Chapter 204: Bounty [IV]

The explosion inside the 80th-floor security room didn’t merely shatter the circuit box... it detonated the primary mana-conduit running behind the concrete plaster in a violent chain reaction.

KABOOM!

A blinding sphere of orange fire, white-hot shrapnel, and superheated shockwaves exploded outward with terrifying velocity.

The heavy reinforced double doors were blasted completely off their steel hinges, torn from the wall frame like cardboard, and hurled thirty yards down the hallway.

The eight heavy hotel security guards standing in the doorway didn’t even have time to pull their triggers.

CLANG! KRA-KOOM!

Plates of white-and-gold riot armor buckled, cracked, and caved in under the pressure of the blast.

Heavy mana-shotguns were violently ripped from numb fingers, spinning through the air.

Half the squad was catapulted backward down the hall, their bodies airborne before smashing hard into the thick marble pillars lining the corridor.

Steel visors shattered, armor plating fractured into glowing shards, and bodies skidded through the velvet carpet.

Three guards hit the far wall and collapsed instantly into motionless heaps with their internal organs ruptured by the concussive force... two others lay groaning in spreading pools of dark blood, their limbs bent at sickening unnatural angles.

Inside the room, thick choking black smoke billowed toward the ceiling, smelling of burnt ozone, melted plastic, and scorched flesh.

Val was flattened against the back concrete wall with her boots sliding through pulverized plaster as her teeth dug into her lower lip so hard blood welled over her chin.

At the second before the fireball consumed the room, her thumb had slammed down on her wrist console, deploying a broad translucent blue holographic riot shield.

CRACK-SHATTER!

The wall of the explosion had slammed into her barrier like a speeding freight train.

The holographic surface spider-webbed with golden stress fractures before shattering into useless magical sparks, but it absorbed just enough of the wave to keep her skin from melting off.

The concussive shockwave still slammed squarely into her sternum, pinning her against the wall and scorching the sleeves of her stolen uniform down to the grey under-weave.

"Ghk—! Cough! Cough!" Val wheezed with her lungs burning as she dragged black smoke into her throat.

She slumped to her knees in the rubble, her hands shaking as she pushed herself up from the concrete.

"Val! Val, report!" her tech specialist’s voice screamed frantically through her earpiece, almost drowned out by a deafening wall of white-noise static. "Are you still intact?! Your life-sign telemetry just spiked into the red!"

"I’m alive... cough... barely!" Val barked into her mic, her voice raspy, wiping a foul mixture of black soot and fresh blood from her cracked lower jaw. "The damn circuit box went off right in my fucking face! What the hell happened to the hack connection?!"

"The explosion completely fried that local bus-bar!" the tech specialist yelled back, the rapid frantic clatter of his mechanical keyboard sounding like a machine gun in the background. "You would’ve been dead if you stayed in there anyway! Those eight guards were about to turn you into Swiss cheese! You need to find another secondary gearbox on the 80th floor right now to input the backup override chip! If we don’t get control of the hotel’s defensive firewall in the next five minutes, the master barrier won’t drop, and the Boss’s main strike team can’t breach!"

"Fuck my life!" Val spat through her teeth.

She scrambled over the smoking piles of rubble with her boots crunching on broken glass, and charged through the destroyed doorway into the choked hallway.

She stepped over the groaning, blood-drenched Awakened guards lying on the floor.

One guard twitched, reaching a bloody glove toward her ankle, but she kicked his hand aside without looking.

Most were unconscious, a few dead with their expensive hotel armor ruined.

Val knew she was insanely lucky... the unexpected explosion had inadvertently slaughtered the entire heavy squad that was about to execute her.

As she sprinted down the wide corridor toward the west wing’s secondary junction box, she reached up with one hand and snapped a full-face white security helmet over her head.

The tinted gold visor locked into place with a mechanical PZZZT, instantly concealing her scar-marked face, her swollen jaw and her bloodied left eye.

If she was going to navigate the hotel’s lockdown zones, she needed to blend in.

She rounded a sharp, ninety-degree corner near the central elevator bank and froze.

Standing right in the center of the plush carpeted intersection was another six-man patrol of high-tier hotel security guards.

They were locked in a defensive wedge formation, their enchanted rifles raised and their body armor glowing with protective blue mana-signatures.

"Hold it right there!" the patrol leader barked, his heavy rifle barrel locking squarely onto Val’s chest plate. "We heard a high-yield explosion in the East Security wing! Report, guard! What happened down there?!"

Val didn’t break her stride.

She brought both of her hands up in a frantic, placating gesture as she hurried toward them, modulating her voice through her helmet’s speaker to sound breathless and panicked.

