PATTER…
PATTER…
The downpour over the Dark Zone junkyard grew heavier by the second, weaving a thick, cascading curtain of water as if trying to conceal a horrific, impending atrocity.
Atop the cliff edge, the man wrapped in dried-blood bandages stood unmoved, a ruthless, feral grin plastered across his face.
Right beside him, another figure emerged gracefully from the sheet of rain.
The newcomer was dressed in an elegant, immaculate suit, smoothly slicking back his drenched hair with utter composure.
Yet, his eyes exuded a bone-chilling indifference that could make anyone’s skin crawl.
Glancing down at the sprawling wasteland below, his tone remained completely flat:
— “Heh, I have the exact same feeling.
This rotting garbage dump actually has a Sophion user hiding in it.”
The callous, detached bloodlust radiating from the suited man caused the surrounding temperature to plummet.
Right behind the two leaders, a squad of roughly thirty men filed out from the shadows.
Each of them gripped heavy weapons, their eyes reeking of the raw, primal bloodlust typical of seasoned butchers.
One of the thugs stepped forward, bowing respectfully:
— “Boss, should we head down there and hunt this Sophion user out?”
The suited man casually spun a ring on his finger, replying with pure apathy:
— “Why waste the energy hunting them down?
Just slaughter every single piece-of-shit animal down there, and the Sophion user will be forced to crawl out on their own.”
Hearing this, the bandaged freak licked his lips, shouting in maniacal excitement:
— “Hahaha!
Exactly my fucking style!
Let’s get to work, you worthless meat sacks!”
The order was thrown, and the thirty thugs lunged downward like a pack of starved wolves.
The horrific carnage instantly crashed upon the fragile, ordinary refugees who possessed absolutely zero means to fight back.
These attackers had completely discarded their humanity, treating human lives like worthless weeds.
A young mother desperately hugging her toddler tried to flee in vain, her heartbreaking cries cut short as a wave of tyrannical Sophion flames consumed them both, turning mother and child into two living torches screaming agonizingly in the heavy rain.
Teenagers trying to raise rusted pipes to fight back were sliced clean in half by heavy swords, their internal organs splattering across the muddy ground.
SLASH…
SQUELCH…
Severed heads of middle-aged men rolled fitfully into muddy puddles.
Even more sickeningly, several twisted, degenerate thugs, right after slaughtering women, defiled their still-warm corpses to satisfy their vile, animalistic urges.
Pitiful young children were tightly blindfolded with cloths, rags stuffed into their ears, and dragged out for mass execution amidst waves of frenzied, howling laughter.
The thugs lined up the severed heads neatly in long rows on the dirt like trophies from a twisted hunt.
An Encounter on the Fringes
While a literal living hell raged at the center of the junkyard, little Loona and her newly completed tank-tread robot were out on the eastern fringe, searching through a quiet sector for a few remaining mechanical components.
Right then, a sharp, whistling gust tore through the air, and the blood-bandaged freak crashed heavily onto the ground right in front of her.
— “Oh…
hello there, little girl.
What the hell are you doing out in a shithole like this?” He leaned down, a repulsive, predatory grin stretching across his face.
Loona startled, taking a sharp step back, her thirteen-year-old eyes wide with intense fear, but she still managed to answer politely:
— “I…
I came out to find more materials for my assembly, sir.”
— “Is that so?
What’s your name?
How old are you this year, sweetheart?” He stepped closer, his eyes scanning her small frame with a twisted, unhinged hunger.
— “My name is Loona, I’m thirteen…” Loona looked at him, trembling violently, before asking out of pure innocence, “But why are you dressed so strangely, sir?
Why are you wrapped in those bandages?
Why are they as red as dried blood?
Are you hurt?”
The bandaged freak cackled insanely, his tone dripping with sheer cruelty:
— “Hahaha!
Thirteen is such a beautiful age—perfect for the taking!
And this?
This is just my fashion style.
Also…
this isn’t my blood, little girl.
It’s a generous donation from all the weak little subhumans out there!
Oh, what a beautiful robot you have.
Mind letting me take a closer look?”
Without waiting for Loona’s consent, he thrust out his bandaged hand.
