Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Classic Is Eternal
* * *
Unlike the polite tone he used, the man who introduced himself as Lloyd exuded a beastlike sharpness. His appearance was just as intense, making him easy to remember.
"Alright, Mr. Doberman. What do you mean by ‘it went as the young master said’?"
"You’re Yang Hu, aren’t you? There aren’t many people who can display this level of skill. Especially not in times like these."
Though it was strange how young he looked for someone in his sixties, Lloyd held back his words. This was an era where even Mars was being colonized. A youthful appearance wasn’t enough to surprise anyone.
"So, you're admitting that you killed Thomas?"
"My answer would be meaningless, wouldn’t it? After all, here you are."
"Right, a foolish question."
Shin quietly stored his sword into the long guitar case.
At that, Lloyd, who had been standing with his hands behind his back, climbed onto the weapon waiting beside him. No—he boarded it.
"Seems like we’ve both got plenty of baggage. Let’s end the conversation here."
A fully enclosed full-body exosuit.
Commonly known as ‘powered armor’.
Its sleek, streamlined design made it hard to believe it stood three meters tall. Even at a glance, the balanced machine exhaled a heavy rumble as it came to life.
At the awakening of the giant, Shin narrowed his eyes.
Though it hadn’t been released to the market yet, he had heard the buzz. A masterpiece crafted with care by New Delbuyer.
Fourth-generation powered armor.
‘Phalanx.’
The catchphrase: ‘A tank you wear.’
Reportedly, its titanium alloy armor gave it resistance to all kinds of firearms, and with a graphene battery installed, it could operate solo for up to two weeks. A true rampaging machine.
Its estimated output reached 1,500 horsepower.
The internal artificial muscles assisted the wearer’s movements, drastically enhancing physical ability and guaranteeing operational performance at MUG―3 level.
MUG stood for ‘Military Utility Grade,’ a classification for military efficacy.
Naturally, the higher the number, the broader the category.
Grade 1 meant superiority in anti-personnel combat. Grade 2 covered urban warfare, and Grade 3—
‘Localized warfare.’
Of course, since the grade focused more on tactical implications than basic specs, actual combat performance could fall short or even exceed expectations.
But that didn’t mean one could afford to be complacent.
The very notion that a single individual could rival an entire unit just by boarding it was absurd.
Fortunately—
"I’ve got something similar too."
He dropped the long guitar case he had been carrying all this time to the floor.
The cover bearing a famous brand logo was just camouflage.
The true form was a comprehensive bladed weapon management container, the Blacksmith. And it was a vault designed to hold ‘a single blade.’
The moment I stepped on the Blacksmith, with a hiss of escaping steam, the contents sprang up to chest level.
"Another sword, huh."
"Classics are eternal."
As I caught the sword in midair and adjusted my stance, Lloyd closed the distance by a step.
"You stand so confidently—makes me curious just how amazing this Yang Hu really is."
The ground beneath Lloyd’s feet shattered in a spiderweb pattern. A sign of an impending blow.
I reflexively tucked my elbow to my side and crouched just as—
Boom!
A powerful shockwave tore through the floor.
Hit squarely by the destructive strike, I skidded back, dragging long skid marks across the ground.
"Hm?"
Lloyd paused for just a moment.
He tried to press the attack, but the chest armor detached and fell off as if it had been peeled away.
Even if it had been slashed the moment after the impact, it was a phenomenon that made no sense.
This was not normal.
That was when Lloyd caught sight of the transparent blade.
‘A monomolecular blade?’
A weapon that severed the bonds between molecules—an embodiment of the concept of cutting.
MUG Grade 1.
Enough to secure dominance in anti-personnel combat, and one of the most efficient killing tools. As long as it touched, it delivered absolute power.
However—
"Outdated."
The tech only applied locally at the point of contact, not along the entire blade.
Lloyd was right.
The monomolecular blade I held wasn’t the real deal.
Its limitations were clear.
[●●●●◐]
The battery level indicator near the hilt said it all. I’d only swung it once, and it was already starting to fluctuate.
Boom!
Lloyd relentlessly exploited that weakness. He was a soldier engineered to perfection from birth.
His muscle density neared five times that of a regular human, and he had mastered countless martial arts.
Among them, the one he was most proficient in was a close-quarters combat style designed for powered armor—Abram.
By shifting his center of gravity and fully utilizing the armor’s massive size and weight, this melee combat system gave Lloyd complete freedom.
Crossing dozens of meters in an instant was nothing to him.
Even a simple swing of his arm generated a fierce wind that battered the surroundings.
The martial arts I practiced were formidable in their own right.
I had learned an ancient style that maximized centrifugal force to drive everything into a single point. By leveraging inertia, I could overcome the disadvantage in size.
Even so, in essence, this was a battle between a giant and a small man.
Two people standing at opposite poles.
But from a biomechanics perspective, human movement had limits, and inevitably, all motion converged into a single flow.
