Chapter 278

Chapter 278

I was attaching the prosthetic arm and leg to my body with Barbara’s help.  

Drip, drip.  

Bright red blood seeped through the joints. The screws, which didn’t fit properly, were digging into my flesh.  

If I had even a little more time, I wouldn’t have to resort to this madness.  

Well, as you can see, I don’t have time.  

I had no idea when Mushir al-Kashura would slice off Ilay’s head and let out that eerie laugh of his.  

- Your blood is a beautiful color, Luka. It looks like melted ruby.  

The hacked android under Barbara’s control spoke in a chilling mechanical tone.  

What was even more disturbing was that I had to actively accept the help of this insane woman.  

“…Tighten it more. You hate me, don’t you? Turn it as hard as you can, like you’re torturing me. If it’s loose, it’ll develop gaps in no time. Tighten the screws in holes 4 and 6 as well.”  

I bit my lower lip, ignoring the pain. Pain was something I could endure. No matter how excruciating, this wasn’t going to kill me.  

- Now I’ll connect it to your nervous system. It’s originally your prosthetic, but since we just shoved it in and attached it…  

“You don’t have to explain. Who do you think I am?”  

- Hah, so full of yourself.  

I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood.  

Barbara’s android twisted my prosthetic arm and its joint slightly in the opposite direction.  

Creak, clank!  

The last remaining gap disappeared, and the prosthetic arm snapped onto my shoulder like a magnet. The sound of components locking into place rang out one after another.  

Beep! Crackle!  

The neural connection always stung, but right now, it felt like my shoulder was being torn apart and set on fire.  

The precise alignment of the nerves was off, and there was no time to calibrate the cybernetic signals. The signals went haywire, wildly surging and tapping against my brain.  

It felt as if my biological signals and cybernetic signals, which should have been flowing sequentially, were tangled up and knotted together.  

‘Please, just move. Just move.’  

The first thing connected was the right prosthetic arm.  

I closed my eyes and focused on my right hand. I needed to forget about everything else for now. Kashura, Ilay—whatever. They could handle themselves. Damn it.  

Creak, creak.  

My pinky twitched.  

The shitty part was… I hadn’t tried to move my pinky.  

I had intended to move my index finger, but my pinky responded instead. When I tried to move my ring finger, my middle finger reacted. When I attempted to clench my fist, my hand opened instead, and when I tried to spread my fingers, they only trembled uncontrollably.  

I couldn’t regulate my strength either, so the output of the prosthetic arm fluctuated unpredictably, regardless of my intent.  

‘Completely out of control.’

The conversion between the biological signals from my brain and the cybernetic signals was misaligned. Normally, I would have to recalibrate them, but there was no time for that.  

- This looks tough. If Ilay goes down, everything turns to dust. We need to get to the ship immediately…  

"Shut up. Connect the other parts quickly. I’ll figure something out in the meantime."  

I furrowed my brow.  

‘I should be grateful that I can even move after connecting like this, for fuck’s sake.’  

Judging by the state of my right arm, my left arm would likely move according to completely different signals as well.  

Crackle, crackle.  

I could feel the veins on my forehead bulging. As blood rushed to my brain, the bleeding in my eyes and nose worsened.  

I knew this sensation well. It felt like pulling my mushy brain out of my skull and smashing it against a wall. Every time I reached my limit, my brain would splatter, and with each impact, the tissue seemed to weaken further.  

…My left arm was attached. Then my right leg, followed by my left leg, all went through the same procedure.  

To me, cybernetic implants were as familiar as my own body—no, even more so. My brain had developed with the use of prosthetics in mind.  

During my growth period, I had amputated my own healthy limbs, fine-tuning the expensive prosthetic output in accordance with my nervous system’s development, constantly replacing them. I was part of the Empire’s elite group of cybernetic users—the strongest of them all.  

You can do this, Luka.  

If not you, then who else?  

Click.  

I stood up. My first step was unsteady, but the second was better.  

A thrill surged through me. It felt like a bolt of lightning shooting up from deep within my chest, bursting through the crown of my head.  

If nothing else, I should be proud of myself—damn it! Yeah, I’m proud. Because in this situation, I’m still standing.  

- Heh, heh. You really aren’t just anybody, are you?  

"Thanks for believing in me, Barbara."  

I meant it. Whatever our deal was, I owed this chance to Barbara’s help.  

- No need to thank me. If you and Ilay start losing, I’m retreating immediately. If you die, leave Giselle to me. I’ll take good care of her.  

"That’s a hard pass. Thanks to you, I now have an even stronger reason to survive."  

I grabbed Crucis and Ruina.  

The two weapons, left abandoned in the storage room, clung to my hands as if they had missed me.  

Vrrrmm.  

Three shock rounds remained. That was enough.  

My job was to assist Ilay and create an opening.  

The real protagonist of this fight was, without a doubt, Ilay.  

Thud, thud.

I bounced lightly in place. The blood that had seeped out from my limb joints was beginning to dry.

‘Already feeling dizzy.’

My head felt like it was spinning in knots. I was untangling the scrambled signals in real time. Every single movement was like solving a puzzle.

Ssshhhk.

The hatch leading outside the ship opened.

Kaaang! Kiiiirik!

The deafening clash of metal rang out repeatedly.

The docking bay of the hideout looked as if a massive beast had torn through it. The walls and ceiling were scarred with deep gashes, as if slashed apart by blades.

Even with melee weapons, the damage to the dock was extensive.

If Kashura and Ilay had been using high-powered firearms, we’d already be drifting corpses in space. If a hole had been blown in the walls, I wouldn’t even have the luxury of breathing.

