“Tiar … How does that sound?”

  After a few moments of what seemed like hesitation, a symbol appeared on the back of Ryan’s hand.

  :D

  [The Ruby Symbiote has accepted the name -Tiar-]

  [Tiar’s synchronization with the system is growing.

  A connection is being formed]

  [Connection - 0%]

  [Connection - 3%]

  [Connection - 7%]

  Ryan was confused as he saw the messages, but that didn’t really matter right now. Tiar, who seemed excited just a few moments earlier, immediately fell into a slumber. Like when they were asleep, a spiral had appeared on the back of Ryan’s hand instead, and the tattoo-like red patterns on Ryan’s arm were waving back and forth along with his heartbeat.

  Ryan pulled Liam closer as the footsteps closed in. There were about half a dozen guys with full assault gear and guns; Ryan was lucky that only one of them shot at him. Maybe they didn’t really want to kill him, and just wanted to slow him down somehow. Or maybe they were just playing with Ryan before taking him down to take the fragments back. But who knew what would happen when they actually stood over Ryan, staring down at him? He certainly didn’t want to figure it out.

  The footsteps grew louder and closer. Ryan closed his eyes, covering Liam’s head with his hands, as Maximus got ready to attack the men as they closed in. Somehow, Ryan felt surprisingly calm right now.

  As Ryan’s eye peeked open, he swore he could already see the tip of a rifle’s barrel, but it quickly moved away as another sound filled the area. A loud voice coming from between two of the buildings.

  “Oi, ya fuckers! The hell d’ya think ye’re doing?!” The voice of the kind chef that Ryan had only heard a few minutes earlier was now filled with absolute rage. “Get away from those kids!”

  [Connection - 56%]

  Ryan heard Chantora yell at the gunmen, and fear immediately flowed through him. Especially as he heard the men speak to each other.

  “What do we do?” one of them seemingly asked this group’s leader, who said some words that Ryan really didn’t want to hear.

  “If we were to encounter him, we were told to keep the Spirit Keeper alive. If necessary, dispatch everyone that gets in the way.”

  [Connection - 71%]

  Liam flinched in Ryan’s arms, also having heard the men speak. They heard the gunmen ready their weapons before the leader spoke.

  “Immediately evacuate the area!” he yelled out to Chantora, but the chef immediately denied.

  “I saw ya lot shoot at them! You fuckin’ maniacs!”

  The leader seemed to be annoyed. The others beside him readied their guns, clearly not hesitating to shoot at Chantora in the slightest. Ryan didn’t know what was going on, but he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let anyone die, he couldn’t—

  [Connection - 99%]

  [Connection - 100%]

  [Tiar has completely synchronized with the -Spirit Keeper- Class]

  [A special combination skill has been unlocked]

  [You have learned the -Spirit Armament- Skill]

  Ryan’s eyes widened as a new sensation entered his mind. His arm moved almost on its own and pressed onto the metal of the car he was hiding behind. The red lines that appeared on Ryan’s arm after he bonded with Tiar expanded onto the metal, tearing it apart and pulling it directly onto his right arm’s skin. Piece by piece, bit by bit, the car’s old and almost rusted metal took on a familiar shape. Not too long ago, he had put this together himself.

  It was bulky and heavy, but completely enveloped Ryan’s hand. Even the gloves and the roots wrapping around it all were made from the car’s metal. Ryan’s arm was covered in Maximus’s armor; the Crusader model that had been intact within the domain. Now it wasn’t there anymore; Ryan was wearing it. Even Maximus seemed confused by what was happening, as he clearly hadn’t seen this kind of thing before.

  However, Ryan didn’t feel any stronger, so he didn’t receive the stats the same way that Maximus did. But that was fine, he didn’t need to. His arm was covered in a massive gauntlet. Solid and sharp metal covered his hands, moving like a proper glove would. It wasn’t uncomfortable, as if this piece of armor was made for him to begin with. Ryan carefully let go of Liam as the adrenaline took over. For a little while, he couldn’t even feel the pain of the bullet wound on his leg. Ryan jumped up from behind the car, swinging his massive metal-covered arm at the closest gunman, who was aiming at Chantora, ready to shoot.

