The Peacekeepers were a symptom of a dying world. When the Police failed to contain the swelling chaos of the slums, the Peacekeepers rose to fill the void.
Originally pitched as a neighborhood watch, they had quickly mutated into a paramilitary organization.Some of their members were Awakened, and rumors whispered that even high-ranking Hunters, including the infamous Belanor, were on their payroll.
They were ruthless, shady, and untouchable. In the early days, the Police Department had officially distanced itself, branding them an illegal militia. But after a few bloody clashes where the cops found themselves hopelessly outnumbered, they retreated. A silent, grim pact was formed. The Peacekeepers could rule the gutters of the lesser Districts however they liked, so long as the filth didn't spill over into the high-rent districts.
Conspiracies clung to the group like rot. Some said the Government secretly funded them to keep the "peasants" in check through terror, others claimed they were a mafia front for S-Rank Hunters who wanted a cut of the slum's black market. Whatever the truth, one fact was undisputed, the Peacekeepers were trouble.
They traded in fear, and crossing them usually meant a one-way trip to a dumpster in a Dead Zone.
With over thirty thousand members across the Eight Bases, they were a shadow empire. As long as they kept their boots on the necks of the poor and didn't rattle the cages of the elite, the Government looked the other way.
And now, eight of these motherfuckers were standing in my way, eyes gleaming with the intent to gut me and strip my corpse of every credit.
"Scum just keeps piling up," I said, finally pulling my hands from my pockets.
Unlike the low-level thugs I'd handled earlier, these guys were geared for a kill. I could see the dull glint of knives and the heavy weight of lead pipes.My high-alert senses kicked in, my mana pooling in my limbs, ready to explode.
[System Warning: Combat Imminent]
[Enemy Type: Armed Enforcers]
[Objective: Neutralize the Threat]
"You talk a lot for a guy whose internal organs are about to be external," the scarred leader growled, signaling his men to close the circle.
"I'm not so sure about that," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, steady register. "You lot love terrorizing the innocent because it's easy. But after today, you won't be able to harm another person ever again."
The leader let out a booming, ugly laugh that echoed off the damp brick walls. "You're awfully full of yourself, cunt. You think because you took out three street-rats earlier that you're untouchable? There are eight of us this time. And I'm bigger, meaner, and I've got more mana in my pinky than you have in your whole body."
"Who said bigger is better?" I let a predatory grin spread across my face. "Try your best to keep up."
[Skill Activated: Basic Combat Perception]
[Skill Activated: Echo Step]
The colors of the alley bled into greys, and the movements of the men slowed as my brain began processing data at an E tier level. Suddenly, I wasn't just looking at them but also feeling them. I could hear the frantic, rhythmic thumping of eight different hearts.
The big man's heart was pounding the loudest, and the fastest.
Not so tough on the inside, are you? I thought. You're terrified.
The System fed me the trajectories before they even happened. I knew exactly who was going to break the stalemate first.
The slim one. Left flank. Dagger, I noted.
He moved instantly, a blur of motion to a normal human. He lunged, the mana-infused blade aimed at my kidney, his face twisted in a sneer of overconfidence.
I didn't even have to look at him. My EchoStep hummed, and I prepared to show him that the distance between life and death was measured in milliseconds.
I met him halfway. His eyes widened, bulging with a sudden, primal terror as he realized I was already occupying his personal space while an after-image of my body was still lingering at the starting line.
[Echo Step: 1st Sequence Complete]
Before he could even process the blur, I brought the edge of my hand down in a lightning-fast strike against the side of his neck. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing nothing but white as he hit the concrete like a sack of lead.
I didn't have time to watch him fall. Two more Peacekeepers surged forward, sensing the shift in the air. One swung a heavy, rusted chain with a roar; the other followed close behind with a spiked club. The chain whistled through the air, aimed at my head.
I didn't dodge or flinch. I reached out and caught the metal links barehanded, the cold steel biting into my palm.I wrapped the chain around my forearm and pulled.
He flew towards me letting out a pathetic shriek as he was yanked off his feet, hurtling toward me like a ragdoll. I met his momentum with a rising knee. His face collided with the bone of my leg with a sickening, wet crunch. I felt his nasal cavity and jaw shatter instantly before he crumpled into a heap.
The club was already descending from my blind spot. I pivoted backward, my body fluid and gravity-defying as I ducked. I watched the spiked wood pass inches over my head, moving in slow motion. Before the attacker could recover his balance, I exploded upward with superspeed.
