Global Awakening: This VR System is Tyrannical!

Thick, swirling clouds of pulverized limestone and concrete dust hung over the Baek Family Main Estate courtyard—a blinding aftermath of heavy vehicle turrets and endless rifle volleys.

The estate bodyguards had wasted massive amounts of ammunition, yet the four remaining mercenaries stood tall, their exoskeletons still retaining plenty of battery reserve for close-quarters combat.

Despite knowing their leader was down and incapacitated based on the final transmission they received, they refused to abandon the mission, continuing their relentless forward charge.

Stupid? Perhaps.

But the Mercenaries of Babylon were a gathering of deeply prideful monsters. To them, honor and survival were trivial concepts. All that mattered was proving their absolute dominance—that they were superior apex predators hunting helpless prey.

Out of rifle ammunition, the dozens of estate bodyguards advanced into the dust haze with pistols drawn and tactical batons raised, attempting to overwhelm the remaining four operatives through sheer numbers.

Pop-pop-pop-pop!

A rain of 9mm pistol rounds pinged harmlessly off the reinforced chest plates of Dong-So, Maria, Jiuling, and the fourth operative.

Through the brown haze, the high-pitched whine of overclocked hydraulic servos shrieked like furious war horns. The four mercenaries didn’t bother taking cover. They charged straight into the mass of guards like four iron battering rams.

The clash wasn’t a tactical martial arts engagement—it was a brutal, industrial slaughter.

Dong-So reached the front line first. Leveraging the raw mechanical torque of his suit, he didn’t even swing a weapon; he plowed directly into three bodyguards. The kinetic shockwave sounded like a high-speed vehicle collision. The three guards were hurled ten feet backward, their sternums crushed inside their tactical vests before they even hit the stone floor.

Beside him, Maria blurred through the dust haze with terrifying, unnatural speed. A guard raised his pistol toward her visor, but her servo-assisted hand shot forward, crushing the handgun and the guard’s fingers into a mangled pulp. Without breaking stride, she brutally whipped her heavy combat blade through the air.

Slash-slash!

Deep, horrific gashes tore across the guard’s chest. The man went limp, collapsing onto the cobblestones like a torn piece of paper.

Jiuling moved like an armored whirlwind. When two bodyguards tried to tackle his legs, the exoskeleton’s internal balance gyros anchored him instantly. He didn’t stagger an inch. Reaching down, Jiuling seized a guard by his tactical belt and hurled him sideways directly into two other guards, sending all three crashing through a stone decorative pillar in a shower of brick and blood.

The fourth mercenary planted a full-power hydraulic kick into a rushing guard’s chest—a sickening crunch buried beneath the heavy hum of his suit—before driving a steel-reinforced backhand into another guard’s ribs, instantly rendering him motionless.

Pistol rounds continued to spark uselessly off their suit plates, but the mercenaries ignored the impacts entirely. They moved with unrelenting, mechanical carnage—snapping limbs, crushing torsos, and launching bodyguards through the courtyard’s stone walls.

In less than thirty seconds, over a dozen estate guards lay motionlessly scattered across the dust-covered cobblestones, blood pooling into the stone crevices. The surviving guards recoiled in horror, their line breaking as the four armored monsters stepped through the clearing haze, dripping with blood and unbothered by the rain of handgun fire.

It was an overwhelming display of raw technical horror—until two calm, measured figures stepped through the pavilion doors directly in front of the four mercenaries, their hands held low in a relaxed, deadly posture.

A-Ji and Ji-Ga had arrived.

"Take the wounded and pull back," A-Ji said quietly, spreading his hands low to signal the surviving guards.

"Provide suppressive support from behind only when necessary," Ji-Ga added, his gaze locked onto the four mercenaries with a deadly, unwavering stare.

In terms of raw martial comprehension, both A-Ji and Ji-Ga were far ahead of Ji-Hong and Butler Lee. Through The Path of Heavenly Martial Arts, their foundation had expanded tremendously. Though the VR game focused heavily on soft, redirective principles, they hadn’t forgotten the aggressive roots of hard combat—mastering balance, stance control, and explosive kinetic strikes.

They hadn’t abandoned the violence of fighting; they had refined it.

Seeing the two new men in black suits step forward unprotected, the fourth mercenary tilted his helmeted head. Being the closest to them, he didn’t waste time talking. Overclocking his suit’s hydraulics, he burst forward like a missile, driving a heavy, mechanical right punch straight toward A-Ji’s head.

A-Ji and Ji-Ga moved in total unison. Swaying sideways by a razor-thin margin, they let the whistling fist pass right between them.