  An attack that usually would have only injured Ryan’s hand was enough to throw the gunman into the others besides him. Despite the weight of the armor that Ryan was now wearing, he could swing around like it was just his normal arm. The gunmen were startled, but Ryan wouldn’t just give them the opportunity to react.

  He glared at the leader of the group and pushed his arm toward him. A simple strike shattered the visor of the helmet the leader was wearing, and Ryan quickly closed the distance and threw a second punch, putting all his weight behind it. The helmet was thrown off the man’s face, and Ryan immediately wrapped the metal hand around his neck.

  The other gunmen had realized what was going on by now and aimed their guns at Ryan.

  “Don’t you fucking dare. Throw those away, or I tear out his throat!”

  Ryan glanced over his shoulder at the gunmen, and while he could see them hesitate, they still continued aiming at him.

  “We know you won’t, the Aglecards have always acted with nonlethal methods,” one of them replied. “Stop bluffing and put him down!”

  With a loud laugh, Ryan just tightened his grip. “Are you guys fucking blind? Do I look like I’d give a shit about what the Aglecards have always acted like?!”

  Ryan’s back tensed up as he could practically feel the gazes of the gunmen stare at him. His shirt was wrapped around his leg, so his upper body was completely exposed now. The myriad of scars of indiscernible sources certainly painted a different picture. Of course, these didn’t come from any rough battles or really showed how dangerous Ryan was. But who would expect that they were scars he got from his disgusting, abusive stepfather who had nothing better to do than torture a little kid for fun?

  One of the gunmen slowly raised his hand toward the others. “… Stand down. Do what he says.”

  The second-in-command seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders, at least. Though in the first place, they weren’t supposed to kill Ryan. If that weren’t the case, maybe they wouldn’t be quite as cooperative.

  Ryan barked at them, “Throw the guns away! Onto the other side of the gap!”

  Seeing them hesitate again, Ryan slightly tightened his grip. If he kept going, he really would end up killing this guy. He seemed to already struggle to breathe as blood poured down his throat due to the sharp edges of metal Ryan was pressing against his skin.

  Slowly, the gunmen did as told. The four of them tossed their weapons onto the other side of the gap after securing them. The last of them, the second-in-command, was about to do the same, when he slightly turned his head.

  “So? Get to it!” Ryan yelled. Once all their guns were gone, he should be able to deal with them somehow, even with his leg in the state it was. None of them seemed to be awakened, so they couldn’t be that strong. “I told you to fucking—”

  Ryan’s sentence was interrupted by a gunshot. The second-in-command had raised up his gun and shot through the back of the former leader’s head. As the bullet passed clean through it and flew by the side of Ryan’s head, his face was covered in splatters of blood and brains while shards of bone cut narrowly into his cheek.

  The man’s body went limp as Ryan instinctively let go of the man, feeling himself grow ill as the smell of blood became overwhelming. His hand was shaking as he looked back up, staring right into the barrel of the rifle.

  “Wh-Why did you—”

  The second-in-command, now the new leader of the group, tightened his grip on the gun. “You must have heard what he said earlier. We’re supposed to dispatch everyone that gets in the way.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The Visit

  Ryan stared into the barrel of the gun as his body froze up. Blood was flowing down his cheek and bits of brain stuck to his chest.

  “Lie down on the ground, and deactivate that skill,” the man in front of Ryan said, his finger teasing the trigger. But somehow, despite all of this, Ryan couldn’t do anything but laugh.

  “Seriously? So you all are the bad guys.” Ryan wiped his face with his left hand as he turned around. “How about you go fu—”

  Unwilling to play around, the gunman pulled the trigger for just a quick moment, shooting a bullet through Ryan’s torso. It came back out just by his hip. Ryan didn’t know if anything important was hit with that, but it definitely hurt like hell. Ryan looked across the large cracks all over the ground, looking at Chantora. The two locked eyes for a moment, or at least Ryan thought so. It was hard to tell from here.

