Chapter 84 - Weaker than Taha
"Waaah!!"
"Get out! Get out of there!"
"Run—!!!"
Screams erupted from all directions.
It was because of the catastrophe that had begun alongside the countdown.
─────Screeeeech!
A distant scraping noise echoed from the ceiling—or rather, from the sky itself.
A steel pillar bent out of shape entirely.
The deformed structure trembled as if it had been granted life, and the crimson rust that covered it like barnacles crumbled down like dust.
"What in the world…" The fleeing people all looked up.
And then, they were horrified.
The structure, twisted beyond recognition, looked less like a building and more like a monster.
Not just any monster, but a writhing, decayed mass wielding dozens of steel tentacles.
A cry of terror escaped their lips.
"Shit!! Get out of the way!!"
"What the hell is that—?! Aaargh! Aaargh!!"
After a brief moment of frozen shock, the spectators took off running again.
Order?
There was none.
Structure?
Who even cares?
Downtown's residents weren't exactly known for their civic sense to begin with.
And honestly, the event staff weren't any different in this chaos.
People pushed from the front and shoved from the back.
It was pure, absolute pandemonium.
Among the fleeing crowd, a bewildered D'Andre frantically searched his surroundings.
"What the hell…?!"
He had been warned that something might happen during the performance, but he never expected it to be this.
His thoughts momentarily froze at the unimaginable sight before him.
Then, slapping his own cheeks to snap back to reality, he turned and asked,
"Is that… telekinesis?!"
"It could be metal manipulation!"
Hooker answered, and—
"So, either way, it's psychic powers. The terrorist is a Psyker?"
Drandre furrowed his brow and turned his gaze back to the stage.
There, he saw an enraptured audience.
Even in the midst of the chaos, their eyes were locked onto something, as if completely disconnected from reality.
D'Andre flinched.
Had they all lost their minds?
Otherwise, there was no reason for them to—
BOOM!!!
The giant screen displayed two figures clashing atop the stage.
And those figures looked… extremely familiar.
"…Wait, isn't that Elina?"
Greg, who was looking in the same direction, nodded.
"Yeah, I think so. Could she have awakened as a Psychic?"
Then, as the screen captured a close-up of her bloodshot eyes, D'Andre clenched his jaw.
"Yeah. Damn it."
Finally grasping the situation, he quickly scanned his surroundings.
Amid the chaos, he spotted spectators who had been left behind or trampled in the rush.
And above them, steel tentacles poised to strike.
His eyes widened, and he shouted,
"Get the people out of here first!"
"Got it, boss!!"
"...This is insane."
Hooker and Greg immediately sprinted in opposite directions.
And D'Andre was no different.
"You idiots! Wake up!!"
A glowstick flew through the air from the hands of a Linker who had been running toward the stage.
Whoosh!!
A mass of entangled steel beams shot forward like a tentacle.
Jin kicked off the ground, leaping high into the air.
The moment he twisted his body and landed, the metal fragments beneath him shattered from the impact, echoing like an explosion.
But this was only the beginning.
Without a hint of hesitation, Jin sprinted atop the writhing tentacle.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
With each step, he left behind a clear footprint as he charged forward.
More tentacles lunged at him from every direction.
Jin didn't stop.
He leapt into the air, twisted mid-flight, lowered his body to skim past the floor, and vaulted over the incoming steel tendrils with ease.
All of this happened within the span of a single blink.
To the ordinary eye, it must have looked like a violet lightning bolt zigzagging through a labyrinth of metal.
CRASH!!
A heavy, shattering impact rang out.
In the next instant, Jin was soaring through the air.
Having dodged every attack, he had closed the distance in a single breath, and his eyes locked onto Elina.
The one responsible for warping the entire stadium into this grotesque, steel cluster—this Kraken, or whatever it was.
Blood trickled down from her nose.
Her talent had far surpassed the durability of her body.
She had been unconsciously burning through power she couldn't control, and now, the recoil was setting in.
