The Last Zekaron: Reborn for Absolute Revenge

C4

"Get out of the car, trash," a voice barked into the damp night air.

Three dark sedans slammed their doors shut at once, blocking both ends of the narrow alley behind the Imperial Hotel. Six heavy boots crunched on shattered glass as men in leather jackets stepped into the dim yellow glow of a single flickering streetlamp. Metal pipes scraped against concrete with a shrill, grinding screech, and the dull glint of switchblades cut through the shadows.

Lucas stood near the overflowing dumpster, his breath forming small white clouds in the cool air. His ribs still throbbed with a dull ache from his previous life, a ghost pain of failures he refused to repeat.

[System Notification: Hostile entities detected. Hostile count: 6. Threat level: Low. System integration active.]

A blue light flashed directly in his vision, casting a faint haze over the figures advancing on him. He did not step back. He locked his jaw until his teeth clicked together.

"Lancelot sent you to clean up his mess?" Lucas asked, his voice steady.

The man in the center stepped forward, a heavy iron pipe resting lazily over his right shoulder. He spat onto the wet asphalt. "Young Master Lancelot said you forgot your place, beggar. He told us to break your legs so you remember how to crawl."

"He should have come himself," Lucas said.

"Shut your mouth!" the lead thug roared, swinging the iron pipe toward Lucas's temple with full force.

The pipe cut through the air with a heavy rush. To Lucas's eyes, the motion looked strangely delayed. The System boosted his reaction time, painting a red trajectory line across his field of vision. He bent his knees and ducked under the swing. The pipe slammed into the brick wall behind him, sending a shower of sparks into the night.

Lucas drove his fist forward into the thug's exposed ribs.

A brutal crack echoed in the alley. The man gasped, his eyes bulging as his breath left him all at once. But as the man's ribs snapped under the blow, a sudden flare of white-hot agony shot straight up Lucas's right arm.

[System Notice: Biological Feedback Activated. Kinetic impact penalty applied to host body.]

Lucas gritted his teeth, a harsh hiss escaping his lips. He felt the phantom pain of the man's shattered bone vibrating through his own skeletal structure. The System gave him power, but it forced his nerves to register every single fracture he inflicted on his targets.

"Kill him!" another thug screamed from the left.

Two men rushed him together. One lunged with a switchblade aimed for his chest, while the other swung a heavy lead chain toward his knees.

Lucas leaped backward, his back hitting the cold, damp brick of the alley wall. He kicked out violently with his right leg, catching the man with the knife squarely in the knee.

Another sharp crack sounded. The man's leg bent backward at an impossible angle.

Simultaneously, Lucas felt a sickening pop in his own knee joint. Pain exploded behind his eyes, bright and blinding. He stumbled, his leg buckling beneath him as the feedback overload hit his nervous system like a sledgehammer.

"What's wrong with him?" one of the remaining thugs yelled, halting for a second. "He's screaming like he's the one getting broken!"

"It doesn't matter, just hit him!" another yelled.

Lucas forced himself back onto his feet, swallowing the copper taste of blood that welled up from his throat. His knee throbbed with excruciating pain, yet the bone remained physically intact. It was pure neural feedback, a ruthless punishment designed to test his tolerance.

The thug with the chain swung again. The heavy metal link caught Lucas across his left shoulder, tearing through his jacket and ripping into his skin. Hot blood soaked through his shirt immediately.

Lucas didn't flinch. He grabbed the trailing end of the chain with his bare hand, twisting his wrist to pull the man off balance. He pulled the thug forward into a bone-shattering headbutt.

The thug's nose flattened instantly. The man dropped to the ground like a sack of stones, completely unconscious.

Again, the shockwave of pain hit Lucas's skull, making his vision turn completely white for two agonizing seconds. He fell to one knee, gasping for air, his hands pressed flat against the muddy pavement. Blood dripped steadily from his shoulder, forming dark droplets in the puddles around his knees.

Three men remained. They backed away slightly, their eyes wide with fear as they looked at their two fallen comrades lying motionless on the ground.

"He's a monster," one of them whispered, his hands trembling around his pipe. "Look at his eyes."

"He's half-dead already!" the other screamed, trying to build up courage. "Attack him together!"

Lucas raised his head slow and steady. His eyes burned with an icy, unforgiving fire. He forced his body to stand upright, ignoring the searing pain tearing through his nerves, his shoulders, and his knees.

"Is that all Lancelot has?" Lucas spat, taking a step forward.

The three men hesitated for a split second before charging at once.