  The chef was staring anxiously at Ryan, who used the blood gushing from the bullet wound to write an R onto his belly, and then pointed into the direction where the fight with that titan had to be going on. It seemed that Chantora understood, standing up and sprinting away into the direction that Ryan pointed, as Ryan himself quickly covered the letter up with a bit more blood.

  Tiar’s patterns wriggled nervously on his arm, and the gunman groaned, “I told you to get on the ground.”

  “Or … or what? You’re gonna kill me?” Ryan asked, trying to laugh through the pain. He felt like vomiting, but he could manage somehow. He walked over to one of the cracks that had formed nearby. Looking down from here, it went all the way to street level, though at least there weren’t any cars down there. It was just some kind of alley. Ryan carefully crept toward the edge, trying to push down on the bullet wound that was gushing blood.

  Once he got there, Ryan turned around with his heels already over the edge. “If you had to get rid of someone just because he made catching me a bit harder for you, I wonder what’s going to happen when I’m dead.”

  Ryan could feel it through the link with Maximus. The knight was panicking, trying to come up with any way to stop what was happening here. But he had lost an arm and a leg, and could barely stay upright anymore. Not to mention, he had promised to protect Liam with the little power that he could still use.

  “You’re not done bluffing yet? Get away from the edge and do what we tell you, and you might get out of this whole ordeal with at least your body somewhat intact,” the gunman said, and once again, Ryan couldn’t help himself but laugh.

  “Yeah, sure, whatever. Right now, just answer my questions, and then I might think about going with you,” he lied, but it didn’t really matter whether it was an obvious lie or not. Right now, the gunman couldn’t do anything. Frankly, the gunman must have thought that the bullet just now would have been enough to bring Ryan to his knees so they could capture him. But he couldn’t risk it again now. If he shot Ryan, he would end up falling down into that crack, and from this height, he would most certainly die. Not to mention, the wound on Ryan’s leg and the incessant bleeding coming from two bullet wounds was already making him unsteady on his legs.

  “We aren’t here to play games. Just come with us,” the gunman sighed, as the other men, who didn’t have their weapons anymore, pulled up Liam from behind the car. “If you do, we’ll leave the kid alone.”

  Ryan ground his teeth, staring at those guys violently holding on to a kid’s arms and shoulders. “Are you fucking psychos? You want to kill a kid just to get me to come with you?”

  The gunman glanced over at Liam and then back at Ryan. “We certainly don’t want to do it.”

  “Could you be any more cliché than this? Fuck, I thought you’d at least have a bit more nuance to you,” Ryan scoffed, though his voice sounded more like a rough bark than a laugh. His whole body was tensing up at the complete anger that he was feeling. Even the pain that he should be feeling was nothing compared to the rage running through his veins.

  The gunman held the barrel of his rifle toward Liam, but Ryan immediately yelled out, “Stop! Stop it, you absolute—Fine, just … Just leave him alone.”

  “Giving up pretty quick despite all that big talk, huh?” The gunman stared at the chunks of metal stuck to Ryan’s arm. “Deactivate the skill.”

  Ryan slowly nodded, taking a step away from the ledge. Some chunks of metal slowly fell from his hand, and the gunman started to approach closer, keeping his rifle aimed at Ryan the whole time. And then, without warning, the sound of a gun being shot sounded out. From the corner of his eye, Ryan could see a yellow streak for just an instant, then the person holding Liam fell to the ground. Just another moment later, the other three unarmed men fell to the ground, and the gunman glanced away confused. That was the perfect moment.

  Ryan took the opportunity and jumped forward, pushing his right hand out to the rifle. Until then, only the hand had become uncovered from the armor, but now, the metal making up the rifle’s body was being torn apart and bent into shape to wrap around Ryan’s fingers.

  The gunman let go of the weapon, seemingly trying to grab the knife at his hip, but Ryan was faster. He swung his metal-covered fist into the gunman’s stomach. Due to the assault gear, it probably didn’t do massive damage, but it was enough to keep him stunned for a moment. It was enough for Ryan to get in another strike, and another. The gunman’s visor was thrown off, and Ryan glared into the eyes of the man with half his face covered in thick burn scars.

