Chapter 24: Dance under the lights (10)

Cyber Specter was a term that occasionally appeared on the news Lee Do kept on for white noise.

It referred to cybernetics patients suffering from psychosis or mental derangement.

Those without identities, unable to receive consistent updates, often degenerated into Specters, so it wasn’t strictly unrelated to Cyber Revenants.

The common trait of Specters was their lack of awareness.

They couldn’t distinguish situations, and just as the machines attached to their bodies were used for a specific purpose, their minds could only be used for a specific purpose.

It meant that even free will, humanity’s last bastion, had been eroded by engineering.

“S-Specter! Psychosis outbreak! Psychosis outbreak!”

It was the heart of the 16th floor, where the security team was fervently chattering over the radio.

“Aheuk, aheuk.”

It was a sign that had been apparent long ago.

The clear cause was trying to hastily save him in his berserk state.

Red Stream’s leader, L-Q3, had become a Specter.

He flicked off cigarette ash.

Lee Do kicked off.

He picked up the staff that had fallen to the floor. As lights flashed from the security guards’ muzzles, he stepped into the vortex.

It was the claw that had slashed a security guard.

It flew at him instantly.

Lee Do instinctively ducked his head.

He swept the staff downwards in a continuous motion.

He hit the ankle, but there was no reaction.

Because the name of pain had also been discarded under the banner of maximum efficiency.

It was no longer a commercially available implant that automatically stopped output if the user was injured beyond a certain point.

Red claws suddenly swept across his lowered head.

Lee Do dropped his body down.

Placing his palm on the floor, he swept his leg at the ankle, just as the staff had swept.

He flinched, but L-Q3’s instrumentalized nerves also paid little heed to pain.

A hand approached.

“Krrreuk, aheuk!”

It was the moment Lee Do’s nape was suddenly grabbed.

L-Q3 turned his head at the fired bullet.

When the gunfire ceased and a momentary silence became apparent, L-Q3 leaped on all fours and mounted a security guard.

He tore off his facial skin in shreds.

Blood spurted, and a faint groan kept seeping out from beneath.

Lee Do, who had been thrown aside, stood up.

He readjusted his cigarette.

Once again, he stomped the ground and kicked off.

He spun the staff once, adding acceleration.

Clack!

It was a staff swung like a baseball bat.

Immediately, as if swinging up a reverse-gripped sword, he twisted his arm up to his shoulder.

The other end of the staff rose and slammed into L-Q3’s face.

He swung the arm he had twisted up, back down.

It was a staff brought down, and Lee Do was once again thrown aside by L-Q3’s punch, delivered ignoring the pain.

It was next to the corpse of a team member whose heart seemed to have been gouged out.

“…”

Lee Do, looking up at the approaching L-Q3, spat out his cigarette.

He stood up.

The outstretched claw, he momentarily blocked that fist with his vertically held staff.

Kkaageugeuk-

A grating metallic sound that scraped the ears instantly echoed, grinding away at the staff, but Lee Do placed his palm on L-Q3’s chest.

‘First Form.’

Tukung!

He could clearly feel the chrome being damaged beyond his fist.

However, it only resulted in a stumble.

It was the claw that finally severed the staff.

Just as he felt the weight in his hand lighten past a certain point and looked down at the wreckage, Lee Do lifted his gaze.

Indeed, it was the claw.

From his shoulder to his opposite side, a throbbing sensation was etched and passed like a scar.

Lee Do momentarily held his breath.

More accurately, it stopped.

Immediately clutching his chest, he stumbled back a few steps.

“Kreuk! Euheuk! Euheuk!”

L-Q3 immediately leaped on all fours.

As soon as his toes touched the floor, he sprang back again, but at that moment, the opponent lunged with his whole body.

A sensation as if his lungs were being crushed and pulverized in real-time.

Lee Do exhaled.

The moment his toes last touched the floor, he extended his palm towards the approaching figure.

A body lunging like a beast.

‘First Form.’

L-Q3’s head momentarily touched Lee Do’s grasp.

Just as the air around his palm was about to be crushed by Qi, L-Q3’s face was suddenly grabbed.