Lucas didn't dodge. He stepped directly into their path, taking a blow from a pipe across his ribcage just to close the distance. The strike cracked his side, but he grabbed the attacker's throat with his left hand and smashed his right fist directly into the man's jaw.

The jaw fractured with a loud crunch. The thug collapsed instantly.

Lucas spun around, taking down the fifth man with a low sweep that smashed the thug's ankle into pieces. The neural feedback hit him again, flooding his mind with pure agony, but Lucas absorbed it, turning his pain into raw rage.

The final thug dropped his knife, turned his back, and ran toward the street.

Lucas picked up a fallen iron pipe from the ground and hurled it with maximum force. The pipe whizzed through the air and struck the running man squarely in the back of the head. The man slammed face-first onto the hood of one of the black sedans before sliding down to the pavement, lifeless and still.

Silence descended upon the alleyway, broken only by the quiet hum of idling car engines and Lucas's heavy, ragged breathing.

[Combat Concluded. Hostile entities incapacitated: 6. System synchronization level increased by 2%. Warning: Physical trauma threshold reached.]

Lucas collapsed onto his side, his body completely exhausted. His right shoulder burned from the deep chain laceration, his ribs throbbed mercilessly, and his nervous system vibrated with the residual pain of six broken bodies. Dark crimson blood pooled around his torso, staining the concrete beneath him.

He lay there in the dark, watching the flickers of the broken streetlamp above. He couldn't move his fingers. The cost of using the System's raw power was far heavier than he had anticipated.

A subtle sound echoed from the far end of the alleyway, beyond the parked black sedans. Light footfalls stepped quietly over the wet gravel.

Lucas tried to lift his head, his hand reaching weakly for a fallen blade, but his strength failed him completely. His vision began to blur at the edges.

A young woman emerged from the deep shadows near the alley wall. She wore a simple dark hooded jacket that concealed most of her face, but her movement was light, almost soundless. She stopped a few feet away from Lucas, looking down at the unconscious men scattered across the ground, then turned her gaze toward him.

"You really made a mess here," she said quietly.

Lucas gritted his teeth, his voice barely a rasp. "Stay back."

She ignored his warning and knelt down beside him. She reached out her hands, hovering them just an inch above the deep laceration on his left shoulder.

Suddenly, a strange, faint green light radiated from her palms. The light pulsated softly, casting a warm glow over Lucas's blood-stained shirt.

The moment her glowing hands made contact with his wound, Lucas gasped aloud. A sudden, sharp sensation hit him, far more painful than the cuts or the broken bones. It felt like liquid fire being injected directly into his veins, burning his skin and twisting his flesh together.

"Quiet," she commanded in a low, sharp tone. "If you scream, someone will hear us."

"What... are you doing?" Lucas choked out, his fists clenching until his knuckles turned white.

"Fixing your mistakes," she replied, her voice cold and devoid of warmth. Her forehead glistened with sweat as the green light grew brighter, knitting the torn muscles and sealing the broken skin on his shoulder.

The pain burned deep into his core. Lucas felt his blood boiling as the tissue regenerated rapidly under her touch. Every second felt like an eternity of continuous agony.

"This hurts worse than getting hit," Lucas ground out through his clenched teeth.

"Healing is never painless," she muttered, her hands trembling slightly from the exertion. She tightened her jaw, her dark eyes darting nervously toward the main street. "If I save you, they’ll come for me next."

Lucas tried to speak, but the intense heat radiating through his body locked his throat. The tears in his shoulder completely closed up, leaving behind nothing but a jagged red line that faded rapidly into his skin.

As the intense green light lit up his upper body, it burned away the blood soaking through his torn shirt, exposing his chest to the cool night air.

The young woman stopped her movement suddenly. Her breath hitched in her throat, her glowing hands freezing in mid-air just inches above his sternum.

Underneath the thin layer of sweat and dirt on Lucas's chest, a faint, complex mark began to glow. It wasn't green like her healing energy; it was a deep, ancient gold that flickered like a dying ember. The lines crossed over each other in intricate, ancient runes that seemed to pulse in harmony with his heart.

Her eyes widened in absolute shock. The cold composure on her face completely shattered, replaced by pale, unadulterated terror.

She pulled her hands back instantly as if she had just touched burning iron.

"No..." she whispered, her voice shaking violently. "That's impossible..."

Lucas looked down at his own chest, seeing the faint golden lines flicker twice before dimming back into his pale skin, disappearing completely beneath his surface.

She stared at him, her lips trembling as she stumbled backward onto the damp pavement.

"Zekaron..." she whispered.

In the distance, the sharp, shrill sound of police sirens cut through the quiet night, wailing loudly as they turned onto the block toward the alleyway.