  “Just leave me the fuck alone.” Ryan placed a single punch right into the center of the man’s face. Of course, using his left hand, not his right. Striking him with a fist made completely of metal could lead to a bit more damage than Ryan was willing to do.

  At that point, Yamada and Runar had also properly caught up. It really only took them a few seconds to cross the whole space, jumping over those gaps as if they were nothing.

  “Ryan, are you … are you okay? What’s with your arm? You—” Runar held on to his nephew’s shoulders, seeing him covered in blood from head to toe. Glancing down, he saw the dead body of a man who had just been shot a few minutes earlier. With complete fury in his eyes, Runar squatted down. He wiped away some blood from Ryan’s belly and wrote a rune onto his skin, and the bleeding quickly stopped in the front. He did the same on his back, and then on his leg.

  “This is just first aid … we’re going to see a skilled healer later that should be able to take care of all this,” Runar said, trying to somehow calm himself down.

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine for now … did everything go well with whatever that thing was earlier?” Ryan asked, groaning lightly as the pieces of metal really fell from his arm this time as the skill deactivated.

  “We managed to pacify him,” Runar replied, looking over at Yamada, silently signing to her. “Take care of the situation here and take full credit for taking down the berserker. We’ll deal with the aftermath later.”

  Yamada nodded her head, squatting down to properly tie up the gunmen so they couldn’t do anything when they woke up. Ryan carefully walked up to Maximus, then pulled the knight into his domain. His limbs were broken right now, but he should be able to figure out how to repair them … that had to be part of this, right?

  When Maximus was recovered, Ryan looked over at Liam, who had nothing but tears streaming down his cheeks. He stood there silently, just staring at what had unfolded in front of him. Ryan held out his hand toward him, trying to force a smile onto his face. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Liam quietly grabbed Ryan’s hand, and they walked away from this scene. Runar was trying his best to support them, but he had already pulled up his phone and was talking to some people. It was something about the media, or whatever. Ryan didn’t really pay attention; he had other more important stuff to worry about.

  With music blasting in his ears, Modak was typing something on his computer. He would briefly look away, taking some notes on a piece of paper right next to him. The orc placed the pencil into his mouth, biting down on the wood. “Hm … so if I do that I could speed up the frequency’s wavelength while still keeping the quality … ?”

  While talking to himself, Modak noticed his phone lighting up. He glanced at the screen and saw some messages from Silvia. Stretching with a light groan, figuring it was time to take a break anyway, Modak pulled off his headphones and swiped to look at the messages.

  “Modak! There’s someone at the door for you!” his younger brother yelled out to him from the hallway, but Modak just turned his head, wanting to at least read the messages first.

  “Just a second!” he replied, managing to read the first line at least.

  Silvia

  Something’s going on in the Channel right now, do you know what …

  “It sounds important!”

  With a groan, Modak looked away from the screen, figuring that he could just reply after checking who it was at the door. He got up from his seat and put his headphones onto his desk. The orc opened the door, looking at Gilik with an annoyed sigh. “What is it?”

  “Some woman said she wants to talk to you,” Gilik replied, and Modak glanced down the hallway. With a sigh, Modak walked into the living room, seeing Pock standing in front of the door. A bit curious, Modak grabbed the door and pulled it open a bit more so that he could take a proper look. And the person that stood there confused Modak more than just a little bit. It was Alicia, the current Mistress of the Magic Tower.

  “U-Uhm … Wh-What are you … Can I help you?” Modak stuttered out, and Alicia looked back at him with a slight smile.

  “Yes, you could, actually. There’s something that I wanted to speak to you about that we didn’t have the chance to yesterday.”

  Modak frowned, confused, “You wanted to … talk to me? Like, me? But … why?”

  Alicia glanced down at Pock, smiling lightly as she turned back to Modak. “Could we speak about this inside?”