"Trust me, you don't want to stick around. You've done your job – a great job, at that. Leave the rest to us."

"You sure abut this, kid?" one of the mercenaries asked, still firing. The warrior beside him snorted.

"You don't recognize Richard? He's worked with us before – fought alongside Captain Brent, Redfield and Ana. He's reliable enough. h.e.l.l, he might even be stronger than several of us." he then grinned. "In case you forgot, he has a nuke spell."

"That's not going to help us much unless you want to wipe us all out along with the enemy…"

I didn't pay much attention to the bantering mercenaries because I was more worried about the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin. Despite the heavy output of firepower they poured upon him, he somehow survived all that and was lunging forward.

"d.a.m.n it! What a monster! He's not going down at all!"

The mercenary closest to the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin shouted before the line collapsed. The bleeding, battered a.s.sa.s.sin hurtled forward into the firing lines of the Silver Wolves, his neuro-gauntlet las.h.i.+ng out to scythe through any soldier unfortunate enough to be cornered while firing his needle pistol into the retreating ma.s.s.

Luckily, the mercenaries' body armor managed to protect them against those small arms fire, but it stilled look like they hurt. I saw one of them get bowled over, groaning as he clutched his chest. If it weren't for the kelvar vest, those needle-like rounds would have imploded his torso. The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin continued to bear down on the withdrawing mercenaries, swinging his claw-tipped neuro-gauntlet around. Even though a mercenary avoided getting slashed into ribbons, he was sent flying into the wall by the thick, muscular arm.

Another mercenary fell over, shot in the back by the berserk killer. His body armor preserved his life, but he was winded from the thunderous impacts. The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin didn't miss that his small arms failed to slay his target, and swung his neuro gauntlet down to finish him off.

Clang!

The neuro gauntlet never reached him. The adamantium-tipped claws screeched against my Bai Ri, and then I tried to throw him back. The berserker glared at me from behind that eerie skull mask of his, his blood-red eyes gleaming maliciously.

There was no consciousness or intelligence in those dark eyes. He didn't recognize me or single me out specifically – to the psychotic killer, whose brain had been addled by the potent c.o.c.ktail of combat drugs pumped artificially into his system, I was just another target, an obstacle that got in his way of exterminating the other targets.

He didn't even take me seriously. I could hear him snarling incoherently as he slashed at me, but I parried it with my crossed swords. His augmented strength pushed me back and I stumbled, but I bent my back backward to avoid a vicious kick that would have snapped my spine in half and pulverized my torso if it had landed.

Even with physical reinforcement spells strenghtening my endurance, I was not confident of surviving a direct blow from him.

The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin also seemed to realize that I was no ordinary foe and he drew his power sword from his back, almost juggling it in his left hand. Whirling around, he slashed at me, and I instinctively dodged instead of parrying it with my two swords. Just as well, because his power sword – s.h.i.+mmering with a blue field of crackling energy – cleaved through the walls, slicing through the solid concrete as if it was nothing more than tofu.

"What in the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l…?"

My jaw dropped as I cartwheeled a few paces back, trying to maximize the distance between myself and my enemy. The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin didn't even have to yank his power sword out of the wall. The crackling, glowing blade was pa.s.sing through the thick concrete as if it was water, leaving a ma.s.sive line in its wake.

"Holy f.u.c.k…"

This wasn't just the destructive capabilities of the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin's power sword. In order to wield a weapon like that, he must have the brute strength to back it up. Otherwise, even if I was equipped with an identical power sword, I still wouldn't be able to effortlessly cleave through the walls in the same manner as he did.

Just how juiced up was this guy? I knew that he was on insane steroids, but this level of strength was exaggerated! No wonder the Frenzor Sect was known as the most terrifying and strongest killers among the a.s.sa.s.sins Guild. Having withnessed his raw strength firsthand, and not for the first time too, I couldn't help but shudder at the thought that there was practically an entire army of these monsters lying in stasis somewhere.

Unlike me, the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin knew no fear (he should be a s.p.a.ce Marine then…) and his mind was too pumped up on aggression-inducing combat drugs for him to form even a single coherent thought. With a roar, he lunged forward and swung his power sword in my direction. Simultaneously, his neuro gauntlet came from another angle, trying to eviscerate me.

"Ugh!"

I ducked under the powerful blow from his sword while I parried his neuro gauntlet. Even though I was blocking a one-handed strike, the strength behind his blow was enough to send me hurtling several paces backward. I barely had any time to recover my breath when his power sword swung at my head, the psychotic killer attempting to decapitate me. If I hadn't arched my back and flipped away, I would have lost my mind there and then. In the literal sense.

Desperately, I kicked him in the jaw, putting my full body weight behind the blow. The impact was enough to jar him and send him staggering a couple of steps, but he otherwise shook his head and then returned his murderous gaze on me. Evidently he couldn't feel any pain. Now that I thought about it, that was precisely what allowed him to shrug off what would otherwise be incapacitating shots from the barrage of fire that the Silver Wolves laid down on him earlier.

Even so, I unleashed black and white waves of destructive mana to blow him back. It worked, momentarily, but he was back on his feet again and swinging his melee weapons wildly.

Fortunately, that bought me more than enough time to complete a summoning spell. In this narrow s.p.a.ce, it was disadvantageous for me to summon any Constellation spirits to aid me – they would just get in my way or get slaughtered near instantly by the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin. Furthermore, my more powerful Constellation spirits wouldn't be able to fit within the tight confines of the corridor anyway. They would just end up being caged.

I did have another option, though. The chibi Green Dragon appeared on my shoulder and pink Sakura petals danced around both of my blades. I directed the countless razor-sharp petals at the charging Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin, slicing through his black skintight synthetic suit and drawing spurts of blood. As ever, the berserker was immune to pain and unafraid of death, and he barreled right through the cloud of deadly Sakura petals, heedless of the damage his body was sustaining. As long as he could reach me, he could rip the life out of me.

