Chapter 257

Chapter 257: 257

The shockwave didn’t rattle the room. It flattened the air out entirely, leaving a heavy vacuum that made your ears pop and the oil lamps flicker once before stabilizing.

Jun-ho lowered The Ash Remnant. The metallic hum of the weapon died down to a dull, low vibration against his palm. He didn’t look at the girls. He reached down, grabbed his canvas duffel bag by the strap, and hoisted it over his shoulder in one smooth motion.

"Tae-woo’s line is dead," Eun-bi said. She was crouched behind the mahogany desk, her fingers hovering over the portable terminal with a small cut bleeding freely down her thumb. She didn’t bother wiping it. "Not static. Cut. The vanguard unit didn’t just drop torpedoes down the chute—they severed the relay cable from the upper ridge."

Lilith stepped away, her boots crunching on the ruined crystal dust. The teasing edge was completely gone from her face, replaced by a tight, flat line. She pulled a spare throwing dagger from her thigh holster, checked the edge with her thumb, and slid it back.

"They brought a cutting team," Lilith said quietly. "Ministry cleaners. They don’t take prisoners or negotiate buyouts. If the cable’s cut, they’re already sealing the upper exit with quick-set concrete."

Rea didn’t say anything. She just moved to Jun-ho’s left side, her hand resting casually on the hilt of her short sword, her eyes fixed on the dark, water-stained stone of the drainage tunnel leading upward. ⅇ

Jun-ho walked past the shattered threshold of the basalt gate, his heavy rubber boots splashing through the ankle-deep gray sludge where the crystals used to be. "Move," he said.

The climb up the drainage shaft took four minutes. There were no status texts flashing, no system notifications shouting about multipliers or mana pools. Just the sound of heavy breathing bouncing off slick, damp concrete walls and the steady drip of cold seawater leaking through the overhead cracks.

When they reached the upper maintenance hatch, Tae-woo was already there.

He was leaning against the rusted iron ladder, his chest heaving, a dark bruise swelling rapidly along his jawline. His tactical vest was torn open at the shoulder, leaking white stuffing.

"They’re at the top, boss," Tae-woo panted, wiping a streak of blood from his nose. "Three of them. Heavy armor units with suppression shields. They dropped a block across the exit hatch. We can’t push it from underneath without blowing the whole gantry."

Jun-ho stopped at the base of the ladder. He looked up at the solid steel plate blocking the light five meters above.

"Step back," Jun-ho said.

Tae-woo scrambled out of the way, dragging Eun-bi back against the wet concrete wall. Lilith and Rea pressed flat into the shadows on either side, their hands ready.

Jun-ho didn’t use a skill. He didn’t check a registry or wait for a prompt. He simply gripped The Ash Remnant with both hands, planted his left boot deep into a crack in the stone floor, and drove the heavy matte blade straight up through the center of the steel hatch.

The metal didn’t tear; it gave way with a sharp, deafening shriek of sheared bolts and compressed iron.

Before the chunks of the upper hatch could even hit the water below, Jun-ho vaulted up through the gap, his massive frame disappearing into the cold, gray morning light of the upper deck.

When Jun-ho cleared the ruined hatch, the deck of the surface barge was a mess of splintered pine and twisted cable. Two hundred meters out, through the thin, gray sea mist that clung to the surface of the channel, the Ministry’s reclamation cutter sat low in the water. Its heavy deck-mounted cannon was pivoting slowly toward them, the barrel tracking the gap in the gantry with a low, hydraulic whine.

"Boss! On the starboard rail!" Tae-woo shouted, hoisting himself up through the hole right behind Eun-bi. He unslung his submachine gun, his knuckles white around the receiver. "They’ve got a spotter on the crane tower!"

Jun-ho didn’t look at the crane. He planted his boots on the damp, non-slip decking, letting the heavy canvas bag slide off his shoulder onto the wet wood. His gray shirt, soaked through with sweat and condensation from the vault below, clung tightly to his back. The cold wind off the water bit straight through the fabric, but his skin didn’t shiver. Ever since the Phase 5 milestone, his internal temperature ran at a dull, steady heat, like an engine that couldn’t quite idle down.

Lilith emerged next, moving with a silent, feline grace that contrasted sharply with Tae-woo’s heavy scrambling. She didn’t draw a weapon this time. Instead, her hands dropped casually to her sides, her fingers flexing as she tested the air for stray mana threads.

