Chapter 227 Pushing The Mob Outside
Chapter 227 Pushing The Mob Outside
The harsh, flickering orange light of the torches spilled through the shattered doorway, cutting through the damp darkness of the warehouse.
Time seemed to grind to an absolute, agonizing halt.
In the center of my vision, the blue system interface finalized its work. The text didn't glitch or flash with desperate warnings anymore. It glowed with a steady, serene light that reflected the sudden, impossible stillness inside my own chest.
\[Absolute Meridian Cleansing: 100% Complete.\]
\[Foreign Toxins Eradicated.\]
\[Baseline Vitality Restored.\]
A deep, powerful breath filled my lungs. There was no rattling cough. There was no tearing pain in my tissue. The air tasted of rain and cheap torch smoke, clean and sharp.
I reached up with my right hand and grabbed the blood-soaked hemp sling binding my left arm to my chest. I gripped the thick fabric and tore it away.
The heavy splint fell to the dirt. I slowly uncurled the fingers of my left hand. The dark, swollen purple bruising that had covered my crushed knuckles was entirely gone, replaced by pale, healthy skin. I rolled my left shoulder. The shattered fragments of my collarbone, which had ground together like broken glass just seconds ago, were perfectly fused.
The system hadn't just removed the Demonic venom. For six hundred Karma—the price of a king’s ransom in blood and sweat—it had reset my physical body to its absolute baseline.
The hollow cavern of my Foundation Establishment core was entirely empty of Qi, but the biological vessel holding it was completely whole. I felt light. I felt a raw, surging kinetic strength rushing into my muscles, unchecked by the rot that had been suffocating me for days.
The massive, scarred mercenary standing in the breached doorway didn't care about my miraculous recovery. He only saw the fifty thousand gold taels on my head.
"Die, Alliance dog!" the mercenary roared, charging over the splintered remains of the barricade.
He swung a heavy, spiked iron mace in a brutal, downward arc aimed directly at my skull. The torch in his left hand trailed a ribbon of thick black smoke.
I didn't step back. I didn't dodge into the shadows.
I stepped directly into the strike.
My left hand—the hand that had been completely useless for a week—shot upward with terrifying speed. I didn't try to block the heavy iron head of the mace. I caught the wooden haft just below the iron grip.
The sheer kinetic force of the mercenary’s swing slammed into my palm, but my newly fused collarbone held perfectly. The blow stopped dead in mid-air.
The mercenary’s eyes widened in absolute shock. The momentum of his charge was entirely arrested by a man he thought was a rotting corpse.
Before he could react, I whipped my right arm forward. The heavy iron chain wrapped around my wrist lashed out, the thick metal links coiling tightly around his thick neck. I jerked my right arm downward while simultaneously driving my left fist directly into the center of his chest armor.
The mechanical leverage was flawless. The man’s boots lifted entirely off the dirt floor. He choked, a sickening gag escaping his throat as I used the chain to hurl his massive body over my hip.
He crashed into the dirt behind me, the heavy iron mace clattering away into the dark.
I didn't stop. I unwrapped the chain from his neck and turned my attention to the fifty men pouring through the door behind him.
The first wave hit us like a wall of rusted steel and desperation.
A thug lunged with a short spear. I sidestepped the thrust, grabbed the wooden shaft with my left hand, and drove my right elbow squarely into the side of his knee. The joint popped loudly. As he collapsed, I ripped the spear from his grip and threw it like a javelin into the shins of the two men rushing in behind him. They tripped, falling hard into the mud at the threshold.
Suddenly, a flash of deep blue light illuminated the damp tin walls of the warehouse.
Baek Jin-Woo stepped up beside me.
He was bleeding, exhausted, and running on the absolute dregs of his stamina, but his straight sword moved with a renewed, deadly precision. He parried a rusted saber, stepped inside the attacker's guard, and struck the man's temple with the heavy brass pommel of his hilt. The thug dropped like a stone.
Jin-Woo and I didn't exchange a single word. We didn't need to.
The dynamic between us had completely shifted. For the past week, Jin-Woo had been a frantic shield, desperately throwing his own body in front of blades to protect a dying man. He had been fighting with the heavy, suffocating panic of someone who knew that if he fell, I would die seconds later.
Now, he didn't have to look back.
He felt the sudden, explosive absence of my weakness. He felt the terrifying, mechanical efficiency of my movements securing his blind spots.
A mercenary swung a heavy axe at Jin-Woo’s injured left side. Before the blade could even come close to his ribs, I lashed out with my iron chain, wrapping it around the axe handle. I yanked the weapon out of the man’s hands, stepped forward, and drove my forehead directly into the bridge of his nose. Blood sprayed across my face as the mercenary crumpled.
"Left flank!" Jin-Woo shouted, ducking under a horizontal sword slash.
I immediately pivoted left. Three thugs were trying to circle around a stack of rotting crates. I vaulted over the crates, landing directly in the center of their group. I swept my right leg low, taking out the first man's ankles. As he fell, I grabbed the back of the second man's leather vest, using him as a human shield against the third man's dagger thrust. The blade sank into the leather armor. I shoved them both backward into the corrugated tin wall. The metal buckled.
We were a meat grinder.
We moved with the dark, unspoken synchronization of men who had accepted the absolute worst parts of each other. Jin-Woo knew I was a monster. He knew what I had done in the Sun Village. The heavy, nauseating guilt of my confession still burned in my chest, a cold reminder of the debt I owed him. He had given me my life by lowering his sword.