I was swallowing hard and staring at the dust cloud when—
"Hah!"
An incredulous snort of a laugh came out of the smoke.
The dust cleared, and there — at the very top of the sunk-in rebar.
Mad Dog was perched crooked at the very tip of it.
Not a hair on him out of place.
"Fuck, no wonder. The little brats weren't flinching or backing off — turns out they're Awakened?"
Mad Dog ran his beast's eyes slowly over the six kids blocking my way.
"Well... little punks don't chew right, so they're not really my taste, but..."
The corner of his mouth twisted up in a bloody grin, wide enough to split his face.
"Long as they can fight, I don't give a shit who it is."
His vicious gaze locked, dead on, on the twins who had just hurled the rebar.
"In a fight, standard practice's always been to take out the annoying long-range dealer first."
Kwang—!
Mad Dog kicked off the rebar and launched himself into the air.
Not just a jump.
He detonated red mana in midair to accelerate — a literal red meteor coming down.
Vicious claws venting scarlet steam plunged like lightning toward the crowns of the twins, who were clinging to each other, paralyzed with terror.
No dodge, no block — a life-or-death instant.
Whip—!
Along with a burst of air splitting apart, a black-haired boy sliced across the red flash and planted himself in front of the twins.
Cha Yul.
Mad Dog's razor claws punched straight into Cha Yul's chest.
"No!"
A scream tore out of me.
But in the next instant, something unbelievable happened.
Cha Yul's body — impaled on the claws — didn't bleed. Instead, it scattered like pale smoke and vanished.
"Huh...?"
At the lack of anything under his claws, Mad Dog's eyes went wide.
[C-rank Artifact: Mirage of Illusion]
Generates a duplicate identical to the wearer. The duplicate disperses like smoke when attacked.
One of the many artifacts I'd handed out to the kids.
The real Cha Yul had already slipped into the blind spot inside Mad Dog's arm.
Tak!
Cha Yul's small hand clamped tight around Mad Dog's exposed wrist.
"Thanks. I'll put it to good use."
Cha Yul's red eyes flashed.
[Kinetic Energy Absorption]
Every ounce of that monstrous charging energy Mad Dog had put out came pouring down through the wrist and into Cha Yul's body, clean.
Mad Dog's body, now with zero acceleration, stopped dead in midair.
In Cha Yul's fist, meanwhile, a scarlet energy — the force Mad Dog had thrown, layered with his own mana on top — condensed until it seemed about to burst.
Kwaaang—!
Cha Yul's fist detonated on Mad Dog's undefended gut.
Not just a hit.
A shockwave like a small bomb going off inside him tore out through his back.
"Kh-uk...!"
Mad Dog's body doubled over and went flying like an artillery shell into the factory wall.
Kwang!
The wall crumbled, dust bloomed up, and watching it happen, the Fox brought the fan up to hide his mouth and narrowed his eyes.
"Ohh..."
In a voice as elegant and soft as it could possibly be, he asked his downed partner:
"Would you like a hand?"
That wasn't concern.
It was pure mockery.
"Mighty Mad Dog, taking a punch from a kid and laid out flat. I feel bad for you, is all."
"Fucking — shut your mouth!!"
Kwaaang—!
The pile of broken bricks exploded outward in every direction.
Mad Dog walked out of the billowing dust cloud, and his eyes were about to roll back in his head with rage. Cords of vein stood out along his neck, writhing.
"Butt out, you shitty Fox. Before I tear your fucking throat out!"
He hacked a wad of blood-flecked spit onto the floor — khak, ptooey! — and snarled like an animal.
"Ah, this pisses me off, seriously. Play nice for a bit and you climb all over me? Huh?"
Wuuung—.
The red mana rolling off him started boiling up thick and sickly.
Krunch, kwajik!
Along with a bone-crawling sound, his body twisted out of shape.
The first part to change was his feet.
His shoes burst apart, and what was revealed underneath wasn't human anymore.
Heels lifted, long claws extended. Straight-up wolf's hindpaws.
Kung.
He dropped his upper body and slammed both hands into the floor.
Perfect four-legged stance.
Watching that grotesque silhouette, I pulled up the original's settings I'd been forgetting about.