His face, too.

It was crushed.

Chrome touched his knuckles, and as he pushed away what had touched, his fist sank deeper due to inertia and reaction.

He falls.

L-Q3, falling away, then swung his arm and snatched Lee Do’s neck.

It was when L-Q3’s body rose into the air.

Lee Do was thrown.

Bang!

He slammed into the wall.

Then, thump!

The sound of L-Q3 falling.

Then, cough!

Lee Do spat out blood-mixed saliva onto the floor.

“…”

Using the staff as a support, Lee Do knelt on one knee and rose.

Cough, he coughed again.

He spat.

He discarded the staff.

Watching L-Q3, who had collapsed on the floor making kkiirik, kkiirik sounds, slowly rise, Lee Do unfastened his sheath and dropped it to the floor.

Taking out only a cigarette pack and lighter, he took off his jumper.

Putting a cigarette to his lips, he lit it, then discarded both the cigarette pack and the lighter.

He lowered his gaze.

There were three claw marks on his chest.

Blood was dripping.

On the palm that had touched the wound, only a dark, reddish-black mark was already evident.

It was, so to speak, an agony like insects constantly crawling into a festering wound.

‘It hurts.’

His back, which had slammed into the wall as if to break, ached, and his grabbed neck also hurt.

The red electric currents sparking around L-Q3 were particularly stinging.

However, the Great Daehyup’s vitality was truly tenacious. Even when he fell 15 meters, he was in so much pain that he fainted for several days, but didn’t he eventually wake up, vomiting blood?

Lee Do took a drag of smoke.

It was L-Q3, who had rushed in at some point.

Thwack, the claw.

As soon as he swung one hand as if to slash wildly, he swung the other hand and gouged out flesh.

Then, a fist.

With a bang! sound, he struck Lee Do’s skull with that well-damaged chrome fist.

His upper body recoiled from the impact.

It was a moment to fully feel the sensation of smoke spreading through his lungs.

His legs were still fixed to the floor.

‘Qi.’

Thousand Pound Drop, the spirit of a tiger, things like that, a crane spreading its wings, the flow of Qi fixed in his un-kicked leg.

‘First Form, I can’t do it.’

It hurt too much to concentrate properly anyway.

Lee Do decided to opt for a different method instead.

It was the First Form, which he had polished for several days and become proficient with even without cigarette smoke, but unfortunately, it was a fist.

The concise movements of the First Form.

At the point where his palm would change into a fist, the flow of Qi that had entered his knuckles.

He rather gripped that first.

Lee Do pulled his upper body up.

Bang-!

The fist that shot out as he pulled himself up, dully slammed into L-Q3’s jaw.

“Kreuk!”

Creak, the man’s head, moved by the physical blow, turned back to Lee Do.

The man threw a punch again.

Bang!

He was hit and fell back, but only his head.

Lee Do also threw a punch again.

Kwaang-!

L-Q3’s head also just bobbed for a moment, and he threw another punch, and Lee Do’s head also just bobbed.

The moment his head was tilted back, Lee Do inhaled smoke.

More than half of his remaining Qi was still concentrated in his legs.

It was Thousand Pound Drop.

Lee Do rolled his eyes.

It was a place where the scene of the 16th floor, buffeted by rain and wind, was vaguely visible.

Bang!

Louder than the sound of rain in the midst of it, was the sound of something hitting something.

Kwaang!

It was the sound of something else hitting something, swallowing even that.

The red electric currents sparked even more helplessly, as if a reaction from L-Q3’s breaking body.

Lee Do, at some point, bit his lip and unconsciously sucked on the cigarette that had fallen to the floor.

One eye kept closing, mostly due to the blood dripping from his forehead.

-…G-Government….

The security team was already a scene of annihilation.

Not everyone was dead, but most were.

“Ex- Kkeuk- Ex-Ex…”

The opponent L-Q3, who made his vision flash repeatedly, kept spouting such !diotic nonsense.

And from the earbud that had somehow not fallen from his ear, such a sound was coming.

