Chapter 293
Chapter 293: Message Delivered
"Huu—"
They're getting desperate.
Baek Woohyun glanced behind him at the vans tailing his every move, the corner of his mouth twisting into a smirk. It was plain enough to guess what they were after, given that they were actually attempting to ram him to a stop.
Those people almost certainly wanted him dead before the situation escalated any further. Once he alone was eliminated, they could still manage the fallout somehow—making excuses along the lines of: We responded to a Research Facility remnant attack! or something to that effect.
A high-speed car chase right in the heart of the city, and on top of that, 1 van blown apart by a bomb in the middle of it all—that sort of major incident would clearly draw a reaction of "Well, it's those guys, so it figures" the moment the Research Facility's involvement came to light.
Naturally, Baek Woohyun had no intention of giving them what they wanted. Not only was the very premise unreasonable since it required him to die, but he was planning to make the situation far, far worse than it already was.
If he had wanted a quiet resolution, he would never have launched an open assault to start a fight, nor exposed the route he was taking to strike at their vital points. He could have simply assassinated them one by one, gnawing away at them little by little.
The fact that he had done none of that made his intent perfectly clear. More chaos! He intended to pull off a mega-incident—one that ran directly counter to Manmulsang's wishes, one they could never suppress no matter how hard they tried.
Boom! BOOM! BOOM!
"Kyaaah!" "Ugh?!"
"A-a bomb! Everyone run!"
The bombs Baek Woohyun hurled without hesitation at the vans chasing him made his intent unmistakable—he would not allow this uproar to be dismissed as trivial.
Eardrum-shattering blasts, car frames engulfed in flames that launched into the air before crashing back down, shrapnel scattering in every direction, citizens screaming as they fled—it was simply impossible to cover up, no matter how hard one tried.
By now, the police were probably scrambling in a state of emergency. Word about an Awakener being involved hadn't gotten out yet, so the Otherworld Management Bureau would be keeping watch for the moment.
But he could say with confidence that their hands-in-pockets wait would not last long. If the situation escalated any further, there was a high probability they would eventually dispatch Awakener agents to push through by force.
In a sense, both Baek Woohyun and Manmulsang were operating under a time limit. They had to achieve their respective goals before the Otherworld Management Bureau stepped in earnest. Whether that meant destroying the warehouse or killing the enemy.
Compared to Baek Woohyun, whose very purpose was to create mayhem, Manmulsang clearly had the worse end of the deal—they had to stop him as fast as possible, kill him, and clean up the aftermath. That went without saying.
Either way—this lot first!
Screech!
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Once again Baek Woohyun wrenched the handlebars hard—and at the same moment, a hail of bullets came pouring toward him!
Not content with popping up through the rooftops of their vans, the enemies had flung open the sliding doors of the vehicles, hanging off the sides at a precarious angle as they laid down fire.
Had his read on the situation been even slightly slower, it would have posed a real problem. He wouldn't have died—but he would most certainly have lost the motorcycle.
Of course, that was all hypothetical. Baek Woohyun pushed the motorcycle to within a hair's breadth of toppling over entirely as he evaded the attack.
As a rule, opportunity follows crisis and crisis follows opportunity—having dodged the volley aimed at him, Baek Woohyun earned the right to strike back.
And he gladly exercised that right. He drew a fresh weapon and squeezed the trigger, aiming at the enemies who had left themselves completely exposed.
Rat-tat-tat!
"Guk!" "Ugh!"
"You son of a—!"
A single sweep was all it took—over 10 rounds riddled one van. That was the firepower of an assault rifle rather than a suppressor-equipped pistol.
No matter what protective gear they wore, the sheer impact itself could not be reduced, so the enemies that caught the rounds screamed and tumbled back inside the vehicle.
Screech, CRASH!
And by extraordinarily good fortune—and equally wretched bad luck for them—1 of the rounds even punched through a tire on the van.
What happens when a tire blows out on a vehicle tearing along at full speed is self-evident. The van lost its balance, fishtailed, and plowed straight into the roadside barrier.
"……"
2 vans from the bombs, 1 more just now from the shooting—6 vans dealt with in total—and yet there were still 3 more clinging to his tail.
When the bomb went off, 1 more had latched on; when he punched the hole in the tire, yet another had joined the chase. A truly relentless offensive.
That said, it also told him that Manmulsang was desperately scrambling to prevent him from reaching the warehouse.
Otherwise, they would never have kept feeding in their forces piecemeal like this, only to be picked off one by one.
Time to clean up the rest before the warehouse.
He could not afford to arrive at Manmulsang's warehouse still dragging a pursuit unit behind him. There was a risk of being sandwiched between the enemy forces waiting there, caught from both sides.
By his estimation, the reason the enemies had not chosen to pull back and regroup even after already losing half their forces was very likely because they were counting on that exact scenario to press their advantage.
As long as one could look past the staggering losses piling up—regardless—Baek Woohyun was essentially walking straight into a death trap where he would be attacked from both front and back.
"Alright."
Vroooom—!
Baek Woohyun narrowed his eyes and floored the motorcycle's throttle. The motorcycle, true to the money spent on it, answered its rider's will with a deep, heavy exhaust note.
His sudden burst of speed fractured the formation the 3 remaining vans had been maintaining. 2 of them apparently decided that at this rate they might let him escape, and rashly surged forward to close the gap.
