A dead silence descended upon the abandoned warehouse once more, but it wasn't the silence of peace. It was the calm before a massive storm. The milky white concrete dust kicked up by the previous clash still hung suspended in the air, mingling with the metallic scent of blood and the stinging, acrid smell of ozone.
Amidst the ruins of concrete and twisted rebar, the figure of the monster in pitch-black chitin armor stood panting heavily.
Jagger... in his hybrid human-insect Giant Rhinoceros Beetle form, glared intently at the enemy standing unsteadily not far away.
Owen Marlowe… in a human form that looked like it could collapse at any moment. His clothes were tattered, revealing countless wounds. Fresh red blood flowed down half his face, dripping onto the concrete floor drop by drop... Drip... Drip. His left arm hung limply at his side, devoid of strength, while his right arm trembled as if bearing a burden far too heavy for it to carry.
In Jagger's eyes, this was the condition of a "Loser" in its most complete form.
It expected to see eyes trembling with fear... a mouth begging for life... or at the very least, the despair of realizing death was imminent.
However... when their eyes met, Jagger froze.
Those golden eyes...
They were calm, profound, and shining brightly amidst the darkness, like a sacred well with no visible bottom. There was no trace of fear, no hesitation, and most infuriating of all... there was no reflection of "Jagger the Great" in them.
Owen looked at Jagger... as if looking at a "corpse" devoid of meaning.
"Why..." Jagger gritted his teeth, a low growl escaping through them. "Even though your mana is completely empty... and your body is wrecked like that... why do you still dare look at me with those eyes!!"
Frustration surged through the monster's body. It was the feeling of being undervalued, of having its dignity trampled upon. The calmer Owen was, the more Jagger felt like a clown dancing in front of a stone statue.
'Or does he still have a trick hidden?'
A paranoid thought flashed through its head. Jagger hurriedly focused, using his inspection skill to check Owen's mana flow again... Empty... The mana in Owen's body was flickering so dimly it was about to go out. It was fainter than an oil lamp running on its last drop of fuel.
"Heh... Hahaha! Just acting tough to cover up your fear, huh!" Jagger burst into laughter to regain his confidence. "Stop acting, you trash! I'll wipe that arrogant look off your face along with your rotten life right now!"
Vwoooom!!
The moment the voice faded, Jagger exploded his final reserve of power. All the pitch-black mana remaining in his body was squeezed out and sent to converge at a single point... the "Giant Rhinoceros Beetle Horn" on his forehead.
The black aura spiraled around the sharp horn wildly, creating a high-pitched whistling sound. Screeeeech! Like the sound of a road drill operating at maximum speed. The air around the beetle horn began to distort due to the energy compressed to its absolute limit.
Its goal was clear... A single attack to pierce through the heart, then rip that body in two!
In contrast... Owen didn't utter a single word of retort.
He inhaled deeply... slowly... and gradually raised both fists to chest level, assuming the simplest Muay Thai guard. Not flashy, not complex, but stable as a solid rock.
The thing that had changed was the [Sun God's Gauntlets].
The flickering aura of flames that once blazed was gone... leaving only a deep crimson glow, like lava boiling from within, or coal burned to its hottest point. Although no flames erupted outwardly, the heat radiating from it was several times more intense than before.
The air around Owen's right fist distorted violently into waves of heat, blurring the background scenery. Even the dust motes drifting near were incinerated into ash before they could even touch the gauntlet.
Owen's silence in this moment... echoed louder and more terrifyingly than the roar of the demon in front of him.
Ding...
It was as if an invisible bell rang out in both their heads simultaneously.
"Die!!"
BOOM!!
Jagger stomped his foot, sending force into the ground until the concrete exploded into a wide crater. The massive body in black armor shot forward like a cannonball, leaving behind only a black shadow streaking through the air at high speed.
It was a charge filled with aggression, madness, and destruction. Like an armored tank ready to crush everything in its path. Its driving force came from greed, power, fame, wealth, and a false dignity that could not accept defeat.
However... the image seen from the other side was completely the opposite.
Owen didn't rush in to counter with aggression...
He simply "walked" without fear.
Thud… The first step was stable and heavy.
Thud… The subsequent steps were slow but devoid of hesitation.
Amidst the fierce gales generated by the enemy's charge, Owen walked into that storm with a calm posture. His gaze didn't waver anywhere. It focused on a single point... the sharp tip of the black beetle horn rushing toward his heart.
His driving force wasn't vengeance, but the instinct of protection. It was the duty of a man who knew that behind him, friends and loved ones were waiting.
Time seemed to stretch out until it became a slow-motion scene.
The image cut back and forth between Jagger's face twisted with rage, veins bulging, eyes bloodshot... and Owen's face, impassive and cool as a carved statue.
The distance between the two bodies shrank rapidly... Ten meters... Five meters... Three meters...
In the view of Finley, watching the event through a curtain of tears... she saw the most breathtaking silhouette image of her life. A massive dark shadow was rushing toward a smaller copper-gold light... In the eyes of ordinary people, Owen looked so disadvantaged and fragile. But to her, that back covered in wounds looked grand enough to block out the entire sky.
And then... the deciding second arrived.
When the tip of the pitch-black beetle horn entered killing range... just an arm's reach away.
Owen twisted his hips, sending torque spiraling from his toes gripping the floor tightly, up through his calves... to his waist... shoulder... and exploding all that power out at the tip of his right fist.
[Rising Sun Fist]!
