The next second, Keran pushed off hard with both legs.
The hydraulic lines in his power-reinforced armor hissed sharply, and he launched himself forward like a coiled panther.
He crouched low and sprinted straight for his pre-selected target.
The Operative on the far left of their formation, the closest one to him.
The second he broke cover, gunfire erupted.
Four SMGs opened up in unison, bullets streaking with faint blue trails chasing his shadow, kicking up clods of dirt and splinters of wood.
The dense trees were natural cover.
Keran held his armored left arm up to his side, weaving in a zigzag pattern around the trunks, absorbing most of the stray bullets.
With his other hand, he fired in rapid, precise shots from the captured SMG, laying down suppressing fire on the Black Hound Squad.
The acrid smell of burning gunpowder mixed with the scent of pine filled his nostrils.
Three seconds!
He was on top of his target before the man could react.
Keran hurled the empty SMG at his head, slamming it hard into his helmet.
While the man was stunned, he drove his fist forward, slamming it into the arms the Operative had thrown up to block.
Crack!
The sharp sound of breaking bone echoed.
The Operative grunted in agony, his arms bending backward at a sickening angle.
He gritted his teeth and reached for the pistol at his hip, but Keran’s hand closed around his wrist first.
The full strength of the power-reinforced armor surged through him.
Keran twisted upward hard, snapping the man’s arm and the pistol in his grip in one brutal motion.
Then he drove his elbow down hard into the Operative’s throat.
[You have struck a vital point! Critical hit for double damage! Target is stunned for 1.5 seconds!]
Without hesitation, Keran drew the knife from his belt and drove it precisely into the gap between the man’s goggles and his helmet.
Warm blood splattered across his armor.
The Operative collapsed limply to the ground.
Keran was just about to drag the body in front of him as a shield when searing pain exploded across his back.
[You have been shot in the back by an EMR-7 Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle! Taken 72 damage!]
[You have been hit by an electromagnetic weapon! Power-Reinforced Armor durability reduced by 38! Suffering from Moderate Bleeding status. Lose 5 HP per second for 15 seconds. Apply bandages immediately!]
He grunted and hauled the body with him as he rolled behind a nearby tree.
A bullet whistled past his ear, punching a smoking hole in the trunk.
Surrounded by enemies, there was no time to bandage his wounds.
Keran’s face was pale with pain.
That shot had almost pierced straight through his armor.
He looted the body quickly, pulling the man’s light alloy combat suit on over his own, and pocketed three shockwave fragmentation grenades and four full magazines.
“Kill him! Avenge our brother!”
The remaining five Black Hound Operatives were clearly enraged by his brutal kill.
They tightened their formation and closed in, their guns spitting continuous fire.
Bullets chewed through the wood, turning the tree trunk into Swiss cheese.
Keran couldn’t even poke his head out.
Keran gritted his teeth, pulled the pin on a shockwave grenade, counted to two, and threw it.
BOOM!
The explosion rocked the forest, the shockwave sending leaves flying.
The enemy fire cut off abruptly.
Before they could find new cover, Keran threw a second grenade.
The five men hit the dirt again.
A third dark object arced through the air right after.
The five men flinched instinctively, waiting for the explosion.
But two seconds passed, and nothing happened.
They squinted.
It wasn’t a grenade at all.
It was a fist-sized rock.
It’s a trick!
The second they realized what was happening, Keran burst out from behind the tree, an SMG in each hand, and hosed down the prone figures.
The barrels glowed red hot at an alarming rate, and both magazines emptied in seconds.
One Operative lying in the grass didn’t have time to move.
He took a dozen bullets to the chest and died instantly.
Keran dropped the empty SMGs and charged again through the smoke, tackling another isolated Operative to the ground.
In the chaos, the Black Hound captain’s SMG caught him in the calf.
Blood soaked through his combat pants instantly.
[You have been shot in the left leg by an Undercurrent SMG! Took 24 damage! Movement speed reduced by 15%!]
Keran didn’t even flinch.
Three heavy thuds later, the helmet caved in completely.
The man didn’t move again.
Only three enemies left.
Keran’s health had dropped to 280.
His power-reinforced armor had only 41 durability left.
And the wound in his calf was slowing him down badly.
The Black Hound captain’s face was twisted with rage.
He’d never taken a mere test subject seriously.
He’d never imagined he’d lose half his men in less than five minutes.
All arrogance was gone now, replaced by cold fury.
“Concentrate fire! Throw grenades! Blow him to pieces!”
The three remaining men pulled their grenade pins at the same time.
Three shockwave grenades arced through the air and landed perfectly behind the tree where Keran was hiding.
BOOM!
A towering fireball engulfed the entire tree.
The trunk snapped in half and crashed to the ground, sending a cloud of dust and splinters high into the air.
When the smoke cleared, there was silence.
“Is he dead?” one Operative asked nervously.
“Go check.” The Black Hound captain raised his electromagnetic sniper rifle and advanced cautiously.
The three men approached the blast site in a triangle formation.
A charred body lay face down on the ground, wearing Keran’s bloodstained combat jacket.
“Finally.” One Operative sighed in relief and stepped forward to check the body.
“Wait!” The Black Hound captain’s eyes went wide.
He threw himself backward to the ground.
“Get down!”
The second the words left his mouth, a single shot rang out from the bushes nearby.