But Jin had no intention of waiting for her to collapse under her own strain.
BOOM!!
The moment he landed, he shot forward with explosive force.
Elina's face loomed closer.
CRACK—Jin's forehead smashed against her dazed, beautiful face.
At the same time, both of them were flung backward in opposite directions.
Jin had rammed into her, but Elina had also struck him back with an invisible force.
Stumbling back a few steps, Jin slammed his foot down—BAM!
In an instant, he closed the gap and grabbed Elina by the collar.
Then, pulling her in with all his strength, he drove his knee straight into her stomach.
Boom!!
A shockwave so powerful that it exploded from behind.
It was a strike strong enough that internal organs could have been ruptured.
Yet, despite that, Elina did not fall, even though she coughed dryly.
She had wrapped the energy she had been firing relentlessly around her own body.
The shield absorbed the impact and released it in one concentrated burst, which manifested as the shockwave behind her.
Surprisingly, that shockwave traced a translucent trail through the air, swirling around before smashing into Jin's face with a loud thud.
UFC interviewers often ask a specific question:
"If you were to throw a punch at your own face and get knocked out, does that mean you're strong or weak?"
Depending on whether you value punching power or resilience more, the answer can change.
Jin's answer to this question was...!
Wait a minute.
Where the hell am I?
After all this time, who would have thought I'd get hit with my own attack?
The rainbow-reflex I used in childhood arguments is real?
It's painful, but honestly, I felt more embarrassed than anything else.
The awkwardness flooded in late, and Jin gritted his teeth in embarrassment.
Then, he threw another punch.
The shield, which had been pulsing and rippling, absorbed the shock, bouncing it right back.
This time, Jin's stomach took the blow, and he gritted his teeth, soon flashing a ferocious grin.
"God, that really hurts. Guess I'm just that tough?"
With his thoughts scattered, he inhaled deeply and pulled his opponent by the collar.
The barrage of punches continued.
Naturally, every blow was slightly delayed, hitting Jin instead of his opponent.
One for me, one for you.
What a fair exchange.
Jin's body was shaken left and right, as if receiving the most perfect mirror treatment in the world.
However, despite the pain, he refused to let go of the collar.
He simply kept moving forward with more attacks.
The reason Jin chose this reckless war of attrition wasn't just because he was getting heated.
The more important reason was that, at this moment, Elina couldn't do much other than reflect the shockwaves and wasn't attempting any other attacks.
Jin understood that she was desperate on defense.
Despite having no effective attacks, it was clear from the blood pouring from her nose and eyes that her mental fortitude was at its limit.
He pressed on.
A storm of blows battered Elina's body in every direction.
But, after a while, no counterattack came.
Sensing something was wrong, Jin raised his fist.
Suddenly, the surface of the shield, which had been wavering like a massive wave, cracked from the inside, releasing the power it had stored up.
─────!!
Jin was hit by it before he could even react.
He was slammed against the wall, coughing up blood.
The intense pain in his abdomen spread like ink, indicating an internal rupture...
Thank goodness, it wasn't his heart.
Jin, giving a cold assessment of his own condition, slowly got up.
It hurt enough to make tears well up, but there was no time to lie around like this.
There, the cyker whose shield had shattered was staggering, coughing up blood.
It was time to end this, Jin decided, as he prepared to channel more mana.
But then, a sudden, loud cry of a bird of prey made Jin reflexively look up.
A moment later, something like a meteor fell, spread its wings close to the ground, and then smashed Elina's head into the floor with a brutal thud.
"You fucking bitch!!"
The voice came from a figure standing atop the bird's head.
It was a large, beast-man with massive wings sprouting from his back, his foot deeply pressing Elina's skull into the ground.
What the hell is that?
Jin squinted, immediately recognizing the person.
There was only one beast-man with such vitality: Malcolm.
A year ago, he had ascended to the second tier, and was Elina's head of security.
But why are his eyes like that?
