Jack couldn't remember the last time he had been this shocked.
Getting into the Afterlife—alive—was practically a dream for every edge-runner in the biz.
And Lin Mo? The kid had made it in at just sixteen. He'd even sent Jack a handful of photos from inside, like he was showing off.
Jack hadn't doubted him. Not for a second.
From the start, he'd accepted it as fact. No room left for disbelief.
He gave Lin Mo credit for that kind of strength. If you could walk into the Afterlife, then you definitely had to be packing heat. The kid might've looked young, but ability-wise, he clearly wasn't below Jack himself.
That was what Jack had been telling himself. But deep down, one question never stopped nagging at him:
How the hell did a brat that age make it into the Afterlife?
Jack had been waiting outside that bar for years. And he'd never gotten in.
So tonight, he met up with Lin Mo to figure things out. After a long chat, his doubts about the kid's strength had mostly vanished.
But now—even that last bit of curiosity was gone.
Watching the two figures battling it out in the open square, Jack felt a strange emptiness. Like questioning his whole life.
He couldn't keep up with their movements at all.
The brute was easier to track—he mostly stood his ground, just absorbing hits. He couldn't dodge Lin Mo's strikes.
What he could do was raise a solid defense. His arms always moved just in time to block the incoming blows. Sometimes, he even lashed out with weak but instinctive counters.
Lin Mo, on the other hand—Jack couldn't see him at all.
All he could make out was a streak of azure light darting around the brute like a concert glowstick in a pitch-black venue.
You couldn't see the performer, but you could spot the glowstick. Otherwise, Jack wouldn't even have known where Lin Mo was, or what angle he was attacking from.
That was when the truth finally hit him.
That whole "he's not below me" nonsense? Pure delusion.
"Holy shit… how's this guy so damn good?"
Jack muttered aloud.
No one answered him.
The tide of battle had just shifted again.
A stream of burning red light cut into the fray like divine judgment descending from the heavens—heading straight for Lin Mo's head.
And his blade—his Black Unicorn—was still locked in the brute's grip, clutched like a raptor's talon. He couldn't pull it free.
The obvious move would've been to abandon the weapon and retreat.
But Lin Mo didn't do that.
To him, even divine judgment moved too slow.
In that fraction of a second, he executed a dodge the brute couldn't have anticipated.
He tilted his body slightly to slip past the downward strike—then leapt, twisting midair in a clean side flip. The katana still clutched tight in his hand.
Using that motion, the Black Unicorn's blade sliced clean through one of the brute's fingers.
By the time Lin Mo landed, the katana was back under his control.
The fiery orange glow of the descending blade faded, revealing its true form.
A katana—deep crimson from hilt to tip. Even the flames dancing along the blade matched the Tyger Claws' signature palette.
Thermal Katana. In the cyber era, the rebirth of melee weapons.
Tough and razor-sharp, its hollow-core design made it look like two slender blades fused together. The central cavity housed the thermal emitter.
Rugged, deadly—and blistering hot.
A fine weapon, Lin Mo noted silently. The brute didn't even flinch at the loss of a finger.
He hadn't felt this alive in ages. Most enemies fell with a single strike.
But tonight—tonight he had a tank to carve apart.
They clashed again—flashes of blue and red light wove together into a web of deadly brilliance.
The brute's swordplay had no finesse. Each flaming slash came down with overwhelming brute force—wild and open, like a gorilla swinging a tree branch. Zero technique. Just pure instinct.
And somehow… that was enough to give Lin Mo pause.
"Overwhelming force beats a thousand clever tricks. Guess I'm seeing it firsthand."
His fighting style came from necessity. The Berserk implant had pushed the brute's strength and cyberware to the limit—at the cost of his rational mind.
Now he was ruled by primal instinct.
But against a speedster with a reaction time stat of 14?
He had no choice. Every attack, every defense had to be thrown out with full force just to barely keep up.
And yet… those wild swings were still dangerous.
In a normal person's hands, a thermal katana might cause a few sparks at best. Its main strength lay in its burning heat.
But in this brute's hands, every strike felt like a roaring inferno.
By sheer force alone, he made it feel like each swing could set the world ablaze.
Compared to him, Lin Mo's own style felt almost… refined.
His blade danced with subtlety—sometimes wrapping around the brute like a seductive viper, other times striking like a lion baring its fangs.
The thermal katana's presence had definitely heated things up—literally.
Even with time slowed, Lin Mo had to move more broadly to avoid the searing flames licking off that edge.
Another diagonal slash came roaring down. The brute treated his sword like a club, slashing with wild abandon.
Lin Mo raised the Black Unicorn to parry—but the pressure nearly crushed him.
He couldn't block it head-on.
So he deflected.
With a twist of the wrist, the Black Unicorn diverted the flaming blade to the side.
Lin Mo stepped in, sliding past the brute's momentum. The Black Unicorn flashed forward—a draw slash that cracked like a lion's pounce.
Most enemies would've dropped dead on the spot.
But the blade only cut a deep gash into the brute's waist.
A solid hit—but not lethal.
Who knew how many rounds they'd exchanged by now? Minutes had barely passed in the real world. But inside this slowed reality, Lin Mo was running out of time.
His Sandevistan was about to overheat.
Even with breaks between activations, he'd hit the upper time limit. In a few seconds, he'd be forced out of slow-time mode.
Meanwhile, the brute showed no signs of slowing.
Berserk implants lasted longer than speedware—and clearly, this guy didn't care about post-overload consequences.
Time was slipping away.
Lin Mo exhaled.
He flipped the Black Unicorn into a reverse grip, like a samurai sheathing his blade after a final slash.
But this time—his target had survived.
So the blade wasn't going into the scabbard.
It was going into the enemy.
The katana pierced the brute's back—burying itself three inches deep into the steel spine.
Then Lin Mo slammed the hilt.
The blade shifted upward, carving through the tightly packed cybernetics.
The brute screamed as metal and synthetic muscle were torn apart—until the katana burst out through his shoulder blade, leaving a deep, bone-deep wound.
Suddenly—a crimson arc flashed past Lin Mo's side.
The brute spun violently, lashing out with the thermal katana in a fiery retaliation.
But Lin Mo ducked away just in time. The flames brushed within centimeters of his jacket, the heat searing his skin.
Two seconds left... he thought.
Thanks to Sandevistan, those two seconds would stretch into ten.
Inside this time-slowed world, Lin Mo let out a steady breath. Sweat beaded on his brow.
The Black Unicorn traced a smooth arc through the air—then slid into its sheath with a clean click.
Hand on the hilt, mind emptied of thought, his body dropped low in a crouch.
The katana was hidden now. No more gleam. No more edge.
But the lethal intent... that was still there—sealed inside the scabbard.
Like an ancient blade dulled by time—yet needing only one drop of dew to shine again.
Draw the blade.
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