A tingling sensation ran through Lee Do’s fist.

Alternatively, there was no throbbing sensation in his jaw.

Lee Do looked down.

It was that crushed head, bobbing like an error, creaking.

It was trembling, and the opponent, who had been about to strike with a fist, or slash with a claw, seemed to have stopped abruptly.

Only after that did he suddenly move and strike down.

Lee Do tilted his jaw back.

Just like that, he struck L-Q3.

He descended, creaking.

Kneeling, his hand trembled as he drew his claws.

Lee Do struck him again with his fist.

“…Euheuk, euheuk. Krrreuk.”

A muffled mechanical sound.

And, a gunshot.

Bang!

Taang, kwangkwangkwang!

A throbbing sensation flared up several times on his back.

The moment he recognized it, it became hot.

James Well.

“…F*cking crazy. To think you’d actually fight a Specter.”

It was that so-called 3rd Security Team Leader.

He examined L-Q3, who had collapsed in front of Lee Do, who had inadvertently sat down.

Pressing the chip below his ear, he relayed something, then nodded.

“…Security Team 3 is wiped out, but it seems recovery will be possible once manpower arrives. Psychosis has already occurred. Yes, ah, that’s right.”

Lee Do, who had sat down, further collapsed.

Because his body just wouldn’t listen.

It was only natural, as the front of his torso stung from claw marks, and his back burned as if pressed against lava.

Perhaps it was because he had almost exhausted all his Qi.

Lee Do dragged himself to the wall and leaned against it.

His right hand, which was the basis of Taeheukgwon, was currently incapacitated.

Similarly, his legs, which had poured out Qi to fix his stance, were also incapacitated.

Yet his mind was still perfectly clear.

It was proof that it belonged to the Great Daehyup.

It was the same when alcohol entered his body, and even after falling 15 meters, fainting, and waking up, his mind was as clear as a bright sky.

It was the same now.

“Yes. Understood.”

James, having finished speaking, was further examining L-Q3.

Lee Do took out a cigarette from the pack he had brought when he dragged himself over.

He put it to his lips.

With his left hand, he held the lighter he had also brought along with the cigarettes.

He lit it.

Click- clickclick, the flame sputtered.

Rain and wind from the violet night sky unintentionally kept blowing in.

Only when he tilted his head to block the wind a little did the flame catch, and those were lips heavily smeared with blood.

Taking a drag of smoke, he asked.

“Aren’t they your subordinates?”

James turned his head at Lee Do’s voice.

He had always smoked it just held in his mouth, but this was a cigarette held between two fingers after a long time.

Lee Do took it from his mouth and exhaled smoke.

“They’re your subordinates, aren’t they? You just watched them die?”

James snorted silently.

At that moment, Lee Do turned his eyes.

The sound of numerous footsteps came from the direction of the door, and soon, members of the 2nd Security Team filled the space.

F24.

Approaching the trembling L-Q3, they began to carry out emergency rescue protocols like the 3rd Security Team.

James watched the scene blankly, then approached Lee Do.

“Thanks for going through the trouble for us. Thanks to you, we finished the job much more smoothly. I should have put you on the assault team from the beginning.”

Lee Do exhaled smoke instead of answering.

“…Did you ask if I just watched? Yeah, I just watched, so what are you going to do about it? Are you going to judge me now?”

“No.”

“Then why did you ask? In that pitiful state?”

“I just asked because you seemed like an !diot.”

With a slight smile, he raised his gun.

“Farewell.”

Lee Do’s gaze shifted again.

The broken window crack.

It was a violet night sky.

It had been quite dry until a moment ago, but now the rain was particularly heavy, and the vast, flashing lights outside the window were just hazy.

It was as if surrounded by fog.

【 WARNING! WARNING! 】

And it was a red light.

【 WARNING! WARNING! 】

It was a dazzlingly bright light.

【 This area is under control. Commencing landing, operational authority invoked — Disobedience will be considered hostile action! Stand down! 】

A deafening siren poured out, forcibly prying open eardrums clogged with blood.

All members of F24 instantly dropped their guns and raised their arms.

