Chapter 403
2-in-1-chapter
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As soon as the final word left his mouth, Leo's figure vanished from Hanako Arasaka's view like a wraith, reappearing behind her in an instant.
The edge of the blade, along with a chilling voice, sliced through her delicate neck.
"Commissioned by another, loyal to the task. If you're going to be a person, you'd better keep your word."
A head thudded to the floor and rolled away, coming to rest against the polished marble. The body followed, collapsing in a heap with the soft sound of cloth and bone giving way.
Leo's armor module split open; he slid the Murasame home and, with the same mechanical calm, drew an altogether different weapon that filled the room with its presence—the Militech Crusher kinetic shotgun.
He shouldered it and fired.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Each blast detonated in the enclosed space, the shockwaves rattling glass and picture frames. The corpse convulsed and slumped, its outline broken and splayed across the floor, while the air filled with the metallic tang of spent rounds and the heavy, sudden silence that follows a burst of violence. Dark stains spread outward on the marble, and tiny fragments of shattered objects scattered like spent punctuation.
Once the tactical HUD confirmed that Hanako Arasaka was officially dead, Leo finally allowed himself to relax.
But the attack immediately triggered the estate's alarm system. Sirens screamed to life, and the lighting inside the mansion shifted to an intense, strobing red.
Guards stationed throughout the property heard the alarm and began converging rapidly on the scene.
Leo swept his tactical visor across the space. He already had a grasp on the situation.
Before entering, he had already hacked into the surveillance system in this room using the cyber intrusion module built into his exosuit. Every camera in the room had been disconnected.
That meant no one had seen Hanako's final words, or how she had been killed by a blade to the neck.
But outside this room, the surveillance network remained intact—and Leo had no plans to interfere with it.
He swapped out the shotgun's magazine and intentionally left the spent one on the floor. Then he activated the external logo projectors embedded in the front and back of his exosuit.
These logos were not of Aurora PMC.
They were Militech.
When Yorinobu had provided him with that batch of rare materials, Leo had taken the opportunity to craft a new series of exosuits—and with them, he had added these replicas of Militech's security division insignia.
Every detail had been recreated to match Militech's uniforms down to the millimeter. The only difference was that theirs were cloth, and his was combat armor.
Not even a full 10 seconds had passed since Leo changed his magazine when hurried footsteps sounded outside the door.
A second later—bam—the door was kicked open, and a flashbang was thrown inside.
Leo planted his left foot, twisted at the waist, and whipped his right leg forward in a blur. The flashbang flew back out the door faster than it had come.
Boom.
The detonation blinded and disoriented the squad of incoming guards, stunning them just as they were about to breach the room.
Leo strode out with long, deliberate steps, firing from the hip with his kinetic shotgun.
Bang!
Bang!
At close range, the concentrated spread tore through flesh, pulverizing organs and sending bodies flying from the raw kinetic impact.
It took less than thirty seconds for him to wipe out the entire squad. All that remained outside the door were corpses and pools of blood.
There were surveillance cameras outside as well, but Leo didn't care. He made no attempt to avoid them.
He didn't jump through any windows or attempt an escape. Instead, he walked leisurely through the inner corridors of the estate, as though on a stroll. Naturally, this brought him face-to-face with guards rushing from all directions.
The shotgun soon ran dry. Leo tossed it aside and picked up weapons from the fallen Arasaka security personnel.
Most were locked with smart IDs, but it didn't matter—his cyber intrusion module bypassed them effortlessly.
Armed now with one of Arasaka's kinetic rifles, Leo resumed his advance.
The sound of gunfire echoed through the halls like a thunderstorm. The guards were elite—anyone assigned to protect Hanako Arasaka could not have been ordinary.
But Leo was beyond ordinary.
His body had already reached the human limit in terms of strength and reflexes. On top of that, the Falchion exosuit he wore enhanced every aspect of his performance—physical strength, neural response time, and sensory perception.
To the guards, he might as well have been moving in fast-forward while they operated in slow motion.
The combat HUD inside his helmet projected predicted trajectories for incoming bullets the moment an enemy raised a weapon. He was already dodging before their fingers even pulled the trigger.
Not that he needed to dodge.
The Falchion suit's defensive integrity was formidable. Standard rounds couldn't scratch it, and even explosive ordnance would struggle to penetrate.
What could they possibly do?
Leo cut his way from the inner sanctum of the mansion to the open courtyard outside, leaving behind a trail of bodies without receiving a single injury.
The guards stationed in the courtyard began to falter. Their movements grew hesitant. No longer did they charge in with reckless determination.
Leo chose to ignore them.
He had no interest in annihilating every last one.
It wasn't mercy. It was strategy.
This performance needed survivors—witnesses who would speak of it afterward, to shape the narrative.
Besides, once Yorinobu consolidated control over Arasaka's internal factions, these survivors would likely end up serving him. That made them future allies.
As long as they stayed out of his way, he would let them live.
Leo stepped forward, continuing his unhurried exit through the estate grounds.
Then a sound rang out behind him—from above.
Something massive crashed through the uppermost glass of the mansion, whistling through the air as it plummeted like a meteor.
Boom.
The impact shook the earth. The ground beneath his feet trembled.
Leo remained standing, unmoved.
From the dust and debris emerged a towering figure—five meters tall, humanoid in structure, encased in matte-black armor plating. It had massive mechanical arms and legs.
There was no visible head.
Instead, embedded into the torso was a pilot, not seated but fused directly into the mech's central control core.
Leo recognized the face.
Adam Smasher.
"You're still alive?"
Leo had always doubted that Smasher truly died that day at Konpeki Plaza.
After all, Arasaka had already developed technologies like the relic, the mikoshi, and full engram digitization.
Creating a digital clone of Adam Smasher—especially for someone of his combat value—would not have been difficult.
Smasher, after all, might have been the only person other than V who had undergone over 99 percent full-body cybernetic conversion and yet never succumbed to cyberpsychosis.
He was too useful.
Arasaka wouldn't throw him away so easily.
And unlike someone like Goro Takemura—who had been loyal to the end—Smasher was just a mercenary. A brutal, efficient killer with no allegiance beyond his paycheck.
Even though Smasher had served Arasaka for decades, the corporation had never truly regarded him as a retainer.
If Takemura was the leader of the elite bodyguards, then Smasher had always been merely a standard enforcer—never someone who would be granted real authority, not in this lifetime.
He was effective, he could fight, and he wasn't part of the inner circle. For Arasaka, that made him a perfect test subject. It would have been more surprising if they hadn't experimented on him.
Now, seeing him appear within Hanako Arasaka's private residence, it was clear—Hanako was the one who had brought him "back."
Leo stood facing Smasher once again.
If, in the past, Adam had still retained a sliver of human emotion despite his near-complete cybernetic conversion, then what stood before Leo now had none.
There wasn't even a trace of humanity left.
He had become nothing more than a machine.
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