"In other words, the Seven Stars Legacy will belong to me."

  "You..."

  The Seitenshi's expression shifted, becoming incredibly strained at Kagetane Hiruko's words. Beside her, Kikunojo Tendo looked equally grim.

  "The Seven Stars Legacy? What the hell is that?"

  The other Promoters in the room exchanged confused looks.

  "Oh dear, oh dear... you were all about to accept a contract without even knowing what it was for? How pitiful," Kagetane chuckled. "The suitcase you were so busy discussing contains exactly that."

  "The item in the suitcase is this 'Legacy'?" someone shouted.

  "Precisely. I've been tracking it for quite some time. I even had a little 'dance' with Satomi-kun over there recently. Hohoho."

  Kagetane covered his mask with his hand, a rasping ugh bubbling up from his throat. His words finally expined why a low-rank like Rentaro Satomi was in the room—he was already a primary witness to the event.

  "So, your goal is to cim the Seven Stars Legacy for yourself?"

  Haruki Aizawa, who had been silent until now, fixed his gaze on Kagetane and spoke calmly.

  "Exactly," Kagetane nodded. "I'd like to propose a little contest for all you Civil Security 'elites.' Let's see who can find the infection-source Gastrea and recim the Legacy first. The item has likely been swallowed by the monster, so you'll have to kill it to get the prize. The stakes for this game? Your lives. Does that sound fair?"

  Kagetane's madness warped the very air of the room, turning the professional briefing into a blood-soaked invitation to hell.

  "You bastard, shut your mouth!"

  Kagetane's arrogant tone ignited a fire in the room. Most of the Promoters here were local legends in Tokyo; they weren't about to let a masked lunatic dictate terms to them.

  Shougen Ikuma was the first to move. Gripping his massive broadsword and adjusting his skull-patterned scarf, he charged Kagetane with overwhelming momentum.

  "Talk all you want. Once you're dead, the game is over."

  Despite his massive frame, Shougen was deceptively fast. He blurred across the room, reaching Kagetane in the blink of an eye.

  "Oh?"

  Kagetane raised an eyebrow at the speed, but he didn't move an inch. He remained perfectly rexed, which only infuriated Shougen further.

  "I'll split you in two!" Shougen roared.

  His giant bde swung in a horizontal arc like a localized hurricane. His timing and angle were perfect—it was a strike designed to leave no room for escape.

  But then, the impossible happened.

  As the bde was about to connect, a sharp, high-pitched screech—like an electrical arc—rang through the room. Shougen's massive weapon was violently repelled, nearly flying out of his hands.

  "What!?"

  It wasn't just Shougen who was shocked; every Promoter in the room gasped.

  "How disappointing!" Kagetane mocked. He hadn't even attempted to counter; he treated Shougen like a nuisance rather than a threat.

  "Shougen, fall back!" one of the other Promoters shouted.

  Recognizing the shift in the situation, Shougen retreated. In the next heartbeat, acting on instinct, every Promoter in the room drew their sidearms and opened fire simultaneously. Rentaro and Kisara weren't exceptions.

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  A deafening thunder of gunfire erupted from 360 degrees, converging on the man in the center of the table.

  But just like before, every bullet that reached a certain distance from Kagetane was stopped by an invisible, shimmering barrier. Worse, the bullets didn't just stop—they reflected.

  "Gah!"

  "My leg!"

  Several Promoters cried out as they were hit by their own ricochets, colpsing in pain.

  "No way..."

  The room fell into a stunned silence. They stared at the masked man as if he were some kind of alien anomaly. Kagetane stood at the center of the chaos, looking down on them like a god.

  "It's called a Repulsion Shield. I prefer to call it my 'Imaginary Device,'" Kagetane expined cheerfully. "Any attack that touches me is negated and turned back on the sender."

  "A shield? How? Are you even human?" Rentaro stammered.

  "Oh, I'm human. It's just that most of my internal organs have been repced with Varanium machinery."

  "Mechanized...?"

  "Heh, I see you're starting to understand," Kagetane said. "My true identity is a legacy of the former Ground Self-Defense Force, Eastern Army, 787th Mechanized Special Unit. I am a product of the New Humanity Creation Project. A mechanized soldier, Kagetane Hiruko."

  "A mechanized soldier..."

  "Indeed. I was born from the Gastrea War, part of a special unit designed specifically to kill them. So, I'm afraid none of you have even a prayer of defeating me." Kagetane whistled, signaling his daughter, Kohina. They moved toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. "Now, we really must be going. Despair, my dear Promoters. The end is coming. Let's go, Kohina."

