UNLOCK: I CAN SEE MY STATS

chapter 42 : the arrival...P2

"Hmm! Man, you're way too loud!"

Marcus spoke in a cold tone, glancing around before frowning in thought.

"This form... doesn't suit the situation."

He immediately canceled his transformation and established a new connection with one of the stored DNA strands in the bracelet's genetic library.

[Pressure Man]

Sheathing his sword, he muttered, "Let me show you a little optical illusion..."

His voice was low as he stepped into the chaotic battlefield. Marine soldiers raised their weapons, awaiting the signal to open fire from Mori, who was watching Marcus's movements with a deep frown.

Marcus extended his right hand forward, then suddenly grabbed the air between his palms as if it were a transparent cloth. With a sharp pull, he folded it back, as though folding the very air itself.

Zzzzt!!

[Gravity Suppression]

The space in front of him shrank for a brief moment. Air collapsed with a faint sound, like something invisible had compressed violently.

Crack!!

Crack!!

Suddenly, one of the nearby soldiers screamed,

"Aaaagh!"

and collapsed without being touched. Immediately after, everyone in the area felt their bodies tremble, their skin wrinkle, as if an invisible mountain was pressing down from above.

"Damn it! What is this pressure... my body... I can't move!" Mori clenched his teeth, struggling against the force.

"Even the dust... it’s not moving. What the hell did this guy do!?" Mori thought in horror as he noticed that not even the particles of dust could escape the overwhelming pressure.

Crack!!

Another scream echoed as a marine dropped to his knees, head forced downward by sheer force.

"Huff... huff... huff..." Marcus took deep breaths, wiping the sweat pouring down his face.

"This consumes too much energy, I need to hurry..." he thought, advancing toward Mori.

He moved forward, completely unaffected by the crushing pressure that paralyzed every marine around him.

He stopped abruptly in front of one of the soldiers.

"For a marine, you're pretty tough..." Marcus said while taking the rifle from the man's hands. This soldier, unlike the rest, was somehow still standing.

"Relax, I'm not going to kill you..." he patted the man’s shoulder, then proceeded toward Mori.

"You too, don’t worry. I won’t take your life..."

He picked up the strange weapon that had radiated danger. He grabbed it by the handle, which was wrapped in insulating cloth. He wasn’t ready to test if the strange stone had any effect on him.

"Strange weapon..." Marcus muttered as he examined it in his hand.

Mori gritted his teeth, speaking with difficulty and helplessness.

"Who are you... really!?"

"Me...? Heh..." Marcus smiled beneath his mask.

"You can call me... the Masked Destroyer."

"Don't joke with me!!!"

"Save your strength, Smoke Man. If I weren’t in such a good mood... you'd already be dead."

He stopped talking, distracted by a notification from the bracelet.

[New DNA structure detected...]

[Confirm DNA scan...?]

"Use temporary storage..." Seth commanded the bracelet to store the DNA temporarily for later integration.

He refocused on Mori, who was still struggling to break free.

Suddenly, Marcus gripped the rifle and pointed it toward the left side of Mori’s chest.

"Hmm, you'd better stay down for a while. Don’t worry, this won’t kill you..."

Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

Bang!!

Seth stared in surprise as Mori didn’t even flinch from the pain. Tossing the rifle aside, Marcus bent slightly over him.

"Amazing... but I doubt you'll stay like this once I deactivate my ability..."

He holstered the weapon and walked away, grabbing his food pouch.

"Farewell, Captain. Stay alive!"

He sprinted toward the harbor. "I've got a bad feeling... I need to get out of here fast," he thought with a grim look as he ran.

He veered off course when he spotted more marines arriving from the port, where a Navy ship had just docked.

"Where do you think you're going!?"

Whoosh!!

As he ran, a sudden shout reached him. Immediately, his hair stood on end and a chill ran down his spine. His sixth sense flared, the attacker was near. He had no time to dodge.

Without thinking, Marcus activated his pressure ability at full force, forming a low-pressure barrier around himself like a transparent shield.

Zzzzt!!

"Tch! You think this can stop me...?"

The shield shattered instantly as a fist tore through it,a massive fist in Marcus's eye, racing straight toward his face.

"Damn it..." he screamed internally, helpless as the man’s punch closed in within centimeters.

Zzzzt!!

He reactivated his pressure power at maximum again, ignoring energy consumption.

Panic had completely taken over. A transparent burst of energy exploded around him in an instant.

Crack!!

Boom!!

A massive shockwave erupted, shaking the ground and obliterating a large section of the port. Everything within the radius warped or was crushed. Even the people in the vicinity weren’t spared, some were turned into mangled piles of blood.

The blast affected a radius of about 100 meters. It was nearly identical to the one Marcus had unleashed while destroying the Fishmen’s base, but this time it was triggered recklessly, without any concern for energy cost.

Boom!!

His body was flung back and slammed into one of the ships, destroying a large portion of it, but at the cost of several broken ribs.

"Aaagh!!" he groaned in pain, lowering his head and gazing dazedly at the sharp piece of wood impaling his right thigh. The rush of adrenaline prevented him from feeling the pain.

He clenched his teeth and pulled the wood out with difficulty, then tore a strip from his robe and wrapped the wound that was bleeding profusely.

"Damn it! I don’t know who that man was... Damn that black market, they didn’t tell me everything about the navy’s elites..."

He muttered bitterly, wiping the blood from his mouth. But his hand froze when he realized his mask had fallen off at some point. He sighed tiredly and whispered while trying to catch his breath and recover some energy.

"Tch! My identity doesn’t matter. What matters is getting out of here... I'm no match for that man..."

He went silent when he saw the unknown man with golden blond hair approaching at a terrifying speed. The fury etched on his face was undeniable.

"This is bad... real bad..."

Marcus quickly canceled his current transformation and connected with another DNA strand in the bracelet’s library.

[Hybrid Form: Electrified Serpent]

Without waiting for the transformation to complete, he jumped straight into the water. He didn’t care about anything, his only concern was escaping that monster.

He swam deep into the sea, away from the port at full speed.

"He's on a completely different level..." he thought in fear, swimming faster and faster. But then, suddenly, his body froze in place. His muscles tensed, and from the corner of his eye, he saw pitch-black lightning surge through the ocean, followed by a colossal shockwave unlike anything he had ever experienced.

It felt like his internal organs had been shattered and crushed. His pupils vanished into white, and with his consciousness slipping away, the transformation was canceled and he returned to his human form.

---

At the same time, 12 million light-years away...

Zzzzt!!

A strange buzz filled the void. Space warped and twisted unnaturally, and in the blink of an eye, a massive ship appeared, floating silently in the dark vacuum of space.

"Sir, we’ve arrived at the destination..."