Chương 73: 72: The Mission

Part Five: The Arm The jet cruised at thirty-seven thousand feet. Zeinai opened his eyes. His face was wet, but he left the tear where it was. There was no one here to see it. He should've been faster. Smarter. He could've saved her. Instead, Bora was gone. The jet carried him toward another mission, another target, yet part of him would always remain in that burning wreckage, holding his sister as she slipped away. His thoughts drifted, as they often did, to Pharaoh's Ichor.

He had never truly stopped thinking about it. The Syndicate had dismissed it as primitive, inefficient, an ancient relic unworthy of further study. He wasn't convinced. He understood it now. The power came at the cost of the user's own vitality. Every use shortened their life, forcing them to steal it from others simply to remain alive. The younger the victim, the richer the vitality. Children possessed the most. Infants even more. Women had never been the objective. They were the means.

Factories forced to give birth to an endless supply of lives that could be harvested before they ever had the chance to become their own. His jaw tightened. The Master hadn't merely built an empire. He had cultivated a farm. 그만. 충분해. 멈춰. Stop. Enough. Halt. The world had never listened. Neither had he. His gaze drifted to his left arm. His fingers found a seam invisible to anyone else, and with a soft click the magpie feathers folded away, revealing the prosthetic beneath. Matte black. Flawless.

Blue lights pulsed beneath its surface in a slow artificial heartbeat. It was Syndicate engineering at its finest - elegant, cold, permanent. He flexed the fingers. They moved as naturally as flesh. They weren't flesh. Losing his real arm had been the flap of a butterfly's wing, a single moment that rippled through everything that followed, shaping every mission, every kill, and every step that had brought him here. He remembered that day perfectly. I. The First Operative Mission His first day as an Operative.

The suit was different from a Stepper's. A high feathered raised collar framed his neck, the living plumage replacing plain armor as it settled against his skin. The helmet curved into something unmistakably predatory, while the upgraded HUD no longer merely analyzed - it knew. Weaknesses, trajectories, probabilities, solutions... information flowed directly into his mind like thoughts that had always been there. It felt less like software and more like an omniscient presence living inside his skull.

The Apis prism thrummed beneath the armor, feeding the suit more power, faster calculations, making him quicker before he'd even taken a step. An abomination had escaped. A rogue experiment. Everyone knew running from the Syndicate was suicide. A mischief of Magpies, another abomination, or a Syndicate hunter would always find you. Always. This creature simply lacked the intelligence to care. C-3-NTIPID. He read the file alone in his quarters while scientists talked beyond the thin walls.

"They're sending one Operative after that thing? That's stu-""Oh. It's Zeinai."

"… Never mind." He let out a faint chuckle. The report made for grim reading. An unstable fusion of human and centipede genes. Genderless. Genitalless. A humanoid shell wrapped in chitin, driven only by insect instinct - hunger, survival, reproduction. Nothing more. He studied the attached photograph. A beautiful face stared back. Pale skin. Long crimson hair. Brilliant yellow eyes fixed on the camera with an emptiness somehow colder than hatred.

The creature possessed the same unsettling beauty as something dredged from the deepest ocean. He closed the file. C-3-NTIPID had escaped into the world. His suit was on an instant later. — The aircraft was closer to a flying car than any jet Sangmin had imagined as a child - compact, silent, and invisible to detection. It carried him across the rain-soaked sky before settling onto a secluded rooftop overlooking Ibiza. Technology like this should've left him speechless, but the Syndicate built the impossible.

After growing up in a village where electricity itself felt like a luxury, he'd long since stopped questioning what Apis could create. An air fryer had once seemed as miraculous as a flying car. He'd once wondered where the money came from. Hidden cities, experimental weapons, cloned bodies, and aircraft like this demanded unimaginable wealth. Eventually, he learned the truth. The Syndicate had buried itself inside every layer of society.

Many of the world's highest-paid athletes were Steppers living double lives, their Magpie serum invisible to drug tests as records, championships, and sponsorships quietly funneled fortunes back to the organization. Scientists working for governments effortlessly outperformed their peers, securing grants, founding universities, and building institutions that ultimately served the Syndicate.

Politicians, executives, mine owners, diamond merchants, and industrialists wore respectable faces by day and different masks by night. They trafficked drugs while owning rehabilitation centers, controlled rare resources while pretending to regulate them, and embezzled fortunes under one simple rule: no one was allowed to steal except the Magpies. Eventually, Zeinai stopped thinking about it. The Syndicate were simply thieves who made sure there was nothing left for anyone else to steal.

