Noah thought frantically as he was blasted backward through eight consecutive trees. Is it like an advanced variation of Taekwondo!?
Noah struggled with everything he had to maintain his footing, his fractured arms trembling as he stared through the blizzard.
Across the clearing, Allen dropped into a deep, highly specialized combat stance, his eyes locking onto his target. It was the unmistakable, lethal setup for a devastating 1440-degree spin kick.
Noah's blood-stained lips curved into a desperate smile. Looks like he's putting everything into a final, decisive strike. In that case... allow me to demons-
He couldn't even finish the thought. In a flash of motion, Allen was already airborne, closing the distance at an impossible speed.
The shadow of Allen's descending leg was mere inches from Noah's face. Refusing to go down quietly, Noah unleashed his ultimate, most powerful structural punch—a lethal, straight-line strike known as the UltimateMissile.
He drove his fist directly toward Allen's incoming leg.
CRACK!
The mid-air collision was catastrophic. The bones in Allen's attacking leg fractured under the immense pressure of the impact, while the knuckles and wrist of Noah's ultimate punch completely shattered.
But as the bones broke, Allen's cold smile never faded.
Using the violent recoil of the collision to accelerate his rotation mid-air, Allen whipped his secondary leg around with terrifying torque. The solid bone of his trailing heel struck Noah's exposed ribcage with the force of a meteor, completely shattering his entire chest wall.
Noah coughed out a massive spray of dark crimson as his body was hurled through the air, plowing violently through eleven consecutive Giant Sequoia trees before crashing into a lifeless heap.
As Noah's consciousness rapidly faded into blackness, a buried memory from his past suddenly flashed before his eyes. He remembered the day years ago when he had been beaten to the absolute brink of death by a single, normal teenager.
Not a single asset in the entire Loop organization had been able to stop that monster. The only thing that had saved their lives that day... was a single phone call.
Across the ruined clearing, the adrenaline finally drained from Allen's system. He fell heavily to his knees, his broken leg buckling under his weight.
"Damn... that was one hell of an extreme fight," Allen muttered through his teeth.
His vision went dark, and he fainted right there on the blood-stained snow.
Later.
Allen's eyelids fluttered open, his vision blurry as the dim, flickering orange light of a campfire slowly came into focus. The bitter, howling wind of the blizzard was muffled now. He was lying on a makeshift bed of tactical thermal blankets inside a secluded cavern.
He tilted his head to the side and saw Ethan slumped against the stone wall next to him, fast asleep, his face bruised and tracked with dried sweat.
Glancing toward the center of the cave, Allen saw Liam hunched over the campfire, quietly roasting rations over the flames.
Beyond the firelight, a series of low, rhythmic muffles cut through the crackle of the wood. Allen shifted his gaze toward the shadows near the cave entrance. There, the pilot was standing guard, his assault rifle held at a low-ready position.
In front of the pilot, two men were violently bound back-to-back against a stone pillar, heavy-duty tactical zip-ties cutting into their wrists and thick cargo tape sealing their mouths shut.
Allen tried to sit up straight, but a sharp, localized throb radiated from his lower body. He looked down and noticed his fractured leg had been meticulously set, splinted, and wrapped in a rigid, field-grade medical plaster.
"Allen, you're finally awake?" Liam called out, noticing the movement.
"What? Seriously?" Ethan muttered, his eyes snapping open instantly. He shook off his exhaustion and leaned over to check on Allen. "How are you feeling, man?"
Allen rubbed his temples, his throat dry. "Where are we?"
"Deep in the mountains," Ethan explained, his voice low. "We managed to find you sleeping on the snow"
Allen looked past Ethan, his gaze locking onto the bound prisoners. "What about Noah?"
Ethan and Liam exchanged a brief, puzzled look. "Who?" Liam asked.
"Are you talking about the bodyguard?" Ethan pressed.
Allen shook his head decisively. "No. He was Number 9 of the Loop. We went absolute war out there."
Liam's eyebrows shot up. He turned and pointed a gloved finger at the larger, blood-scalped man tied. "Are you talking about him?"
Allen squinted through the firelight, analyzing the bruised face and the heavily bandaged, shattered forearms. He gave a firm nod. "Yeah. That's him."
Liam and Ethan nodded in unison, walking back over to sit by Allen's side.
"If he's Noah..." Allen muttered, his eyes shifting to the second prisoner, a leaner man dressed in high-altitude digital camouflage. "...then who the hell is the other guy?"
"Oh, him?" Ethan let out a grim, humorless chuckle. "Well, as we were in helicopter, someone down here decided to paint our chopper with an anti-air rocket launcher. Blew the entire thing to pieces. We barely managed to eject in the absolute last seconds."
Allen listened intently, nodding slowly.
"While Liam and I were tracking your position through the storm, our pilot was scouring the high ridges to establish a satellite link back to Base," Ethan continued, gesturing toward the guard at the entrance. "He ended up running face-to-face into the exact mister who fired the rocket. Our boy didn't even hesitate—he completely beat the brakes off him, stripped his gear, and dragged him down here."
"But how did you guys even regroup in a blinding blizzard like that?" Allen asked, genuinely impressed.
"Standard operating procedure," Liam answered, looking up from the fire. "The pilot and I left localized, low-frequency military tracking markers in the snow drift. Once Ethan landed, he calibrated his tactical visor to the trail and mapped our coordinates straight to this cavern."
Allen let out a slow breath, leaning back against the stone. "So, what's the play now?"
"The next phase of the plan is simple," Liam said, his tone turning entirely cold and clinical. "We break Number 9 and the rocketeer. They're going to tell us everything about the Third Branch."
Allen nodded, understanding the stakes.
Ethan and Liam stood up in perfect unison, their shadows stretching long and menacing against the cave walls as they walked toward the two bound assets.
"Watch closely, Allen," Liam murmured, a dark, lethal edge cutting through his voice as he peeled the cargo tape off Noah's bloody face. "Today, we're going to show you how the military handles an interrogation."
Beside him, Ethan slowly cracked his knuckles, the sound echoing sharply inside the stone cavern.
Meanwhile, deep within the heavily fortified perimeter of the Loop's Third Branch.
The administrative corridors were silent, save for the rhythmic clicking of tactical heels. Himari and Rider stood sharply outside the towering, frosted-glass double doors of the regional director's office.
Both of them had shed their combat gear, now dressed in tailored, pitch-black tactical suits that signified their official transition into active asset management.
Inside the sprawling office, Mike sat casually behind a massive obsidian desk. His boots were propped up on the polished surface, and a sleek satellite smartphone was spinning lazily between his fingers.
He glanced down at the screen, staring at a call log that showed a dozen consecutive dialed entries—all entirely un-answered.
"Why the hell isn't Noah picking up?" Mike muttered to himself, his brow furrowing as he tossed the phone onto the desk.
A flicker of suspicion crossed his mind.
Did something go sideways up in the passes? He paused, considering the variable, before shaking his head to dismiss the thought. No. Impossible. Noah is the Number 9. Even if the asset he was fetching turned out to be a prodigy, Noah's raw fist conditioning isn't something anyone can bypass.
Mike sat up straight, pulling his legs off the desk and dragging a glowing holographic interface toward him.
"Whatever," Mike murmured, his expression hardening as he looked toward the closed office doors where Himari and Rider were waiting. "I have a facility to run. It's time to focus on the work at hand."