The moment the man thrust his clawed fingers out, the doll had already launched a preemptive kick.
He had been seated, yet rising, lifting his leg, and driving his foot outward flowed together with natural, seamless grace. It was impossibly fast; before the opposing hand could reach him, the kick had already landed squarely on the man's face.
The kick carried immense power. Even given the burly man's massive frame, it should have sent him flying backward. Instead, it only tipped his torso slightly back. Beneath his ruptured skin, a dense, resilient cluster of artificial mutated tissue was exposed.
A grin broke across his face, but barely had it appeared when the doll tilted his foot upward and snapped his heel forward in a short, explosive burst. Another surge of jin drove into the man's nose and mouth, jerking his head back involuntarily and freezing the counterattack he had been about to unleash.
Without missing a beat, the doll fluidly scooped up the cane at his side and cracked it against the man's head with a sharp, splintering thud. The heavy blow snapped the man's head to the side, sending droplets of fluid and shredded skin spattering through the air. The violent impact left the brute momentarily dazed.
The doll tossed the cane, caught it in midair by its tip to reverse his grip, and swept his arm outward. Hooking the curved handle around the man's neck, he dragged the massive body in a rapid sprint across the room and slammed the burly man's head violently into the wall.
Because this residence was intended for fighters, the wall had been specially reinforced to withstand substantial force. Even so, the sheer impact caved it in, punching a deep crater into the surface.
The burly man's consciousness blurred for an instant, his mind seized by a surge of shock and fury. Several times in succession, he had calculated how to strike and counter, yet no matter what he envisioned or how instinctively he struggled, his opponent reacted a step ahead of him every single time. It made him look as if he possessed no capacity to resist at all.
More than being forced entirely onto the defensive, what truly mortified and enraged him was the humiliation of it—it felt like a grown adult thrashing a helpless child.
Currently sprawled on his hands and knees with half his upper body embedded in the wall, the man twisted violently and reached back with one hand, trying to grab the cane and wrench it away.
The doll, however, lifted the cane just before the fingers made contact, then brought it down at an angle onto the wrist joint. Although layers of wrapped implants shielded the joint, a jolt of jin penetrated inward and traveled all the way through the hand and shoulder, instantly sapping the limb of all strength.
The doll calmly raised the cane again. After a slight pause, the head of the cane descended in a smooth arc and struck the back of the man's head just as he wrenched it free of the wall. The brute let out a muffled grunt, and his braced posture collapsed once more as he slumped back down.
The doll did not relent. Raising the cane, he brought it down in rapid, merciless strikes against the back of the skull. Each blow cracked with explosive force until the back of the cranium caved inward. At last, the body ceased struggling altogether and dropped with a heavy thud, motionless.
The doll lowered his hands and stared down. Just as he prepared to straighten up, a tearing sound split the air.
A tear ripped open along the burly man's spine, and something shot out from within at blinding speed. Barely half a finger's breadth from the doll's eyes, his hand clamped shut, catching it firmly in midair.
The creature writhed and thrashed within his grip, hissing continuously.
It was not large, roughly the size of a fist, and when curled up it resembled a heart. However, its front end bore pincer-like jaws lined with sharp, serrated teeth that snapped open and shut while hissing loudly, straining against his grip with surprising strength.
An ordinary person confronted with such a thing might have been horrified, but the doll remained entirely unmoved, his expression void of any emotion.
He hurled the thing to the floor. Before it could thrash or leap back up, the head of his cane slammed down with a wet crack, instantly pulverizing it into a mangled heap of flesh and blood.
Seeing that the thing had gone still, he glanced at the ruptured spine of the burly man. Stepping forward, he hooked the tip of his cane beneath the body and flipped it over, turning the corpse faceup. He then inverted the cane, aiming its pointed ferrule straight at the man's throat.
Yet right at that moment, the burly man's eyes snapped open, and his hand shot out to seize the doll's ankle.
Paying it no heed, the doll thrust the tip of the cane downward with brute force. With a sickening crunch, he drove it straight through the throat, crushing it to pulp. The man's body spasmed violently, then went completely limp.
Yet the hand gripping his ankle still did not release. The doll twisted his ankle and discharged a burst of jin, snapping the arm away.
He walked a couple of steps forward and whipped the cane several times through the air, shaking off the blood and viscera clinging to its surface.
At this moment, he could feel the mutated tissue inside him stirring with activity. Intense combat often forced mutated tissue to elevate its potency.
The man had not been weak; he was considered skilled even within the third limit. Yet when the doll's mutated tissue surged, he had stayed a step ahead at every turn, preventing his opponent from ever unleashing his true capabilities before being beaten to death.
The doll realized that if he let the mutated tissue settle now, the energy expended would be completely wasted. It would be far better to inject more resources into it and seize this state to spur the growth of even more mutated tissue.
