A Successful Plan... But.

The cold air in my lungs turned into a burning fire. Running in the maintenance tunnels beneath the "Entertainment Island" was a bad idea—no, a stupid idea. Everything down here was a blur: pipes suddenly venting hot steam, puddles of rusty water, and creeping shadows in every corner.

"Turn left!" Uralin screamed at his accomplice.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This was meant to be a simple trap, a straight revenge plan against that arrogant, selfish Academy student who kept wandering into their territory and beating up their crew in "street fights" just for kicks. The plan was simple: lure him down here, provoke him, and then jump him with five men.

But he never fell into the trap. He became the trap.

Uralin glanced back for a moment. The boy with the red streak wasn't even running. He was walking. And even more terrifying, he was smiling. That half-grin of the utterly fascinated, like a spectator watching an amusing challenge, not like a prey being hunted by five furious men.

"It was just some trash talk!" Uralin screamed in his head, leaping over a massive pipe. "Just simple revenge. How... how did it turn into this?!"

They had fought Academy students before. But this wasn't a boy fighting a new opponent; he was fighting because he was enjoying it. He absorbed every punch and kick they threw as if it were pure fuel, then returned the force back multiplied.

"What do we do?!" his accomplice yelled right beside him.

Uralin kept running.

"The plan hasn't changed! If we can't defeat him, then we just won't need to!" Uralin said with a desperate smile, trying to dodge the projectiles whipping past him.

"Oh, seriously, did the fight just turn into a foot race?"

The voice came from behind, unnervingly cheerful. Uralin turned to see the boy casually picking up a rusty metal pipe from the ground.

The boy scooped up a handful of scattered stones, tossed them into the air, and began hitting them with the pipe like a baseball bat.

"Point!" the boy cheered, as a stone slammed into the head of the man next to Uralin, who face-planted into a stagnant pool of water.

"Boss! Where exactly are we heading?!" his other crew member screamed, ducking another projectile.

"Miran! That **wretch**—we're going to get rid of both of them together!" Uralin roared.

"How are we even going to find him?!"

"I've been watching him! He comes here once a week. I bet he's got a deal or some shady business here! We just reach him, split up, and let the river take its course!"

Uralin didn't need to look back to know the boy was still following. He could hear the soft, unsettling chuckle, followed by the metallic clang of a stone hitting something. The man who had fallen was trying to crawl away, but Uralin trampled him as he ran, and the smiling boy stepped on him moments later.

"Did I step on something?" the boy asked loudly, before resuming his 'batting practice.'

"Come on!" Uralin shouted, "He's there! The next corner!"

Uralin and his remaining team rushed around the bend into a wider maintenance room—a massive hall filled with old, deactivated generators.

And they froze.

The scene they barged into was already a powder keg. In the center, two groups faced off. Two men in cheap suits holding silver briefcases, backed by four men carrying firearms.

But it wasn't them that made Uralin sweat.

In the back stood the real guards.

To the left, leaning against the wall with absolute boredom, was a young man idly tapping his arm. His orange hair was the only bright spot in the dark room. Uralin knew him: Miran.

And to the right, stood the other organization's guard. He was just a kid in a dark red hoodie, sitting on a crate, absorbed in a handheld gaming device.

The sound of the chase died. The boy stopped walking behind them.

All eyes in the room—the gunmen, the briefcase men, Miran—everyone, except the kid playing his game, now swiveled towards Uralin and his panic-stricken crew.

Miran slowly raised his head, stopping his tapping.

Uralin swallowed his dry spit.

"Boss!" his accomplice whispered, sweating profusely, "Is this... bad?"

Then he heard the voice of the smiling boy behind him, the metal pipe resting easily on his shoulder.

"Oh. So, you gave up running? And I was hoping to practice some more."

Men from both sides shouted: "Who are you?!" and raised their rifle muzzles. Then the two briefcase leaders glanced at each other, and each pulled out a sidearm, pointing it at the other.

"Should I assume you have nothing to do with this matter?" the man on the right said.

"That's my question too," the man on the left replied.

He then looked at Uralin's group and the Academy boy.

"So, who sent you?" the man on the left asked.

No one answered. The silence in the room was crushing, broken only by Uralin's ragged breathing... and a very small electronic sound.

Beep-beep-beep.

Uralin tried to speak, but his voice failed him.

In stark contrast, Miran was no longer calm. The heat in the room began to rise noticeably. The air around him shimmered, like a heat haze rising from asphalt on a summer afternoon.

"You..." Miran growled in a deep voice that sounded like a furnace roaring to life. His green eyes blazed with suppressed fury. "You're that insect from the back street, aren't you? Are you trying to rob us? Or did you..."

Miran's gaze shifted to the Academy boy standing directly behind Uralin, the metal pipe still resting carelessly on his shoulder.

"...bring an Academy brat here to die with you?"

The boy laughed. It wasn't a nervous laugh. It was a short, genuine bark of glee as he raised the bat towards Miran.

"Don't worry," the boy said. "This Academy kid will be nice enough to leave your head intact... maybe."

There was no warning. No battle cry.

Just the sound of an explosion.