They existed in the shadows, and anyone who uncovered the truth disappeared before they could tell it. Their wealth, influence, and military power were enough to seize the world if they wished, but that had never been Crook's vision. At least, that was what Zeinai believed. Most Magpies had drifted from that path after Crook vanished following the horrific Sin War. Whether she had died, disappeared, or joined another faction, no one knew. The Syndicate spanned the globe, divided into countless factions.

She could have been anywhere. So they stayed hidden. Humanity was far more valuable alive than conquered. The Syndicate weren't conquerors. They were parasites, keeping the host healthy enough to keep feeding. Sometimes Zeinai wished he could return to the quiet mountain village where people worked honestly, greeted each other by name, and believed the world made sense. That life had died with Sangmin.... The driver remained behind the controls.

"Good luck, Operative." Zeinai stepped out without a word. Seconds later, the aircraft slipped back into the rain and disappeared into the darkness. He walked to the roof's edge and stepped off, his body cutting through the downpour while Apis calculated every variable. Rain lashed against his visor as he fell, the suit adjusting his descent before he struck the flooded street below without leaving so much as a crack. The impact bled harmlessly through the armor, absorbed and forgotten. He straightened.

Rain drummed across the pavement, rooftops, and abandoned vehicles, yet the city itself was silent. Wrong silent. The kind that meant everything had already happened, leaving only the aftermath. He moved. His speed defied measurement. Between one breath and the next he crossed entire blocks. Between heartbeats he cleared districts, following distant screams that ended too quickly, wet tearing sounds, and the relentless skitter of countless legs scraping across rain-slick stone. II.

The Hunt Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. He followed the sounds through the Plaza del Sol, past overturned cars and shattered storefronts. The screams grew sharper, wetter. The skittering grew louder. When he rounded the next corner, the city had become a slaughterhouse. Bodies littered the rain-soaked cobblestones. Some were torn apart, others half-eaten. A silver-braceleted arm lay beside a hand still clutching a phone.

A man's hollowed torso leaned against a fountain like grotesque artwork. Blood pooled through the streets, mixing with the rain. Some were still alive. A teenage boy dragged himself forward without legs. A woman clutched her own intestines. Beneath an overturned car, a little girl stretched one trembling arm toward nothing, still breathing. The plaza echoed with screams. No one filmed. Anyone who could escape already had. Everyone left behind was simply waiting to die.

Apis swept the area, marking exits, trajectories, and threats. It was then he saw it. The photograph hadn't prepared him. The creature wore nothing but loose brown trousers tied with rope. Everything else had changed. Burgundy skin stretched over a warped insectoid frame. Limbs bent at unnatural angles, ending in black scythe-like claws that dripped malevolent yellow energy. Poison. Venom magic. One scratch would dissolve his suit's defenses.

The beautiful face remained, but four blazing yellow eyes now stared from it beneath a crown of fiery red hair. Segmented chitin plated its spine, ribs, and limbs, fusing centipede anatomy with something almost human. It wasn't alone. A woman met every strike head-on. No feathers. No high collar. A sleek suit of black and deep cobalt - true Magpie colors rather than New Zealand's red and gray - clung to her frame, a utility belt riding her waist.

For the briefest instant, Crook's image flashed through Zeinai's mind. The colors matched, but the resemblance ended there. Crook had worn little more than plain fabric, while this was unmistakably modern Stepper armor. Circular jade lenses glowed behind her visor as twin nanite blades shrieked through the rain. SCREEEEEEEE- Antarctican faction. They tore through buildings like monsters wearing human skin. Concrete, glass, and steel erupted around them, every collision ripping another wound through the city.

Even Zeinai's enhanced vision struggled to follow. It wasn't merely speed. They seemed to flicker between positions, blurs folding into blurs until tracking them made his head ache. The creature realized it was losing.... The truth was almost impossible to comprehend. The abomination was stronger. Faster in raw movement. Its claws carved through buildings, its venom dissolved steel, and its body shrugged off impacts that would've pulverized titanium. None of it mattered. She was never where the attack landed.

A slash that should've torn her open instead ripped through empty air before smashing into the street, cratering the asphalt. She was already somewhere else, already countering. Her HUD was predicting. At these speeds, a fraction of a second was an eternity. The suit calculated the creature's intent before the strike fully existed, feeding her the answer before the question was asked. The creature sprang backward, clearing forty meters in a heartbeat. She didn't pursue. She kicked a parked car.