With zero hesitation, he compressed his Sophion, squeezing the 1.2-meter-tall robot in a crushing vice grip.
CRACK…
SNAP…
BOOM!
Under the overwhelming force of the stranger, the robot Loona had stayed up all night painstakingly repairing was instantly crushed, warping into a mangled, twisted cube of metal before crashing hard into the mud.
Loona froze, tears instantly streaming down her face:
— “Noooo!
Why would you do that?!
That robot…
I worked so hard to…”
SLAM!
Before she could finish her sentence, a massive hand shot forward, clamping tightly around Loona’s throat and slamming her violently onto the freezing ground.
— “Urgh…
cough…
let go of me…
you monster!” Loona thrashed in utter helplessness, her legs kicking wildly as her oxygen was cut off.
The bandaged freak tightened his grip, pulling his face inches from hers, his unhinged laughter ringing out:
— “Hahaha!
Be a good girl, I just want to play a game with you.
Look at you…
and only thirteen, too.
Fucking exhilarating!
Why don’t we go set up a home together and breed a bunch of our own babies, huh?!”
The Tiger’s Lunge
— “YOU ABSOLUTE PIECE OF SHIT!!!
GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY SISTER!!!”
A roar of pure, unadulterated rage, like thunder striking mid-air, tore through the rain.
Out from the sky, Kento Yanagisawa lunged like a feral tiger, his grayish-white aura erupting violently around his fist.
Channeling the absolute peak of his Kyokushin Karate conditioning, he delivered a lightning-fast straight punch dead center into the bandaged freak’s face.
BOOM!
The sudden, explosive punch forced the bandaged freak to release his grip on Loona’s neck, stumbling back two meters.
Kento immediately caught a coughing, spluttering Loona, the fourteen-year-old’s dark eyes now heavily bloodshot with primal fury.
Standing as a shield in front of his sister, he roared:
— “Looking at your perverted, disgusting face…
you must be new around here, aren’t you?
But a creep is a fucking creep no matter where you’re from!”
The bandaged freak wiped a streak of blood from his nose, looking up at Kento, letting out an amused gasp:
— “Oh ho!
Where did this little cockroach crawl out from to ruin the family I was about to build?
And…
you have Sophion?”
Kento gritted his teeth, his protective grayish-white aura vibrating with intensity:
— “So what, you sick bastard?!”
— “Now this is getting fun!
Looks like I shouldn’t underestimate you anymore, you little shit!”
SWOOSH!
The moment the words left his mouth, the bandaged freak blitzed forward at an alarming speed, leaving a trail of afterimages in the rain.
The young boy didn’t even have time to react before a brutal, heavy punch buried itself deep into his abdomen.
URGH…
COUGH…
Kento retched a mouthful of bitter bile, his entire defense collapsing instantly.
The bandaged freak didn’t stop; he violently grabbed Kento by his black hair, lifting him effortlessly into the air, mocking him:
— “Oh my god, how pathetic!
Today is just your unlucky fucking day, you little punk!”
BAM!
SLAM!
CRASH!
Sledgehammer punches continuously rained down on Kento’s body.
Each strike, infused with tyrannical Sophion, caused his ribs to emit agonizing, cracking sounds.
Finally, the freak delivered a straight punch directly to his face, blasting Kento straight into a nearby scrap mountain.
Dust, debris, and shattered rocks erupted, burying his body.
The bandaged freak brushed his hands off in boredom, turning back toward a sobbing Loona.
However, from deep within the ruined debris, the shifting crunch of gravel echoed.
Kento hadn’t collapsed or lost consciousness.
Summoning the last remaining remnants of his strength, he staggered out.
Blood poured profusely from his crown, staining half his face and his dark eyes crimson.
He snarled:
— “You goddamn piece of shit…
leave my sister alone…
If you’ve got the balls, come fight your daddy again!”
— “Goddammit, this little shit is persistent as a fucking leech!
Today, I’m going to torture you until you beg for death!” The bandaged freak flipped, his bloodlust erupting.
Kento strained to stand firm, his legs shaking violently, yet he forced his body back into a Kyokushin Karate guard.