That was more than enough for him. His only goal was to kill. His life was a small price to pay for eliminating whatever targets stood in his way. Additionally, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to evade my overwhelming maelstrom of Sakura petals in such an enclosed s.p.a.ce, so his only option was to smash through it directly.

And he almost succeeded.

Before he could reach within five meters of me, I calmly twirled Hei Yue and conjured several vines that ensnared him. Wrapping around his four limbs and his body, the vines went taut as they struggled to restrain him, hauling him back and away from me, and temporarily immobilizing him. The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin snarled and tore through the vines, ripping them apart without any apparent effort, but even so the binds had delayed him for a few seconds.

It might not seem like much time, but those precious few seconds were more than enough for me to cast another spell.

Pollen flooded the narrow pa.s.sageway, swirling restlessly around the struggling Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin. Initially, as it inflicted no physical or visible damage, the berserk killer ignored the pollen that surrounded him. Not that he would be able to tell if anything was amiss, what with his mind completely driven into murderous insanity by surgery and combat drugs. He continued to rip the vines away from his limbs and body before lunging straight at me. While he did so, he continued to inhale large amounts of the pollen I had blown in his direction.

"…?"

Despite being in a frenzy, the hulking a.s.sa.s.sin realized that something was wrong when his body began to stop responding to his movements. He lifted his left arm sluggishly, noticing that the power sword was trembling in his rigid fingers.

"You heard it, didn't you?" I pushed my gla.s.ses up my nose as I watched the swaying Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin. "The gentle song of the Fragrant Wind."

My technique, Wind of Fragant Pollen, had finally taken effect. I was aware of the potent c.o.c.ktail of combat drugs coursing through the enhanced stature of the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin and I guessed that it was possible to overload him through the introduction of more…powerful drugs in the form of pollen. There were often cases of medicine and drugs clas.h.i.+ng against each other in a harmful manner if you ingested several of them at once, and this was one example.

The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin staggered as blood began to leak from the eye holes of the grinning skeletal mask. I had no doubt that behind that skeletal mask, the hulking killer was also bleeding from his nose and mouth. Even his surgically enhanced physique could not withstand the onslaught of so many drugs clas.h.i.+ng inside his system and his body was slowly breaking down from the inside out from the volatile chemical and hormonal reactions.

Grunting inarticulately, he dropped to a knee and vomited a stream of blood, which leaked from behind his skull mask and gushed onto the floor.

"…phew…"

I maintained my distance, knowing that the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin was known to explode upon death, sort of like a biological bomb as a last-ditch effort to take down the enemy along with him. I wasn't very enthusiastic about sustaining mortal wounds so close to victory, especially when it was totally unnecessary. To stay on the safe side, I remained a good distance away from the heaving and gasping a.s.sa.s.sin while wreathing my blade with mana.

"Men! Fire!"

Noting my cource of action, Jamie was quick to issue orders. His mercenaries, who were recovering from the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin's berserk charge from earlier, quickly gathered in a neat row behind me and lifted their weapons up. Along with me, they poured a withering hail of fire, their mana projectiles and laser beams joining my barrage of razor leaves and deadly petals that consumed the kneeling Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin.

For a moment, we thought the battle was over. All we needed to do was avoid the volatile explosion that came with the killer's death.

We were too naïve.

The Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin jumped back up to his feet with one final inhuman howl, his body pumped full of adrenaline and endorphins. Despite the lethal bombardment that was slowly tearing his crumbling body into pieces, he weathered the blows and charged forward, almost like an unstoppable juggernaut. We responded with a blistering hail of fire, but we might as well be throwing grains of sand at a ma.s.sive avalanche.

"Stop him! Stop him at all costs!"

"We can't! He's not going down! He refuses to go down!"

"What a monster! Is he immortal or something!?"

"Do we fall back?!"

"No!" Jamie bellowed fiercely and resolutely. "Belay that! Stand your ground! He's on his last legs! Finish him off, people! Just a bit more and he's dead!"

"I don't believe that he's an immortal!" another mercenary growled. "Just look how close we are to killing him!"

I certainly noticed that, and I was sure that the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin understood that, on some instinctive level, that he was going to die. Yet the homicidal madman was bent on delivering one last kamikaze charge.

No…I suddenly understood what was happening. It was precisely because the Frenzor a.s.sa.s.sin knew he was going to die that he was recklessly charging forward like this, disregarding all of the fatal wounds that were acc.u.mulating across his ravaged body. He was aware that his body was a ticking biological bomb, and he was determined to throw himself at us and blow up in our midst so as to take down as many of us with him as possible.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Was there nothing I could do?!

Wait…there was one single thing I could try out.

Taking a deep breath, I summoned another one of my Celestial Guardians, who replaced Green Dragon. A chibi Black Tortoise appeared and he slowly climbed along my shoulder. The leaves and petals that swirled around the blades of my two swords previously were replaced by snow and frost. Fog billowed out and formed up around me as the temperature plummeted. The mercenaries glanced at me, noticing how cold it was after they began to s.h.i.+ver involuntarily.

"Stay back," I instructed. "I'm going to stop him."

"How?" Jamie demanded, not because he didn't believe me, but because he was worried that I was going to attempt something reckless and he was concerned for my well-being. Even though he trusted my abilities, he still saw me as a kid and he would be d.a.m.ned if he allowed me to sacrifice myself for the adults.

Fortunately, I had no intention of exchanging my life for theirs. If there was a way to save everyone's lives, including my own, why not take that?

"Don't worry, it's simple," I a.s.sured him with a cold smile. "I just intend to…put that idiot's plan on ice."