Chapter 878: The Eye That Sees Fate (14)
Dylan Okeci. A veteran mercenary of the Antares Mercenary Office.
A survivor of the Guido Cult’s immortal body experiments, and in return, a physical superhuman who gained outstanding regenerative abilities.
A master of weaponry, proficient in all manner of polearms and firearms; an elite warrior who has survived countless real battles.
And now, a collaborator working with Adamant Thunder at the office level.
Which was precisely why Lennok never thought he would run into Dylan like this.
“I’d heard a few things about the Eyes of Blue, but I didn’t know you guys were this extreme.”
“……”
“Trying to assassinate the Vice-Mayor the moment you get to Vulcan, only to fail and end up on the run. Are all you secret society types like this?”
Lennok didn’t answer Dylan’s question, asked while he nonchalantly cleaned his ear.
Dylan was a mercenary Lennok had met in the early days of his freelance career. He was one of his oldest acquaintances in Vulcan.
What kind of magic Lennok used, what style of combat he preferred, what kind of speech patterns he employed.
It wouldn’t be strange to say Dylan knew Lennok as well as Lennok knew himself. He needed to be more cautious.
“…So, a mercenary.”
Lennok slowly collected his voice and gave a slight nod.
“Are you here to catch me because of the warrant?”
“Nah. Not really interested in that.”
Dylan grinned and jumped down from the traffic light he was perched on.
As he landed on the wet asphalt without a sound and straightened up, his eye level was instantly higher than Lennok’s.
Dylan adjusted the wrestler mask on his face a few times and spoke.
“It’s more that our boss seems to be interested in you people.”
Dylan’s eyes narrowed as he peered into Lennok’s silent face.
“Everyone calls him crazy, but Van’s not that kind of guy. He might be a little unhinged, but there are clear standards to his judgment.”
“……”
“Kidnapping the Lighthouse Keeper this time definitely crossed that line. It must be because your master holds some great meaning for Van.”
Shing!
Dylan gripped the single-edged sword at his waist in a reverse grip and spoke as he smoothly drew the blade.
“So don’t interfere, wizard. We’ll return the Lighthouse Keeper safely once our business with her is done.”
“What impressive loyalty.”
Lennok smiled.
He finally understood why Dylan was here, why he had joined this fight in District 49.
“You’re planning to blindly lend a hand without even knowing why that wizard did this?”
“I owe him my life. To me, it’s a pretty important matter,” Dylan retorted with a grin.
Gripping the single-edged sword in a reverse hold, Dylan slowly lowered his stance and brought one hand behind his back.
“I’m too dense to know what’s right or wrong. But I do know how to act without regret.”
“……”
“Hate me all you want. It’s all in a day’s work for a mercenary punk like me…!!”
Drawing the long spear shaft from his back and raising his mana, Dylan’s form explosively accelerated from its spot.
WHOOSH!!
Charging like a thunderbolt, Dylan slammed his shoulder squarely into Lennok’s body.
A full-body tackle, shifting his entire center of gravity into the blow.
BOOM!!
An impact greater than being hit by a heavy truck was concentrated and unleashed from a single man’s shoulder.
Lennok’s body jolted violently, his coat flapping wildly as a powerful shockwave spread out.
But despite it all, he didn’t budge an inch, catching Dylan’s opening attack head-on with both hands clasped together.
“…You.”
The moment Dylan inadvertently looked up at Lennok, who stood his ground without being pushed back a single step.
“This is the first time I’ve controlled its power without a medium like a lighter.”
A scorching flame erupted over Lennok’s clasped hands.
FWOOSH!!
“The scale is uncontrollable, so dodge on your own,” Lennok said, infusing his will-thought into the flames swirling in his hands.
“What nonsense are you-”
[Milling Fire Wheel]
The inherent fire-type magic, Milling Fire Wheel.
Normally, it was an attribute magic that attacked a target by rolling a wheel of fire the size of a person.
Since a single wheel lacked power, the standard use was to roll multiple wheels simultaneously through layered casting.
However, the wheel of fire that appeared above Lennok’s head immediately after the incantation was just one.
And its size was enormous enough to crush the traffic light Dylan had been standing on.
KRAKOOOM!!
“Uwaaah!!”