The concrete floor beneath Miran's feet cracked—not from weight, but from the sudden, intense heat that flash-vaporized the moisture in the cement. Miran lunged forward, leaving a glowing trail, his right fist shining bright orange, like iron freshly pulled from a forge.

The ten-meter distance separating them vanished in the blink of an eye.

"Die!"

Miran's punch was aimed directly at the center of the smiling boy's face.

At that exact same moment, the boy raised the rusty metal pipe—not to block, but with the same fierce smile, he swung it at Miran's face with equal force. Miran's fist raced toward the boy's jaw. The boy's pipe raced toward Miran's nose.

There was no defense. Neither attempted to retreat.

The two bodies met at a single, brutal point of impact.

"CRACK!"

The sound of metal hitting bone mixed with another horrifying noise... the sizzling sound of burnt flesh.

Miran's blazing fist detonated against the left side of the boy's face. The heat was instantaneous, brutal, and enough to vaporize the top layer of skin in a fraction of a second. The stench was foul.

But... the boy didn't fly backward.

Instead of his jaw shattering, something impossible happened. The moment Miran's fist connected, the force of the blow seemed to be absorbed. The boy's body convulsed violently, as if he were a battery instantly charged with a massive jolt of current.

And in that same instant, the boy completed his swing.

The rusty metal pipe, now charged with all the kinetic power of the 'conflict' that Miran himself had generated, slammed into the dead center of Miran's completely exposed face.

Miran's nose shattered.

Blood, sparks, and teeth sprayed into the air.

"AAGH!"

Miran staggered backward, his hand covering his face, which was now a bloody mess. The heat radiating from him violently warped, losing its focus for a moment.

The boy dropped to one knee, panting hard. The left side of his face was charred black, smoke wafting from his cheek and hair. The pain should have made him scream or pass out.

But he... was still laughing.

The boy slowly stood up, wiped the blood (and ash) from his mouth with the back of his hand, and spat black-tinged blood onto the floor. He raised the metal pipe, slightly bent from the impact, and pointed it at the stunned Miran.

"Oh..." the boy spoke in a hoarse voice, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying ecstasy. "You... you really are hot."

Silence fell over the room, broken only by the continuous tapping on the gaming device. The gang members, the gunmen, and even Uralin... everyone stared in shock. No one had ever taken a direct hit from Miran and remained standing, let alone cracked a joke.

The only thing that broke the silence was the repetitive digital sound from the corner.

Ting. Ting. Level Up.

The boy in the red hoodie didn't look up from the screen. He didn't flinch. He showed zero interest in the unfolding chaos.

In contrast, the air around Miran was boiling. The blood streaming from his broken nose evaporated before it could hit the ground, forming a crimson cloud of steam. His green eyes no longer glowed only with rage, but with pure, unadulterated madness. Heat began to coalesce in his chest—a bright, internal glow announcing an imminent explosion that would wipe out the entire room.

"You **wretched creature**..." Miran started to snarl, his mouth full of blood, ready to unleash everything he had.

But the smiling boy didn't wait to see the 'explosion.'

He had just absorbed the most powerful punch of his life. His body screamed from the burns, but his muscles were now charged with an explosive kinetic energy generated by that massive collision. He felt like a spring compressed to its absolute limit.

And while Miran was pausing to scream... the boy released that spring.

It wasn't a step—it was a launch.

The floor beneath the boy's feet visibly buckled as he shot forward, utilizing every ounce of energy absorbed from Miran's previous blow to turn his body into a human missile.

Before Miran could raise his glowing hands to defend, and before he could finish his curse...

The metal pipe (or what was left of it) returned to fill his vision once more.

This time, it wasn't a random swing. The boy rotated his entire body, adding the momentum of his spin to the stored energy, and aimed the bent end of the pipe with brutal, surgical precision at the exact same shattered point: the broken bridge of the nose.

"BANG!"

The sound wasn't a collision this time; it was more like a cannon shot.

Miran's head snapped violently back, so hard that his feet lifted off the ground. The thermal glow gathering in his chest suddenly dispersed as he lost consciousness (or focus), and a random, undirected wave of heat lashed the ceiling, melting the overhead lights and causing electrical sparks to rain down.

Miran fell onto his back, temporarily immobile, smoke rising from his now unrecognizable face.

The boy stood over him, panting, his chest heaving. Half his face was burned, and his metal pipe dripped molten blood, but his eyes glowed with only one thing: the desire for more.

The boy raised the pipe a third time, smiling a joyful, sick grin. "I told you, 'maybe'," the boy said, raising the pipe.

As Miran tried to gather his senses to open his hazy eyes, the boy struck his face forcefully, again and again, even though the pipe was now twisted and melted. He didn't care; he didn't even notice.

On the far side, Uralin was crawling away, a grim smile on his face.

"The plan succeeded! Yes! That Academy **scoundrel** didn't die, but at least that **insignificant pest** (Miran) got crushed. All I have to do is get out of here, then finish the kid (The Academy Kid) if he even leaves alive," Uralin thought, trying desperately not to make a sound.

But he didn't need to make a sound.

