"Add a bone here, sew some muscle there... No, wait, more muscle. It needs more muscle to generate enough explosive force..."
If Shenan and his group were here, the sight would have chilled them to the bone. The man who had brutally slaughtered his own parents and wife was standing right before them, though they likely wouldn't even recognize him anymore.
Clinging to the back of the man's neck was a spider-like alien organism. This parasite extended incredibly tough, razor-sharp tendrils, harvesting bones and muscle fibers from a heap of nearby corpses and grafting them directly into the host's body.
It was reconstructing its host through this grotesque method. The controlled man had long since lost all self-awareness; his brain had been entirely hollowed out and replaced by the parasite.
"Huh?"
Deeply immersed in his self-modification, the man paused. He turned around to find a young woman standing by the door, quietly observing his grotesque masterpiece.
SWISH!
The alien parasite on the man's neck instantly retreated back inside his skull. The movement was like a hermit crab ducking into its shell, only infinitely faster and more fluid.
This was the most grotesque and vicious alien Hyuk had ever witnessed. Even without her hunt, there was absolutely zero chance a creature like this could ever peacefully coexist with humanity.
Utilizing the host's brain, the parasite analyzed Hyuk. It felt a rare surge of caution; the heartbeat emanating from this young woman was exceptionally, unnaturally powerful.
The abnormal bioelectric signals she emitted triggered a physical fight-or-flight response within the parasite, its instincts screaming that she was a mortal threat.
And yet...
It quickly perceived Hyuk's unbelievable muscle density and physical structural integrity. Her body was far more resilient than solid steel. In an instant, its insatiable lust for such a perfect vessel completely overrode its instinctual terror.
"That body... belongs to me!"
Flipping instantly from caution to pure madness, the man's face twisted with grotesque greed. The massive quantities of grafted muscle across his body suddenly swelled.
He exploded forward with superhuman speed and power.
Speed that would seem blinding to an ordinary human was like a hundredfold slow-motion replay to Hyuk. Crawling at a literal snail's pace, the modified man's outstretched hands seemed to freeze mid-air as he lunged.
The sight of his grotesquely modified flesh was utterly repulsive.
A second later,
BANG!
The man's entire body slammed violently into the concrete. The sheer kinetic impact punched a massive hole straight through his chest, exposing the reinforced steel skeleton that had been grafted inside.
"Th-this... this level of power..."
Only now did the parasitic alien feel true terror. Even with its extensive biological modifications, this host body was laughably outmatched by the entity standing before it.
It couldn't even process what had just happened.
Escape!
Without a second thought, it forced the host body to bolt toward the outer security grating. Ignoring the metal bars crushing and mutilating the host's flesh, it squeezed through by sheer force, blood spraying like a ruptured pipe.
Hyuk walked up to the security grating and effortlessly peeled the thick iron bars apart to make a gap wide enough to pass through. Along the way, she ripped a steel pipe off the wall. Floating down toward the ground, she used her fingernails to shave the tip of the metal pipe, carving it into a razor-sharp blade.
Not knowing how potent the parasite's infection capability was, Hyuk chose to be cautious. She wanted to avoid direct physical contact with the alien's true form to prevent any potential contamination.
Landing on the ground, the parasitic host looked back and was instantly scared out of its wits. It scrambled to its feet and fled, leaving a thick trail of blood in its wake, completely ignoring the host's catastrophic injuries.
Run!
Just run!
That monster was not something it could fight in its current state. It had to find a much stronger host body. As long as it could make it out alive, it would surely——
At that exact moment,
Shenan and a tactical squad of detectives were rushing to the scene at top speed. Having tracked the killer's movements through street surveillance, they had narrowed his location down to this residential block.
Little did they expect,
The moment they crossed into the neighborhood, they were greeted by an unspeakably gruesome sight.
"Move! Move!"
"Shenan, you cover the ground floor——"
Before the sergeant could finish the order, a bloody blur rocketed from the alley ahead, smashing into the side of a nearby apartment building with sickening, violent force.
CRACK!
Flesh and crimson splattered across the brickwork.
The sudden, violent disruption left the entire detective squad stunned. Frozen in shock for a second, they focused their eyes and finally processed what was pinned against the wall.
