Wang Gi-neung sincerely thanked the Awe-Inspiring Black Dragon Lord. He had been reduced to waiting for the Wang family of Shanghai to fall after losing everything. Yet Ryu Gang-cheol, the cause of it all, was not only alive but had appeared before him of his own accord. To Wang, it was a stroke of luck that could only be the blessing of their great founder.

"Comrade, I get why you're happy... but aren't you forgetting something?"

Of course, someone else could only watch Wang with misgivings.

"If you're worried about the escort, don't be. This time I'll escort you myself, and I won't let anyone lay a hand on you."

"No, that's not what I mean."

Ryu Gang-cheol shook his head slightly. Then he pointed his bloodstained knife at Wang, who was so elated he seemed a little out of his mind.

"I may be a son of a bitch, but I'm a wolf come to kill you, comrade."

He wasn't some mangy dog Wang could catch whenever he pleased. He was a beast that would tear out Wang's throat with this knife. It was time Wang took him seriously. Ryu's words brimmed with murderous intent.

"Oh, I haven't forgotten that, either."

Even in the face of that deadly warning, Wang showed no particular concern. He merely grinned.

"I paid it no mind because I didn't need to."

"... Aren't you a little too confident?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Is that so?"

Wang wore a relaxed smile, as though watching a puppy yapping its heart out while insisting it was a wolf. Ryu gave a short laugh. He shifted his knife into a reverse grip and said coldly, "Then I'll have to give you a reason."

At that instant, Ryu vanished from Wang's sight. In his place came the blue gleam of a knife blade sweeping toward Wang's neck. Keen enough to take a king's head like a guillotine, yet as stealthy and swift as a mosquito's proboscis, it was a perfect surprise attack.

CRUNCH!

"...?!"

Wang spun like a top. The attack would have been perfect if the five fingers he curled like dragon claws had not caught the blade. Ryu's eyes widened. His high-level knife could cut through rock, yet Wang had stopped it with a bare hand—not even a glove, let alone an item. Even then, a seasoned knife fighter's instincts drove Ryu to twist the blade sharply and sever Wang's fingers. The attempt came to nothing.

SKREEE, CRRRUNCH!

"... Comrade, what are those fingers made of? How are they harder than a knife made with feathers from a level-ninety-something Blade Hawk?"

"Training and hard work, mainly."

Wang's fingers were crushing the knife like a hydraulic press flattening a scrap car. Ryu stared at them in disbelief as he asked his question, but Wang saw no need to explain the greatness of the Seventy-Two Martial Schools or the secret art of the Perfect Dragon Claw School (十全龍爪流). He simply swung his half-curled hands and pressed his attack as Ryu drew a spare knife.

RATATATAT!

"Hrk...!"

The moment Ryu dodged fingers aimed at his throat, the nails extended and slashed across it, their edge as vicious as a blade. Before he could staunch the bleeding, he had to block a hand reaching to gouge out his eyes. He used his knife—but that was a mistake. As if waiting for it, Wang seized the blade. His fingers slithered up it like a writhing snake and snapped the wrist holding the knife.

CRACK!

That was only the beginning. Wang lunged low and raked Ryu's leg. He flicked a swinging knife aside with his fingers alone. His hands darted mercilessly toward Ryu's eyes, nose, mouth, and even his groin, trying to seize and tear them away.

"Ghk?!"

Those hands never stopped moving. They were far more than tough fingers and sharp nails. His hands were iron maces weighing a thousand pounds. His arms were whips that writhed as if alive. His ten fingers were hooks that broke bone, and his ten nails were daggers that sliced flesh.

Only a martial artist who had honed his body to its limits through punishing training could reach such a level. It was why Wang could wreak havoc barehanded—and why Ryu could do nothing but defend. The twenty-four weapons Wang's hands contained were too vicious for Ryu's two knives to handle.

'Forget his martial arts—his strength... no, even his speed is greater than mine?!'

That wasn't the only frightening thing about Wang. His physical abilities, from strength to speed. His thoroughly trained hands and fingers. His skill, on an entirely different plane. Though he outclassed Ryu in every respect, he never let his guard down and relentlessly targeted his vital points. Yet he wasn't fixated on them; he was cunning enough to take every chance to leave even the smallest scratch. Rather than rush to finish the fight, he cautiously piled on damage and steadily widened his advantage.

Ryu was already outmatched in ability. With no opening in Wang's attitude, either, no amount of struggling could make him a match.

CRUNCH!

"Ghh!"

Before they had exchanged even fifty blows, Wang had smashed the joints in both Ryu's hands and his knees. He planted a foot on the fallen man's chest and grinned.

"Do you still think I need to care whether you're a dog or a wolf?"

Ryu couldn't even get angry at the taunt. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and asked incredulously, "... Comrade, what the hell did you take to get this strong?"

"I told you before. Just because I speak politely doesn't mean you should underestimate me."

At least Ryu had put up a fight against Wei Ling. Now he looked unable to believe he had been toyed with by someone who wasn't even a player. Watching his stunned expression, Wang answered calmly, as though Ryu had asked the most obvious question in the world.