A wheel with a radius of over ten meters crashed into the middle of the dilapidated street, spinning madly and instantly setting the entire area ablaze.
GRINDDD!!
As the massive wheel of fire landed precisely between Lennok and Dylan, both of them were thrown back as if repelled.
“Dammit, so that’s what you meant by scale…!!”
Grimacing, Dylan skidded to a halt by digging his hands into the asphalt, then kicked off the wall of a nearby building to give chase.
FWOOOSH!!
The flames of the Milling Fire Wheel, now far more powerful than its original form, surged up and began to engulf the insides of the alley buildings.
As Lennok ran along the collapsing supermarket, he wrapped the flames blazing at his feet and threw them, and Dylan moved instantly.
“Stop right there, you bastard!!”
CRASH!!
Shattered concrete and rebar exploded outwards as sharp glints of steel and rings of blazing fire intersected.
SHATTER!!
The glass windows were sliced to pieces, then melted from the searing heat.
The entangled silhouettes of the two men tumbled through the dusty commercial buildings, breaking through walls at incredible speed.
CRASH! BANG!!
Dusty stalls toppled on all sides, and the various stolen goods piled haphazardly on them fell to the ground.
Clothes and daily necessities. Amidst price tags with illegible numbers, a chilling glint of a blade flashed.
In an instant, it had slashed at the fallen Lennok’s body more than a dozen times.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
“……!!”
He desperately twisted his head to avoid the falling blades.
More than five blades grazed his neck, each with a different direction and sharpness.
A skill that allowed one to wield a number of polearms far exceeding their two arms and two legs with proficiency.
It was a martial art he had seen many times before, but the difference now was that he was on the receiving end of it.
“This bastard. Annoyingly hard to hit…!!”
CRACK!!
He brandished blades, bludgeons, and personal firearms indiscriminately, scattering them about as if firing wildly.
The heavy face of a hammer crushed the steel door of a closed supermarket in one blow, and he sprayed bullets between abandoned shopping carts.
He thrust a spear shaft between the empty stalls to block Lennok’s escape route, then charged from above with a scimitar.
SLICE!!
Lennok twisted, dodging the slash that cleanly cut the hard stone floor between his legs.
The energy he had gained from Partisha’s [Blessing] allowed him to escape Dylan on his two feet, albeit barely.
As he rapidly moved his legs with mana and fled the vegetable section, Lennok thought.
‘Dylan’s fighting style is specialized for urban warfare. In tight spaces, he’s practically an all-rounder.’
It was easy to misunderstand due to his cheerful and flippant personality, but Dylan’s martial prowess and mission execution ability were, even by Lennok’s standards, exceptionally high.
In fact, it was no exaggeration to say that his skills were perfected to a level far exceeding his rank.
Though he seemed to swing whatever weapon came to hand, Dylan was surprisingly not the type to fight thoughtlessly.
He even had a clever side, calculating just how far he could push his body to use the best weapon for the situation.
His ability to switch between various polearms and firearms at an unrealistically fast pace was made possible by the combination of his unique monstrous strength and regenerative ability.
Because he forced movements that would normally tear joints or muscles, relying on his regeneration, Dylan had almost no need for breath or recoil.
He simply bulldozed through, unleashing a fierce onslaught so intense it was doubtful he was even breathing, crushing the space around him.
RUMBLE!!
He accurately perceived his own abilities and limits, and used the immortal body’s regeneration at the right moments to surpass those limits.
This was possible because Dylan had undergone harsh training to perfectly control his own body, a failed product of the immortal body experiments.
The contradiction of a style completed through countless efforts and clever deliberation resulting in a ferocious onslaught that seemed to lack any trace of intellect.
But because it contained that contradiction, Dylan held a compatibility advantage against many superhumans in this kind of one-on-one combat.
FWOOSH!!
A spearhead flew through the chain-link fence, aiming for the fallen Lennok’s back.
Just as Lennok sprang up, repelling it with a burst of mana, and turned to circle around the warehouse inside the collapsing store-
A machine gun, tied to a shopping cart with string, opened fire, its bullets tracing Lennok’s path.
DRRRRRRR!!
Dozens of bullet holes followed Lennok’s form as he threw himself to the side.