A mangled, blood-drenched body hung pinned to the wall, its artificial steel skeleton laid bare. The sheer, colossal force of the impact had driven the metal bones deep into the concrete structure of the apartment building.
Most striking of all, a steel pipe was skewered clean through the man's skull, pinning his head immovably against the wall like a specimen on display.
The raw, visual impact of the scene was overwhelmingly heavy.
The detectives were left completely reeling, caught entirely off guard.
Shenan carefully peeked around the corner, tracing the trajectory of where the corpse had been thrown. She saw no one. Her eyes only caught the severely warped and torn security grating hanging from the sixth floor.
On this exact day,
Her entire worldview was completely shattered.
No matter how one looked at it, this was not something an ordinary human could achieve!
...
The interface flashed open.
[Parasitespawn: A bizarre organism that survives by parasitizing other host creatures. Possesses exceptionally strong biological reconstruction capabilities, though its intelligence level is relatively low.]
——
[Infinite Overload · Potential Unleashed]
[Strength: 6005 tons ⬆]
This confirmed her theory: the stronger the enemy defeated, the larger her strength boost would be. Compared to Militmony, this Parasitespawn had been laughably weak.
People bustled past one another on the street.
Hyuk walked alone through the crowd, listening to Type Zero's voice in her earpiece and occasionally murmuring a brief response.
"With your current physical specs, you should easily be able to hear sounds within a radius of several kilometers. Your information-gathering capability shouldn't be half-bad."
"Actually, it's quite the opposite."
"What do you mean?"
Hyuk explained, "I can hear sounds within a few hundred meters perfectly, and I can technically hear much further. But when a massive wall of sound collides, it just becomes meaningless white noise. My brain isn't a supercomputer; I can't filter out useful information. You think I can hear what individuals are saying, but in reality, all their voices stack on top of one another to create an endless, roaring din."
"To put it in more precise terms?"
"Have you ever seen a live World Cup stadium?"
"I'm looking at footage of one now."
"It's exactly like that. Imagine tens of thousands of people screaming all at once. You can't make out a single individual's voice. Never mind a full sentence——you can't even distinguish a single syllable."
Type Zero could easily sympathize with Hyuk's plight.
"That must be incredibly draining."
"You have no idea."
Actually, "draining" didn't even begin to cover it.
Her inability to shut off her hyper-sensitive hearing and smell was pure torture. If she didn't possess such immense self-control, she would have been driven mad by the sheer irritation long ago.
As she walked past a local middle school,
Hyuk paused. She detoured into a narrow alleyway where she found several thugs leaning against the wall, threatening a young boy for protection money.
A classic shake-down.
Hyuk walked up to them, her face devoid of any expression. The thugs instantly scowled. One of them pulled out a taser, sneering arrogantly, "What the hell are you looking at? Beat it!"
CRACK!
The crisp sound of snapping bones echoed.
"Aaargh!"
The thugs collapsed to the ground with agonized shrieks, tears and snot streaming down their faces. Hyuk cast a cold, sweeping glance over them before turning to leave.
"If I catch you extorting anyone ever again, I'll bury you all alive."
"H-help... somebody help!"
"Ughhh..."
Venting her frustration on the thugs helped take the edge off her irritation, but it didn't solve the core problem. She still felt like a ticking volcano, ready to erupt at any given moment.
Type Zero remarked, "You seem to have quite a strong sense of justice."
"Not really," Hyuk replied, having no desire to play the hero. "I'm just venting some lingering childhood anger. Back when I was in middle school, Jpscan City was far more chaotic than it is now."
Mugging.
Extortion.
Bullying.
She had experienced it all.
Even so, her experiences had only turned her into a bit of a loner. The fact that her psyche remained untwisted was perhaps the world's greatest stroke of luck.
Given her upbringing, she could never be the bright, cheerful type. While she wasn't some depraved sociopath, she certainly wasn't going to go out of her way to act as a Good Samaritan.
...
The next day,
Jpscan City's local internet was hit by a minor wave of commotion. Someone had managed to snap a photo of the Parasitespawn pinned to the wall. Once uploaded, it quickly went viral on local forums.
"Holy crap, what is that thing? It's heavily pixelated, I can't make out a thing!"
"Guys, if I didn't censor the image, the mods wouldn't even let me post it. You didn't see the crime scene——man, the sight alone almost made me lose my dinner from last night."