"Sir! An intruder set off an explosive trap in the 80th-floor prep room! Squad B was wiped out! I’m the only survivor—"

"Stand still for biometric sweep," the leader interrupted with his voice ice-cold.

Beside him, a female guard stepped forward, raising a hand-held scanner array shaped like a heavy pistol.

A thin horizontal beam of intense red laser light swept across Val’s helmet, scanning the embedded RFID microchip and reading the neural biometrics inside the suit.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

The scanner screen instantly flashed a bright, blinding crimson hazard symbol.

[WARNING: BIOMETRIC MISMATCH! SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTED!]

[SUBJECT STATUS: ROGUE ENEMY! TARGET RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING ALLIED AWAKENED UNIT SQUAD B!]

The Sovereign Grand’s internal network didn’t just check static security IDs... it cross-referenced real-time life-signs and death logs.

The instant it registered that the suit belonged to the deceased Emi and that its current user had just slaughtered allied hotel guards... it flagged Val as a rogue hitman.

"She’s an intruder!" the scanning guard shrieked with her thumb flicking off her weapon’s safety. "She killed Squad B! OPEN FIRE—"

"FUCK!" Val spat.

She didn’t wait for them to squeeze their triggers.

Moving with desperate, explosive speed, Val flicked both of her wrists outward with her hands blurring in the dim hallway light.

SHING-SHING!

Thousands of microscopic, razor-thin crimson filaments erupted from her fingertips.

They cut through the air like invisible monomolecular wire, whistling with a high-pitched hiss.

The two guards standing on the left side of the formation didn’t even get a chance to pull their triggers.

The invisible threads wrapped around their necks, shoulders, and torsos, pulling taut in a fraction of a second.

SQUELCH! SQUELCH!

With a sickening wet slicing sound, heads and armored arms separated cleanly from their bodies.

Two massive fountains of crimson blood sprayed violently against the white damask wallpaper, soaking the silk fabric.

The severed limbs hit the floor first, followed by the two headless torsos collapsing onto the plush carpet in a heavy, grotesque heap of spilling intestines and hot blood.

"YOU FILTHY BITCH!"

The patrol Captain... a massive broad-shouldered four-liner with a glowing Red tattoo burning on his right jaw didn’t flinch.

He surged forward directly through the spraying blood of his fallen men with his broadsword igniting with a roaring visible vortex of elemental wind magic.

SWISH-WWOOSH!

"VACUUM PALM!" the Captain bellowed with his voice echoing through the corridor.

He didn’t just swing his broadsword... he thrust his heavy left palm straight forward, channeling a compressed rotating storm of violent wind directly into Val’s chest at point-blank range.

KRA-KOOM!

The compressed wind blast detonated with the concussive force of an artillery shell.

Val’s defensive thread barrier was instantly shredded into glowing magical sparks.

The pressure slammed squarely into her sternum, shattering the white chest plate of her stolen suit and sending her flying backward through the air like a ragdoll.

She flew forty feet down the hallway, her back smashing violently into a heavy five-hundred-pound marble statue of the hotel’s founder.

CRASH-CRUMBLE!

The solid marble shattered into a shower of white dust and stone chunks.

Val tumbled across the floor, skidding through spilled blood and pulverized plaster before coming to a painful halt against a heavy brass doorframe.

CRACK!

"AGH! Cough!" Val spat a thick glob of dark blood inside her helmet, the gold visor fogging up.

She felt a sharp stabbing agony in her left shoulder as her freshly healed ribs strained under the brutal shock.

"Val! Val!" the tech specialist’s panic echoed frantically through her earpiece. "Your suit telemetry just took another massive spike! Your vitals are dropping again! Are you okay?!"

Val gritted her teeth, wiping blood from the inside of her visor as she pushed herself up from the floor with her uninjured arm.

"Do I look... cough... like I’m fucking okay to you?!" she rasped furiously into the mic. "How are the others doing with their assignments?!"

"Drake is moving toward the main control room on the lower levels! The Boss is heading straight for the 90th floor!" the tech guy reported frantically. "You need to clear those guards right now!"

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!

Three razor-sharp crescent blades of condensed wind magic cut through the air toward her position, tearing up the plush carpet and slicing cleanly through the brass doorframe inches above her head.

Val threw her body into a low desperate combat roll across the carpet.

As she pivoted on her knee, her right hand blurred to her thigh harness, drawing one of her heavy combat daggers, and hurled it with blinding speed straight at the guard running beside the Captain.

The guard scoffed, his four-liner reflexes kicking in as he casually sidestepped the flying blade.

