A dark figure landed on the hard cement, and before the dust could even rise, he was gone.
He hit nearly 80 km/h, the wind ripping past him in bursts.
His steps stayed controlled, not because this was his top speed, but because the tight space left him nowhere to push further.
In no time, he reached the first clearing and paused.
His eyes moved left and right as he processed the information. In under thirty seconds, he already understood one thing clearly.
Multiple people had died here
"Tsk."
He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
His gut feeling told him everything he needed to know. His younger brother had likely met his end here.
That thought only made his irritation grow stronger.
Suddenly, he heard a slithering sound.
His head snapped toward it.
"GET LOST!"
He swung his spear.
A ray of blue light shot through the tunnel, disintegrating the worms into dust. The energy did not stop there. It slammed into the far wall, and the structure crumpled under the sheer force of the strike.
The entire tunnel shook.
The other agents who were left behind trembled, thinking the whole place was about to collapse.
Closing his eyes, he reluctantly waited for the others.
"Lieutenant Lex, please calm down," a woman with short pink hair and eyes spoke, her breathing hard as she tried to catch up.
Lex looked at her but said nothing, despite his frustration. He needed her, or more precisely, he needed her ability.
"Lieutenant Samantha, stop wasting time." he commanded.
"I'm not your slave." She rolled her eyes.
She was always treated like a princess by her Branch because of her unique ability, but she was sent here to partner with Lex just to appease him.
Samantha could not help but feel the Main Branch was overvaluing him.
Sure, he was strong. But there were dozens like him.
"I said use your ability!"
The pressure slammed into her, pressing straight down on her chest. Her knees buckled slightly, and her breath came out uneven.
"Alright. Alright," she waved her hand in surrender.
Then her eyes glowed blue.
In her vision, she began reconstructing what happened here. The scratch marks on the walls, the bullet holes, and other traces slowly formed a sequence in her mind.
"It's a worm-type beast, but this one looks mutated. It's extremely agile and at least Category 3 or higher."
"Only Category 3?" Lex raised an eyebrow. "If that's all it is, then my brother would be more than enough to handle it. There's no way that's the case."
"Are you really doubting my abilities? For your information, my Forensic Sight has a track record of 65% accuracy on crimes committed by humans and 90% on beast-related incidents..." she paused.
"What? Did you notice something else?" Lex probed.
She nodded. "Yeah, I can see traces of tampering here. And it's too deliberate to be the work of a beast."
Both of them grew serious.
If there were really traces of tampering, it meant they were dealing with a Category 5 threat or higher.
"Can you track it down?"
"Yes, but my ability has limits, so we need to be—"
Before she could finish, Lex lifted her into his arms and moved deeper.
A pink flush crept up her face as she was carried like a princess. Luckily, they wore protective helmets, hiding their expressions from each other.
Arrogant and rude as Lex was, women were still drawn to strong men, and there was no denying he stood among the very top in that department.
"Stop here," she urged. "Look, I can see small holes in the walls. This means the beast uses these places to move around and set up ambushes."
The more she talked about her findings, the clearer things became for both of them.
Finally, they reached the long tunnel.
She pointed toward the far end. "It's guns. It actually used guns to set up an ambush in this place, judging from the points of impact."
"Are you sure?" Lex's voice came out lower than he intended.
She didn't answer. Just nodded — once, slow, like she was signing something she couldn't take back.
"Lieutenant Lex, I think we should head back. If we're really dealing with a beast as smart as a human, then it could be related to the Black Archives."
He heard the term and stopped thinking about the tunnel, the guns, the beast. He stopped thinking about all of it and looked at her.
"How do you know that?"
"I'm not a fighter. I know." She cut him off before he could frame it as another question. "But my abilities don't need me to be."
She turned her back to the tunnel.
"If we're really dealing with a beast from the Black Archives. As per protocol, we should report it immediately to the Main Branch."
Lex clenched his fist in frustration.
He knew what he should do. But if they did not act now, Samantha's ability would run out of time. Once it ended, tracking the one responsible for his brother's death would become far harder.
"No need. I can handle it myself. You said it yourself, right? It's just a Category 3 beast."
"That was before! For all we know, it was just hiding its true power to deceive us."
She made her case well. Any reasonable person would have listened. But grief doesn't negotiate — it consumes, and what was left of Lex had no room left for reason.
He seized her arm and pushed onward before the last word had even left her mouth.
"What the hell are you doing? Are you really breaking protocol?"
She twisted in his grip, demanding to be released. Her voice bounced off the cement walls, but he paid her no mind.
In the end, she could only give up and reluctantly help him.
Along the way, more worms began to appear.
"I don't have time for your trash!" Lex swung his spear once.
In an instant, hundreds were shredded apart, clearing a straight path through the tunnel.
Samantha watched in silence. Slowly, her confidence in his ability grew.
She had heard from the Main Branch that, if not for his record, Lex would hold a higher rank based on strength alone. Seeing it firsthand, she could not deny that he was in a league of his own.
Roughly ten minutes later, they reached the end of the tunnel, which opened into a large underground whirlpool.
She dropped from his arms and steadied herself.
Her eyes glowed again, and her lips trembled as she delivered the bad news.
"This place leads to the water treatment plant. There's evidence it jumped here to escape."
Lex's face turned grim, anger barely held back.
His jaw tightened as he stared into the dark whirlpool below. For a moment, his control slipped, and the tension in his expression deepened.
"Escape..." He exhaled slowly, then drove his spear downward.
BOOOOM!
The whirlpool burst apart, and the entire tunnel shook like a bomb had gone off. Water exploded outward, slamming into the walls and ceiling. For a brief second, the current split open, revealing a dark gap beneath.
Then the flow surged back in, swallowing everything again.
Samantha stood frozen.
The impact still echoed in her bones, like the tunnel itself had been rewritten in a single moment. What she just witnessed did not feel like a normal strike. It felt like air had been forced to bend and then snap back into place.
One thought cut through her mind.
'What is he? A monster? Not even the people I knew in the Main Branch have that much firepower.'
She made a mental note to report this later.
All along, the Defense Force was not overvaluing him. No, his real strength was far beyond what his records showed.
Black Archive? Intelligent beast? None of that mattered in the face of overwhelming power.
'Poor monster. You messed with the wrong person.'