"Seriously, what the hell is that?"
"Are aliens invading Earth? That body looks incredibly grotesque."
"Be honest, OP. Is this some set photo you took at a movie studio to mess with us? There's no context here; I have no idea what you're trying to prove."
"No, seriously, go check out Block XXX. The police still have it completely cordoned off. One look and you'll see."
"What? Block XXX is blocked off? I literally just rented an apartment there two days ago!"
"Which building, bro?"
"Building 5. I've been pulling all-nighters at the office for two days. I barely even know what day of the week it is."
"You lucky bastard. Overtime literally saved your life, you know that?"
The thread didn't stay up for long before it was swiftly deleted, preventing any major panic from sweeping the internet. However, a few curious locals actually went to check out the neighborhood.
It was indeed completely shut down.
There was even military personnel on site.
...
A few days later,
Type Zero uncovered some information.
"Regarding the unexplained source of your parents' wealth... this might actually be linked to their deaths."
Hearing this,
Hyuk's focus sharpened instantly.
"What did you find?"
"EasyBorrow."
A business card appeared on the screen, bearing the name EasyBorrow Financial Services. Type Zero explained, "This is an unregistered, illegal lending agency. It has virtually no digital footprint, making it incredibly difficult to trace online."
Hyuk put two and two together.
"Did my parents borrow money from them?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"Roughly five million. The 3.5 million inheritance they left you was actually part of that loan. Since it's an illegal enterprise, even though your parents never finished repaying it, EasyBorrow had no legal avenue to freeze or seize those funds from your bank account."
"So my parents just... left it for me?"
"Precisely."
It sounded almost absurd. Since when were loan sharks so accommodating? Hyuk wasn't buying it. She asked, "How does this connect to my parents' deaths?"
Three photographs of deceased individuals flashed onto her phone. According to Type Zero's investigation, these three victims shared two distinct commonalities with Hyuk's parents.
First, they had all taken out loans from EasyBorrow.
Second, their times of death were all roughly two years ago, and all of them had died in Jpscan City.
With that, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. If EasyBorrow was somehow tied to her parents' deaths, they were almost certainly connected to the Vinespawn that killed them.
Hyuk's voice was deathly calm.
"Help me get in touch with this company."
"Understood."
...
Two days later,
Hyuk's phone rang with an incoming call.
She swiped to answer.
"Hello. Am I speaking with Miss Hyuk?"
"Yes."
As a scooter buzzed past in the background, Hyuk navigated the crowded alleys of the urban village. She stood at the mouth of a narrow corridor as a sweet, professional female voice guided her over the line.
"Do you see the alleyway in front of you? Head inside, turn left, then take a right. At the end, you'll find a steel door. That's us. Our team is waiting for you."
"Alright."
Hyuk walked into the alley, her eyes as calm and unreadable as still water. Only Type Zero knew that beneath that quiet surface lay a raging volcano on the brink of eruption.
This so-called EasyBorrow Financial Services didn't even have a legitimate registered address. Their operations were buried deep in a basement within the urban village.
Hidden entirely from the light.
Hyuk stopped in front of the steel door. A burly guard standing outside scanned her up and down.
"Miss Hyuk?"
"Yes."
"Go on in."
The guard knocked on the door. It swung open, and he led Hyuk down into a basement that was surprisingly, abnormally vast.
They descended all the way to the third basement level. There, Hyuk was greeted by the man hosting her, a young executive in a white suit with slicked-back hair. His demeanor was intense, yet carried a hint of reckless arrogance.
A nameplate sat on his desk.
Manager Bach.
Manager Bach had been lounging with his legs crossed, completely devoid of proper posture. But the moment he set eyes on Hyuk, his brow furrowed, and a quiet click of his tongue escaped his lips.
Adjusting his gold-rimmed sunglasses, his expression turned serious as he spoke words that completely caught her off guard. Staring straight into her eyes, he said, "You didn't come here to borrow money."
Hyuk immediately sensed that this man was anything but ordinary. It seemed there was no need for coded talk.
She cut straight to the point. "I'm looking for someone."
"Haha," Manager Bach chuckled. "My establishment only handles loans. This is the first time anyone has come down here searching for a person. Sorry, but we don't offer that kind of service."
Hyuk ignored his response entirely.
