
From beneath the debris he had torn apart, Jin Crow’s blade, as he crouched, slashed precisely toward his Achilles tendon.
In that fleeting instant, Liberto threw his body backward on instinct and avoided it, but what followed was Jin Crow’s blade bursting through the debris and immediately pressing the attack.
Kkadeudeudeudeuk!
A jet-black longsword and a silver tonfa.
As the two different special-issue weapons interlocked, their fierce battle of wits twisted into flashes of light, and Liberto bared his teeth and extended a decisive strike toward him.
“Damn it!”
The tonfa he held wasn’t only in his right hand, and Liberto swung the tonfa in his left hand toward Jin Crow’s liver.
‘For now, I’ll lure him toward the hangar!’
He wasn’t harboring the naive thought that this would give him the upper hand.
He merely intended to deal him some damage, lure him, and draw his attention.
However, at that moment.
“Wh, what?”
He released the sword that had been locked with the tonfa.
Then, following the curve of the tonfa, the cross guard slid along it, and as he took the sword’s hilt in a reverse grip.
Kaaang!
As a result, the tip of the tonfa that had been thrust toward his abdomen was blocked by the tip of the sword.
……The perceived time was about one second.
That meant the calculations had been completed within that instant.
No matter how superhuman one was, it was a technique not easily attempted without countless experiences and skill.
Liberto swallowed his breath for a moment, but the instant he met Jin Crow’s eyes right after, he had no choice but to freeze in place.
‘……Just what.’
What lingered at the end of that gaze was clearly hostility.
But there was no emotion.
It was the kind of eyes belonging to someone ready to cut down a target simply because it had to be killed, without holding even a shred of guilt or regret.
Yes, for example…….
They were the eyes of a beast utterly steeped in exhaustion.
“Absurd.”
At the very moment Liberto’s murmur escaped his lips, he was met by the outstretched fingertips of Jin Crow’s gloved hand.
And what followed was a heavy impact, along with the world flipping upside down.
Paaang!
Along with the sound of flesh being struck, his body floated into the air.
Without even having time to feel anything from the follow-up sword strike, his flying body pierced through the lobby wall and only came to a stop after reaching some storage room of unknown use.
“Kuhuk! Kuheok!”
Naturally, having taken the full brunt of that impact, Liberto, blood soaking his red uniform, pulled himself up from within the debris.
But the moment he tried to rise, he slowly turned his head at the distortion in balance he felt throughout his body, and soon had no choice but to let out a hollow laugh.
“Keuk, keugeugeuk.”
The debris strewn across the floor was quite varied.
Alloys reinforced in various ways, wiring that carried electricity, pipes and plastic…….
Among that countless trash, his right arm, still half-gripping the tonfa, twitched.
“Corporal, Jin Crow. Service number SMUO55-111…….”
Liberto slumped down where he was and looked at Jin Crow with weary eyes as he slowly approached, still chanting meaningless ranks and service numbers.
‘What the hell did you lunatics do.’
It seemed they had awakened a monster.
Even amid the pain, there was only one thought filling his mind.
……He couldn’t let that monster out.
He bit his lip as if to tear it.
Then, he pushed his remaining left hand into his pants pocket and spoke in a low voice.
“I’ll admit it. The situation has changed.”
At a glance, it might have looked like the last plea of a loser admitting defeat, but in truth, it was different.
It was a declaration of war, and a vow.
Soon, he pulled out a small syringe and stabbed it into the back of his own neck.
“Kkeuk!”
The experience of stabbing something into one’s neck was never a pleasant one.
However, even amid the discomfort, he did not stop his hand and slowly pressed the syringe’s cylinder, injecting the blue liquid inside into his own body.
“Ggeuk. Ggeueuuk…….”
Capillaries burst, and the severed cross-section of his cut right arm writhed grotesquely as blood flowed.
The intense pleasure hammered at Liberto’s mind for a brief moment, but he clenched his lips with all his might and swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth.
And finally, at the moment Jin Crow closed the distance to within arm’s reach.
“Keuheoeong!”
Flashing crimson pupils that overlaid his distinctive golden eyes, Liberto swung the tonfa with his remaining left arm.
Kwagwagwagwagwang!
With a single blow, the ground shook, and though only for an instant, the explosion pounded the entire warship.
Yet in Liberto’s mind, wandering somewhere between awakening and pleasure, there was no sense of victory—only impatience remained.
It was only natural.
