Chapter 35: Knocking Out a 2nd Year!

"You five against more than twenty of us!" the newcomer roared. "Let’s see who wins!"

He charged toward the second year, and his defiance spread through the room like a lit fuse.

The remaining newcomers quickly regained their courage and rushed forward alongside him, while the second years stepped up to meet them.

Then everything erupted into chaos.

"HYYYAAAH!"

BANG!

"YOW!"

"FUCK YOU!"

Chairs flew through the air, fists crashed into faces, and people screamed in pain as the chaotic brawl spread across the cafeteria.

Yet behind all of it, there was one peculiar sight that caused more than a few students to stare.

While the entire cafeteria descended into chaos, a single person sat toward the back.

Declan.

He calmly held his bowl, slightly extending his lips as he carefully sipped the soup.

"Who the fuck is that bastard?"

A student finally asked.

Heads turned, and eyes from across the cafeteria settled on Declan.

He didn’t even look up.

Whenever a chair came flying toward him, his hand casually swept outward and knocked it aside.

When wooden fragments came flying through the air, he simply ducked his head and let them pass overhead, continuing to eat as though the entire fight had nothing to do with him.

[You sure you don’t want to join in now? Some of them are already using the chaos to escape.]

The system panel blinked in front of Declan as he took another sip of soup.

The system wasn’t wrong.

Several newcomers had already rushed toward the glass door, and a few had managed to get through.

Most, however, weren’t nearly as lucky.

The second-years were second-years for a reason, and their advantage in strength and experience was becoming increasingly obvious.

Around ten newcomers were already lying unconscious on the floor, with only four having managed to escape while the remaining six were still fighting, but it was only a matter of time before they were beaten down as well.

Still, the second-years hadn’t walked away unscathed.

None of the five had been knocked unconscious, but they were breathing heavily, their bodies covered in deep wounds and blood.

By the time the final newcomer was knocked down, three of the second-years dropped into nearby seats to catch their breath, while the remaining two slowly surveyed the cafeteria.

Then their eyes landed on Declan.

He was still sitting there, casually blowing across the surface of the hot soup in his hands before taking another slow sip.

The sight made their eyebrows quiver in disbelief.

"Wait... A human!?"

The Lukmo-haired guy stared in even more disbelief before bursting out laughing.

"Yo, this guy ain’t even a Nexian yet! Hahahaha!"

His laughter immediately spread to the others.

"No wonder he didn’t join the fight. He would’ve been dead in seconds."

Across the other side of the glass, the surviving newcomers whispered among themselves, but their fear was quickly replaced by curiosity.

’How loudly is this poor human going to scream when they break his first bone?’

The Lukmo-haired second-year, clearly enjoying himself, walked toward Declan while still laughing.

He pulled out a chair and sat directly across from him.

Fuuuuu,

Declan gently blew on his soup.

Steam curled upward before disappearing into the air.

He took another sip, his eyes never leaving the Lukmo-haired student’s Lukmo pupils.

"You know, I don’t even blame you for sitting there and continuing to eat," the guy said. "You’re only in this mess because of some shitty luck."

Declan swallowed, then his gaze shifted toward the unconscious newcomers scattered across the cafeteria before returning to the Lukmo-haired guy.

"Now that they’re unconscious, you can’t even get their points."

He tilted his head slightly.

"So why bother?"

The Lukmo-haired guy grinned.

"Guess why?"

"Because you’re bored?"

Declan replied, and his grin froze.

The guy stared at Declan for a second before his expression twisted into amusement.

"Wow. You’re pretty sharp."

The truth was, they didn’t care much about the newcomers’ points.

They were second-years, so they weren’t exactly struggling for points.

What they wanted was simple.

Trouble.

They wanted to throw their weight around, remind the newcomers who was in charge, and enjoy themselves at someone else’s expense.

The entire 50-point demand had mostly been an excuse.

"Now that you know we don’t even want your points..." Lukmo leaned forward slightly. "Can you start imagining how much you’re going to hurt?"

Declan ignored him, taking another sip that happened to be the last of his soup.

He lowered the bowl with a quiet breath of relief.

He hadn’t eaten properly in a long time, and finally having something warm in his stomach felt surprisingly good, leaving his mood considerably better than it had been when he entered the cafeteria.

"You know, there’s something you don’t know about yourself," Declan suddenly said, calmly wiping his lips with a handkerchief.

