Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 74: Rina Cortez (4)
“Stay quiet.”
With Aria’s whisper barely brushing the air, she and I slipped silently toward the warehouse owned by Hexa Core Armory.
We moved with heads low, soundless, following the shadows.
The ground beneath us rippled with my intent—like gliding across water.
For some reason, I felt like the protagonist of a tense stealth-action game.
Only ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) in this one, the protagonist wielded all kinds of absurd supernatural powers at will.
Dodging CCTV blind spots and slipping through gaps in patrol patterns, we flowed through the dark like a current.
From above, Scarlet fed us visuals from Dino Park—omniscient, like the eyes of a god, guiding us along the optimal path.
On the ground, Aria manipulated drones with deft hands, diverting soldier attention or disabling security systems in short bursts.
Ahead of us, Mecha-Agu cloaked our approach in wide-range optical camouflage, seamlessly blending our forms into the environment.
“Kyu-hihi.”
Agu let out a pleased trill—it was clearly enjoying the stealth mission.
And when things got too tight for sneaking, I simply shadow-stepped—leaping from one shadow to the next.
Scarlet in the sky.
Aria on the ground.
Invisible Mecha-Agu.
And me, the one who moved through shadows.
It was infiltration perfection—something even a megacorp’s elite division would’ve failed to stop.
Because of that, we reached the interior of the warehouse without encountering a single hostile.
The heavy steel door creaked open—and revealed... an empty space.
“I figured it was strange that the central control room was outside, but for no one to be inside...?”
I muttered in a low voice. Aria’s high-end optic implants fired a red scan beam across the interior, but aside from dusty shelves and empty containers, nothing came up.
“High chance of classified materials. Enough to justify locking the place down.” 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
Aria’s assessment aligned with my own. I looked around, cautious.
But no matter where we searched, there was nothing. Not a single clue tied to MK Corporation. Nothing useful at all.
The only thing we found was a dusty, discarded data vault in a far corner.
Aria restored it—and it contained something we didn’t expect:
Codename: "End of Legend" Operation Plan (ver. 3.7)
Document Security Classification: Top Level (Access forbidden without authorization)
Authoring Department: [REDACTED]
Last Modified: [REDACTED]
Operation Commander: [REDACTED]
It was an assassination plan targeting Hector—part of the Ludwig faction of Hexa Core Armory, and a living legend in Babel.
The entire plan consisted of luring Hector into this warehouse using Rina Cortez’s GPS signal.
That was it.
No mention—none at all—of how the actual assassination was supposed to take place.
As if merely getting him here was enough to ensure everything else would resolve itself.
The arrogance in it was suffocating.
“This doesn’t add up... What were they going to do once Hector got here?”
Still puzzled, I pushed deeper into the warehouse.
And then, something hidden in the dark began to reveal itself.
The moment I laid eyes on that... that thing, I understood.
I understood why no detailed assassination method was needed.
The mere presence of that being began to unravel the very fabric of reality.
It felt like the rules of the world were breaking down all at once.
Like I had stepped into the heart of some corrosive, invading realm—space itself beginning to distort, slow but sure.
The cold concrete floor melted into something web-like. Something blue, clinging, moldy, corpse-like.
Those webs pulsed and twitched, playing an incomprehensible rhythm. And each step I took sent sticky, vibrating tremors crawling up my spine.
A thick blue mist rolled in, obscuring everything more than a few feet away.
The air had weight. My hair floated as if gravity had become... inconsistent.
And at the center of this nightmare—hanging suspended in midair by countless chains—was a grotesque humanoid form.
It opened its mouth.
“Ruin will come. And those who would defy it must open their eyes.”
Its voice wasn’t human. It was too deep, too empty.
Thousands of voices layered on top of each other—echoing, collapsing, rising again. Like a chorus from the abyss.
“Postponed annihilation shall arrive with the true emergence of the universe. Fools of flesh... The hour of judgment approaches.”
It was religious. Prophetic. Unnerving beyond measure.
“All will become one.”
“All will become one.”
“All will become one.”
The words rippled again and again, and strangely—beneath them—I could hear the sound of waves.
****
“Heart Drill...!”
Ember’s voice trembled in despair.
Rina Cortez walking away without a scratch after taking a direct hit from the anti-tank rifle—it was too familiar.
Just like Conrad from that job A handled for the Concrete Family.
A man who kept moving with a hole punched through his chest.
Wrapped in the same ominous red glow now surrounding Rina.
It was the same.
Ember and Victor fired over and over, pouring everything they had into Rina.
Victor’s hand cannon unleashed explosive rounds that shook the chamber, and Ember’s anti-tank rifle fired energy penetrators like blazing lances.
It was useless.
The red aura around Rina either deflected or absorbed every attack.
Even the anti-tank rounds dissolved just before contact. Cannon shells exploded impotently in the air, crushed by that crimson haze.
And now, wrapped in that glow, Rina moved with a terrifying new speed and aggression.
She tore through the chamber like something no longer human.
The red wires she wielded cut the air like whips of sharpened steel, shredding everything they touched.
If her movements hadn’t still retained those remote-control stutters—those awkward mechanical delays—Ember and Victor would’ve already been reduced to ribbons.
Lucky, or unlucky, that glitch in her body saved their lives—barely.
But it wouldn’t last.
Rina’s attacks came faster, harder. Ember and Victor were driven back, forced into retreat, always defending.
They were being pushed toward a dead end. A corner.
“Damn it, how did A break through this?”
Victor muttered, gasping for air, face twisted in desperation.
His body was already covered in cuts and bruises, and even his augmented implants groaned under strain, whining audibly.
“Scarlet! Got anything? I don’t care what!”
Amid the explosions and flying debris, Ember screamed into the comms.
Scarlet had been working frantically to restore contact with A, but there’d been no breakthrough yet.
“You lowly meatbags...”
As if irritated by their constant evasion, Rina hissed.
Her glowing blue eyes burned colder.
And then—Victor was cornered. No way out.
The red wire lashed toward his neck, fast as a striking viper.
Life-or-death.
Ember fired round after round in a desperate bid to save him—but Rina ignored it all, her attack unwavering.
The wire closed in.
And just before it reached Victor’s throat—
[Ember! I hacked Hexa Core’s internal network! Incoming—backup’s coming!]
Scarlet’s voice burst through the comms—panicked, but laced with triumph.
Then—
KRA-KOOM!
The underground chamber ceiling exploded.
Dust and debris rained down like a storm—and through it came a blazing red comet, crashing toward Rina Cortez.
It was him.
Wreathed in crimson energy from the Circle system, burning like war incarnate—Babel’s living legend:
Hector.
In his hand, he held a massive energy blade.
And the blood-red edge pointed at one target only.
Rina Cortez.