That stance...
He wasn't called Mad Dog just because his personality was garbage.
His ability was Bestial Transformation — detonate his mana, warp his body into a wolf-like predator.
But there was one thing that made him fundamentally different from your typical Bestial Transformation user.
Chiiiik—.
Where his hands and feet met the floor, scarlet steam was rising off him.
He's... burning his mana.
He was a specialty-attribute Bestial user — his attacks ignited his own mana to high heat.
Every drop of color drained from my face and I shouted at the kids.
"Kids! Do not — do not — let those claws touch you!"
The original's descriptions came back vivid.
The horrific, extreme heat that turned flesh to charcoal on contact.
"Even a graze melts you! You have to dodge, no exceptions!"
At my desperate shout, the slit eyes of the Fox — who had been leisurely fanning himself in the back — went cold.
"Ohh... not just who we are but our abilities too. You've got us all mapped out."
He snapped the fan shut in one graceful motion and spoke to Mad Dog.
"You want to play alone — the little ones are all yours. But..."
The tip of the folded fan pointed, precise, at me.
"I'll take that man. There's quite a lot I want to ask him."
"Grrrr... do what you want!"
Mad Dog roared like a beast and charged the kids.
Even his vocal cords seemed to have twisted — the metallic screech in the sound alone felt like it could tear the air.
Under the weight of the Fox's stare, my whole body went cold.
Danger.
Without a second's delay, I pulled Suho — who was behind me — and the unconscious Kim Sunja in close.
Then, from inside my coat, I brought out the trump card I'd been saving.
[A-rank Artifact: Aegis Fragment]
Generates an absolute barrier that perfectly blocks physical/magical attacks for a set duration.
Wuuung—!
A shower of dazzling golden particles poured out, and a translucent dome closed around the three of us.
But there wasn't even time to breathe out in relief.
Whip—!
The Fox was already right up against the barrier.
He pressed a fingertip to the transparent wall and tilted his head, like a child looking at a fascinating new toy.
"Ohh... this is an artifact too?"
He rapped the barrier a couple of times with his finger, then smoothly curled his lip up.
"Hmm... solid stuff. A-rank? At this level, an ordinary attack won't crack it. But..."
The smile fell out of his eyes, and they narrowed.
"A way to crack it... you just make one."
The instant the words were out.
Krunch, kwajik!
Along with a skin-crawling sound of tearing, the Fox's fine-boned right arm twisted, grotesquely.
The skin flushed red, and blue blade-like claws shot out from his fingertips.
Heat radiated off it, hot enough to make the air shimmer.
The exact same thing Mad Dog had just been showing off.
"...!"
A chill ran down my spine.
In the original, this was the ability that had given a post-second-awakening Cha Yul serious trouble.
Persona...!
The absurd, one-of-a-kind broken skill that perfectly copied not only the appearance but the ability of anyone he touched.
"Let's see how long you last, shall we?"
The Fox raised his right arm — now Mad Dog's arm — high, then brought it down straight into the barrier.
Kwang—!!!
"Ugh!"
Along with a massive boom, the entire absolute barrier shook violently, like an earthquake.
Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!
The Fox started pounding on the barrier — easy, almost humming a tune, but with the destructive power of a beast.
Every strike, the golden film screamed and rippled unsteadily.
I pulled a trembling Suho tight into my chest and hid the unconscious Kim Sunja behind my back.
The savage, beast-like violence unfolding in front of my eyes.
The monster smiling elegantly.
But my raw nerves weren't on the Fox in front of me — they were on what was behind me.
The kids...!
Even while catching the Fox's blows, I kept snatching glances past the barrier.
Over there, a fiercer, uglier fight to the death was happening.
"Kraaaang—!"
Mad Dog vented scarlet steam from all over his body and charged the kids.
Not just fast.
He melted the floor, ran up the walls, ricocheted off — an unpredictable trajectory that pressed the kids from every direction.
But the kids didn't fall back.
"Three o'clock! Twins, tie him up!"
Sea-ah's sharp shout cut across the battlefield.
"Got it!"
Hayun and Hajun threw out their hands at the same time.
The thick rebar strewn across the factory floor twisted like snakes and coiled up Mad Dog's charging legs, tight.