'BANG'

He crumpled to the ground.

"Tch! Trash thinking I'd just let you walk, huh?" The tall man (First Leader) sneered, looking at Uralin's corpse. "But there's a use for trash, right? Men, now kill them!"

The man said, he and his men aiming at the other group.

"Kill them!" shouted a man from the targeted group, scrambling back to escape.

An intense firefight erupted in the area, the sound of automatic gunfire dominating the hall. Though there was little light, the muzzle flashes served as strobe lights... but with every burst of gunfire, there was a quiet, relentless tapping sound.

The man in the cheap suit, holding the silver briefcase, wasn't the real leader; he was just a "broker." And his deal had just died, quite literally, under a rusty metal pipe.

The man crawled on all fours behind a huge generator, bullets whistling over his head. He had lost his bodyguard (Miran) and lost the deal. He had to get out of here.

He spotted a small maintenance exit on the far side of the room, behind the boy who was still slowly committing murder.

"This whole operation is wretched..." the man whispered, pulling a small handgun from an ankle holster.

He couldn't face that monster head-on, but he wouldn't leave without a 'farewell gift.' The boy was the reason everything had collapsed.

The man crawled slowly, using the sound of the gunfight as cover. He raised his handgun, taking careful aim at the distracted boy's back.

"If he dies, I get my revenge, and if he doesn't, I'm getting out of here, and I'll blame everyone else in the room but me..." the man thought coldly, and squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

The sound was distinct from the automatic rifles—sharp and close.

For the first time since the fight began, the metal pipe paused mid-swing. The bullet struck the boy's shoulder and tore his jacket, but it didn't pierce the skin; instead, it left a massive bruise.

His body shook from the new impact energy. The boy turned toward the shot, but saw no one.

"Huh?" He scanned the room, seeing only men shooting and a boy playing.

Then he looked at his hand, the melted, blood-soaked pipe. It was hard to tell if the blood belonged to him from the burns, or to the fallen, broken-nosed youth covering it.

The boy tossed the pipe aside.

"I still have that, I need to get it out," the boy muttered as he forcefully raised his fist toward a nearby concrete wall and punched it, shattering the wall and sending a support column crashing down, revealing the hidden man who stood shaking, handgun raised. "Don't come any closer!" the man screamed.

But before the boy could speak, weapons were aimed at them.

"There's no way my men lost like this! They are—" the man (Second Leader) said, glancing at the other organization, but he stopped when he saw all the men from both organizations aiming their weapons at the traitorous leader. The tall man, who was also carrying a silver briefcase, looked at him, dusting off his shoulder.

"No, they didn't lose. The one who lost is you, **you insignificant fool**," the tall man said, shooting the man (Second Leader). "None of them want to die because of an idiot like you," he said, nodding toward the briefcase, and one of his men stepped forward to retrieve it.

"Check the contents," the man ordered.

He then looked at Miran and reloaded his handgun, aiming at him "just in case." But the man lowered his gun, not because he changed his mind, but because someone was standing in his way.

"Let me get this straight. You're the type who wants to finish what you started yourself," the man said to the boy.

"It's my fight. It's my victory," the boy replied.

The man looked at his tired, trembling men, then at Miran, whose face was now barely recognizable, then at the half-burned, blood-soaked boy, and finally, at the boy still playing his game.

"Fine. Finish it however you want, but..." the tall man began. But before he finished:

"I think the matter is over now, Count," the boy in the red hoodie said, finally speaking.

The man looked at him. The kid pulled out a thick wallet and tossed it to the boy with the red streak. "The money is a gift, if you don't want the funds transferred to your account card. You're on your own in this..." the black-haired man said.

"Sending that amount to a card is an invitation for an investigation... I'll take the manual deposit," the boy in the red hoodie said, taking the cash out of the wallet and pocketing it.

The tall man looked at the one he'd assigned to check the briefcase. "Are you done?"

"Everything seems to be correct," the man checking the briefcase replied.

"At least he brought the right items. Let's go," the man commanded, tapping the briefcase.

Then...

'BANG!' multiple shots were fired.

The men who had betrayed their leader began to drop.

The black-haired man looked at the boy in the red hoodie. "How much do you want to dispose of the evidence?"

"Ah... so that's why you specifically asked for me," the boy in the red hoodie said.

"And the other one, too," the man replied, gesturing toward Miran.

"The amount won't be small. The corpses might disappear, but the traces of my power won't disappear easily," the boy in the red hoodie replied, glancing around the room. "Disposing of a body is one thing, but the site itself is another."

"The existence of a destroyed site can be dismissed as a simple gang fight, but a body like this indicates a deal gone wrong," the tall man clarified.

"You're on your own in this," the boy in the red hoodie replied.

The man looked at his men:

"Prepare the briefcases and start loading them. Bring the cleaning tools—it's going to be a long night," the tall man commanded, running a hand through his black hair, then looking at the one who had been silent all this time... at the boy with the burned face. He wasn't there.

"Did he leave?" the black-haired man asked.

"After his announcement, and he took the orange-haired one with him too," the boy in the red hoodie replied, walking away.