Tòumíng's ruined throat produced a sound that was half-scream, half-gurgle as he saw the hand emerge from the rubble.
"OH COME ON! THIS IS BULLSHIT! YOU CAN'T JUST 'SURVIVE' A FUCKING EXPLOSION LIKE YOU'RE THE MC OF A FUCKING ANIME!"
His throat burned from speaking, the damaged vocal cords and scorched tissue protesting every syllable, but rage overrode the pain. Three years of oppression, an entire building collapse, fourth-degree burns covering his body, and this motherfucker was STILL ALIVE?!
Hǔtān finished climbing out of the rubble, moving with agonizing slowness but still moving, still upright when he should have been paste.
He looked even worse than Tòumíng. Somehow worse.
Face-wise, at least.
If Tòumíng looked like Gus Fring and Two-Face had a baby, Hǔtān looked like Red Skull from the comics. and not in a metaphorical way. He literally looked like a red skull.
He'd been bald originally, his head shaved clean, but now his entire scalp was gone. Burned away completely. The white bone of his skull was visible, gleaming wetly in the dusty air, bits of charred tissue clinging to the edges where skin had once been.
The skin around his jaw was similarly gone, leaving just bone. His teeth were exposed in a permanent skeletal grin, the mandible moving as he breathed heavily through his ruined mouth.
All that was left intact was the skin around his eyes, which had been shielded by his position during the blast, and a patch on the front of his chest where his body had been facing away from the initial explosion. Everything else was raw muscle, exposed bone, or charred tissue.
He was panting heavily, each breath a labored wheeze, but somehow he was upright. Standing. Moving.
Both of them were medical impossibilities. Walking corpses that refused to accept death.
Tòumíng screamed, a wordless sound of pure defiance, and decided: HE'D BE DAMNED IF HE DIED NOW!
The skin on his remaining foot was actively peeling away as he moved, sticking to the debris beneath him, tearing free with wet sounds. But he didn't care. He RAN toward Hǔtān, his remaining fist raised, every step agony, every movement leaving pieces of himself behind.
When Tòumíng was a foot away from Hǔtān, close enough to strike, close enough to finish this, Hǔtān fell backward.
Not collapsed. Not dropped from exhaustion.
He retreated. Stumbled back. His exposed skull-face showing something Tòumíng had never seen in three years of knowing this man.
Fear.
Genuine, primal, instinctive fear.
Hǔtān, the silent gang leader who'd terrorized Tòumíng for years, who'd extracted payments with cold efficiency, who'd just survived a building explosion and still stood up ready to fight—was backing away from him with terror in his eyes.
Tòumíng stopped, shocked by what he was seeing. His raised fist lowered slightly as he processed this impossible sight.
Then a notification appeared:
NEW TITLE ACQUIRED: SUBMISSION
Effect: Any opponent Tòumíng defeats in combat will experience compelling fear for 5 minutes upon being knocked down or significantly injured. Fear intensity scales with severity of defeat. Opponents will instinctively recognize Tòumíng as a superior threat and respond with submission behaviors—retreat, surrender, or psychological breakdown.
Note: This is an intimidation-based skill. Does not work on opponents who lack survival instincts or fear responses.
Ooo, nice. An intimidation skill.
Tòumíng's burned lips, what remained of them, twisted into something approximating a grin. His exposed teeth made the expression grotesque, inhuman, the stuff of nightmares.
He squatted down beside Hǔtān, his movements careful because his body was literally falling apart with each action. Pieces of charred flesh flaked off. Exposed muscle fibers stretched and tore. But he got down to eye level with the man who'd dominated his life for three years.
Hǔtān was still retreating, trying to crawl backward through the rubble despite his injuries, his eyes locked on Tòumíng with absolute terror.
Tòumíng's ruined throat produced words through sheer force of will, each syllable painful but clear:
"Talk."