Tapping his earlobe, he connected to a trading platform. Without bothering to check prices, he poured all his savings into purchasing a batch of nutritional paste.
Feeling the quantity was still insufficient, he put up several high-value trophies as collateral to take out a loan, spending every credit on more paste.
A mere ten minutes later, a delivery vehicle arrived, placing the supplies directly into his hands.
Upon returning inside, he tore open the packages at once and rapidly consumed all the high-energy nutrients, paying no mind to the burly man's corpse sprawled on the floor.
The influx of nutrients allowed the mutated tissue to keep growing beyond its previous limits, steadily replacing his original bodily tissues.
Yet this also meant that in the future, he would require nutrients of even higher quality.
Given the company's attitude toward him and the recruitment overtures from the Operations Directorate, he already knew he could no longer remain in this Center City.
He needed to find another place.
He had already considered this earlier: his next step would be to find a way into the Confluence.
Through carrying out commissions over such a long period, he had gathered a great deal of intelligence and knew that doing so was not particularly difficult in the Federation.
Because the Federation encouraged fighters to go to the Confluence, all one needed was a permit. He had already obtained one through his mercenary team. However, the Classified Operations Directorate was a government agency; now that he had killed one of their operatives, they certainly would not permit him to enter through legitimate channels.
Fortunately, he had alternative options to consider—such as entering through the channels of certain sects.
Having made up his mind, he decided to leave immediately.
As for the mercenary team, he felt not the slightest lingering attachment. Everything he did was solely for his own growth. He transmitted an encrypted message to the team instructing them to find a way to leave, packed a few essential items, and departed swiftly and decisively.
Some twenty minutes later, several vehicles pulled up. A few core members of the mercenary team and nearby squadmates arrived on the scene.
Upon entering the room, they first spotted the burly man's corpse, then noticed the mangled mess beside it.
"What the hell is this thing?"
The bald woman stepped forward and inspected it. "It's a product of some state laboratory," she said. "A mutated implant designed to mimic the active organisms of the Confluence."
With that, she slipped on a pair of gloves, picked up the cluster of mangled flesh to examine it, and nudged a small section. "Look, there's even a laboratory serial code on it."
The other members looked at her with growing suspicion and slowly spread out. One of them asked, "How do you know all this? Are you working for the government, or the company?"
The bald woman said, "Relax." She tossed the flesh aside, dusted off her hands, and stood up. "I was indeed sent by the company, but I bear the boss no ill will. He and I are compatriots."
"Compatriots?" The others looked at her, and the same man asked, "You're from Great Shun?"
The bald woman neither confirmed nor denied it. She merely said, "We can't stay here. The dead man is from the Classified Operations Directorate. I didn't expect them to move this quickly to recruit the boss. This guy was probably just a peripheral operative acting on his own. Still, now that he's dead, his biological signal has ceased, and the Classified Operations Directorate will find out immediately. If they haven't come here, they're probably already tracking the boss."
Her eyes held a complicated glint. "The boss must have anticipated this. He didn't want to drag us down with him, so he left on his own first."
The others nodded in deep agreement. On every commission, the boss was always the first to charge in, taking on the toughest targets himself. Aside from his taciturn nature, there was genuinely nothing one could fault him for.
"Only... why did the boss refuse?" a younger squad member asked in confusion. "Isn't joining the Operations Directorate a good thing?"
"Why?" The bald woman glanced at him, looking as though she wondered how he had survived to adulthood. "The boss's strength is already nearing the threshold of a martial artist," she said. "And whether it's the companies or the government, both will try to keep anyone capable of becoming a martial artist firmly under their thumb."
The young fighter countered defiantly, "So what? Isn't working for someone always risking your life regardless?"
The bald woman gave a disdainful smirk. "Do you think those perks are handed out for free? Did none of you read the agreement they offered the boss? It requires regular extractions of mutated tissue and blood from his body, along with unconditional participation and cooperation in the company's biological experiments. On top of that, the company uses those samples to develop control drugs. Once you agree, from that moment on, the boss would be entirely under the thumb of the company and the Federal government."
Someone asked, "So what do we do now? The boss is gone—do we disband?"
The bald woman replied, "That's up to you. But I'll give you one last piece of advice: get out while you can." With that, she turned and walked toward the exit.
The others hesitated for a moment before stepping aside without trying to stop her. One team member asked, "Where are you going?"
The bald woman paused briefly. "I'm going after the boss. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome, but let me warn you beforehand: there's bound to be relentless pursuit along the way. Think carefully before you decide." With that, she left without looking back.
Watching her depart, someone spoke up: "I'm sticking with the boss. Wherever the boss goes, I go." Leaving behind those words, he turned and marched out.
The remaining members of the mercenary team exchanged glances. Without a word, grins broke across their faces, and they quickly followed after them.
Chapter 1172