Breath of the Idle King

Chapter 3: The First Hunters

The cold night air pierced his skin, but that sensation was nothing compared to the roar of Garou’s heartbeat, now thudding like a turbine engine. He landed on the roof of his apartment building in a crouch. 

The sound of his feet hitting the concrete which should have echoed loudly was strangely muffled, as if his body weight had been mathematically perfected.

Below, police sirens wailed, slicing through the 

silence of the slums. Red and blue lights swept across the building's exterior walls. Garou didn't have time to daze out. His instincts screamed a prickling sensation at the nape of his neck that usually only prey feels when hunted by a predator.

Scrape.

The sound of metal sliding came from behind the roof access door. Garou turned, his eyes catching the silhouettes of three figures in pitch black tactical gear emerging from the emergency stairs. They didn't move like cops. They moved with lethal efficiency, short barreled rifles raised, with suppressors integrated into the weapons themselves.

"Target detected at coordinates 12 B. Roof sector," a cold voice crackled over the radio, digitally distorted.

Garou froze. Not the police.

One of the masked men raised his weapon. Without warning, a bullet flew. Garou didn't think. He had no military training, he didn't even know how to hold a gun, but the system within his chest issued a command a visual prompt appearing faintly in the corner of his vision.

[AGI: 14. TRAJECTORY PREDICTION ACTIVE.]

The world seemed to slow down. Garou saw a thin red line snaking from the muzzle of the man’s gun. The bullet would fly straight

into his neck.

He twisted his body with an impossible fluidity. Whoosh. 

The bullet sliced through the air, just millimeters from his chin, hitting the water tank behind him until water sprayed in every direction.

 "Low level anomaly, but possesses adaptive  reflexes," hissed the man in the middle, who seemed to be the team leader.

"Don't let him catch his breath. Neutralize his limbs."

Three against one. Garou could feel his lungs working with a new rhythm, pulling in oxygen deeper than he ever had in his life. That oxygen entered his bloodstream, transforming into a kind of kinetic energy that made his thigh muscles tighten like steel cables.

He couldn't just run. If he turned his back on them, he was dead.

Garou lunged forward. Not with a polished boxing technique, but with a raw drive capable of cracking the cement floor beneath his feet. He leapt over a ventilation pipe, his body gliding low through the air like a projectile. The first man tried to pull the trigger again, but Garou was already in front of him.

Garou punched. Not at the chest or head, but directly at the man's weapon.

CRACK!

The metal of the rifle buckled instantly upon impact with Garou’s incredibly dense fist. The man staggered, eyes widening behind his tactical mask. Before he could recover, Garou used his shoulder to slam into the man’s chest, sending him flying five meters back, hitting the roof's perimeter wall until the concrete cracked.

"Damn it! He’s not a normal human! Activate 

Containment protocols!" shouted one of the other agents.

The remaining two agents no longer shot to kill. They pulled out some kind of blue-glowing electric batons that crackled with static.

They moved to surround him from the left and right, flanking Garou with a precision that made the hair on his neck stand up.

Garou panted. Cold sweat soaked his back. He could feel a pressure in his chest a system warning.

[WARNING: OXYGEN EFFECTIVENESS DROPPING. HIGH ENERGY CONSUMPTION TRIGGERING CELLULAR DEHYDRATION.]

I can't keep this up, Garou thought. He spotted the only opening—an exposed gas pipe at the corner of the roof. He kicked the pipe until it snapped, letting a burst of high-pressure gas spray out, creating a thick screen of white fog.

 The agents paused for a moment, their vision obscured. 

Garou seized the moment. He didn't run for the exit. He ran to the edge of the roof, then jumped toward the power lines dangling between the buildings.

His hands gripped the cable with full strength. The rubber coating disintegrated under his fingers, and he swung with brutal momentum, crossing a ten-meter gap between the two buildings.

 CRASH!

He crashed through a glass window of the neighboring building, entering a dark, empty office. He rolled across the carpet, gasping for air. His left arm stung, sliced by glass shards.

Blood dripped, but strangely, the wound closed with terrifying speed. His skin knit back together as if he had never been injured.

Garou leaned his back against the wall, closing his eyes. His heartbeat slowly settled, but the sensation of something existing inside him became increasingly real.

"You run quite nimbly for someone who just awakened," a gravelly voice echoed from the darkest corner of the room.

Garou flinched, preparing to strike again, his muscles tensing to leap.

"Calm down, Vessel," the voice returned, now slightly clearer. An old man in a worn-out suit emerged from the shadows of a filing cabinet. His face was half-covered by medical gas mask, his eyes fixed on Garou with an unreadable gaze a mix of pity and a collector's fascination.

"Who are you?" Garou hissed. His breath was still ragged, and he knew he had to leave before that team found him again.

"Who I am doesn't matter," the man replied.

He stepped out, showing his empty hands to prove he was unarmed. "What matters is what’s inside you. You aren't just some mis-mutated anomaly. You are a Vessel Class a container chosen by the System to hold energy residue that ordinary humans cannot reach."

"I don't care about that damn title!" Garou stood up, even though his legs were shaking slightly. "I just want to live a quiet life!", "Quiet?" the man laughed, a dry and bitter sound. "Look out the window, kid."

Garou hesitated, but he walked toward the shattered office window. Below, it wasn't just the police surrounding his apartment.

There were black, logo-less trucks unloading more armed men. They weren't looking for someone who trashed an apartment. They were conducting a sweep.

"They’ve already marked you as an asset to be secured or destroyed. Once you start that war machine, there’s no turning back to the 'quiet' life you want."

Garou gripped the windowsill until the concrete crumbled under his fingers. He looked at his own hands, staring at the drastic changes in his veins, which now protruded with a faint, glowing pattern.

"What do they want from me?" Garou asked, his voice hoarse with rage.

"Immortality," the man replied instinctively. "Or perhaps, the destruction of this world. It depends on whether you can survive long enough to master your own breath before they rip your heart out of your chest."

 Suddenly, the sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor outside the office. It wasn't the sound of one person. It was the sound of tactical boots marching in unison, dozens of them. They had surrounded 

the building.

Garou turned to the old man in the corner. "Are you helping me or just watching?"  

The man smiled faintly behind his gas mask. He tossed a small, disc-shaped metal object at Garou’s feet. "I’m just an observer. 

But it seems I’d prefer you stay alive a little longer. Use that if you want to get out of this building in one piece."

Garou snatched the disc. As he touched it, a prompt reappeared before his eyes, brighter and more urgent than before.

[SYSTEM DETECTED: TRACKING PROTOCOL ACTIVE. TOTAL ENERGY AVAILABLE: 42%.]

At the office door, the handle began to turn slowly. Garou took a deep breath, letting his chest swell as energy began to flow through his entire body. This time, he wouldn't just run away. He was going to break his way out.