"Too slow, bounty hunter!"

He didn’t notice the razor-thin crimson thread attached to the dagger’s pommel. Val smirked behind her helmet, snapping her wrist backward with a violent yank.

ZIP-SHING!

The flying dagger abruptly reversed direction in mid-air, looping around the guard’s neck from behind like a tethered bird.

The invisible thread pulled taut with a sharp SNAP, instantly severing his spine and slicing through his windpipe before he could even let out a gasp.

THUD!

His body hit the floor with blood pooling beneath his neck.

"You slippery little rat!" the Captain roared, charging through the blood of his fallen men, his wind-enhanced broadsword raised high overhead to split her skull in two.

Val didn’t retreat this time. Her right eye gleamed with cold resolve behind her gold visor.

With her free left hand, she reached into her tactical suit’s hidden inner compartment, pulling out three small black spherical canisters... high-grade micro-antimatter demolition charges she had illegally smuggled into the city.

She flicked her wrist, hurling the three spheres directly at the Captain’s face.

The Captain’s eyes widened in sudden terror as his gaze locked onto the glowing yellow demolition markings on the canisters hovering inches from his nose.

"Wait—"

"Fuuu..." Val started to breathe out a smug taunt.

She was never able to finish her words.

KABOOOOOOOM!

A blinding deafening flash of orange and purple fire consumed the entire corridor, tearing through the walls, blowing out the ceiling lights, and scorching the hallway into a blackened smoking crater.

Simultaneously, three floors below...

Drake was sprinting down a long dimly lit maintenance corridor on the 77th floor with his heavy combat boots slamming rhythmically against the metallic floor grates.

TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!

His teeth were gritted tight with cold sweat dripping down his neck and soaking through the collar of his undershirt.

His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped wild beast.

’Faster... I have to move faster...’ Drake thought, his lungs burning with every heavy breath. ’Just a little more cardio... I really need to start doing more damn cardio when this contract is over...’

The strike group’s operational plan was simple, yet brutal... while Jax headed straight to the top floor to execute Albano Shirou for killing his sister, and Val compromised the local security units on the 80th floor, Drake’s task was to reach one of the main secondary control panel rooms on the 77th floor.

By installing their tech specialist’s high-level virus chip into the main grid, they would forcefully lower the hotel’s master anti-siege barrier and shut down the automatic defense turrets, allowing dozens of waiting bounty hunters from the street to swarm the building like locusts.

Once the hotel was flooded with chaos, Jax and Drake could execute their final ambush on Albano Shirou.

’Just get to the panel room...’ Drake repeated in his mind, his eyes darting to the holographic mini-map projected on his visor.

According to the architectural map, there were multiple access points where the chip could be installed, but the main control room on Level 77 was the only one that governed the master barrier’s hard override.

The problem was... it was guaranteed to be heavily guarded.

Drake rounded a dark corner near the structural support beams—

His right boot caught a subtle razor-thin tripwire strung four inches above the metallic floor grates.

BZZZZZT! RED ALERT! INTRUDER DETECTED ON LEVEL 77! SECTOR 4 COMPROMISED!

Harsh red emergency lights instantly began flashing along the ceiling pipes, and an automated high-pitched alarm horn wailed through the corridor.

"FUCK!" Drake cursed aloud, stumbling forward before catching his balance on a steel beam.

He frantically tapped his ear communicator. "Tech! Tech, I tripped a hardwire alarm! The security grid on 77 just went live! What do I do?!"

"Hold on, hold on!" the tech specialist’s voice responded over the comms, keyboard keys clattering rapidly. "I’m trying to reroute the signal feed so the central hub doesn’t log your exact coordinates! Give me three sec—"

The tech specialist’s voice cut off abruptly.

Through the earpiece, Drake didn’t hear the sound of a gun discharging and he didn’t hear a sword clash.

Hell, he didn’t even hear a struggle...

He heard the distinct sickening sound of something sharp and heavy punching cleanly through human flesh, cracking through bone, and smashing into the floor.

POP!

A wet horrific tearing sound echoed through the line, followed by the soft, steady drip... drip... drip... of thick liquid splashing onto a desk floor.

Drake stopped dead in his tracks.

All the blood drained from his face.

His entire body went bone-dry with cold terror.

"Tech?" Drake called out into the mic, his voice shaking violently. "Tech! Respond! What happened down there?!"

No answer.

Only the heavy, rhythmic sound of quiet breathing... and then.

CLICK.

The line was disconnected.

The silence that followed was far more terrifying than any gunfire or explosion.