"Grrr! Annoying!"
Mad Dog roared, irritated, and flexed his legs — the heat-ignited rebar melted through and snapped like taffy.
He was just about to seize the opening and lunge at the twins when—
Shweek—!
Out of his own shadow, a black spike shot up straight for the underside of his jaw.
"Tch!"
Mad Dog jerked his head back on reflex to dodge, but the movement broke his perfect charging form.
"Now!"
Sea-ah's signal wasn't even out yet when a red flash dropped out of the air.
Kwaaang—!
Cha Yul condensed the potential energy of his fall down into one point of his fist and drove it into the crown of Mad Dog's head.
Flawless team play.
The kind of precise, tight timing you only get from countless reps in the virtual training room.
But.
Inside the billowing dust cloud, Mad Dog had caught Cha Yul's fist one-handed and was giving him a bloody smile.
Chiiiik—!
"Ugh!"
Cha Yul swallowed a scream and stepped back.
He'd absorbed the physical impact, but the heat had gotten through.
The kid's fist was swollen an angry red.
"That all you got? Huh?!"
Kwang!
Mad Dog slammed the floor and the ground flipped up, a scarlet wall of heat sweeping toward the kids.
"Block it!"
Lee Sea-ah threw a barrier up fast to cut the heat off, but cracks were splintering across the surface of it.
She wasn't holding.
However genius the kids' talent, the opponent was a veteran Hunter who'd been through everything. That much of a gap in weight class and combat experience wasn't a wall raw talent could clear.
Against a man raging like a mad dog off the leash, their line was giving way, helpless.
That was when the wildly-thrashing look in Mad Dog's eyes settled down, cold.
And then—
Whip—!
The distance closed in a blink.
He'd locked, exact, onto the most inconvenient piece of prey.
The team's commander and only shield — Lee Sea-ah.
"You the leader?"
"...!"
Sea-ah couldn't even react before his shoulder rammed her barrier head-on.
Kwaaang—!
Under the massive impact, the barrier shattered into pieces, and Lee Sea-ah was blown backward with the shards and slammed down some distance off.
"Unnie!!!"
Hayun and Hajun screamed and were reaching out to their noona when—
"Come to think of it, you two are still holding hands, huh?"
Mad Dog, who had already slipped in behind the twins, glanced at the two little fists interlaced together and gave a bloody smile.
"Well, let me cut you loose."
Shweek—!
Like snapping a pinky link apart in a game of red light, green light, his claws sheared, merciless, straight between the two children.
"Hajun!"
The twins, terrified, reflexively let go of each other and were flung apart to either side.
In that instant, the taut ring of mana between them snapped.
The dozens of pieces of rebar and concrete chunks that had been suspended in the air remembered gravity all at once and dropped.
Kwaaang—!
Along with the deafening crash, a cloud of dust bloomed up.
Sihyeok hurried to spread the shadow across the floor wide, throwing it over the twins to shield them from the falling debris.
But Mad Dog didn't miss even that instant of an opening.
"Eyes on me, little punk."
Puk!
Along with a horrible impact, a heavy kick planted itself in Sihyeok's side.
"Kh-huk...!"
The kid's small body flew like a sack of luggage and slammed into a concrete wall.
He must have lost consciousness on impact — the shadow that had been wrapping the twins went slack, melted away, and spat them back out.
Ten seconds. That was all.
That was how long it took for the kids' iron-fortress formation to crumble like a sandcastle against Mad Dog's overwhelming force.
The barrier was broken, the telekinesis link was severed, the shadow was scattered.
Above the wrecked battlefield, only one small figure was left, breathing rough — standing, precariously.
Mad Dog cocked his head crooked and bared his teeth at the last remaining prey, giddy with it.
"Just us two now, huh?"
I watched Cha Yul, my insides burning.
The opponent was an adult Awakened — a murderer with a wealth of real combat experience on top of that.
It wasn't a level a ten-year-old boy who'd only just started training could handle.
No... run... please, run, Yul—!
Maybe he read the desperate look in my eyes. Cha Yul glanced back at me. But instead of running, he turned his head again and looked Mad Dog dead in the eye.
"For a bastard like you... I'm enough on my own."
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