Before the operative could over-extend, Ji-Ga seized the thrusting arm while A-Ji delivered a low, explosive kick straight into the mercenary’s left knee joint.

The joint kick ruined the suit’s anchored center of gravity. Leveraging the mercenary’s own forward momentum, Ji-Ga executed a fluid hip turn, hurling the two-hundred-kilogram armored operative headfirst into a stone pillar.

BOOM!

Knowing better than to grant a powered suit time to recalibrate its gyros, A-Ji and Ji-Ga closed the distance instantly.

Seeing their teammate in immediate danger, Dong-So, Maria, and Jiuling lunged forward to intervene. But the surviving estate guards who could still stand raised their handguns, unleashing a synchronized volley of 9mm rounds.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

While the pistol bullets couldn’t pierce the heavy armor plates, the relentless kinetic impact rattled off their visors and suit joints, stalling the three mercenaries just long enough.

That split-second distraction was all A-Ji and Ji-Ga needed.

Reaching the fallen operative before he could push off the stone debris, A-Ji trapped the mercenary’s left arm, planting his boot heel deep into the suit’s armpit for maximum mechanical leverage. Simultaneously, Ji-Ga seized the right arm, trapping the elbow beneath his frame.

"Break it!"

Applying their full body weight and refined martial force in opposite directions, both men tore backward at the same microsecond.

CRACK—SNAP!

A sickening double crunch echoed through the courtyard as both suit arms—and the arms inside them—snapped violently at the elbows. The fourth mercenary shrieked through his helmet comms as his upper limbs dropped completely lifeless.

The three remaining mercenaries continued their aggressive charge after shrugging off the harassing pistol fire from the remaining estate guards.

Unaccustomed to dealing with high-level martial synergy like A-Ji and Ji-Ga’s, they had realized their squadmate was in lethal danger far too late. Even now, driven by rage, they continued to push forward recklessly without assessing the situation.

If Deluja were still standing, he would have immediately ordered them to halt, spread out, and break the pair’s line of sight. The key to countering A-Ji and Ji-Ga’s fluid teamwork was to prevent them from building kinetic momentum and to isolate the mercenary side. Any gap that appeared in their line needed to be patched instantly.

Deluja, however, was no longer in command. Locked inside his dead, depowered armor, he was likely already bound and secured by Mareum and the internal security personnel inside the pavilion corridor.

What remained in the courtyard were three arrogant mercenaries who believed raw mechanical force was everything.

As the three closed the distance, a ferocious close-quarters brawl erupted. Powered fists smashed into the ground and combat blades whistled through the air, shattering the stone paving and throwing up thick clouds of pulverized dust.

Yet despite the fury of the assault, not a single blow, slash, or stab landed cleanly on A-Ji or Ji-Ga. Moving like ghosts inside the dust, the pair effortlessly swayed, ducked, and parried around the whistling edges.

At the same time, landing a decisive counter-attack was proving difficult. The physical gap between an over-clocked exoskeleton and peak human strength was still glaringly obvious. Without true martial Qi to bolster their physical strikes, executing the heavy armor-shattering counters taught in The Path of Heavenly Martial Arts was nearly impossible in an open brawl.

Fortunately, footfalls echoed from the pavilion threshold as Ji-Hong’s six personal bodyguards surged into the courtyard—having successfully secured Deluja inside after stripping him of his disabled suit.

Two bodyguards lunged toward Jiuling in a fluid double-assault. One vaulted into the air, wrapping his arms securely around her helmeted head, while the second delivered an explosive, momentum-building kick to her midsection.

Using the combined torque, the pair pivoted mid-air and slammed her heavy, armored head straight into the side of a bulletproof SUV parked in the courtyard.

BOOM!

The brutal collision crumpled the vehicle’s reinforced door panel and ruptured a fuel line, hurling a cloud of sparks and a quick burst of flame into the dusty air.

Overwhelmed by superior numbers and relentless martial coordination, Maria and Dong-So were subdued moments later, pinned flat against the bloodied cobblestones.

Up on the second-floor balcony, Mareum watched the final resolution unfold, leaning heavily on Ji-Hong’s bodyguard. He stared out at the quieted courtyard in sheer disbelief, his mind reeling from the display of martial prowess.

"Y-Young Master... this is..." Mareum stammered, dragging his words as he tried to process what he had just witnessed.

Ji-Hong put on a solemn face, cupping his hands in a bow alongside Butler Lee.

"Great Guardian, this was all your doing," Ji-Hong said, trying to act cool. "I was merely a witness providing minor aid. You are the hero who neutralized these attackers."

Mareum stood frozen in utter shock, completely oblivious to the Young Master’s modesty.

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