* * *

BOOM!

While Limon raced from subsidiary to subsidiary, uniting Ryu Gang-cheol and the Black Dragon Clan in their fear of him, Leviathan was shaking. The cause was an ongoing fight—if it could be called one—between Eugene, the blond woman rampaging wildly, and the Ink Dragon Unit.

"Ahahahahaha!"

Bright laughter rang out as a heavy guitar swung through the air. An instrument that should have shattered before it could serve as even a simple club, let alone a weapon, produced a shocking result.

BOOM!

The marble floor burst apart as though it had exploded. A reinforced-concrete pillar snapped like a rotten tree, and the force of the wind alone sent objects flying. She was a storm in human form, a calamity that destroyed and swept away everything it touched.

The thirty-two members of the Ink Dragon Unit slipped through the chaos without the slightest sign of panic. When Eugene approached, they retreated. When she rampaged, they scattered. When she stopped, they circled her. Moving in uncanny ways, they kept their distance, avoided a direct clash, and watched her with cold eyes.

"Tag? I'm it? Okay! Then I'll catch you!"

Chasing the Ink Dragon Unit as they fled like ghosts might have frustrated her. Instead, Eugene giggled as though the game had just become more fun. She adjusted her grip on the guitar and used its back, rather than its edge, to hit a head-sized chunk of marble lying on the floor upward like a golf ball.

BOOM!!

Struck with enough force to smash a pillar in one blow, the marble exploded on contact with the guitar. Countless fragments flew at the Ink Dragon Unit like a claymore blast, smashing everything in their path. It was an attack that could have wiped out dozens of mediocre players at once. But this was the Ink Dragon Unit.

RAT-TAT-TAT!

Some cut the fragments down with their swords. Others snatched them out of the air barehanded or swept them aside with their sleeves. Every member dealt with the attack without a scratch. Such a flawless response was possible only because each was an expert of unit-captain caliber, part of what was called the strongest combat unit in the Black Dragon Clan.

"Nice block! Then one more!"

BANG, BANG-BANG-BANG!

The problem came afterward. While the Ink Dragon Unit faltered from blocking the fragments, Eugene swung her guitar again and again, batting away everything in reach: chunks of marble, pieces of concrete, statues, ornaments, and more. If something looked even slightly heavy and hard, she sent it flying. To fend off the rain of debris, which rivaled a machine gun—and surpassed one in sheer destructive force—the Ink Dragon Unit had to keep their hands and feet moving without pause.

Then an opportunity appeared.

"An opening!"

WHOOSH!

The instant a fragment he failed to block struck an Ink Dragon Unit member's shoulder and made him stumble, Eugene charged him. He belatedly tried to retreat, but she was already in front of him, raising her guitar high.

BOOOOM!

The guitar came down from above her head like an axe and gouged a huge crater in the floor. The force was terrifying. Born of strength abnormal even by the standards of a duke-class player in the nineties, the blow would have shattered even a superhuman with skin like bronze and bones like iron.

Black mist drifted through the air.

"Huh? Where'd he go?"

When Eugene lifted the guitar, there were no human remains beneath it. Only the black mist swirled and dispersed.

As Eugene stared wide-eyed at the unexpected sight, the Ink Dragon Unit rushed her all at once like a swarm of bees.

WHING!

Discs came first. Two chakrams, their edges sharp enough to cut through anything, spun after Eugene in zigzags as though alive. She knocked them aside with her guitar, but that was a mistake. Palm strikes and finger strikes shot through the air and pierced the opening she had left.

BANG!

Psionics refined through the Seventy-Two Martial Schools and released from palms and fingers punched into Eugene's abdomen and battered her organs. The injury would have incapacitated not just an ordinary person, but most high-level players.

STAB!

But the Ink Dragon Unit did not stop. A sword sprang from the floor like a ghost and pierced her sole. The returning chakrams severed the tendons in both hands, and a huge horse-cutting sword sliced halfway through her neck. Psionics seeped from a fist striking her back, spontaneously igniting and boiling her blood, while a poisoned needle buried in her chest stiffened the muscle of her heart. This was less an attack than a butchering. They were not merely trying to kill her, but to break every bone and strip the flesh from her body.

BOOOOM!

But the next moment, it was the Ink Dragon Unit members who went flying in every direction with a tremendous crash.

"Wow... What a rush!"

A half-severed neck. An abdomen spilling its organs. Blood giving off wisps of steam. Hands and feet twisted at strange angles. She was a gruesome sight—so far from unhurt that it was hard to understand why she was still alive. She should have died five or six times over.

Yet Eugene had slammed the floor to blast away the Ink Dragon Unit members swarming her. Now she charged them, swinging her guitar.

BANG, BOOM!

There was nothing artful about her movements. They were crude and bestial, learned by smashing countless heads and crushing countless bodies. But her overwhelming strength and speed let her drive back even these battle-hardened warriors, like a lion savaging gladiators.