I palm-struck his face, my fingers digging into his skin, and slammed him vertically into the ground. His skull hit the pavement with a bone-deep crack that echoed through the narrow alley.
I stood up slowly, the cold mana cooling my skin. I didn't even have a scratch on me.
"Three down," I said, my voice flat and devoid of emotion.
I looked at the remaining five. The hesitation was thick enough to taste. Even the big, scarred leader had stopped laughing, his face paling as he looked at the broken bodies of his men.
"Inventory!" I commanded.
A ripple of distorted air shimmered in front of me, opening the void of my system storage. There it was, the Vanguard's Steel. I reached into the rift and gripped the hilt.
As I pulled it out, the weapon hummed with a low vibration. The blade was a slab of polished black, sleek and thin, etched with glowing red ley-lines that looked like veins pulsing with fresh blood.
It felt like an extension of my own nervous system.
"You guys said you were going to tear my insides out, right?" I said, the red light of the blade reflecting in my eyes. "I think the reality is going to be a lot more... surgical."
[Skill Activated: Basic Sword Mastery]
[Integrating Muscle Memory... Complete.]
My grip shifted instinctively. The weight became weightless.
"He pulled a fucking sword out of thi.....!" one of the thugs stammered, his brain failing to process the magic he was seeing.
He never finished the word.
[Echo step]
The world blurred into a smear of grey. I was in his personal space before his vocal cords could vibrate again. I transitioned through him. The blade caught him under the jaw and hissed through bone and cartilage like a hot wire through wax.
His head fell. The clean, horizontal slice separated his upper skull from his jaw in a perfect, bloodless line for a split second before the pressure caused a geyser of crimson.
"Four!"
The man next to him began to scream, his hands flying up to cover his mouth in a useless reflex. He was already dead; he just hadn't realized it. I pivoted on my heel, the blade whistling in a tight arc that followed the flow of my momentum. The edge bit into his throat, severing the windpipe and spine.
"Five!"
I stopped, the tip of the sword pointed at the ground, a single drop of blood sliding down the red vein of the blade. Two bodies hit the pavement simultaneously with a dull, wet thud.
The three remaining Peacekeepers, including the scarred leader stood frozen.
"I'm out of here! Fuck this!" the one with the broken arm shrieked, his voice cracking with pure terror. He and the man next to him turned to bolt, their feet pounding desperately against the pavement as they tried to reach the mouth of the alley.
They didn't make it three steps.
I moved faster than their panicked brains could track. The blade hummed, carving a silent, horizontal arc through the air. One moment they were running; the next, their upper torsos continued forward while their legs remained rooted to the spot. They collapsed in a heap of severed bone and sliding organs, the silence of the alley returning for a heartbeat.
I turned toward the leader, my boots clicking softly on the blood-slicked stone.
"Sorry," I said, my grin sharpening. "No witnesses."
The scarred giant was trembling now, his bravado stripped away to reveal the coward underneath. My perception narrowed on him, reading the flow of energy in his body. He was an F-Tier Awakened, the same level I had been just an hour ago. Back then, he would have been a boss fight. Now, he was just noise.
"I'm not dying here!" he roared, a desperate, final surge of survival instinct taking over.
"Stop lying," I countered, my voice flat.
He channeled everything he had, his right fist glowing with a sickly, unstable green mana. He charged, a low-tier bull-rush that lacked any finesse. I didn't dodge. I wanted to feel the difference.
[Skill Activated: Body Reinforcement]
The mana-charged fist slammed into my cheek with a dull thud. The force was enough to lift me off my feet and send me skidding backward, but the expected pain never came. My reinforced skin and bone absorbed the impact like a sponge. I landed on my feet, tilted my neck until it popped, and looked at him.
"Is that it?"
I didn't wait for an answer. I triggered EchoStep, vanishing from his sight before he could even pull his hand back. I reappeared in his shadow, the black blade rising in a vertical streak from beneath his jaw.
The black tip pierced through the roof of his mouth and erupted from the crown of his skull in a spray of grey matter and bone. His body stiffened, his green mana flickering out like a dying bulb.
"That actually hurt, you idiot," I muttered, my voice echoing in the quiet alley.
I kicked his chest, sliding the blade out of his skull with a wet, grinding sound. His massive frame hit the ground with a final, heavy thud.
[Ding! All Hostiles Neutralized.]
[Exp Gained: 400]
[Loot Detected: 8x Peacekeeper Badges, 4,500 Credits]
I wiped the blade on the leader's jacket, the red markings on the steel glowing contentedly as they drank in the fresh mana.