2026-03-05 19:15:00Adrenaline wasn't a drug; it was rocket fuel.
When Finnian stepped out of the drainage culvert, he didn't walk. He hunted. His heartbeat thundered in his ears like war drums, each beat pumping a cocktail of epinephrine and Verdant Core energy into every fiber of his muscles.
The world in his eyes was monochrome with red highlights on every living target radiating heat. The forest around him was no longer a threat. It was an arsenal.
"You want this forest, Thorne?" Finnian whispered, his voice wet and raspy. "I'll give it to you. Piece by piece."
He didn't run away from the pursuit squad led by The Shadow. He doubled back.
In ten minutes, Finnian worked with demonic speed. He found a grove of wild black bamboo near the swamp. With his iron-clad left Gauntlet, he slashed through the bamboo stalks, sharpening them into stakes as razor-sharp as scalpels.
Old memories from counter-guerilla training in the rainforests of Southeast Asia resurfaced. Punji Sticks. A simple, brutal, and psychological trap.
Finnian didn't coat the bamboo with filth like the Viet Cong did. He coated them with the sap of the Deathbell plant, the same one he used in Chapter 2. But this time, he mixed it with the venom of a ground pit viper he found and crushed with his bare hands.
A double potion of death: nerve paralysis and instant blood coagulation.
He planted the stakes in the mud, hidden beneath fern bushes, and dug shallow pit traps covered with moss. He created an L-shaped "Killing Zone," a classic ambush setup.
And for bait, he used his own blood. Finnian tore open a bit of the bandage on his chest, letting droplets of fresh blood fall onto the trail leading to the trap.
"Come on, little puppies..."
Ten minutes later, they arrived.
A squad of Iron Fang Jaeger troopers, a heavy unit called in by The Shadow moved cautiously through the underbrush. They wore thick composite armor and carried heavy plasma rifles. They felt safe behind their technology. Heat sensors, Night Vision, motion radar.
"Blood trail confirmed," the Pointman reported. "Subject is critically wounded. He's losing a lot of fluids."
Up on a tree branch, three meters above their heads, Finnian held his breath. His eyes glowed green in the darkness.
The pointman stepped forward one more meter. His foot stepped on a pile of dry leaves that looked completely normal.
CRACK.
The ground beneath him gave way.
The soldier fell into a knee-deep hole. But at the bottom of that hole, three sharpened bamboo stakes were waiting. The bamboo pierced the tactical boot soles, went through the foot, and tore into the calf muscle.
"AAAARGH!" The scream pierced the silence of the night, followed by a wet gurgling sound as the snake venom began to work.
"Contact! Man Down! Twelve o'clock!" The squad commander shouted.
They formed a defensive perimeter formation. But they were standing right in the "Leg of the L" of Finnian's killing zone.
Finnian released the rope holding back a bent tree branch (The Whiplash trap).
WHOOSH!
An elastic banyan branch snapped back with high velocity. Tied to the end of the branch was a piece of scrap iron from the sewer. The iron slammed into the chests of two soldiers simultaneously.
The sound of shattering ribs was horrific. Their armor dented inward, crushing their lungs. They were thrown five meters back like ragdolls.
Panic ensued. "Fire! Fire in all directions!"
The forest lit up with plasma bursts. They were shooting at shadows, bushes, and ghosts.
Then Finnian descended.
He landed in their midst like a meteorite. His left hand the Gauntlet glowing reddish-orange slammed into the ground.
BOOM!
A kinetic shockwave exploded. The three nearest soldiers were knocked off their feet.
Finnian rose before the dust settled. He moved with artistic brutality.
He caught the barrel of a soldier's rifle with his left hand, bending the metal until it was useless, then used his right hand to jam a sharpened bamboo stake into the soldier's neck through the armor gap.
Blood sprayed Finnian's face. He didn't blink.
Another soldier tried to stab Finnian with a laser bayonet. Finnian parried it, broke the soldier's arm, twisted it, and used the soldier as a human shield when his buddy opened fire.
"Don't shoot! That's the sergeant—!"
Too late. The soldier was killed by his own comrade's fire.
Finnian threw the corpse at the shooter, then lunged forward. He grabbed the last soldier's helmet, and with a roar amplified by the Core's rage, he squeezed.
Polymer metal dented. Visor glass shattered. The skull inside cracked.
Silence descended again, broken only by the groans of the dying soldier in the bamboo pit.
Finnian stood amidst the pile of bodies. Steam rose from his body. His Gauntlet was covered in oil and blood. He turned his head toward a large tree where a faint shadow was visible.
The Shadow was there. Watching.
The masked assassin observed the massacre Finnian had committed in less than a minute. Shadow slowly retreated into the darkness. He was a professional. He knew when a target changed from Prey into an Apex Predator. He wasn't paid enough to fight a rampaging demon.
Shadow vanished. Leaving the remains of his squad to die for nothing.
"Good. Run and tell your master," Finnian growled.
Minutes later, Elena emerged from the bushes, following the trail of destruction. She dragged her weak legs, still holding a glucose IV bottle she had found.
"Finn, you..."
Elena's words caught in her throat. Her eyes widened in horror at the scene before her.
This wasn't a battlefield. This was a slaughterhouse.
Human body parts were scattered. Bamboo stakes coated in black blood. Corpses twisted in unnatural positions. And in the middle of it, Finnian was kneeling over the squad commander's body, calmly looting ammo and grenades from the mangled form.
The smell of copper blood, sweet poison, and exposed guts hung in the humid air.
Elena covered her mouth. Her stomach churned violently. She wasn't a saint; she had seen dead bodies in labs, but this... this was pure savagery.
"Ugh..."
Elena fell to her knees and vomited. She threw up water and stomach acid onto the ground.
Finnian turned slowly. His blood-splattered face looked emotionless, almost bored. His green eyes began to dim back to their normal color as the adrenaline receded, but the coldness in that gaze remained.
"If you want to puke, do it over there," Finnian pointed to a bush. "Don't dirty the ammo we need to take."
"You... monster," Elena sobbed, wiping her mouth with a shaking hand. "They were already dead. You tore them apart."
Finnian stood up, slinging a belt of grenades over his shoulder. He walked closer to Elena, then extended a hand (his clean one) to help her.
"They came to my house, Elena. They tried to kill you. They poisoned me," Finnian said flatly. He felt no guilt. Guilt was a luxury for people who weren't running out of time.
"Now stand up. That transmission tower is still two kilometers away. And I'm not carrying you."
Finnian turned and started walking again, leaving Elena staring at his back with a mix of fear and dependence. The man protecting her was far more terrifying than anything else in this forest.
***
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Chapter 174: Forbidden Obsession
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