Even amid the gale-force pressure that tore at the ground and crushed the walls, Jin Crow merely stood there, extending his jet-black sword forward.
‘No.’
However, Liberto’s gaze—his senses awakened to the extreme by the drug cocktail that bestowed overwhelming awakening effects upon superhumans, ‘Pentacle(Pentacle)’—was different.
‘As expected, it’s not that there are no openings.’
The bastard’s state was closer to that of a beast moving unconsciously according to what its body remembered.
Which meant that he simply had to aim for that gap.
Paaaang!
The moment his calculations ended, his body rose into the air faster than his perception, and soon the tonfa in his left hand came crashing down, heavy yet fluid, toward the top of Jin Crow’s head as he stood in place.
At the same time, the inner gears spun rapidly.
Psionic energy was processed efficiently, then released.
Kagagagang!
As the circular arc of the tonfa met Jin Crow’s blade and the situation threatened to repeat itself, Liberto immediately twisted his waist, rotating his body, and drove his knee straight into the opponent’s chin.
Eudeudeudeuk!
Along with the sound of bones breaking, Jin Crow’s body was forced backward.
“Uaaaaaah!”
As if he had no intention of letting the opportunity slip, Liberto leaped at him once more.
Perhaps because the area had been shaken so violently.
The lobby and corridors were filled with thick dust, and each time the flickering red lights passed over them, they scattered death at one another.
“Kuheok!”
“Keuk!”
Liberto’s cheek was sliced open, and Jin Crow’s ribs shattered.
The exchange that began in the lobby tore through walls, smashed railings, and collapsed floors, eventually reaching the vicinity of the hangar.
“Kulluk! Kuheok!”
With a pale face, Liberto bit down on the sticky sleeve of his uniform and tore at it with his lips.
Then, looking at Jin Crow with a sickened expression, he muttered in a low voice.
“……A monster of a bastard.”
He could no longer maintain even formal respect.
His body had already reached its limit.
Whether due to the side effects of the drug, his vision was steadily blurring and his focus drifting dangerously.
‘But he’s nearing his limit too.’
Compared to Liberto’s red uniform, Jin Crow’s black uniform looked relatively intact, but in truth it was torn and split in places.
The reason was simple.
Each time he took a direct hit from the tonfa, broken and dislocated bones burst through the uniform, only to regenerate immediately.
If he had been an ordinary human, he would have been dead several times over already.
In other words, no matter how incomprehensible the power the bastard was exerting, it was a game whose end was already in sight.
‘The same goes for me. This ends here.’
A severed arm could simply be artificially regenerated and reattached.
What mattered now was breaking him and completing the mission.
“Seup, huu…….”
Seizing a brief lull, he drew in a deep breath and exhaled.
Then, gripping the tonfa, he pulled up the power flowing along his spine and chose the optimal timing.
‘Now!’
Tuk, the opening was a short leap.
What followed was a surging storm, and though only for an instant, Liberto reached Jin Crow’s front at a speed close to the speed of sound, gritted his teeth with the resolve to crush his head in one blow, drew out every last ounce of strength, and brought it crashing down.
「Crusher(crusher).」
Under Pentacle’s influence, his attack—closer to certainty than conviction, transcending perception for a brief moment—had already harvested Jin Crow’s life into death.
Because of that, Liberto swung his arm through to the end with a satisfied smile.
“……Ah?”
That was the last scene he saw.
Seogeok-. Tuk.
A head bearing disbelieving pupils and a satisfied smile rolled across the floor, eventually coming to rest against the military boots of Jin Crow, who stood there blankly.
“……Heeok!”
As if its role were finished, Liberto’s body collapsed like a sandcastle, and Jin Crow clutched his violently trembling body, recalling the scene that had passed like a dream.
‘Jin Crow.’
An inescapable, heavy drowsiness pressed hard against his eyelids.
However, at that moment, with fingertips guided by near-instinct, Jin Crow reached toward the waistband of Liberto’s pants lying before him.
‘……Awakening, agents.’
The instant he gathered several syringes into his chest with the last of his strength, he collapsed onto the pool of blood.
〔Ah, this is Major Obia Timist!〕
And immediately after, as if on cue, power was restored and a voice flowed from the speakers.
〔As of this moment, all Red Hand terrorists have been eliminated, so evacuated crew members, please promptly return to the site and prepare for hyperspace jump! Instructor! I did well, right?!〕
It was a truly familiar and lively voice.