It launched like a missile. The creature snarled and swatted it aside, crumpling metal as it wrapped itself around a streetlamp. In the same motion, it seized a nearby delivery truck, hoisted the twelve-ton vehicle overhead, and hurled it at her. She vaulted over it effortlessly. The creature lunged mid-air, claws extended, convinced it had finally cornered her. It hadn't. She met it with both feet. CRACK. The double kick buried itself into its chest, combining both their momentum into a single devastating impact.

Something gave way inside the creature as it blasted back into the street, carving out a massive crater while fractures raced across the asphalt for thirty meters. The woman's momentum carried her backward through the air. She caught the falling truck with one hand, her fingers biting into steel, and used its weight to swing herself into a smooth landing. She never released it. With a single motion, she swung the entire truck like a club. WHAM.

It smashed into the creature just as it climbed from the crater, hurling it across the street. Snarling, it caught the wreck, ripped it clean in half, and flung the pieces aside. One crashed through a storefront. The other sailed overhead. The woman hadn't moved. Her jade lenses watched. Then she blurred. She kicked something, it struck the creature's chest and imploded. The abomination shrieked as its organs liquefied, collapsing onto the street while sickly green-yellow blood poured from its mouth.

She closed in immediately to decapitate it. The creature lashed out, claws flashing, and unleashed a wave of venomous yellow energy. She flowed around it. One spinning kick detonated the air with a sonic boom, launching the creature through three parked cars before it disappeared into the face of a building in an eruption of brick and glass. Zeinai had already moved, dragging the wounded toward safety. Then they all fell apart. The teenage boy. The woman clutching her intestines. The child beneath the car.

Every survivor collapsed at the same instant. Limbs separated from torsos. Heads rolled free. Blood sprayed across the plaza in perfect unison. Zeinai spun. She stood behind him, shaking blood from her nanite blades as the jade lenses of her mask settled on him. Lean and wiry like a sprinter, her armor clung to every contour like a second skin, built for speed rather than strength.

"They were innocent," Zeinai said.

"No witnesses," she replied harshly.

"Children included." She rattled something in her hand.

"I'll keep them safe. Don't worry. It's for my collection." Zeinai focused. Teeth. One from every victim. She'd pulled each one before killing them. He'd always heard the Antarctic faction was crueler than the others. Sending a Stepper after an abomination had been the first clue. Even the weakest abominations were considered national-level disasters in conceptual energy. In raw strength, they could vary wildly, but a dozen serious punches from that creature would've shattered her defenses and drained her sphere.

She tilted her head, already studying him, cataloguing weaknesses.

"I'm Sphinx. What's your name?" III. The First Blood"Operative Zeinai." His answer was flat. She snorted.

"I don't care if you're the damn Commander. I'm a Stepper. Ninety-nine completed missions. One more and I rank up to Operative. Don't steal my kill, asshole." Her gaze swept over his feathers, high collar, and broad frame.

"Damn, why're you so tall?" She leaned back, squinting up at him.

"And wide. You're built like a freakin' orc." Zeinai frowned.

"I'm six foot four." A soft whir came from her mechanical lens as it scanned him from boots to head.

"Nope. Six foot six."

"That's impossible."

"It isn't. Your posture's just awful." She folded her arms.

"I'd be that tall too if I'd actually been well nourished as a kid." Zeinai looked her up and down.

"I... don't think so. You're, what... five three?"

"I don't care what you think. And I'm five three and a half!" She rose onto her tiptoes just to glare up at him properly, stubbornly craning her neck until she was almost nose-to-chest with the towering operative. She jabbed a finger into his chest plate.

"And don't think I'll let you take advantage of me just because you're enormous. Also, your faction's tech is garbage, by the way. We build better gear in our sleep." Zeinai simply looked down at her. For some reason, the display felt more amusing than intimidating. He had never seen someone so determined to look threatening while standing on their tiptoes. He blinked.

"Take advantage? What do you mean by that?" She ignored the question entirely.

"First of all, turn off that stupid voice changer." He frowned.

"It isn't a voice changer."

"Sure." She rolled her eyes beneath the mask.

"…Why are you rolling your eyes?"

"Because you're making your voice all deep like it's supposed to be sexy."

"It isn't."

"Sure." Another exaggerated eye roll.