It hit the three grenades the body was clutching perfectly.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The triple explosion was far more powerful than anything before.
At point blank range, the two Operatives were torn apart by the shockwave before they could even scream.
[You have dealt multiple explosive damage to enemies!]
[You have killed a Black Hound Squad Operative. Gained 1600 experience points.] x2
Keran stood up slowly from the bushes.
He looked absolutely terrible.
Half his body was blackened with soot, his face was caked with dirt and blood.
His health was down to less than 70, and the bleeding was still going.
The right arm of his power-reinforced armor was destroyed, hanging limply at his side.
He’d used the body as a human shield to absorb most of the blast, then quickly swapped his jacket onto the corpse to set up this simple but deadly trap.
Only the veteran Black Hound captain had sensed something was wrong and survived.
Blood blurred Keran’s vision.
His hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably.
But his eyes were still cold and sharp, like a drawn blade.
He knew he couldn’t let the man get any distance between them.
The Black Hound captain had just gotten to his feet and hadn’t even raised his sniper rifle when Keran limped straight at him.
“Die!” the captain roared, drawing his own knife and driving it straight for Keran’s heart.
Keran dodged to the side and grabbed the man’s wrist with his good left arm.
Their strength collided, and the captain felt like his wrist was about to be crushed in Keran’s grip.
Keran slammed his forehead down hard into the man’s nose.
Crack!
The sound of broken nose cartilage was loud and clear.
The captain screamed as blood poured down his face.
Before he could step back, Keran tackled him to the ground and drove his knee hard into his chest.
“Who… what are you…” the captain gasped, his eyes filled with terror and despair.
Keran didn’t answer.
He raised his fist and slammed it down on the captain’s helmet, again and again and again.
Until the helmet caved in completely, and the man stopped moving.
Keran slumped to the ground, gasping for air.
He looked around.
The six bodies of the Black Hound Squad lay scattered across the forest floor.
Bullet holes and scorch marks covered every tree.
…
Half an hour later, Zevran arrived at the scene with his men. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
Rufina was with him, her face pale with undisguised shock.
Searchlights turned the entire forest bright as day.
The six bodies of Black Hound Squad Three were laid out in a row.
Their deaths had been brutal.
Two had been blown to pieces.
One had been shot to death.
Three had been killed in hand-to-hand combat.
The Black Hound captain’s body was the worst.
Every bone in his upper body had been crushed.
He was unrecognizable.
“All dead…” one Operative breathed, his voice shaking.
“Black Hound Squad Three… they’re all dead…”
Zevran knelt and examined each body carefully.
His fingers traced the wounds, and his face grew darker and darker.
The wounds were clean and precise, every single one fatal.
The hand-to-hand combat skill, the tactical thinking.
None of this looked like it came from a test subject who’d only had six months of basic training.
“Keran…” Zevran whispered the name.
For the first time, there was real gravity in his eyes.
“Sir! We found no trace of the target!” a soldier ran up to report.
“We only found this.”
He held up a broken piece of power-reinforced armor, still stained with fresh blood.
A short distance away, a bent tactical knife was stuck in a tree trunk.
All of the Black Hound Squad’s weapons and gear were gone.
Rufina stood off to the side, staring silently at the bodies.
She thought back to that quiet, dull figure in the training room every day.
Her heart ran cold.
She had never really known him at all.
Zevran stood up slowly and looked out into the dark depths of the forest.
The night wind rustled through the trees, and for a moment, it felt like that black figure could step out of the shadows at any moment.
“Take all of this back.”
…
One day later, a massive Undercurrent force arrived at the crash site.
They pulled all the aircraft’s surveillance footage and combed every inch of the area for clues.
Then an unexpected figure arrived.
A personal aircraft touched down outside the temporary command center.
The man who stepped out was dressed entirely in black.
Black trench coat, black mask, black gloves.
He looked like a villain straight out of a movie.
Even within Undercurrent, fewer than five people knew what he looked like.
He was a leader of Undercurrent.
He rarely appeared in person at any operation.
“Where is the target?” His voice was distorted by the mask, rough and mechanical.
“We lost him.” Zevran bowed his head, his voice carrying a trace of guilt.
The Squad A captain beside him kept his head down, terrified to even look at the masked man.
The Leader was silent for a moment.
“An Otherworld Lifeform. No recorded awakening abilities.” His voice gave no hint of emotion.
“Killed thirty armed Operatives. Destroyed all experimental data. Wiped out Black Hound Squad Three. Escaped by parachuting from a plane at altitude.”
He looked around.
“Am I listening to a mission report? Or a fairy tale?”
No one said a word.
A researcher stepped forward, his voice tight with nerves.
“We pulled all six months of surveillance footage from Azure City and ran a complete behavioral analysis.”
“Proceed.”
“When the target was first summoned, initial tests showed all ability metrics to be extremely low. No signs of awakening. No recorded combat skills. His mental state was assessed as compliant.”
The researcher flipped open his report.
“But when we compared six months of footage, we found his behavior patterns before and after every experiment were identical. His reactions were always perfectly calibrated to appear damaged but not broken. He never did anything to alert the researchers, and he never revealed his true pain tolerance.”
The Leader said nothing, just gestured for him to continue.
“This requires an extraordinary level of self-control, and an almost perfect ability to read the researchers’ expectations. In other words…” The researcher paused.
“He was studying us. The entire time. Just like we were studying him.”