  "Wait, Papa..."

  Kohina's pyful expression suddenly vanished, repced by a sharp, predatory focus. Before Kagetane could ask why, the source of the danger made itself known.

  BOOM!

  Moving faster than almost anyone in the room could perceive, Haruki Aizawa appeared directly in Kagetane's path. He had already drawn Onikiri, the dark Varanium bde, and swung it down with terrifying force.

  CLANG!

  The Varanium sword smmed into the invisible Repulsion Shield. Much like Shougen's attack, the bde was held back, but Haruki's strike was far more concentrated. The shield buckled, a visible distortion forming where the bde met the barrier.

  Haruki realized the truth instantly.

  "So, your shield isn't absolute," Haruki said, his voice cold as he stood his ground. "It has an upper limit. As long as the force exceeds what your internal machinery can process, it breaks."

  "Who are you?!"

  Faced with Haruki's chilling intensity and the sheer pressure radiating from his body, Kagetane's casual demeanor finally cracked. He hadn't been keeping up with the recent IP rankings and didn't recognize the newcomer.

  "Haruki Aizawa."

  "Haruki...? You're a Promoter too?"

  "That's right."

  "I see... you're definitely different from these other wastes of space. But a brat like you still can't take my head!"

  Kagetane reached into his coat and pulled out two modified, gold-pted automatic pistols, unleashing a hail of lead at point-bnk range.

  Against such a certain-death scenario, Haruki's response was simple. Faint green sparks flickered around his body as he activated Highnd Soul. His speed surged to the point where the bullets seemed to crawl through the air.

  CLINK!

  Haruki's bde collided with the Repulsion Shield again. Though he didn't shatter it immediately, his relentless, lightning-fast sshes were clearly putting an immense strain on Kagetane's systems.

  "Time to turn up the heat..."

  Haruki decided to end the stalemate. In an instant, a terrifying, crimson aura exploded from his body!

  Red motes of energy swirled around him, coalescing into a vivid, blood-red bde of pure killing intent.

  "What—!?"

  Before Kagetane could react, a massive, crimson sword-wave descended from above. It felt as if the very space was being torn apart as the energy smmed into the Repulsion Shield.

  CRAAAACK!

  The reinforced government building was like paper before that strike. Haruki's bde drove Kagetane straight through the floor.

  BOOM! CRASH! BOOM!

  To the onlookers, it looked like the two of them had taken a high-speed elevator to hell. They smashed through every single floor, ceiling to floor, until they reached the basement. The impact created a crater dozens of meters wide, kicking up a massive shockwave and a storm of dust and debris.

  "Is that... the power of the Sword Ghost?"

  "I heard the rumors about him soloing Gastrea, but seeing it in person..."

  "No wonder he doesn't need an Initiator. He's more of a monster than the Gastrea themselves!"

  The Promoters remaining in the conference room were paralyzed with shock. Whether it was Kagetane's impossible shield or Haruki's god-tier swordsmanship, the level of power they had just witnessed was beyond their comprehension.

  They finally understood how a newcomer had reached Rank 1500 so quickly. Haruki Aizawa wasn't just a man; he was a force of nature.

  "Is he even human?" Kisara Tendo whispered, staring at the jagged hole in the floor that led all the way to the foundation of the building. Her jaw was agape.

  Beside her, Rentaro was equally stunned. If Haruki didn't look perfectly normal on the outside, he would have suspected him of being a mechanized soldier too. But even a machine shouldn't be able to do that.

  Down in the smoke-filled basement, the two figures finally became visible.

  Haruki stood tall, looking almost exactly as he had before the fight. Although the Blood Burst had consumed a significant amount of his energy, he had cut it off early enough to keep half of his stamina in reserve.

  Kagetane, however, was in a wretched state. The man who had entered with such fir and elegance was now a broken wreck. His Repulsion Shield had been shattered, his tuxedo was in tatters, and one of his arms had been severed, revealing the cold, Varanium machinery that made up his skeletal structure.

  "Cough... hack..."

  Kagetane looked up, his eyes wide with confusion and a deep, gnawing sense of disbelief. No matter how much data he processed, he couldn't understand how he had been driven to the brink of death so effortlessly.

  "Tell me," Haruki said, his voice echoing in the hollow basement. "Who the hell are you really?"

  ***********************************************

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