"You rolled your eyes again."

"Why're you so on my meat?" He tilted his head.

"On your… meat?" She snorted.

"I mean get off my dick, man. Get off my case." He looked genuinely confused.

"You don't have one." She stared at him for a long second.

"…Apparently you don't have a brain either."

"I fail to see the correlation."

"Exactly."

"I was making a factual observation."

"And I'm making one now." They continued bickering back and forth, neither willing to surrender the last word. The argument died only when the sun finally broke over the horizon, flooding the battlefield with pale golden light. A quiet sob interrupted them. Both turned. A little girl, no older than ten, crawled from beneath a collapsed wall. Dust coated her hair and clothes, tears cutting clean lines through the grime as she stared at the bodies, then at the two figures standing among them. Sphinx sank from view.

The air rippled like disturbed water where she'd stood before she emerged beside the child, her nanite blades already descending toward the girl's neck. Their Stepper teleportation systems were different too. Zeinai was faster. His hand clamped around the back of Sphinx's neck and hurled her with everything he had. She shot across the plaza, twisted effortlessly in midair, and landed sideways against a building fifty meters away, fingers buried in the concrete as though it were soft clay.

The jade lenses locked onto him.

"Did you just..." She fell silent.

"You filthy bastard." Still standing sideways on the wall, she glared at him before her body rippled and sank into the concrete. — Rain continued to pour over the ruined plaza, drumming against shattered stone and broken glass as Zeinai spun to his right. Sphinx's blades screamed through the space where his head had been, but they were alone. His HUD flared. WARNING: ATTACK IMMINENT. SOURCE: ABOVE. He moved before the warning finished.

Rolling forward through the rain, his hand snapped to his belt and pulled free a collapsed weapon. It unfolded mid-motion into a heavy black metal bat, silver lights pulsing along its length. He brought it up just as Sphinx dropped from above, landing exactly where he'd stood a heartbeat earlier. She plucked both blades from the air as she descended, settled into a crouch, and flowed into another stance before her feet had fully touched the ground, rain hissing from the nanite edges. His HUD updated.

SPHINX - VELOCITY: MACH 35. Impossible. A Stepper suit amplified speed tenfold naturally without Apis boost. Magpie serum alone pushed an elite human to roughly Mach 1. 9. That meant her natural speed, before the suit, already hovered around Mach 3. 5. She'd been born faster than almost anyone alive. Who was this woman? She slipped from view again. No afterimage. The rain itself seemed to pass through the space she'd occupied. His HUD pulsed. WARNING: CLOAKED DEVICE DETECTED. He glanced down.

A device no larger than a fingernail clung to his chestplate, invisible until the HUD highlighted it. Corrupted Apis energy was already feeding into his prism, slowing calculations and introducing microscopic delays. He crushed it instantly, grinding circuitry into dust, but the damage had already been done. His systems stuttered as they recalibrated. She'd tagged him. While throwing her blades. While forcing him to evade. She'd planted a device on him without him noticing. That shouldn't have been possible.

He perceived events measured in nanoseconds. Even without Apis he could follow light itself. Raw speed alone couldn't erase someone from his vision. She was manipulating information. Her Apis distorted light around her for the briefest instant, erasing herself before relocating inside that blind window. To anyone watching, it looked like teleportation. To his HUD, she became a missing variable. She wasn't a speedster. She was an assassin. The realization burned away every restraint.

Rain exploded from beneath his boots as he swung where his HUD predicted she'd reappear. The bat carved through the storm with enough force to flatten a building. She barely escaped. The tip clipped her mask. Another centimetre and her head would've left her shoulders. She flipped backward, stopping halfway through the motion as both legs wrapped around his arm, using her momentum to throw him off balance. He planted his feet. Growled. Grabbed her leg. His fingers closed on nothing.

The rain rippled where she'd been. WARN- BOOOOM. An implosion grenade struck his back and detonated. The blast tried to crush him into a single point. His suit dispersed most of the force, glowing white-hot as it sacrificed a surge of Apis to destroy the device, but a portion slipped through, leaving a patch of exposed armor behind him that refused to seal. An opening. How? His stuttering HUD answered. Sphinx was feeding her own Apis sphere into the interference field, sacrificing her reserves to cripple his prism.

Every second she weakened herself just to blind him. She was facing an Operative with half her strength, no predictive advantage, relying on nothing but skill. Madness. Pride. She was wagering everything that she was better. The worst part? She might've been.