As long as his body could move properly, dodging wasn’t difficult once he perceived the starting point and trajectory.
The bigger problem was whether he could regulate his mana output for this battle.
The moment he took cover behind the sturdy steel door of the freezer and formed a hand seal to draw up his mana.
“Got you!”
Gripping two blades in a reverse hold, Dylan burst through the wall and slammed Lennok into a corner of the warehouse.
SLAM!!
“Keuk…!!”
“You’ve been dodging quite well since earlier…!! Have you fought an ability user like me before?” Dylan whispered, bringing his face close to Lennok’s.
When Lennok averted his gaze instead of answering, Dylan shrugged.
“Good senses, but a weak constitution. Well, it’s not that strange. It’d be weirder if someone was fine after getting hammered by that lightning.”
CRUNCH!
Stabbing a straight sword into the wall next to Lennok’s neck, Dylan took out a restraint from his waist and shook his head.
“I had a glimmer of hope since you survived Van’s magic, but it seems you’re not on that level. Was I worried for nothing?”
A restraint designed to suppress the wearer’s mana.
Seeing the complex blood script carved on the thick chain, it was likely a cursed item crafted by a blood wizard.
The kind of thing one could only find in the underbelly of this city, where all sorts of characters and criminals mingled.
CLICK!!
After fastening the restraint around Lennok’s neck, Dylan finally stood up and shrugged.
“Well, I won’t hurt you, so don’t worry. I just want to prevent any unnecessary commotion.”
But Lennok didn’t respond to Dylan’s words.
He simply tilted his head back slightly and muttered with an expressionless face.
“A smell.”
“A smell…?”
Lennok lowered his gaze toward the unthinkingly questioning Dylan.
“Your clothes are steeped in the smell of alcohol. Could you speak from a little farther away?”
“…I haven’t had a drink today.”
At Lennok’s gaze, which remained calm even while captured, Dylan replied dubiously and grabbed his spear shaft.
At that moment.
[Vermilion Light Wheel]
[Crimson Link]
FWOOSH!!
A crimson-black flame, condensed to its limit, bloomed in Lennok’s hand.
More shocking than the fact that he was using magic while wearing the restraint, Dylan was about to shout at the familiar heat-
“Wai-…!!”
[Charged Flame]
KRA-BOOOOM!!
The flames that had been gathering inside the warehouse erupted out into the street like an explosion, and Dylan, completely on fire, was sent rolling back with the shockwave.
In the breath of heat that was hard to believe was created by a human, everything with a form could not withstand it, melting away before evaporating.
Even though the magic was originally meant to be compressed for point-blank saturation, its aftereffect alone amplified its power to this degree.
“Son of a BITCH!!”
But Dylan, while rolling around completely ablaze, was still holding on.
The moment Lennok had manifested the spellcraft, he had thrust all his polearms in front of the Charged Flame, avoiding direct exposure of his body to the heat.
Patting out the embers on the top of his singed wrestler mask, Dylan stood up and glared at the entrance of the burning store.
“Hot as hell. So you were from the Blaiver Magic Tower after all?!”
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Gripping the mana restraint around his neck with one hand, Lennok walked out of the blazing entrance.
SZZZZ!!
The flames in his hand instantly melted the sturdy steel restraint.
Effortlessly breaking and tossing aside the shackle on his neck, Lennok dusted off his hands and smiled.
“As you seem to be aware, the magic I use requires quite a bit of ‘preheating’.”
“……”
“It takes a while for the fire to catch, but conversely, once it’s started, it doesn’t go out easily.”
Lennok’s mana wasn’t bound by a mere restraint like this, but the way he had freed himself wasn’t by overpowering it with force.
He had preheated his mana throughout his exchange with Dylan, then belatedly summoned and assembled it with an incantation.
Even after the restraint was fastened, the already preheated mana did not disappear; it simply blazed on, beyond control.
“This situation is no different.”
CLANK!!
Lennok dropped the molten restraint and shifted his gaze.
“It’s just a faint ember for now, but I will nurture these flames against those like you in this city. If I keep breathing life into it, keep feeding the firewood-”
RUMBLE!!
Lennok looked at the cluster of lightning flashing in the distant night sky of Vulcan and spoke.
“It might even be able to burn away that lightning. Don’t you think?”