Just as the freak lunged to execute the killing blow, a dark shadow unexpectedly closed in from above, slipping directly behind his back.
Shin Yanagisawa had arrived!
His dark eyes burned with a dangerous, predatory coldness, his mysterious crimson-and-black aura exploding to envelop his body.
He delivered a thunderous dropkick from behind, breaking the freak’s momentum, while screaming at the top of his lungs to his sister:
— “LOONA!
RUN BACK TO THE SHACK AND TELL THE OLD MAN!
WE’LL BUY YOU TIME!
RUN, NOW!!!”
Loona knew staying would only hinder her brothers.
She bit her lip hard, sobbing uncontrollably as she bolted at breakneck speed toward the shack to beg old man Akaisin for help.
The bandaged freak stabilized himself, turning his head to look at Shin, clicking his tongue:
— “Huh?
Another one?
You two are brothers?
But overall, you’re both still too fucking weak…
Though your auras are wildly opposite.
What’s your name?
And what about that Kyokushin Karate brat over there?”
Shin stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his younger brother, his voice cold as ice:
— “That’s none of your fucking business, you subhuman piece of shit.”
The bandaged freak cracked his neck, raising an eyebrow:
— “Just spit it out, what do you have to lose by sharing?”
— “I’m Shin, and that’s my brother, Kento!
Why the fuck are you people doing this—”
BOOM!!!
Before Shin could even finish his question, a straight punch moving at the speed of sound slammed directly into his stomach.
The speed of this assailant completely outclassed the brothers at their current level.
Shin’s eyes bulged, his body launching backward into the junkyard, crashing violently through rusted corrugated iron with a horrific, deafening impact.
— “BIG BROTHER SHIN!!!” Witnessing his brother get blasted away, Kento snapped, completely losing his mind as he charged blindly.
“YOU DIRTY PIECE OF GARBAGE DOG!!!”
Kento rallied every ounce of his soul, throwing his absolute strongest punch straight at the bandaged freak’s head.
Yet, a mocking sight unfolded.
The freak casually raised a single finger.
SNAP.
Kento’s entire punch was stopped dead in its tracks by a single finger.
The freak looked at Kento with absolute derision:
— “Hey…
did that punch actually have any fucking weight behind it, you little punk?”
Before Kento could even pull his hand back, the freak unleashed a devastating uppercut straight into his jaw, launching Kento high into the air.
He leaped up after him, delivering a brutal axe kick from above that smashed directly into Kento’s back, driving the boy straight into the ground.
CRASH!!!
Dust and rainwater exploded outward from the impact zone, cratering the ground.
Kento lay inside the shallow crater, coughing up torrents of fresh blood that stained the muddy earth crimson.
Yet, his unyielding resolve refused to let him succumb; his hands trembled against the dirt as he desperately tried to pull his body back up.
The bandaged freak touched down, lifting his boot and stomping heavily on Kento’s head, grinding his face deep into the muddy puddle:
— “Trying to get up?
Who the fuck gave you permission?!
Stay the fuck down and watch how I mutilate your brother!”
SWOOSH!
Right at his moment of supreme arrogance, Shin had already broken free from the trash pile.
Utilizing the high-speed footwork taught by Akaisin, he materialized behind the freak like a ghost, gripping a razor-sharp shard of scrap metal, furiously driving it straight toward the freak’s throat.
Yet, the metal blade only pierced through a thin wisp of smoke.
— “An afterimage?!” Shin gasped in horror.
— “This speed…
is too fucking slow!” The bandaged freak’s voice rang out from his flank.
BAM!
A vicious side-kick smashed directly into Shin’s ribs.
The sound of fracturing bones echoed painfully, launching Shin’s body a dozen meters away as he plowed a deep trench through the garbage-laden dirt.
The freak narrowed his eyes at Shin, who was struggling agonizingly to rise, muttering:
— “But…
your fighting style, kid…
Shin, was it?
Looking at this slippery footwork and evasion technique…
it looks a bit too fucking familiar.
What’s your relationship with that old bastard?”
Shin forced himself up, wiping blood from the corner of his lips.