It was precisely what Baek Woohyun had been hoping for when he feigned the escape.
In fairness, calling their judgment rash was debatable. At present, Baek Woohyun was presumed to have no supernatural ability—someone who was merely far more combat-capable than an ordinary person.
The possibility that he might flee first, regroup, and then strike again was more than sufficient—it was overwhelming. For Manmulsang, who needed to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, that was a scenario to be avoided at all costs.
It was simply their misfortune that even the reasonably deadlocked battle they had been fighting was one in which Baek Woohyun had been holding back, deliberately letting things drag on to create more chaos.
Whirl.
"……"
At nearly 200 km/h, Baek Woohyun let go of the handlebars and spun around to sit backwards on the motorcycle. In the same motion, he smoothly pulled out the assault rifle he had mounted on the rear of the bike.
The astonishing thing was that even though the rider had completely let go of the controls, the motorcycle continued to shoot forward without so much as a wobble. It was a feat that would have drawn gasps of awe from any onlooker.
To the armed guards who had to deal with him—the ones who had even broken formation in an attempt to stop his escape—there could hardly have been a more terrifying sight. But that, well, was their problem to deal with.
Now then—
Bang! Bang!
2 3-round bursts, each following a brief period of aim at the tires of the vans.
The shooting, so committed that he had left the motorcycle on what amounted to autopilot, produced truly devastating results for the enemy.
The van whose left tire had been blown out and the one whose right tire had burst lost their balance and slammed into each other, triggering an explosion—and a 3rd van trailing behind got swept up in the crash.
It made the earlier effort of detonating bombs and blasting away with the assault rifle to take out those first 3 vans look almost unnecessary.
And it confirmed once and for all that if Baek Woohyun had truly wanted to, he could have ended the car chase at any point he wished.
2 3-round bursts to take out 3 vans—by simple math, just 2 more shots and the whole thing would have been over from the start.
All that trouble, and the message has definitely been delivered.
Jeong Beomu's family would not be at the Manmulsang warehouse he was heading toward. People with sound judgment would never manage the family of the Avengers' leader so carelessly.
They were most likely being kept in an extremely difficult-to-reach location, under thorough protection. It would be hard to storm in and rescue them under ordinary circumstances—and equally hard for them to slip out and escape on their own.
Solving that would probably require considerable effort—teaming up with the Avengers, picking fights with Manmulsang on multiple fronts, and working through the problems one by one.
But Baek Woohyun had no intention of dragging this out that long, and he trusted the Jeong Beomu he had seen "over there." There was a firm conviction that the commander would surely have some means prepared.
The mayhem he had stirred up against Manmulsang this time would undoubtedly give Jeong Beomu a good opening. The mysterious attacker had done more than enough to shake the fortified stronghold that was Manmulsang.
"If you have something prepared, use it now"—that was the message being delivered. That was why, even now, he was making his moves in plain sight, heading for Manmulsang's warehouse without concealing a single step.
Beep-beep.
[—Breaking news! Serial terrorist attacks are currently occurring across multiple locations in Seoul!]
[…Large-scale chaos erupting alongside the sounds of explosions…]
[…Police and fire authorities have immediately deployed…]
[…Citizens are being advised to evacuate to a safe location at once!]
They've finally moved.
Seeing the news broadcast from a hologram panel along the road to the warehouse, Baek Woohyun allowed himself a faint smile. It was obvious who the targets and perpetrators of the serial terrorist acts were.
The news was still reporting that it was unclear which faction was responsible—speculating it might be remnants of the Research Facility, the criminal underground organization behind the hotel-takeover terror attack some time ago—but he knew.
This was the Avengers' attack, seizing the opening created when Manmulsang had pulled their forces to stop him. It meant Jeong Beomu had finally received and acted on the message he had delivered.
Then I'd better get moving on my end too.
Vroom!
Baek Woohyun throttled the motorcycle up and hurled bombs in every direction. This whole area was a zone under Manmulsang's control anyway—there was not even a flicker of hesitation in his actions.
Sometimes far, sometimes close, he tossed the bombs while still steering the motorcycle cleanly; it was not long before he finally reached the entrance of the massive logistics center building that Manmulsang was using as a warehouse.
Forces that had prepared in advance for his approach had even erected barricades and taken up a thorough interception posture—but he only cranked the speed up higher and drove straight at them, as though he intended to crash right into them with his own body.
"He's coming!"
"Everyone fire! Don't let him get close!"
Vroooom—!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Hundreds of bullets flew toward the motorcycle hurtling toward them at breakneck speed. No matter how capable Baek Woohyun was, it was a hopeless wall of gunfire with absolutely nowhere to dodge.
So he didn't dodge. Instead of wasting effort on something impossible, he simply leapt off the motorcycle—as if to say, shoot it all you want.
Robbed of its skilled rider and riddled with dozens of rounds, the motorcycle instantly toppled sideways.
But toppling did not mean stopping. By the law of inertia, it kept sliding forward, laying on its side.
Since it had been racing along at tremendous speed, the motorcycle—sparks flying—ground its way forward until it inevitably reached the barricade the armed guards had erected.
That was their misfortune.
BOOOOOM—!
Superhuman's Game Broadcast