Chapter 37: Killing One of the Isekaid

Meanwhile, the Black Hawk carrying John was heading towards the site where his fellow transmigrator lay broken in the dirt.

The twin turboshaft engines howled as the helicopter banked hard over the burning alleyways, flaring out fifty yards away from the smoking impact crater. The heavy downdraft whipped pulverized dust, loose pebbles, and burning embers across the scorched earth as the landing wheels firmly touched the ground.

Four Delta Force operators leaped from the cabin doors first, fanning out in a wide security perimeter with their suppressed carbines raised.

John stepped down from the cabin deck.

His combat boots crunched against the blackened gravel. He slung his FN SCAR-H across his chest and walked deliberately toward the edge of the crater.

Lying in the dirt, surrounded by charred stone, was the mangled wreck of Sato. The young assassin was drenched in his own blood, gasping for shallow breaths through cracked, blackened lips. When he heard the steady, heavy footsteps approaching, Sato weakly turned his head, his vision blurred with tears, sweat, and soot.

John stopped right beside him, looking down with cold, unyielding blue eyes.

"Remember me?" John asked, his voice low, calm, and cutting through the distant sound of gunfire.

Sato blinked through the haze of agony. His narrow eyes drifted over John’s modern combat uniform, the tactical vest, and finally locked onto the man’s face.

A sudden, violent jolt of pure terror struck Sato’s heart, far colder than the pain from his blown-off limbs.

"You..." Sato wheezed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "Smith...? No... that’s impossible... You’re dead! Goddess Viona banished you straight into the Abyssian Dungeon! She said it was an absolute death sentence... Nobody survives the Abyss!"

"Well, your precious goddess was wrong," John replied smoothly, showing not an ounce of pity. "She threw me down there to die, and you and the rest of the class laughed. You cheered while I was dropped into the dark like trash."

Sato’s breathing grew faster, his chest hitching in rising panic. "How... how are you alive? How do you have all this... these weapons... this army...?"

"You don’t need to worry about the logistics," John said, stepping closer until his shadow completely swallowed the fallen youth. "All you need to know is that this is just the beginning. My payback starts with you. Then it moves on to every single one of your classmates who stood by and mocked me. And eventually, I’m going to put a bullet between Goddess Viona’s eyes."

Dread washed over Sato. The realization that the weak, discarded transmigrator had returned with an unstoppable, mechanized military force shattered what little sanity he had left.

"Wait! Wait, Smith, listen to me!" Sato pleaded desperately, his one remaining arm clawing weakly at the dirt. "Don’t kill me! I can help you! I know where the others are! I know the empire’s capital, the imperial guard’s layout, where the hero party is stationed—I’ll tell you everything! Just spare me! Give me medicine, call that flying thing back... I don’t want to die in a place like this!"

John stared down at the groveling, terrified boy with utter indifference.

"I don’t need your information, Sato," John stated flatly. "I have your surviving troops surrounded on the beach. My interrogators will get every coordinate, map, and troop disposition we need within the hour."

Sato’s face turned completely pale. "No... please... Smith, we’re from the same world! Have mercy—"

John didn’t answer.

Reaching down to his tactical hip holster, John drew his desert eagle. He racked the heavy slide back and leveled the wide bore directly between Sato’s trembling eyes.

"I can’t die like this... I can’t die like this!" Sato shrieked, his voice turning into an unhinged, guttural scream.

The sheer terror of facing death pushed the dying assassin past his limits. Rather than accepting his execution, the cornered delinquent chose to burn through every remaining drop of life force, blood, and mana in a blind, suicidal rage.

A sickening, dark purple aura violently burst outward from Sato’s mangled torso. The scorched earth cracked beneath him as thick tendrils of shadowy mist whipped through the air like frenzied vipers.

With his legs completely severed, Sato used pure telekinetic shadow-propulsion to launch his shattered body off the blood-stained gravel. In his remaining right hand, a jagged spike forged entirely from condensed, corrosive shadow-mana materialized with a razor-sharp hum.

"If I’m going to hell, you’re coming with me, Smith!" Sato roared, his face twisted into a demonic mask of madness as he lunged straight for John’s throat.

The four Delta operators raised their suppressed rifles to fire, but John held up a single gloved hand, calling them off.

John didn’t panic. He didn’t even take a step back.

With his high level, combat-hardened reflexes, and boosted baseline stats from surviving the Abyss, Sato’s desperate, dying lunge looked painfully slow and uncoordinated. Without proper footing, balance, or full mobility, the attack was nothing more than the thrashing of a wounded animal.

As the shadow spike reached within inches of his neck, John simply pivoted on his heel.

SWOOSH!

The dark mana blade sliced harmlessly through empty air.

Before Sato’s airborne momentum could carry him past, John’s left arm shot out like a steel vice, catching the assassin by his bloody collar and violently arresting his forward flight mid-air. In the same fluid motion, John brought his combat boot up in a brutal, front-facing snap-kick.

CRACK!

The reinforced steel toe of John’s boot slammed squarely into Sato’s exposed, shattered ribs.

The concussive impact caved in the rest of Sato’s chest, shattering the dark mana spike into brittle purple flakes and tearing the breath clean out of his lungs.

Sato was hurled backward into the smoking dirt with a sickening thud, rolling through the ash before coming to a halt at John’s feet. The dark aura fizzled out completely, his desperate counterattack shattered in a single second without landing a single scratch.

"Cough... gah...!"

Sato choked, dark arterial blood pouring freely from his nose and lips as he weakly scraped his fingernails against the dirt. His mana channels were completely burnt out, his body utterly destroyed. He couldn’t even lift his head anymore, looking up at John with eyes full of helpless despair and fading life.

John stood over him, entirely unfazed.

He didn’t gloat, nor did he waste another breath on words.

Raising the heavy Desert Eagle, John settled the iron sights squarely between Sato’s wide, terrified eyes.

His finger squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

A thunderous gunshot echoed across the burning ruins.

The heavy .50 Action Express round punched straight through the center of Sato’s forehead with devastating kinetic force, instantly terminating all brain function and snapping the boy’s head back against the dirt.

Sato’s body convulsed once before going completely limp and motionless.

A translucent notification window chimed crisply in the center of John’s field of vision:

[Hostile Otherworlder Neutralized: Level 25 Shadow Assassin — Sato Kenji]

[Experience Gained: +500,000 EXP]

[Soul Harvest: 100 Soul Soul]

[System Points Awarded: +1,000,000 SP]

[Level Up!]

[Host: John Smith has reached Level 60!]

[Special Trigger: Otherworlder Elimination — Skill Plunder Activated!]

[Rolling for Target’s Innate Ability...]

[Acquired Skill: Shadow Step (Rank B) — Allows the host to instantly traverse through shadows or phase short distances up to 30 meters with zero mana cast-time.]

The glowing holographic interface expanded smoothly across John’s field of vision, updating his status, expanded capacity limits, and resource totals:

[Host: John Smith

Level: 60

Cumulative Experience: 590,000 / 2,600,000

System Points: 1,610,555 SP

Skills:

Marksmanship - Level 5 / 5 (Maxed)

Hand-to-Hand Combat / CQC - Level 5/5 (Maxed)

Tactical Awareness & Command - Level 5/5 (Maxed)

Shadow Step - Level 1/5 ]

"Wait, so I can steal one of the skills from others?" John said, visibly impressed as he looked at the system.