It was a special AV painted yellow and pitch black.

And four armed drones emitting a red light nearby, as if indicating danger.

Federal government’s special operations unit, OMEGA INTERCEPT (OMSEPT).

It was the federal government.

The federal government.

For a mere business entity called Crate Tower in Sector 11-A, the federal government.

It was OMSEPT.

Even James, seemingly tense, held his breath and turned around.

He stammered.

“OMSEPT, everyone…”

At that moment, the AV door clanked open, and a woman in a suit walked out with sharp steps.

And behind her.

A mask close to a demon, a tactical helmet, a protective suit, and three soldiers completely clad in black.

It was the moment James was about to continue speaking.

Similarly pitch-black rifles, the soldiers aiming them pulled the triggers and began to slaughter the entire security team.

Only three bullets.

James’s body exploded before Lee Do’s eyes.

A piece of a relatively new bulletproof vest splattered onto Lee Do’s cheek.

Amidst the scene of deafening gunfire, the woman calmly walked up to L-Q3, took out a pistol, and shot him several times.

It shattered.

Realizing he was dead, she raised her hand and stopped the soldiers.

“Where is the person in charge?”

Although dozens of security team members had been instantly blown away, a few scattered survivors barely clung to life.

When there was no answer, the woman looked around, then pointed to one of them and gestured.

“Relay this to Metalmix. If they try to mess around with a high-risk Specter individual even once more, not only F24 but all subsidiaries under Metalmix will face a situation they can’t handle. Do you understand my words?”

“…Yes, yes. Understood.”

“Good. This time, it ends with a special warning. If your side took on our job, conduct yourselves properly.”

She turned around.

The soldiers holstered their guns, and it was the moment the woman was about to get back into the AV.

Suddenly, a voice popped out.

It was none other than someone flicking cigarette ash.

“Crazy f*cking b@stard.”

Again, the woman turned around.

Unlike her neatly tied-back hair, her eyebrows, face were domineering.

Cyberware wires ran from one temple down to her jaw.

Lee Do looked into her murky green eyes.

As if for show, Lee Do flicked his cigarette in front of them.

Taking another cigarette from the pack, he lit it with his right hand, which he couldn’t move until now.

As the cigarette smoke naturally entered his breath, his internal energy was restored to some extent.

However, it was still no different from being in a cauldron of pain, his whole body seeming to boil.

“Looks like there are only crazy f*cking b@stards in this world, after all.”

Lee Do spat blood onto James’s shattered remains.

This was Red Stream’s main hall, the 16th floor.

It was the headquarters of a gang where the value of a person, the value of a life, and any consideration of ethics could not be found.

And it was F24.

A corporation trying to extort private gain from that gang, and overall, a government that should have, or at least should have, strictly governed even such a corporation based on the justice of all people.

The red light shone by the armed drones.

The WARNING light.

In the end, it was that thing called the federal government.

“I’ve decided.”

Lee Do said, filling his lungs with the first drag of smoke.

“I’m really going to be a hero.”

For example, a benefactor of the world.

A cold and static gaze slithered like a snake before Lee Do.

Ignoring it, he said.

“So, if you’re going to kill me, kill me now. It’ll be more convenient for you.”

Again, he took a drag of smoke.

He exhaled.

It was cigarette smoke he had stored as if carefully hidden, and it was too long and thick for a mere analog cigarette.

“…”

There was no answer from the woman.

More accurately, she didn’t respond.

She just got back into the AV with the soldiers.

[TL Note: AV = Armored Vehicle]

As if a mere Unjacked, drenched in blood from head to toe, wasn’t even worth dealing with.

Unlike its noisy arrival, the AV disappeared silently, just like that.

Only rain and wind continued to rage through the broken window cracks.

Lee Do let out a dry laugh at their hasty retreat.

For example, like that first fifth day.

When he had chuckled while swallowing blood.

He finished his cigarette and stood up.

After leaving the wrecked meeting room, he headed towards the elevator with staggering steps.

However, no one dared to touch him in his absurd state.

In the first place, no one moved rashly in the blood-soaked space.