She pulled out her phone and showed Manager Bach a photo of her parents. "Two years ago, this couple took out a loan here. Shortly after, they met with an accident..."
"Hey, girl! Didn't you hear him? If you're not borrowing money, get the hell out of here!"
The guard who had brought her in interrupted her, shouting as he reached out to drag Hyuk out by the collar.
And then,
BAM!
The guard's entire body slammed into the basement wall, instantly pulverized into a smear of bloody flesh. Hyuk's voice was freezing. "My patience is wearing thin. Either answer me, or I send you all to hell."
Manager Bach's face darkened.
"Don't think you're hot shit just because you have some muscle. You think I have no way of handling you? Strutting into my territory and acting wild, you're begging for death."
"Answer me."
Bach was pushed past his limit by Hyuk's sheer arrogance. He let out a contemptuous laugh. "Haha! Yeah, I killed them. What of it? They your parents? Here for some payback? What the hell can you even do to me?"
Before the words could fully leave his mouth,
BOOM!
In a cataclysmic explosion, the entire subterranean complex was utterly demolished.
BOOM!
A deafening blast shook the urban village. A figure smashed through the concrete pavement, hurtling backward out of the ground. The disheveled Manager Bach scrambled to his feet, glaring at the crowd of onlookers gathered around him.
His expression was incredibly dark.
"Are you out of your mind, you crazy bitch?!"
The commotion was too massive.
If this kept up, his cover would be completely blown.
Hyuk didn't care in the slightest. The enemy she had hunted for over two years was standing right in front of her. At this moment, she wanted nothing more than to tear this well-dressed scumbag limb from limb to avenge her parents.
She rose slowly from the deep crater in the ground, completely ignoring the shocked stares of the bystanders. Her burning rage had coalesced into an icy, unyielding wave of killing intent.
A split second later,
A sonic boom thundered.
In the blink of an eye, Hyuk charged directly in front of Manager Bach. Left with no choice, Bach braced himself to fight. Unfortunately for him, he had catastrophically underestimated her combat capabilities.
"Dammit! You think I'm actually afraid of you? Bring it!"
Manager Bach, swearing loudly, threw a devastating punch, unleashing an invisible wave of raw energy from his fist. It clashed with her advance like Mars colliding with Earth.
BOOM!
The instant their fists collided, an invisible shockwave rippled outward, sweeping in all directions. The blast sent bystanders hurtling through the air, leaving them utterly terrified.
"Help me..."
Amidst the howling gale, a figure flew backward and slammed into a residential building. He crashed clean through several structures in succession, leaving a trail of catastrophic destruction in his wake. In the face of their power, the concrete buildings were no different from soft tofu.
On a middle floor of one of those buildings, a family of three was having lunch. Following the sudden, deafening blast, they stared in absolute horror at the colossal gaping hole that had appeared right through their living room.
"Mommy, what just happened?"
Neither her mother nor her father could find the words to answer.
Looking straight through the newly hollowed-out apartments, one could see Manager Bach deeply embedded in the outer wall of the last building, his white suit stained crimson with his own blood.
"Tsk... this girl is incredibly tough."
Manager Bach wrenched himself free from the wall, sending loose rubble cascading to the street below. It was blindingly obvious that he had come out on the losing end of their physical clash; the gulf between their strength was monumental.
Before he could even catch his breath, Bach's expression flickered. A figure cut through the air toward him, but just as she was about to reach him, she suddenly plunged downward.
THUD!
It felt as if thousands of tons of crushing force had suddenly materialized over Hyuk. The sudden, localized spike in gravity caught her off guard. She stabilized herself and crashed onto the ground below, taking only a few seconds to fully adapt to the crushing weight.
Vrrr, a high-frequency humming sound echoed from above. She looked up to see Manager Bach, blood dripping from his mouth, hurtling downward. The air around his body had condensed into a massive, invisible spiral drill.
Though the vortex itself was unseen, it became visible as it kicked up a massive cloud of dust. The strike carried the force of a super-cannon, packing kinetic energy far exceeding any artillery shell Hyuk had ever faced.
The impact blasted a massive crater into the earth, sending terrifying tremors through the ground that vibrated violently through all the surrounding buildings.
Manager Bach breathed heavily.
Fear still lingered in his chest.
