The door didn't just burst open this time—it was ripped off its hinges.
A hulking figure stormed through the smoke, his armorweave coat fluttering like a banner of war. His eyes— glowing crimson—scanned the room in milliseconds, his neural link feeding real-time data into the combat HUD plastered across his retinas. The Flying Dragon insignia was stamped on his chest plate, but it wasn't like the ones I had seen before.
The shotgun in his hands clicked as he chambered a round. I froze.
For the first time in my life, I saw Uncle Chen not as a cook, not as an old man behind a stall in Megablock 4, not as the quiet, distant patriarch of the mansion.
I saw the killer.
Chen didn't hesitate.
The moment the enemy squeezed the trigger, Chen vanished.
No. Not vanished. Moved so fast it only looked like vanishing.
A blur of dark silk, cybernetic tendons flexing beneath the skin, joints clicking with seamless precision.
