Chapter 230: Cammy—Assault CQC!
The environment of a hotel corridor is a world apart from a fighting ring, and
even further removed from the open street.
The T-shaped hallway spanned a dozen meters in length, but it was barely two
meters wide with a ceiling height of four meters. It was, without question, a
claustrophobic, confined space. It was within this architectural cage that over
a dozen hitmen and mercenaries were gathered, armed with tactical blades and
handguns.
Most of them possessed the cold, unwavering resolve of professional killers.
Faced with such a lethal ambush, even a world-class athlete—perhaps even a
heavyweight boxing champion like "Iron" Mike—would have turned and fled
instantly.
However—
He had walked right into the center of it.
Ren Shiroki stood amidst the crowd, ignoring the bewildered glares of the
criminals. He offered them a sharp, encouraging grin. "Give it your best shot,
boys. Don't let me down."
The criminals stared at the bare-handed man. His physique was dense and
powerful, his skin a map of scars, and his eyes carried a predatory edge that
spoke of deep combat experience.
But did he truly understand the situation? This wasn't a street brawl; this was
a coordinated terrorist operation. They had brought a literal "Warzone" into the
heart of a civilian hotel.
"What are you waiting for?"
Ren's body was deceptively relaxed, yet his centerline remained a rigid,
vertical axis. He looked like a high-tension steel spring anchored to the floor.
Seeing the killers hesitate, Ren continued: "Stab me with those daggers. Throw a
punch. Use those tactical boots. Lunge from the shadows. Try to pin me. Try to
choke me out with a wire."
"Come. Let's see what you've got!"
That bared-teeth growl snapped the killers back to reality. They tightened their
grips on their weapons. The three or four men closest to him began to shift
their weight, closing the distance to their optimal striking range.
Ren couldn't help but chuckle.
"You're all vicious bastards, but the vibe is different. It's nothing like that
fight in the abandoned skyscraper."
"Then again, I doubt any of you can do what Marco does—swinging from the roof on
high-tensile wires and kicking through reinforced concrete walls."
Hearing this nonsensical rambling, the criminals hesitated for a fraction of a
second.
Snap!
Ren flicked his fingers. The sharp sound startled them. They realized too late
that they were already within striking distance, but their focus had been
momentarily broken by his words.
"You're experts at 'Completing a Mission,' but as 'Fighters'? You're total
amateurs," Ren mused. "You had a clear shot, yet you waited to hear me finish my
sentence. Do you really think you can afford to be that leisurely?"
The faces of the hitmen darkened instantly. A killer wielding a military machete
let out a savage snarl.
SHINK!
The blade whistled through the air, aimed in a diagonal downward cleave. But in
that exact heartbeat, Ren slid forward, stepping deep into the personal space of
another hulking brute nearby.
The brute reacted instinctively, lunging with his tactical knife toward Ren's
abdomen.
Zip!
By moving there, Ren forced the brute to act as a human shield, blocking the
machete-wielder's path and forcing the first attacker to halt his swing to avoid
hitting his own teammate.
The next micro-second—THUD!
Ren twisted his hips and unleashed a horizontal Muay Thai elbow. It slammed into
the brute's jaw, pulverizing the bone and sending a spray of blood and shattered
teeth across the hallway.
The biological shrapnel blinded the killers on the left. Meanwhile, the
machete-wielder on the right realized with a shock that by the time his teammate
fell, Ren was already standing directly in front of him.
"―Eh?"
The hitman didn't have time to process the danger. Ren delivered a horizontal
hand-sword strike that caught him flush across the face, snapping his nose like
a dry twig.
BANG!
The machete-wielder's head snapped back, his retreating stumble blocking the
mercenary directly behind him. Ren seized the opening, pivoting on his lead foot
and snapping his right leg upward.
"DIE!"
His instep slammed into another killer's groin, launching the man vertically
into the air. His head collided with the ceiling with a sickening CRUNCH.
The man collapsed in a heap, bleeding from his lower body and taking down two
more mercenaries as he fell. The assault on that flank was completely broken.
Ren immediately spun back toward the machete-wielder, unleashing three
rapid-fire hand-chops.
[ZANGIEF'S MACHINEGUN CHOPS]!
Pow! Pow!! POW!!!
The hitman was launched backward, his nasal bridge completely obliterated and
several upper teeth knocked loose. He hit the carpet in a spray of blood.
"Nice. That was perfect!"
Ren felt his rhythm locking in. But before he could celebrate, a tactical knife
whistled through the air, thrown like a shuriken.
Zip!
He flinched, performing a lateral hop to evade. The blade grazed his shirt,
leaving a small tear. His gaze instantly locked onto the mercenary who had
thrown it.