His crimson-and-black eyes flared with a savage, bloodthirsty intensity as he gritted his teeth and sneered:
— “Shut your fucking mouth…
you filthy, subhuman wild animal!”
The bandaged freak froze, the grin vanishing from his lips, replaced by a face warped with unbridled fury.
He roared through his blood-soaked bandages:
— “Goddammit…
this little bastard really knows how to piss a man off!
I am going to rip you into a hundred fucking pieces!”
The Unseen Trap
Just as the freak was about to lunge and tear Shin apart, his entire body suddenly locked mid-air.
His eyes widened in shock, every muscle fiber freezing into a solid block of stone, completely unable to budge even a single finger.
Down in the crater, Kento was on both knees, his eyes blazing with a brilliant grayish-white aura.
His ten fingers trembled violently as they clawed the air, pulling taut invisible Sophion threads.
Myriad Threads Soul Bind! The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
The slender yet highly resilient energy threads had pierced directly into the freak’s neural meridians, locking down his bodily control instantly.
Recognizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Shin wasted no time.
Suppressing the agonizing pain in his ribs, he accelerated his high-speed footwork to the absolute maximum, blitzing forward like a violet-blue lightning bolt.
He unleashed a devastating, lethal combo of finger thrusts and wind-splitting strikes, hammering them straight into the vital pressure points of the freak’s chest, throat, and nape.
BAM!
SLAM!
SMASH!
BOOM shreds!
Shin thrashed him relentlessly, shouting in pure, mocking triumph:
— “That’s what you get for fucking with my family, you absolute bitch!”
Being continuously assaulted on his vital points by someone he deemed a mere insect pushed the bandaged freak to the absolute brink of humiliation.
The raw bloodlust and insanity inside him detonated.
He let out a roar that literally tore through the sheet of rain:
— “FUCK YOU TWO LOW-LIFE SUBHUMAN PIECES OF SHIT!!!”
CRACKLE…
BOOM!
A tyrannical blast of Sophion energy suddenly exploded outward from his body.
That overwhelming force instantly snapped every single one of Kento’s soul threads.
Down in the crater, the young boy coughed up a massive wave of blood, reeling violently from the energy backlash.
Yet, the exact moment the freak broke free from the threads and swung his hand to execute Shin, Shin had already taken a calculated step back, slamming both hands firmly onto the ground.
Ten Directions Flesh Lock!
An invisible circular shockwave swept through.
The atmospheric pressure and molecular density within the freak’s immediate space condensed instantly, locking him within a multi-ton block of crushing pressure once more.
Witnessing the freak freeze up again, Shin clutched his stomach, laughing hysterically while hurling vile insults:
— “Hahaha!
How do you like that, you fucking retard?
That’s a brand new move we just learned, you brain-dead dickhead!”
However, Shin’s laughter didn’t last long.
The bandaged freak possessed an overwhelmingly superior baseline of Sophion.
He mobilized every ounce of his raw power, the veins on his face bulging violently, shattering the structural grid of the “Ten Directions Flesh Lock” in under two seconds.
SLASH!
The moment the atmospheric barrier shattered, the freak’s hand shot out like a vice grip, clamping tightly around Shin’s throat as the boy tried to retreat.
Spinning on his heel, he threw Shin’s body violently toward Kento, who was staggering to his feet.
CRASH…
THUD!
The two brothers collided heavily, rolling into the mud in agonizing pain, their bones feeling as if they were entirely shattered.
The bandaged freak slowly marched over, his eyes locking onto the two children, his voice dropping into a dark growl:
— “Those techniques are far too familiar…
With this raw potential, you two are definitely that old bastard’s disciples!”
Shin, coughing up blood while clutching his chest, spat through gritted teeth:
— “Fuck…
you broke through the technique way faster than I thought…”
Kento strained to stand in front of his brother, his face utterly pale:
— “This bastard is too strong, we—wait…”
BAM!
Before he could finish, a dark blur closed the distance at an unfathomable speed.
The freak materialized beside Kento, delivering a brutal, savage chop to the back of the boy’s neck.
Kento’s eyes rolled back, and his entire body collapsed into the mud, completely unconscious.