Eugene finally struck one of them. He had barely managed to block the blow, at the cost of a broken arm, and she was about to smash his skull when black mist began to coil around him.

"What the...?"

BOOOOM!!!

A single wrinkled hand emerged from the mist and struck Eugene in the solar plexus. The force sent her flying across the entire lobby and into the opposite wall. She staggered to her feet, snapped her broken neck back into place with a crunch, and puffed out her cheeks.

"Old man, that's totally cheating."

"I take that as a compliment."

"... I wasn't complimenting you. I was being sarcastic."

"To us of the Black Dragon Clan, being good at cheating is a compliment."

"The Seven Dragons Society really is a crazy bunch."

For a moment, Eugene shook her head at Yo U-in, the old man who had emerged from the black mist, as if the Seven Dragons Society were beyond all common sense. Then her eyes lit up at the mist surrounding him.

"But seriously, what's the trick behind that?"

"It is the result of diligently training in the Seventy-Two Martial Schools devised by our great founders."

"I didn't know you could do that with psionics. Cool."

"If we're talking about remarkable things, you take the prize, miss."

At Eugene's admiring remark, Yo U-in could not help looking incredulous. Whether one called it remarkable or incomprehensible, Eugene surpassed his Dark Heaven Shadow Soul School on either count.

"Miss, why won't you die?"

They had landed blows that should have killed her instantly and hacked her body apart several times over. Yet she showed no sign of being affected. As Yo U-in watched even her recent wounds heal completely over the course of their brief conversation, he clicked his tongue. Eugene wagged a finger at him.

"Old man, it's rude to ask a lady her secrets."

"So it is a unique skill after all."

"Huh? Who told you?"

Eugene's eyes widened in surprise. Yo U-in answered calmly.

"No one had to. If it were a common skill, you would have no reason to keep it secret."

Of course, the real basis for his deduction was Eugene's abnormal abilities. Strength, speed, regeneration, durability—one of those alone might have been possible, but possessing all of them at such an extraordinary level would be nearly impossible even for a high-level player. Unless she possessed a unique skill, a power called a miracle in its own right.

"And it's fairly well known that a unique skill called 『Immortal Body』 exists."

"Do I look like the Immortal Duke to you?"

"No. But just because only one person uses 『Immortal Body』 doesn't mean there can't be another unique skill with a similar effect, does it?"

Yo U-in paused, then added as he regarded Eugene with somber eyes.

"Or yours could be a superior unique skill, even stronger than that one."

"The only skills above unique skills are Absolute Skills."

"Indeed. So the unique skill you use must have some drawback, mustn't it?"

Eugene suddenly fell silent. Yo U-in gave her a cold smile.

The Immortal Duke might be famous for being unkillable, but even he could not have endured the combined assault of the Ink Dragon Unit, whose members were each comparable to a player around level 80. There were any number of ways to subdue a punching bag, especially with a master-level expert like Yo U-in directing them. Yet Eugene had been fighting the unit on even terms for dozens of minutes. Even for a duke-class player over level 90 with a unique skill granting immortality, it made no sense.

That left two conclusions. Eugene's skill was so overpowered that it transcended even other unique skills, approaching an Absolute Skill. And in exchange, it had some fatal drawback. Without such a weakness, she would already have reached level 100 and joined the ranks of the ten Monarchs.

"I don't know what that drawback is... but it doesn't matter."

Yo U-in was the general manager of Leviathan. Before he was a martial artist, he was the man responsible for directing the Black Dragon Clan across the various countries. He continued quietly.

"I need only search until I find it."

Whether it took hours, days, or months, he would keep her company until he uncovered the weakness hidden in her unique skill. And when he did, the woman who had rampaged so freely on the strength of her immortality would meet her end. His voice was cold.

"Hahahahaha!"

Eugene burst out laughing at him, apparently delighted. She thrust up a thumb.

"Good, old man! You're the best!"

"Hmm. Did you think I was joking?"

"I know you're serious. That's why you're the best!"

Despite having just been told she would be killed, Eugene looked delighted. She smiled brightly.

"Games are more fun when you bet your life on them, right?"

Whoever won and whoever died, the joy lay in fighting each other with their lives on the line. Seeing the sincerity written all over Eugene's face, Yo U-in understood. She was, after all, one of the Liberation Brigade's ghosts—one of the most unhinged lunatics in an organization of deranged criminals.

"Very well. Then, as you wish, I shall give you the most agonizing death possible."

"Ah, that won't work."

At Yo U-in's generous offer, Eugene looked awkward, like a celebrity who had been double-booked. Then she cheerfully explained the reason she absolutely could not yield—the reason she had to kill Yo U-in, the Ink Dragon Unit, and every employee and guest at Hotel Leviathan.

"Once this job's over, I'm going on tour with my partner."