"Something I don’t know about myself, huh? You mean how quickly I can beat a dumb human like you into a pulp?"

Declan shook his head, folding the handkerchief and putting it away.

"Not really."

His gaze settled on Lukmo’s neck.

"It’s your neck."

Lukmo raised an eyebrow.

"My neck?"

"Your Mech Module encapsulates your entire torso, including your lungs, but there’s a slight misalignment."

Declan pointed toward his neck.

"That’s why your neck sticks out a little."

Lukmo’s expression stiffened.

That was a secret only he knew.

"I noticed something while watching the fight. You didn’t seem bothered by most of the newcomers’ attacks, but you kept going out of your way to protect your neck."

Declan’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"I’m guessing it must be pretty weak."

Lukmo’s expression changed, and in the next instant, he moved.

VROOOOM!

His fist shot forward with explosive speed, aimed directly at Declan’s face, but the green-eyed teenager grinned instead, as if he had expected it.

Declan tilted his head, and the punch tore past his ear.

At the same instant, his fingers pressed tightly together before his hand shot outward like a blade.

BAAANNNG!

His fingers struck directly against Lukmo’s neck.

The impact forced him backward, sending him tumbling out of his chair.

He hit the ground and immediately scrambled back up, but his hands flew to his neck as a horrifying pain erupted through his body.

His eyes turned blood-red as the veins around them bulged.

"You... bast..."

Lukmo didn’t finish the word before his eyes rolled backward.

And in the next instant,

BAAAAAAANG!

He collapsed face-first onto the floor.

"Huh? Hey, Luk, you oka..."

His companions rushed over, but then they froze as their expressions twisted into disbelief.

Lukmo had been knocked out cold!

Ever since he was ten years old, Declan’s interests had changed completely.

He had dreamed all his life of becoming a Nexian, but after realizing how poor his potential was, that dream became impossible.

So, in defiance, he found another path.

Mech Design.

Declan had always believed that if he understood Mech Modules deeply enough, then he would never have to fear them, and that belief consumed his childhood.

While other children played, Declan studied Mech Modules. He learned how they functioned, how they were constructed, and where their weaknesses could appear.

When he entered higher education, he deliberately chose a field centered around Mech Module creation, studying the entire process from the earliest stages of design to the final product.

That was why, at seventeen, Declan possessed enough knowledge to create a Seed Core.

He had spent years studying inefficiencies and structural errors in Mech Modules, examining up to a thousand different Mech Module samples and developing an understanding of something most people overlooked.

Imperfections were dangerous.

Extremely dangerous.

An imperfection didn’t need to be completely destroyed for it to become a problem. Sometimes, all it took was a light strike against the right spot to cause the entire structure to malfunction.

There had even been cases where Nexians exploded outright because of flaws within their Mech Modules.

Declan had noticed Lukmo’s imperfection while observing the fight.

His neck simply wasn’t right.

Lukmo’s Mech Module was designed like a torso model, covering portions of his bones in iron. Normally, attacks against those areas were practically useless, which was precisely why Lukmo had been able to ignore so many newcomers’ attacks during the fight.

His steel-covered bones protected him, but there was a flaw.

The plating around his neck hadn’t been properly aligned, leaving a small structural weakness.

And Declan had found it.

He hadn’t needed to use much force. Just one precise strike against that imperfection had been enough to knock Lukmo unconscious.

But of course, he was the only person who understood what had actually happened.

To everyone else, the scene was far simpler.

A human had just knocked out a second-year.

Silence spread throughout the glass cafeteria.

Five second-years had fought against roughly twenty newcomers, and despite the overwhelming numbers, not a single second-year had been knocked unconscious.

That alone was shocking.

But now, one of them had been taken down by the same weak human everyone had assumed would be beaten senseless within seconds.

The other four second-years stared at Declan in shock.

Lukmo had the strongest defense among them. His Mech Module was practically built around durability, yet a single strike to his neck had been enough to put him down.

That alone was terrifying.

But when their eyes shifted back to Declan, they noticed something even more unsettling.

He was walking toward the exit without a hint of panic, his expression calm and almost disdainfully confident, as though knocking out a second year had been nothing worth mentioning.

The four exchanged uncertain glances.

Was this boy really just a human?

Or had he fused with some extraordinarily powerful Mech Module capable of completely disguising its presence?