— “KENTO!!!” Shin screamed in pure horror.
But before he could act, the freak grabbed Shin by the collar, hoisting him high into the air.
His massive hand clamped around Shin’s throat, slowly squeezing the life out of him:
— “I’m done playing games with you two.
Time to die, you worthless pieces of trash!”
Shin thrashed frantically, marshaling every remaining ounce of strength to punch the freak’s contorted face repeatedly.
Yet, those punches were nothing more than mosquito bites to the giant.
He was entirely helpless against this profoundly despairing gap in power.
Oxygen depleted rapidly.
Shin’s vision blurred, his eyes rolled back, his limbs went limp, and his consciousness slowly plunged into darkness…
Arrival of the Myth
HIGH-FREQUENCY SHRIEK…
BOOM!!!
An ultra-high-frequency detonation suddenly tore space apart.
From behind the bandaged freak, a shockwave of ancient, dense, and mountainously heavy ash-gray Sophion energy swept straight forward.
The terrifying pressure blasted the freak away a dozen meters before he could even register what was happening.
His body crashed violently into a colossal mountain of scrap metal, the sheer force triggering a massive landslide of debris that buried him completely under the trash.
Immediately after, a gargantuan sphere of Sophion energy, blazing like a miniature sun, shot straight from the ground up into the high heavens.
BOOM!!!
The shockwave from the energy sphere detonated in the upper atmosphere, creating a massive pressure ring that swept away every single black cloud covering the Dark Zone.
The heavy downpour was instantaneously vaporized by the sheer thermal heat and brutal pressure, vanishing entirely.
The dark clouds dispersed, and the sky cleared to a brilliant blue, allowing majestic, radiant golden rays of sunlight to stream directly down onto the blood-drenched junkyard.
CRASH!
From within the ruined debris, the bandaged freak violently unleashed his power, sending rocks and trash blasting outward.
He launched himself out, landing heavily as a suffocating pressure rippled around him.
His bloodshot eyes scanned the area in an unhinged frenzy, roaring:
— “Which son of a bitch is getting in my way now?!”
Amidst the space that had suddenly turned deathly silent under the morning sun, a lone figure slowly stepped out from the swirling dust and smoke.
It was an old man with a slender, weathered frame, his silver-white hair fluttering majestically in the wind.
Dressed in crude, simple cloth garments, he held his decaying wooden cane in one hand, while the other casually tilted his wine jar back, chugging it down.
Yet, wrapped around that frail body, an ancient ash-gray Sophion aura swirled like a cataclysmic tempest, entirely suppressing the surrounding space.
The sheer magnitude of his power caused the rocks beneath his feet to levitate on their own, the air rippling continuously.
He gently set the wine jar down.
His aged yet hawk-sharp eyes glanced over the two children, before shifting a freezing glare toward the freak.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the deep, echoing resonance of a cataclysmic bell, vibrating through the core of anyone listening:
— “To dare bully my three grandkids…
you people are nothing but a pack of filthy wild animals.”
He took a step forward, his wooden cane tapping the ground with a deep, echoing thud:
— “Adults bullying children is a terrible look.
You bastards…
have done far too much killing here today.
It seems, in this entire dumping ground, only the four of us are left alive, eh?”
The bandaged freak locked his eyes onto the old man’s face, his pupils instantly dilating in sheer terror.
The ferocious bloodlust he possessed a moment ago was instantly extinguished, replaced by a profound, soul-deep fanaticism.
He stammered, his voice cracking:
— “Old man…
you look far too familiar now…
Aren’t you the legendary Kuroko Akaisin?!”
The freak took a step back, but his arrogance quickly surged back.
He sneered:
— “Who would have thought a legendary figure who once turned the entire universe upside down would be hiding like a cockroach in a filthy shithole like this, old man?!”
Akaisin didn’t show a hint of anger.
He merely curled his lips into a cold, ruthless smile, the ash-gray Sophion around his body exploding outward to lock down the entire space surrounding the freak:
— “In that case…
let this hiding old cockroach show you bastards a little torture of his own.”
END OF CHAPTER 7