The tension unique to a battlefield—the unknown direction of the next lethal
variable—sent Ren's adrenaline into the red-line. His consciousness accelerated.
The ink-wash lines swirled. A new phantom coalesced beside him: a female fighter
standing 164cm tall and weighing 61kg.
She had piercing sky-blue eyes and short blonde hair with a few stray locks over
her brow. A diagonal scar marked her left cheek. She wore a blue cropped
tactical jacket, revealing a rock-hard core, with the Union Jack emblazoned on
the back. Red leather gauntlets covered her hands and forearms, and she wore
tight-fitting battle-leggings that showed off the fluid, powerful musculature of
her legs.
She stood bladed behind Ren, her left arm low and her right hand raised near her
ear. She looked like a lethal hornet ready to strike.
The Killer Bee. The Silent Assassin.
Cammy White.
[I don't intend to teach you how to be 'Strong.' I am simply providing a
perspective.]
[Allow me to offer a brief briefing...]
Cammy exhaled a sharp cloud of breath.
[I am a soldier of the British Special Forces, Delta Red.]
[Our mission is the investigation and elimination of global criminal syndicates.
We protect the high-value targets and maintain the order of the world.]
Zip!
Cammy lunged forward in Ren's mind, her silhouette blurring as she demonstrated
maximum mobility in a confined space.
[My specialty is Assault CQC—a system derived from close-quarters combat and
refined by Delta Red for total battlefield dominance.]
The moment she finished—BOOM!
Ren drove his foot into the floor and leaped forward. He performed a 360-degree
rotation on the ball of his foot to evade a pincer attack, landing and
immediately firing a back-fist.
"HYAH!"
The strike carried the unmistakable flavor of military combat. It was similar to
Guile's [Spinning Backfist], but prioritized forward momentum and raw speed.
[CAMMY'S QUICK SPIN KNUCKLE]!
BANG!
The left back-fist slammed into the face of the knife-throwing mercenary, the
force of the impact launching him into the side wall.
CRUNCH!
A spiderweb of cracks erupted in the drywall as the mercenary went limp, sliding
to the floor and leaving a thick smear of blood on the wallpaper.
[My moves were forged in the fire of real combat.]
[Do not memorize what I show you. Accumulate your own experience through the
struggle.]
Cammy flexed her arms, her voice dropping into a cold, commanding tone.
[I have evaluated your reasons for fighting. Mission Approved! Execute the
target!]
The IDEAL hitmen and Worm mercenaries fell one by one under Ren's relentless
assault. The corridor vibrated with the sound of impacts.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Meanwhile, a short distance away, the machete-wielder who had been floored by
Ren's initial hand-chops groaned, his eyes fluttering open. Ren had pulled his
power just enough to ensure the man stayed conscious.
But waking up wasn't a blessing. A cold tactical blade was pressed firmly
against his throat. The icy touch made every hair on his body stand up.
The one holding the knife was a girl with short hair and black-and-white eyes. A
Kure.
"Ren-chin is doing it right," Fusui Kure noted, her voice conversational. "When
fighting a crowd, you use footwork to isolate them. You turn a '1-vs-Many' into
a series of '1-vs-1s.' It's the most efficient way to negate a numbers
disadvantage."
Fusui pressed the blade a fraction deeper into the killer's skin, her smile
devoid of warmth. "Now... tell me about your plans. What are you two groups
doing in this building?"
BOOM!
Ren's final punch slammed into a brute's face, burying the man's head several
inches into the drywall. Fresh blood began to soak into the hallway carpet.
On the other end, Fusui had finished her "interview."
"The mastermind is on the eighteenth floor," Fusui reported, wiping the blood
from her blade. She pointed upward. "I just got a ping. My brother Raian has
arrived. He's entering the lobby now."
"His personality is trash, but he's a professional when it comes to the job. We
don't have to worry about him messing up our flow. Also, Baki Hanma is less than
two minutes out."
"The cavalry is arriving fast," Ren noted, flicking blood off his knuckles. "The
elevators are disabled. In that case... we take the stairs. Eighteenth floor."
Ren and Fusui began their ascent via the emergency stairwell.
As they reached the fifth-floor landing, they heard the sound of frantic
footsteps. Two people. One set was light and panicked; the other was heavy and
disciplined.
The two groups stopped as they saw each other. Both sides froze in surprise.
Ren blinked. "How did you guys get here?"
Ohma Tokita gave a blunt, straightforward answer. "We took the stairs."
Ren Shiroki: "..."
Kazuo Yamashita, sweating buckets and trembling with every limb, raised a hand
to explain. "Ohma-san came here looking for leads on Yanagi Ryuko, and... well,
we somehow got bundled into all of this!"
(End of Chapter)
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