"Of course I'm strong. I'm a master-level expert of the Seven Dragons Society."

"So what?"

"The fact that you don't know what that means is exactly why walking in here yourself was such a dumbass thing to do."

Wang looked at him as if he were the world's greatest fool. His face full of mockery, he went on cheerfully.

"You're from Bukgan State, so you must have some idea what a master (宗師) is."

"A respected teacher, or the founder of a school?"

"Then what do you suppose master-level means in the Seven Dragons Society?"

"..."

For the first time, Ryu fell silent. Even with his hands and legs broken, he had kept his composure until now. He knew only the basics about the Seven Dragons Society and neither knew nor cared about the details of its teachings or history. But that was enough to grasp what Wang meant.

"Now do you understand? In our Seven Dragons Society, the only ones who may be called masters are the seven revered founders who created the Seventy-Two Martial Schools."

"Then a master-level expert is..."

"Just what you're thinking."

Anyone who knew even a little about the Society should have known that. Ryu had gone around attacking its subsidiaries without knowing something so basic—a player through and through. Wang sneered at him and said coldly, "It means a martial artist who, in at least one of the Seventy-Two Martial Schools, has risen to the same level as our great founders."

The seven dragons. Absolute beings who had ended the Silver Age by devouring even gods, then ruled the Bronze Age. They existed only in legend now, but that made the weight of those legends no less immense.

There were bound to be exaggerations, of course, and the gulf between eras had to be taken into account. Even so, the seven dragons of legend were terrifying beings. The Sword Emperor, the first Sword Master, was said to have lost his life fighting them.

"You should have come back after reaching at least level ninety. Then you might have stood a chance against me."

Wang was certain: to face someone who had reached the same level as the seven dragons, even if only in one respect, an opponent had to be a duke-class player at minimum. He curled his lip at Ryu, who had leaped into a death trap out of arrogance.

"Look forward to it. This time, I'll teach you what real pain is."

* * *

"Their chances of winning?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. Hard to say..."

After a moment's thought about Li Qingyu's unexpected question, Limon answered, "I can't say for certain, but judging by that knife-wielding son of a bitch, their odds are fifty-fifty at best."

"Even at a subsidiary with a master-level expert like Family Head Wang?"

"Yeah."

Limon nodded once, then continued in a low voice. "Your Seven Dragons Society's experts are strong, no question. Psionics and the Seventy-Two Martial Schools are absurdly powerful to begin with."

Pyrokinesis (fire generation). Psychokinesis (telekinetic power). Teleportation (spatial manipulation). Precognition (foresight). Telepathy (mental communication). Clock Up (time manipulation). Healing (biological manipulation).

Those were the seven types of psionics inherited from birth by the descendants of the seven dragons. They were truly extraordinary powers, but they could also be too much for a human to bear. Being born with psionics did not necessarily make someone strong, and anyone whose mind and body couldn't withstand them might destroy themselves.

That was what made the Seventy-Two Martial Schools so remarkable. Through training, a person could build up psionic power. They could also control its flow to gain superhuman physical abilities and wield combat powers unrelated to their innate gifts. That was why psionics had been considered the most outrageously powerful of all supernatural forces until the Iron Age began.

"Master-level experts in particular are better than most duke-class players when it comes to sheer combat strength."

In that sense, a master-level expert was truly superhuman. Each had mastered one of the Seventy-Two Martial Schools to its limits, putting them among the experts closest to the pinnacle of the Seven Dragons Society.

"And you still think it's fifty-fifty?"

"Yep."

Limon was firm. Judging by Ryu Gang-cheol, even Black Dragon Construction, with Wang Gi-neung there, had less than a fifty-percent chance of stopping the attackers.

"Because those attackers are all players."

"... Skills are the problem, then."

"Yeah. Plenty of player skills defy common sense."

Psionics and the Seventy-Two Martial Schools versus skills that made the impossible possible. This wasn't about having some dumbass but interesting debate over which was superior. What mattered was that a high-ranking officer of the Liberation Brigade could well have a special skill: a unique skill (Unique Skill), a power granted to only one person, each such ability a miracle in its own right.

"Of course, even the most powerful unique skill has its limits. If they keep a cool head and respond properly, they might be able to stop it, but..."

Limon trailed off for a moment. Resting his chin on one hand, he weighed something in his mind before continuing indifferently. "If they trust in their own strength and let their guard down without knowing what those bastards can do, even a master-level expert could end up dead."

* * *

"I'm a little confused, you see."

Wang couldn't understand why his mouth had gone so dry, how he had ended up cornered like this, or how Ryu—whose limbs had been broken and who had been gasping for breath moments ago—could now be grinning at him, apparently unharmed. Above all...

"Which of us just said he'd teach the other what pain was, master-level comrade?"

How many Ryu Gang-cheols was this now? Surrounded by eight of them in all, with knives lodged in his back and side, Wang could only grit his teeth.