Where Lloyd had been, Shin now stood,
And where Shin had been, Lloyd took his place,
Their relentless exchange of blows shook the entire ninth floor. As the distance between them shortened, so did their killing intent grow ever more intense.
Victory or defeat would be decided by who landed a fatal blow first.
Screeeeech.
The titanium-alloy armor was sliced apart like soft tofu, yet Lloyd advanced without a care. The effective range of the monomolecular blade was limited. If turned to his advantage, even that limitation could be used to create an opening.
Just like this.
Thud.
Lloyd swiftly slipped into Shin’s guard and clenched his fist—at that moment, the booster embedded in his elbow ignited. A propulsion system designed to reinforce his strike.
With a deafening roar, his arm vanished and reappeared.
No, it only seemed that way because it moved so fast the process appeared to be skipped.
The launched blow struck its mark precisely.
"Kh…!"
Though I barely managed to protect my vital point, I couldn’t prevent the fracture of my ribs.
Truly a display worthy of the name ‘wearable tank.’
I tried to retreat in haste, but Lloyd, having sunk his teeth in, refused to let go. He stayed close, his fist still lodged in my abdomen.
That was when I heard a menacing click.
The rotary cylinder mounted on the back of the Phalanx’s hand spun—and the hand cannon fired.
A bullet discharged the moment his punch was delivered.
Crash.
My abdomen was pierced in an instant.
It was a wound that would’ve been fatal to any ordinary human, but I turned it into a foothold for a counterattack. Raising the monomolecular blade high, I aimed to cleave the Phalanx—the source of my pain.
A flash etched through the air.
In that instant, the helmet of the powered armor was sliced off, exposing Lloyd’s face.
"Gh!"
At the same time, the hand cannon fired again, as if in defiance.
Boom!
The shockwave from the clash of powers surged outward like a storm.
Even before the dust could settle from their fierce struggle, the two of them lunged at each other again, unleashing their bloodlust.
Advance and retreat.
A deadlock.
It looked like a perfectly balanced scale, but the unexpected occurred from an unlikely place.
[●○○○○]
[◐○○○○]
[○○○○○]
The transparent monomolecular blade returned to its original form.
"Out of battery, is it."
So far, Shin had been able to hold his own thanks to the monomolecular blade. But the moment the battery pack hit empty, the outcome was all but decided.
Lloyd was a seasoned hunter. And a seasoned hunter never misses a fleeting chance.
Grabbing the blade and snapping it in two, Lloyd forcefully toppled Shin.
A takedown that fully exploited the difference in physique.
Flowing like water, Lloyd mounted Shin and drove his fist downward—at the same time, the hand cannon flared to life.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
After six consecutive shots, the floor supporting the ninth level collapsed. A downpour of concrete debris followed in an instant.
Lloyd calmly pushed his way through the rubble, only then allowing himself to catch his breath.
I had definitely smashed his head.
Seeing him rush in while regenerating despite broken bones and ruptured organs had been a terrifying sight even from Lloyd’s perspective.
Still, no matter how monstrous he was, surviving in that state should have been impossible.
To begin with, resisting powered armor was an absurd notion.
Even so, since it was that Yang Hu, Lloyd had expected him to somehow come up with a move—
"How boring."
"What?"
A sound that should never have reached him brushed Lloyd’s ears as he turned his back.
A sudden chill ran through his entire body, and he bent at the waist. That split-second decision saved his life.
What skimmed past his head was a folding knife sharp enough to chill the bone.
"How……?"
How was he alive.
Faced with a phenomenon he couldn’t explain, Lloyd froze on the spot.
But even if it was a reality he couldn’t accept, it was everyday life to Shin.
Something he could neither run from nor turn away from.
Coughing up the dust lodged deep in his lungs, Shin brushed back his bangs, now soaked with blood, and rose to his feet.
"That’s a pretty interesting toy."
Powered armor had been released onto the market twenty years ago—right after the Millennium Code Gate incident.
Since this was a type of opponent I had never faced before, it had taken time to adapt, but by now I was starting to get the hang of it.
"Even if you try to buy time, nothing will change. You don’t have any cards left to play."
"Ah, this?"
The monomolecular blade, broken in half and long past its time limit. Just as Lloyd said, it was no longer usable.
‘But…….’
Even so, the situation wasn’t at its worst.
I rummaged through my clothes and pulled out a small case.
When I flipped the lid open, neatly aligned syringes came into view.
Grabbing them all at once without regard for order, I hesitated not a moment before plunging them into my neck.
A full-body analgesic.
A metabolic accelerator.
A comprehensive awakening agent.
Each one a high-purity drug cocktail that caused permanent aftereffects. In other words, narcotics.
Something you should never touch unless you wanted to end your life.
"Planning to kill yourself?"
"I planned to live."
Though the dosage far exceeded lethal levels, I answered calmly. A body for which the very premise of risk did not apply.
Exploding hormones and an overheated nervous system played in unison.
As if to prove it, veins soon bulged and my breathing grew ragged.
"After winning in the most perfect way possible."