Jin narrowed his eyes.
As Malcolm yelled at the fallen Elina, both of his eyes were mangled, oozing thick blood tears.
When the bodyguards, including the producer, had turned into red orbs, Malcolm had taken the brunt of it.
It was, of course, Elina's doing.
Even as she lost consciousness, she had instinctively recognized Malcolm as the most dangerous threat.
Although she hadn't aimed for his eyes, in the process of crushing his skull, the most fragile part had been crushed.
"You fucking pest!"
Malcolm's massive foot, gripping Elina's skull, slammed into the ground again and again.
Though a thin shield had appeared around her battered face, it only acted as a buffer, unable to reflect the shock like Jin had.
It was clear that Elina had reached her limit.
Her steel tentacles, which had been rampaging all over, were now moving sluggishly.
She's going to die at this rate.
Jin frowned, realizing that unlike himself, who had only intended to knock Elina out, Malcolm seemed intent on crushing her like an insect.
The problem was, there was no justification to stop him.
Should he show mercy to someone whose eyes were leaking blood like that?
That would be against his conscience.
While he could rebuild himself, Malcolm would have to replace his eyes with cybernetics.
Just as Jin scratched the back of his head, a small notification appeared in his peripheral vision.
[Protect Elina Vicent.]
Jin tilted his head, confused by the changing status window.
Why did it change again?
Is it broken?
Looking back up, he suddenly noticed something strange about Malcolm's curses.
Every sentence he spat, starting with "If I had known," and ending with "I would have..." seemed to have no filters.
What's he going on about?
Jin's expression shifted, and then he snapped his fingers, the realization hitting him.
These bastards have been treating people like animals.
Then, it hit him.
Malcolm was succumbing to a fit of madness, a sickness unique to beast-men, where the loss of sanity triggered an outburst of violence.
Sure enough.
"Shut up! I know! I know!"
Malcolm screamed into the air, suddenly ripping Elina's clothes apart.
"You heard, didn't you? They said they wouldn't kill you peacefully, you slut."
Jin slammed into the ground after seeing the madness in Malcolm's eyes.
The moment he hit the floor, lightning surged from his body as he charged toward the beastman's head.
"······?!"
Even rotten fish can still smell.
Malcolm, though blind, turned his head precisely toward the direction where Jin was charging.
As the two collided, his hand reached out and grabbed Jin by the neck, even as they both flew through the air.
At the same time, enormous wings unfolded.
In the next moment, nearby steel beams and exterior walls began to shatter one after another.
Like a bullet piercing skin, the entangled beastman and human rampaged across the arena, destroying everything in their path.
They say a falcon can dive at speeds up to 390 km/h.
The beastman's body, after flapping his wings only a few times, reached subsonic speeds, leaving behind a faint trail.
Behind him, loud, ear-splitting explosions echoed one after another.
The bloody streaks left on the walls from his claws were just a bonus.
How many times did the direction change, almost impossible to track with the eyes?
At some point, a blinding light erupted from the air, and the massive form of the beastman crashed to the ground at a slant.
KWA-GA-GA-GA-K!!!
After sliding several dozen meters, it finally stopped—Jin, still holding the beastman by the face, with his wings bent in an unnatural direction.
"Ke, keck."
The beastman's blood poured from his skull as his hands swiped wildly at Jin's cheek, leaving deep scratches.
But this was a resistance without meaning.
"…You, huff, weaker… huff, than, huff, Taha."
Breathing heavily, Jin raised his fist high, charged with mental energy.
Then, with all his might, he slammed his fist down.
KWAANG--!!
In an instant, the beastman's face turned into a bloody mess, flesh and blood splattering everywhere.
(Finished!)
The quest and Malcolm's experience surged into Jin's mind all at once.
Ugh, ack!
Like someone struck by a bolt of lightning on the head, Jin trembled and collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
A short distance away, Elina lay on the ground in a broken state.
Well, mission accomplished!