If I were thrown out bare into space, the universe wouldn’t hesitate for even a second before squeezing the life out of me.

‘Space.’

Space was cruel by its very nature. Cold and dark. The moment a living being left a planet, they were walking a razor’s edge.

Most creatures lived their entire lives unaware of how precious oxygen and gravity were. I had been the same until recently.

Ilay had thrown himself into this ruthless void for me. He had accepted that he might not return.

I didn’t know what was going through Ilay’s mind or how he had changed. I didn’t know the life he had lived, the sins he had committed, or the crimes he had repeated. I knew nothing.

To someone out there, Ilay was probably an enemy to be hated until the end of time.

Even from my own perspective, Ilay had done plenty to earn that hatred. If he were suddenly assassinated, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

‘But…’

Ilay was my friend.

Even now, he was willing to put his life on the line for me. That much hadn’t changed, not then, not now.

Even if he lied to me, even if he deceived me for his own goals and interests, even if he was the worst kind of villain, even if he did something that could be called betrayal, even if we ended up pointing guns at each other and crossing blades—

We would still consider each other friends.

Ilay and I, we were impurities in each other’s lives. Our very existence caused the other to make inefficient decisions and act irrationally.

And yet, every time, we were reminded that we were still human—and we felt joy in that.

Why does the idea of sacrificing ourselves for someone else bring us happiness? The human heart is truly strange.

I recalled Hemillas’ advice.

Carry an impurity within you—that is the key to unlocking the box of humanity.

Modifying the brain to match the machine, discarding flesh and blood piece by piece to replace the body with steel, learning to call the cold logic of metal "justice," and dressing up inhumanity as "honor"…  

Even so, as long as one is born human, the traces of humanity never truly disappear.  

I took a step forward, carrying my impurity.  

Thud.  

The gravity in the docking bay was weak.  

With just a light push, I soared far beyond the ship’s exterior.  

Forget everything for now. The complexities of the world, cause and effect, the conspiracies and schemes of monsters—push them all aside.  

Only one thing mattered to me today.  

'Getting out of here alive with Ilay.'  

I aimed Ruina at Kashura. Time felt as sluggish as the weakened gravity.  

Ilay and Kashura were locked in a fierce battle. It was clear that Kashura’s combat ability wasn’t what it used to be.  

If this Kashura had Zvely’s brain, no matter how strong Ilay had become, he would’ve been torn apart in an instant.  

Vrrrmm.  

For a split second, Kashura and Ilay’s eyes flicked toward me. But they didn’t have the luxury to think about me. In a fight between warriors of that caliber, even a single instant could determine life and death.  

The marks on their necks showed how dangerously close they had come to landing killing blows. They must have been dodging and counterattacking with the bare minimum of movement, over and over.  

Their precision and speed were so refined that it was hard to believe they were both wearing full-body cybernetic armor.  

Drdrdrdr.  

My hands trembled. I couldn’t pull the trigger easily. My fine motor control was still out of sync, causing my aim to waver.  

'Think, Luka.'  

My thoughts accelerated. Think from Ilay’s perspective. How could I be of use to him?  

Ilay wasn’t a close-combat specialist. Yet, one of his signature weapons was a longsword.  

That sword’s name was Catastrophe. Damn it, what did Catastrophe even mean?  

There had to be some kind of hidden function in it. Knowing Ilay, he wouldn’t use a weapon that was just long.  

Kiing! Kang!  

Kashura was relentlessly pressing Ilay with four melee weapons at once. Even without Zvely’s brain, Kashura was still overwhelmingly strong. He could probably handle two or three Imperial Guard Legions without breaking a sweat.  

'The only reason I managed to subdue Kashura before…'  

'…was because he was using Valek’s brain for combat at the time.'  

Back then, Kashura had only come to test me.  

Kiiiiing!  

Kashura swung his arm with brutal force. Ilay was barely keeping up with blocks and evasions.  

For every four or five attacks he defended against, he could only manage one counterattack in return.

‘Search through my experience. I need to figure out what hidden weapon Ilay has prepared.’  

My memories stopped at Ragnata.  

The second battle with Ragnata came to mind. Weakened by age, Ragnata had attached a cord to her sword and wielded it like a whip. The unorthodox attacks had caught me off guard at first. But it was nothing more than a temporary measure—once I got used to it, it wasn’t much of a threat.  

‘Ragnata and Ilay are similar.’  

I recalled Ragnata’s classification method—a way to broadly distinguish between soldiers and warriors. Something about generalists and honor types.  

By that classification, both Ragnata and Ilay fell under the generalist category. They adapted their strategies and thought processes fluidly depending on the situation.  

My thoughts had stretched long, but in reality, only about two seconds had passed since I had exited the spaceship.  

Thud.  

My feet touched the ground. I bent my legs and waist to stabilize myself, tightened my shoulders, and extended my arms to aim.  

The misaligned signals made my body feel as though it would move on its own. I fought desperately to maintain control.  

Please, just obey me, body. I only need to hold out for three shots.  

Drdr, creak.  

I wrapped both hands around Ruina, steadying my aim. Three shots.  

Vrrrm!  

Energy glowed from the barrel's sighting lens.  

If I missed, the bullet would punch a hole in the docking bay wall. That would be the end of everything. I’d be dead, and Ilay’s desperate resolve would be in vain.  

Vrrrm.  

One of Kashura’s glowing eyes locked onto me. The moment I prepared to fire, he allocated one of his fields of vision and a part of his brain to track me.  

His combat method was still as eerie as ever.  

Tur— rrum!  

At last, I pulled the trigger.

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