The right fist, packed with heat rivaling the surface of the sun, was punched straight out, countering the massive momentum of the charge directly.
The entire world stood still in that split second.
On the left was a black warhead with the power to pierce through anything... On the right was a small fist glowing with a crimson light that was starting to turn pure white.
The point where the "Horn" and the "Fist" were about to touch... the air there began to crack and distort violently.
It wasn't just a physical collision, but the convergence of the mathematics of war... where the result was singular.
That was a light that devoured everything!
FLASH!!!
A pure white light, blindingly bright more dazzling than a thousand spotlights exploded at the center of the impact. The light was so intense it completely swallowed the darkness and shadows of the abandoned warehouse. It was as if a miniature sun had suddenly been born on the surface of the earth.
The massive heat compressed within the [Sun God's Gauntlets] was released in a split second. It was so fast and violent that the humidity in the air evaporated into steam instantly. Dust particles floating in the air were incinerated into nothingness before they could even touch the ground.
And 0.01 seconds later... the true Reaper followed.
VWOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The low roar of violently expanding air thundered. It wasn't the booming sound of gunpowder, but the sound of a "Shockwave" born from critical heat.
A massive wave of heat swept out from the center in a circle, blowing everything within a hundred-meter radius away. Wooden crates shattered into splinters and caught fire in mid-air. Structural rebar twisted like wax held to a flame. Even the glass shards in the warehouse windows couldn't endure it, shattering and melting, raining down like glass precipitation.
...
[Jagger's POV: In the Final Split Second]
The beastly instinct within Jagger screamed out insanely!
His eyes widened until they almost popped out of their sockets. The face that had been full of arrogance was now replaced by a look of desperate terror.
He realized in this very split second that... Owen's finishing punch was completely abnormal.
It wasn't just a mana-enhanced punch or a normal fire punch... but a lump of pure thermal energy far too intense for any living creature on this earth to possess!
The confidence he once held collapsed in the blink of an eye. The chitin armor and mana armor he proudly claimed were the strongest... when faced with heat capable of melting steel in a split second, they "sublimated," vanishing instantly.
Jagger saw his proud beetle horn turn into vapor and disappear right before his eyes, followed by his head and chest slowly dissolving into the white light.
Strange... that he felt no pain at all.
Because his nerves and sensory cells were incinerated faster than his brain could process the pain signal.
And in his final thought... there was no anger. No malice. What remained was only emptiness and a final question echoing in his soul.
'Is this... really the power of a human?'
Then his consciousness blacked out forever, along with the light that consumed everything.
...
When the blinding light faded, dim darkness returned to cover the abandoned warehouse once more, but this time it was dyed with the orange glow of flames burning the debris and wood scattered on the floor.
The once-thick dust and smoke had been blown away completely by the explosion, revealing the center of the execution ground.
Jagger's body still stood tall...
However... his head, shoulders, and upper chest were "gone."
What remained was the lower body and the abdomen, which had a concave wound in a perfect semi-circle, as if a giant ice cream scoop had scooped the upper part away.
Not a single drop of blood flowed out... because the wound was cauterized black. Tissues and blood vessels were sealed shut by the heat the instant they were severed.
Crumble... Hiss...
The headless body of the monster staggered back two steps before crashing heavily to the floor. And the moment it hit the ground, the remaining body parts shattered into fragile pieces of black charcoal, closing the legend of Jagger, the great gang leader, in a pathetic end.
"Huff... Huff... Huff..."
The sound of heavy panting cut through the crackling of the fire.
Owen stood tottering amidst the scorching heat, his body swaying as if he would fall at any second.
His condition looked equally terrible. His right sleeve had burned away completely, revealing an entire arm that was bright red and swollen like a boiled prawn. White smoke wafted from the blistered skin.
The [Sun God's Gauntlets] that had shone with a blinding red light were now slowly fading, returning to their normal dark red color, accompanied by the sound of internal mechanisms working hard.
Hiss... Fwoo...
Hot steam was vented from the exhaust ports on the side of the gauntlets. Owen tried to make a fist... but he couldn't feel his fingers anymore. A numbness surged through his arm, suppressing the excruciating pain that was waiting to erupt.
But that didn't matter anymore...
Thud...
The sound of an object falling to the ground rang out behind him. The rope that had bound Finley's body had snapped from the heat explosion moments ago, and the small figure fell to the floor.
Finley struggled to push herself up. Her beautiful eyes, swollen from crying, stared at the image before her.
The image of her brother... standing amidst the fire and the corpse of the enemy.
The feeling swelling in her chest went beyond joy... it was a relief akin to lifting a mountain off her chest. Tears of joy flowed down both cheeks without her realizing it.
She tried to get up and run to him, but her weak legs caused her to fall again. She could only shout his name with a trembling, hoarse voice.
"Brother... Brother Owen..."
That call made the young man standing with his back to her slowly move.
Owen turned back to look at Finley slowly. His face was smeared with black soot and blood, but... the faint smile on the corner of his mouth looked warmer and brighter than ever before.
He moved his lips to speak in a voice that was faint, yet heavy with emotion.
"It's over... Finley."
The moment the words ended, his eyelids closed. The body that had borne a burden beyond its limit slowly collapsed to the floor.
"Brother Owen!!"
Finley screamed his name at the top of her lungs, amidst the light from the fire illuminating the backdrop of victory... A victory exchanged for the blood, flesh, and soul of a guardian.
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