"The cutter’s locking its fire control on our coordinates," Lilith said, her voice dropping into a low, dry murmur as she stepped up beside Jun-ho. She didn’t lean into him this time; the open space and the incoming iron made her focus sharp. "They aren’t trying to capture the asset anymore. That cannon round has enough high-explosive payload to turn this entire barge into splinters."

"Let them fire," Rea said, sliding up on Jun-ho’s other side. Her short sword was already out, the dull steel absorbing the gray morning light instead of reflecting it. Her eyes scanned the foggy perimeter of the channel, tracking the ripples where small sub-surface drones were circling the barge. "We have the height advantage now."

Eun-bi dropped onto the deck, her glasses fogged with condensation. She shoved them up her nose with the back of her wrist, her portable terminal already open and flashing red warnings.

"The local radio band is completely jammed," Eun-bi said rapidly, her fingers flying across the cracked glass screen. "The Ministry cutter is running an active suppression field. We can’t call for extraction, and we can’t bounce a signal back to the safehouse. If we don’t sink that cutter in the next two minutes, their second wave is going to lock down the entire western lock."

Jun-ho took two steps toward the rusted starboard rail. He raised The Ash Remnant, the rough black hemp wrap dry and solid in his palm. The four ancient characters carved into the matte metal burned with a faint, steady white glow that barely cut through the thick morning fog.

"They won’t get a second wave," Jun-ho said.

Down in the water, thirty meters off the port bow, the surface churned violently. A heavy armored diving frame—four meters of welded steel and pneumatic pistons, piloted by a Ministry enforcer—broke the surface, its twin-linked harpoon guns whining as they locked onto the barge’s hull.

"I’ve got the diver," Lilith muttered. Before Jun-ho could blink, she dropped over the rail, her crimson leather suit blending into the gray spray as she fell straight toward the rising mechanical suit.

Rea didn’t wait either. With a sharp, explosive burst of speed, she vaulted across the gap toward the crane tower where the spotter was crouched behind a rusted metal shield. Her blade flashed once, a clean, silent arc through the mist, and the spotter’s heavy rifle clattered uselessly onto the deck below before the man even realized his cover had been compromised.

On the barge, Jun-ho stood completely alone near the bow.

The Ministry cutter’s deck cannon finally stopped pivoting. A dull, rhythmic *thump* echoed across the water as it fired a high-velocity kinetic shell straight toward the center of the deck.

Jun-ho raised his left hand.

He didn’t dodge. He didn’t drop behind cover. He simply stepped forward, planted his left foot deep into the splintered wood of the deck, and swung The Ash Remnant in a single, unyielding horizontal line.

The impact didn’t make a sound at first. When the shell met the edge of the blade, the air around the strike point compressed into a tight, perfect sphere of absolute white before collapsing inward. The shockwave traveled backward along the trajectory line faster than sound, turning the incoming shell into a cloud of glowing iron dust and sending a massive, three-meter wall of displaced water crashing straight into the hull of the Ministry cutter two hundred meters away.

The cutter’s bridge windows shattered simultaneously. The vessel listed hard to port, its engines screaming in protest as the water pressure knocked its rudder clean off the stern brackets.

Silence settled back over the channel almost as quickly as the blast had cleared. The gray fog rolled back in, swallowing the wreckage of the cutter in a thick, damp blanket.

Tae-woo lowered his submachine gun slowly, staring out at the empty water where the enemy ship had been a moment before. He let out a long, shaky breath, wiping a drop of cold spray from his forehead.

"Well," Tae-woo muttered, shaking his head. "That saves us the trouble of boarding them."

Lilith vaulted back over the rail, landing lightly on the deck beside Jun-ho. Her boots made a soft thud against the wood. She brushed a stray strand of dark hair from her face, her wide crimson eyes fixed on Jun-ho with an unreadable mix of amusement and respect.

"You’re getting heavier, big guy," Lilith purred, stepping close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm, her sulfur scent cutting through the salt air. "The shockwave nearly knocked me off the diver’s hull."

Rea dropped down from the crane tower a second later, landing silently on the balls of her feet. She sheathed her short sword with a sharp click, walking over to stand on Jun-ho’s other side. Her golden-blue eyes glanced sideways at Lilith before turning back to Jun-ho.

"The upper lock is clear," Rea said, her voice steady and low. "We can take the tow-line north before the regional garrison realizes what happened."

Jun-ho lowered The Ash Remnant, letting the blade rest flat against his thigh. He looked down at the dark, silent water, then back toward the north where the gray horizon stretched out endlessly.

"Move," Jun-ho said.