The tech specialist... the master brain behind their entire operation, sitting in a secured encrypted location outside the barrier had just been executed in less than a second.

"Shit... SHIT!" Drake panicked, his eyes darting frantically around the dark corridor.

Ahead of him, heavy metal doors slammed open, and four hotel security guards armed with electric batons and rifles came charging out of the maintenance hub.

"THERE HE IS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"

Drake didn’t hesitate. He pulled a black canister from his belt and slammed it onto the floor grates.

THWIP-POOF!

A dense opaque cloud of white smoke exploded outward, completely filling the narrow corridor and blinding the guards’ thermal visors.

Drake didn’t care about stealth anymore.

He was doing this for money... money to support his sick five-year-old son sitting in a medical facility in the Lower Zones of Omni Supercity.

He couldn’t die here!

He charged straight into the thick smoke, his short-sword igniting with a sharp glowing blue mana-edge.

SHING!

He blurred past the first guard with his blade severing the man’s throat in a single fluid stroke.

Blood sprayed into the white mist.

The second and third guards swung their shock-batons blindly through the smoke.

’Heh...’

Drake parried the first strike with a heavy metallic clang, but the second baton grazed his left arm, burning a line of charred flesh.

Ignoring the blinding pain, Drake lunged forward, driving his short-sword straight through the second guard’s sternum, pulling the blade out sideways with a wet tear, and brutally hacking off the third guard’s head before the man could even fall.

Blood sprayed across the smoke-filled corridor, painting the walls crimson.

Drake kicked open the heavy steel door of the control panel room, sprinted inside, and hit the manual lock button on the wall.

PSSSSSS!

The heavy blast-door locked down, sealing him inside.

Outside in the corridor, the remaining guards began frantically beating against the reinforced steel with their angry shouts muffled by the thick metal.

"Motherfucker!"

"Report, report! We have lost control!"

"Fucker, open it up!"

’Is there no way to mute these fuckers...?’

Drake slumped against the door, panting heavily with his heart hammering in his throat.

The control room was quiet.

It had large panoramic glass windows that looked directly out over the hotel’s lower open-air courtyard beyond the blue mana barrier.

Outside, the night sky was pitch-black, heavy storm clouds rolling in as rain began to pour down against the glass in sheets, illuminated by flashes of violent lightning.

CRACK-BOOM!

A bright bolt of lightning illuminated the glass windows, casting long dramatic shadows across the room.

Drake flinched, wiping cold sweat and blood from his eyes.

However... Drake did not notice. How could he?

In that single second when the lightning bolt lit up the room, a shadowy figure was hanging completely upside down from the high ceiling directly above his head.

It was a dark towering figure clad in an open suit, his long silver hair hanging downward like frozen threads, and a pair of depthless brilliant crimson eyes glowing with terrifying murder in the flash of light.

A second later, when the lightning faded back into darkness, the figure vanished into thin air.

Drake felt a sudden icy shiver crawl up his spine. He spun around, his hand flying to his sword hilt with his eyes frantically scanning the dark ceiling pipes.

Nothing.

...Only empty steel conduits and shadows.

"Fuck... my nerves are shot," Drake muttered, swallowing hard as he wiped his wet brow.

He turned back to the primary control console, pulling out the backup override chip.

He jammed it into the main server slot on the panel.

Nothing happened...

The screen remained completely dead.

He tapped his ear communicator.

There was nothing... It was complete deafening radio silence.

A wave of suffocating dread washed over him. Was the tech guy really dead? Was their entire operational network compromised?

WHIZ!

An acute combat instinct screamed in the back of Drake’s brain... DANGER FROM THE LEFT!

Drake flinched violently, throwing his body to the right with everything he had to dodge the incoming attack.

However... that turned out to be a fatal mistake.

The attack hadn’t come from the left at all.

WHAM!

A heavy brutal open-palm strike slammed straight into the right side of Drake’s face from the exact direction he had just dodged into.

The force was mind-boggling.

Drake felt like he had just been hit by a falling meteor. His jaw cracked, blood and teeth flew from his mouth in a spray, and he was launched sideways across the control room, smashing through a concrete support pillar before crashing heavily onto his knees.

CRUMBLE-BANG!

He only survived the strike because of his innate defensive magic... Steel Body Transmutation.

At the second of impact, his entire skin, bone, and muscle structure had transmuted into high-density, solid alloy, absorbing eighty percent of the damage.

"Fuckk!"

Drake gritted his teeth with his metallic skin scraping against the floor with a harsh SCREECH as he pushed himself up.

Standing in the center of the dark control room, illuminated by another flash of lightning from the window, was Albano Shirou.