"That should have taken care of that brat..."
It had been too close. He had almost met his end at her hands. He had never in his life encountered someone with such terrifying raw physical power and durability.
No flashy gimmicks, just pure, overwhelming physical might.
And yet,
Reality was not about to accommodate Bach's wishful thinking.
The thick dust swirling in the air was suddenly ripped apart by a gale. A figure shot forward like a piercing arrow, cutting a vacuum channel through the atmosphere. As the surrounding air violently rushed back to fill the void, it triggered a deafening sonic boom.
"?!!"
Manager Bach was scared out of his mind.
Flying at supersonic speed, Hyuk packed terrifying kinetic energy as she crashed straight into Manager Bach's defensive perimeter. The ubiquitous, invisible force field frantically tried to restrain her.
It desperately attempted to grind her momentum to a halt.
Unfortunately for Bach, Hyuk was simply too fast and too powerful. In less than a second, she shattered his defenses, hitting him with a rapid-fire triple combination.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Each strike grew heavier, and each blow delivered more excruciating pain. Hyuk's velocity continued to scale as she relentlessly pursued Manager Bach, whom she had sent careening backward. Her peak speed eventually pushed past Mach 3.
Concrete towers were hollowed out.
Streets were pulverized into gravel.
Cars were blasted into the air.
The physical world before them was as fragile as a sheet of paper, tearing apart at the slightest touch. As their battle raged across the district, the zone of destruction expanded at an alarming rate.
"Am I dreaming?"
"Oh my god..."
Startled by the thunderous noise, ordinary citizens looked up, only to see two figures burst clean out of an apartment building, accompanied by a cascading rain of shattered glass.
"Watch out!"
"Get out of the way!!"
BOOM!
A plume of fire erupted from inside the building, leaving the chaos within a mystery.
"What is that?"
Several onlookers spotted the two figures hovering suspended in mid-air. Utterly dumbfounded, people frantically whipped out their phones and began recording the impossible scene.
Zooming in.
Zooming in further.
Even further.
Through the enhanced, razor-sharp footage, they confirmed with absolute certainty, those were indeed two human beings.
"Are they... flying?!"
...
"Wait! Stop!"
Hyuk's relentless, suffocating advance made it hard for Manager Bach to breathe. His slicked-back hair was a chaotic mess, his face was bruised and battered, and his white suit was caked in dust and blood.
He threw his hands up in a desperate attempt to stall her.
"Don't you want to know why I murdered your parents?!"
"I don't care."
Hyuk accelerated as she closed the distance, reaching out and grabbing Manager Bach by the skull. Assisted by gravity, their downward plunge broke past Mach 2 in less than three seconds.
And then,
Pinned firmly in her iron grip, Manager Bach's head was slammed straight into the concrete pavement from a height of several hundred meters. The street cracked into a massive spiderweb of fissures. A nearby fire hydrant shattered under the force, sending a geyser of water spraying into the sky.
"It's real! Oh my god, it's actually real!"
Terrified bystanders scattered in all directions, though a few brave individuals kept filming. Suppressing their survival instincts, they continued to record the scene with trembling hands.
Manager Bach screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Listen to me! Your parents owed me money and tried to skip town with it! Am I running a charity here?! I warned them from the very start. They brought this on themselves, you can't blame me!"
Hyuk didn't care about the details.
All she cared about was the fact that Manager Bach had murdered her parents. The debt was a matter between her parents and him; her blood feud for the slaughter of her mother and father was a completely separate account.
"So you sent a Vinespawn to do your dirty work!"
Hyuk buried a fist into Manager Bach's face, sending a fountain of blood spraying from his nose. As the clash dragged on, Bach's defenses grew weaker, and his injuries grew increasingly catastrophic.
To her surprise,
Manager Bach froze upon hearing her words.
"What?"
"A Vinespawn?"
Finally putting the pieces together, he frantically screamed, "No! Since when did I ever employ a Vinespawn? You've got it all wrong! I didn't send any Vinespawn to kill your parents! I am a Loanspawn, there's a massive misunderstanding here!"
His desperate explanation was met with another heavy punch to the jaw, leaving his head spinning. Hyuk was not someone to be easily swayed, and there was no way she would buy the frantic lies of a dying man.
At this point, Manager Bach would say absolutely anything just to survive.